Saturday, July 01, 2006: White Roads

Another lazy day of 35 °C (95 °F), blues skies, sunbathing and reading. Retreat indoors for lunch and the hottest part of the day. More relaxing in the afternoon then a cycle into Cisternino, as much for the exercise as any purpose, though we did acquire a couple of water-bottles and bottle holders for the bikes. Mary has signed us up for another charity bike ride the weekend following our return so we need to keep in practice. This will be twice our previous ride, 60 miles from Hampton Court to Hove (http://www.capitaltocoast.org.uk/)



The Hovel is down a dirt track known in Italian as a "Strada Bianca" - literally "White Road" - which well describes this dry and dusty, narrow limestone track. Everything is covered in fine white dust including my best deck shoes. As we were going out for a meal I thought I had better give them a clean. Burgundy shoe polish is not on my normal holiday packing list so I thought I would improvise with the furniture polish - a bit of silicone wax, neutral colour - just the job. Unfortunately I grabbed the "Raid" fly spray and gave my shoes good dousing before I noticed my mistake. So my feet should be free of flies and wasps for a while.