I am sitting in a bar in Guardia Sanframondi, trying to write a first post in over a week and a half, while being positively distracted by Italian food, red wine, chatter and 3 different flashing screens that I can see out of the corner of my eye.
It is good to be back (in Italy).
è bello tornare
Back in the land of great coffee...
Especially with una donna bellisima al mio fianco.
Clare.
The love of my life.
I am blessed.
I have had to wait for this kind of life for a long, long time and so has 
( Says the man who had almost given up on love or finding a romantic partner, due to past disappointments. In all honesty, I was very much used to being single and relatively happy and living like a monk/hermit, albeit a social one ).
Clare and I returned to Italy and arrived at Clare's our house, yesterday mid-afternoon, after a 5 days/4 nights cross-country trip from Portugal to Italy via Spain that included a couple of car/cab rides, two busses ( including a highly uncomfortable night bus), an overnight Mediterranean ferry trip and two easy-peasy train rides.
I will probably get into the journey itself in a future post (or two) but for now it suffices to say that it feels good to be back here. It feels so different from my arrival here, early September of last year.
Back then I came with the dream of conquering Clare, hoping that we could be more than 'just' friends. Who would have known that, 4 months later, we would have traveled three countries twice and that our love would have grown so strong.
Being back here, together, feels like the right choice, without a doubt.
It warms my heart to see Clare spending time with her three cats, again ( as depicted here )...
even though one of them kept us up for quite a while, in the night, meowing for attention non-stop like a li'l kid who can only cry, in order to get what it wants
;<)
It also felt great to see Clare return to her social, chatty self, catching up with friends and acquaintances
And, let's be fair, it doesn't hurt to get back to eating Italian food, although I am looking forward to balancing this out with healthy cooking and lots of exercise, outdoors as well as in the bedroom.
It helps to have a woman on my side who has grown up foraging and who knows this city and its surroundings intimately. Even in Winter, there's plenty of greens and fruit to find out here, if you know where to look for it.
Now let me end this return to posting with a picture of me holding humongous bietole. It was taken by Clare after yesterday's late afternoon foraging session, as shared in her wave/snap that you can read and upvote here
It's getting dark here, early, as there seems to be pretty of humidity and possibly snow in the sky. It feels good to experience (proper) Winter weather again after a couple of (non) Winters in Portugal, especially when you wear proper (warm) clothing and, luckily, Clare has plenty of that in stock.
Sending good vibes from Guardia Sanframondi. Happy to be back!