The early morning rain here in lovely Capriglia-by-the-Sea has turned into a stormy afternoon, complete with rolling thunder and a steady downpour. Jonathan and I went down to town this morning during the calm before the torrents to do our shopping and got back home just before the heavens opened up. We are trying to reconcile ourselves to the fact that rain is a normal event here and not the cataclysm that it has been for all the years that we lived in the high desert. It is supposed to rain all weekend, but other than perhaps a quick jaunt down to the pub to sit by the fire and hear the latest news, we have nowhere in particular to go.

The Christmas market is going on in town -- a dozen or so little tents lining the street perpendicular to the main drag, selling hand-knit scarves and hats, fancy cheeses and artisanal chocolates, glass earrings, ornaments, crockery painted with pictures of Santa Claus or angels, wooden toys, wine. We didn't see anything we needed to buy, but it was festive just to walk around.

Then we did our usual shopping at the stores we used to ogle through Google Street View a year ago. Now they know us -- although not our names -- and are friendly and chatty when we go in. They have decorated for Christmas, too. I made Jonathan go into the Galleria del Pane by himself to buy our bread so that I could surreptitiously photograph him doing it. It's not every day that dreams come true so picturesquely.

Things have gotten a little more expensive here as winter and Putin make their presence felt, but we still marvel at the prices of things. We got our utility bill the other day and it runs about a quarter of what we regularly shelled out in the US. All the fruit and veg below totaled about twelve dollars, including the three pound (I weighed it) eggplant that I don't even know what I will do with, but that I couldn't resist. It was like buying a baby whale.