COVID Pays A Visti to Villa dei Pini!

 Now this becomes interesting.......

We had been a bit concerned about both Geoffrey and Jack having a sore throat.......and even Andrea had been fighting a little 'cold' discomfort.  I am writing this 'the day after' in order to keep a positive ending to yesterday's blog,  but we found out just before dinner that Jeff had tested positive for Covid.  Blair tested negative (at least last night).  This caught everyone by surprise with a general question of 'what do we do now?'

• Jeff stayed in their bedroom to isolate for the duration.
• Blair fortunately had access to a studio room across the hall on the third floor above us which had a day bed where she could sleep.
• They had notified Ivana, who was looking to see if she could find a doctor to prescribe paxlovid.
• We decided we would all try to eat outside when possible on the terrace, which we did for dinner.  We are also considering separating our seating a bit more.
• Everyone is a bit intimidated by the situation.  We have all been hanging out before, during and after dinner.......in a somewhat cozy fashion.  Andrea and I have both been close to Jeff over the past few days. Remember that Jeff and Blair were our old friends from the American Academy, so it was nice to be hanging out with them.
• There is not much news this morning.  Jack (sore throat) has tested negative for the 3rd time, as has his wife Kay.  Others have not tested yet. 

We are just doing our best to keep our distance.  This is really an eerie situation. 15 visitors staying in a classical villa on the Ligurian coast when covid arrives!  It has the feel of an Agatha Christie mystery! I guess this will all continue to play out on a day by day basis.  It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow, as the Foundation has invited 15 additional local people to dinner in advance of a Poetry Festival on the property tomorrow night!  We have no idea what will actually happen!

For today's blog, we wanted to go back to late yesterday. Andrea took some videos of our drive to La Brinca that we wanted to post.......good for a chuckle!  These are in no particular order, so sorry for any confusion.  The first one is in the main road outside the Villa, heading south to Recco.  The others are more up in the hills on the winding roads!

Jumping around again here, we have to mention that when we awoke this morning there were actually clouds in the sky!  What is this all about!  The forecast said this might happen so it was not a total surprise.  We agreed to do our best to chase them away........and by 11:00 the sun was making a welcome appearance!  We ate indoors because apparently it rained briefly around 6:00 am and the chair seats were wet.  Lunch will move outdoors again. 

(I think Andrea is not pleased with my taking this photo!.....where is the smile?)

and even more sun now!

We forgot to mention that today is a holiday in Italy.  Italy's National Day, the Festa della Repubblica (Republic Day), is celebrated on 2 June each year, with the main celebration taking place in Rome, and commemorates the birth of the Italian Republic in 1946.  The day has become a festival characterized by military parades, flag-hoisting ceremonies, firework displays, and communal festivities across the country. The Italian tricolor flag is prominently displayed everywhere, and public spaces are adorned with decorations in green, white, and red.

We are not quite sure what might be happening around here.  Things seem very quiet outside, so we suspect it is just a good day for folks to relax........have not heard any parades yet!  

After goofing off a bit in the morning, we got inspired to head down to Nervi later in the afternoon for a walk and (hopefully) a table at the Blu Marlin Bar.  Our pattern here is to avoid the exhausting walk down the Passegiatta and head to the parking lot of the train station instead.  This is a fairly well-known strategy so when we wound our way down the back streets to the station, the lot was full.  Good luck, however, prevailed and two cars exited and we were allowed in.  The attendant actually told us to park in an electric car space!

We headed out to the Passegiatta and found it to be relatively crowded......but not unexpected for a holiday afternoon.  We walked about five minutes and were pleased to find that the Blu Marlin was not too crowded.  We got a great table by the water and had a great aperol spritz with peanuts and potato chips........a really nice way to spend the late afternoon. 

Oh, a quick p.s. here.......our first stop was actually at Basko, our local supermercato.  We needed some carta igienica (TP) and were happy to see it was open on a holiday!

Dinner was a bit odd.......but Holidays are always quiet as the kitchen staff is on skeleton crew.  We were about 5 minutes late and the only two seats left were on either side of Blair out on the terrace.  We just did not want to sit next to her, so we held back and ate by ourselves in the inside dining room.  This has all become a bit awkward.  After dinner we grabbed a coffee and a limoncello and went outside to one of the cafe tables.  It was wonderfully peaceful and relaxing.  Who knows what adventures tomorrow might bring!