We have been here 13 months now. The days are getting shorter and the most certain sign of autumn in Tuscany has appeared: the geckos have moved indoors. The one in the living room yesterday was so large that I heard it before I saw it.  A smaller one spent all day Thursday on the bathroom sink, huddled up against the hot water tap for warmth.

Jonathan is in Mexico City for a conference. He stopped off in the US just long enough to change planes and contract the new Covid variant. So he has now has spent a lovely week trapped in a Mexican hotel room drinking coffee from those little hotel room coffee pods and coughing. We are hoping that he will be able to fly home tomorrow.

I have spent the week that he has been gone re-arranging the spice cupboard and missing him, It is very quiet in the house (other than the galloping sound of the living room gecko) and I don't feel like going out without him. In these past 13 months, we have spent almost every moment together, usually in the same room. That, not Tuscany per se, is what has made this place heaven.