Autumn in Italy

Crisp days, blue skies, the trees are shedding their leaves dusting the ground in brilliant shades of gold and red. Autumn has arrived in Italy and you can really see it when you live in the mountains. The smell of fireplaces burning fills the small, near deserted streets of Malito. The population here has dropped, all of the summer residents have returned to Rome, Milan, or the nearby city of Cosenza.

Autumn in Calabria, in Italy, is not always a beautiful thing. When the skies aren't blue, they are grey with fierce storm clouds showering us in torrents of non-stop rain. When it rains in Italy, it really rains. At the beginning of the week, the streets of Cosenza had been turned into dirty rivers that reached halfway up the car. I wished I had a 4 wheel drive. I was scared my car was going to conk out with the amount of water I was driving through. I had left bel fidaznato at work and was on my way to the hospital for some blood tests and my diabetes visit. I made it, in one very wet piece. But autumn being autumn meant the next day was hot once again and the road/rivers were a thing of the past.

Lately I have been busy with working a few days, my never ending visits to the hospital, meetings with bilingual priests and buying things for the baby. My diabetes can no longer be controlled by diet, so I have started on insulin which was to be expected. We are at the 7 month mark now, and on Monday I have another ultrasound appointment to check babies growth. He's not ready to come yet though and I am sure this time next autumn he'll be crawling around trying to eat all of the fallen leaves...I can't wait!