The olive harvest this year seems, thank god, to be going gangbusters. It's been rather iffy the past few years and, with the unprecedented heat this summer, naturally we worried. Everyone did.

But the nets are going out among the trees in the olive orchards now and people we have talked to say the trees are full of olives.

Last night at the pub, as we sat outside and watched the sunset turn the leaves of the big sycamore tree golden against the lilac sky, Claudio told us about the old days when, at the olive presses up here in the hills, people would show up and take turns working for an hour or two and there was always a table with bread and cheese and wine and people would sit at it and gossip and then work some more and then eat and drink and gossip some more.

There is, truth be told, still a fair amount of standing around chatting at the olive presses these days. The Italian word for chatting is "chiacchierare." It is a word that sounds exactly like what it means.