Still taking it easy in Putignano

We are loving Putignano! It’s still freezing cold in our trullo but the weather has climbed to a splendid 20C. We’ve started eating meals outdoors and are spending as much time as possible playing outside!

We’re still in the process of figuring out our future, and have given ourselves until June to decide. Jonathan is considering going back to school, and has begun contacting people. I’m sort of waiting to see what he’s doing to apply for jobs. I’ve applied to a few, but am not worried.

I am currently outside on my patio table with my laptop. It is gorgeous here! The birds are chirping, the fruit trees are still blooming, my puppy is so happy she is bouncing around, and Jonathan is laughing it up playing lawn bowls with Donato in the backyard. I am in a happy place!

Last week, I went to my friend Ioana’s English class to make a presentation. She wanted someone to come to her class so her students could hear a “native-speaker” accent. I’m not a native speaker, but speak it pretty well if I can say so myself. Anyway, I had a great time making a power-point presentation and speaking in front of the group. A nice man came to me and said in Italian “I don’t speak a word of English but understood everything you said!” I would say it was a success.

Jonathan and Gianni were nice enough to make me a bunch of canvases to paint on. I am nearly done my first one despite spending the week in bed sick. I’m just waiting for it to dry to add the little details. I have a wide range of choice for my next painting. Jonny made me tiny canvases, and I think I will go paint the landscape around my house on them. I’m looking forward to painting outdoors for the first time.

Jonathan has taken a liking to drawing. As geologists, it’s important to know how to sketch the landscape quickly and clearly, and he is improving by sketching outside. He usually gets out of bed at 7 and takes Nomade for a stroll. He sits on a stonewall and sketches while the puppy does her favourite thing: hop around in tall-grass fields. I am usually asleep while all of this is happening, but I went with them one morning. Jonny was sketching a gorgeous trullo while I was walking around taking photos of the blooming trees. We were in somebody’s field, but the gate was wide open, the field was empty, it was 7 in the morning, and we weren’t bothering anybody. After a little while, an angry man called us over. I stayed near the wall, while Jonny went to see him, smiling. The man lived nearby and was very rude to Jonathan. He implied that we were thieves and that we shouldn’t wander around. I was wearing a baseball cap and I was far away, but once I yelled at Jonathan to see what was going on, the man realized I was a girl. He then backed off and said that if he had known we were a couple of teenagers (a regazzo and a regazza) he wouldn’t have said anything… Anyway, it was weird. Some people just love to stick their nose in everything, even when two people aren’t doing anything wrong!

In other news, Leo, Angela’s tiny cat, has a cold. We have been giving him extra cuddles this week.

Also, Angelo, the smallest pony, has become less timid. His mother is pretty protective and used to get a little testy when we approached him. Now, he is free to come and say hello, much like his sister Liduina does. The only thing, is that he loves licking us! His cute little tongue is so soft and strange. When I was there, he kept going for a good 5 or 10 minutes.

He’s grown up quite a bit since we’ve been here, and it’s beautiful to see. Valentina, the mommy pony, is pregnant, but won’t give birth until September. I would love to see her give birth!

We are still having an amazing time in Putignano. We are still playing cards with our neighbours nearly everyday. We love French Tarot! It is a very interesting game that takes a bit of thinking, but it so much fun.

I will try to update more often!

ps. There's one more thing. I sprained (or hurt) my ankle while hiking in the wood picking wild flowers. It made for a glorious bouquet, but I've been immobilized for the last few days. I hope it will be better tomorrow, so I can go on fun walks with Jonny and Nomade!

A little something about our dog, Nomade

I have likely mentioned that Jonathan and I have expanded our little family with a puppy. Her name is Nomade: an homage to her mother, Gitane (meaning Gypsy), and to our way of life for the past few years.

Nomade’s mother, Gitane, is a 24 kg Border Collie and black Labrador mix. She is a kind dog who loves to run around, play fetch and destroy inflatable balls. Here she is, lounging:

Nomade’s father is a bit of a mystery. He is a Turkish Shepherd who lives in Eastern Turkey. He watches a flock of sheep. He is very tall, thick furred and mostly white, with some black spots. He is timid, well, I assume since it took him a few days to lure Gitane. From the description our friends gave us, he is likely an Akbash and probably looks like this:

Here’s how we got our dog:

Jonathan and I stayed at Nehru Park in New Delhi for weeks, trying to get our Iranian visa. The park turned out to be a squatting point for many people travelling in camper vans, most of whom were also waiting on their Iranian visa. We ended up spending our evenings with many lovely people.

We met a French couple, Laurent and Amandine, that was dropping by to give another French couple a puppy. Laurent and Amandine’s dog Gitane, had gotten pregnant in Goa and had given birth in Nepal. All of the puppies had been given away except for this last male, who was reserved for these friends. The puppy was a gorgeous little guy with very particular colouring. They named him Cawa, a slang for coffee in France.

