Up to the nearby village to post a letter. This was the view yesterday morning from the square. One of the few pictures you'll see in this self-indulgent nonsense that doesn't include a glass. After going to the post office I went to the bar to (yes, really) buy a newspaper. For the first three years I'd walk in and it would fall silent, and all the old boys playing cards would stop shouting at each other, turn and stare intently at me for a full five seconds like out of a John Ford film, and then resume their game, but with the volume right down. After seven years, one or two of them actually say good morning. The bar is festooned with dead animals, guns, pennants from hunting clubs and football teams, bottles carved out of wood, faded photographs and acres of real Formica. Paying for the paper, I felt a severe tug of envy when the octagenerian next to me ordered and necked in one go a glass of amaro (q.v.). At a quarter to nine in the morning. If I wasn't Anglican I'd have had a go too, but I've not only got a drink problem but also too much Protestant guilt.