Jonathan and I met up with Laurent and Amandine in Islamabad, still trying to get our Iranian visa, and decided to travel together. We got along wonderfully with them and their dear Gitane.

We crossed Pakistan and part of Iran with our friends and said our goodbyes near Persepolis. Jonathan and I wanted to stay in the South of Iran a little longer, while they wanted to head North. We were sure we would see them again in France.

Once in Turkey, at the Cappadocce, Jonathan and I received an email from Amandine. Their camper van had broken down and the insurance company was flying them home. There was a major problem though, there was no way to put Gitane on the plane. Jonathan and I were happy to take a detour and pick up their happy dog.

So we met up with Laurent and Amandine who gave us instructions on how to take care of Gitane. After all, neither Jonathan nor I had ever had a dog! There was one more little thing, Gitane was pregnant.

Gitane had become in heat much earlier than suspected. She had had her Indian litter in March, and shouldn’t have been in heat for another 6 months. Well, nature isn’t always on our calendar and brought things early. While we were still with Laurent and Amandine we watched Gitane, who was in heat, to make sure she didn’t get busy with a male. Well, one night in Turkey, right before bedtime, a shy male who had been visiting their campervan for a few days, successfully wooed Gitane.

Laurent said that if we wanted a puppy, we could have one.

So we took Gitane back to Luxembourg without a hitch. She was a darling to travel with, and a wonderful bodyguard. She showed us that morning sickness occurs not only in humans, but we didn’t mind cleaning up after her. We had a great time with her. Our friends came to pick her up, and reminded us that the puppies were coming in late August. I said we still had to think about it (we still had no idea what we were doing) but that if we took one, we wanted a dark coloured female, like Gitane.

On September 1st, 2 days before we returned to Europe from Canada, we got an email that the puppies were born. There was a dark female with white paws, a white nose and white on the tip of her tail and she was ours. We still hadn’t confirmed what we were doing, but I told Jonny that she was ours, and our responsibility. We told Laurent and Amandine that we were naming her, Nomade.

In October, Jonathan and I took the Wombat to St-Mathurin-sur-Loire in France to see our puppy. She was only six week old and too young to take with us, but we were so happy to make her acquaintance! It was love!

We visited Bretagne and went back to pick up Nomade. Our friends who had adopted Gitane’s Indian puppy came to visit. He was 7 months old and looked just like an Indian dog: long and lanky! It was a very special family reunion.

We were lucky to adopt our puppy from friends. She lived with her mommy in a house for the first 2 months of her life, and learned so much from copying Gitane. When we got her, she already knew her name and to “sit”. She never once had an accident in the Wombat, and was so easy to train. She loves learning and knows many tricks. Here is a video of her at 3 months:

She is friendly, happy, trustworthy and so much fun! She still jumps on strangers when she meets them (she loves making new friends), but we’re working on that. She knows Jonathan’s name and mine and loves to play hide and seek .She has never gotten bored while playing (she has lots of energy) but knows when she needs to calm down for bed-time. The vet has estimated that she will be 30 kg (6 kg more than her mom) and at 6 months she already weighed 21 kg. She is growing up to be quite a looker, and is a lot of fun. I don’t remember what life was like without a dog. She wakes us me up every morning at 7 with a little kiss on the nose, which is one of my favourite things.

She may not be a pedigree pure-breed show dog, but she’s our one-of-a-kind little angel. She is the best souvenir I could have ever imagined taking home from such a memorable trip.

Why I love film cameras

I just found a cd of photos i had developed. I took these with the Pentax I bought in Australia. The pictures aren’t all wonderful, the quality isn’t perfect (some of the film I bought was expired…) but the element of surprise is worth all of the negative aspects of film cameras! I like that looking at my strip of film is like putting a puzzle together, trying to remember how each event follow one another…Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate digital cameras and the way they let me take photos everyday so easily, but there’s something so special about film cameras!

Here are some photos from one single 27-exposure film I used last year, in chronological order:

A camel and the cappadocce in Turkey

Some kids playing in front of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul Turkey,

Pregnant Gitane, Nomade’s mom, taking a rest

The Wombat safely parked in Luxembourg

Jonathan, his father and his brother chopping wood in Ste-Émilie-de-l’Énergie in Québec

Jonathan fitting in with the locals beside the Seine in Paris.

I was so happy to see how many things one strip of film can capture! The digital version of these events includes 10,000 pictures of nearly the same thing, captured at slightly different angles or with different camera settings, just in case, for some reason, I would happen to need dozens of different versions of the same picture. The luxury of digital cameras has turned me a little bit ridiculous.

I love the suspense of film cameras. If someone blinked, if the lighting wasn’t right, if you didn’t load your film properly, if you look like a wank or if your shot turns out blurry, it’s just something you have to live with and accept. No re-shoots, no thousands of pictures to look through, no worries.

:)