You know that photo for the cover of ‘Time Magazine’, yes that one…

Well the city of Perugia is currently hosting a fabulous show of the photographs by Steve McCurry.  Guests here at Bellaugello Gay Guest House have been to the show and wax lyrical about it.

Here’s the link:  Steve McCurry in Perugia

It is not on for much longer, so hurry book a flight, a bed at Bellaugello Gay Guest House and visit..

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Ieri Sera ho fatto una cena sul terazzo per i mei opsite a Bellaugello Gay Guest House in Umbria.

La casa era pieno di ragazzi interessante e di diverse paese del mondo.  L serrata era belissima, caldo, e il cielo era pieno di stelle.

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A stunning morning here at Bellaugello Gay Guest House in Umbria, Italy.  I awoke early this monring to the spectacle of mist hanging in the valley below, utterly beautiful..

And now having done the chores I’m off to sit by the pool and catch a few rays… join the guys in a lazy monday

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Sì ai matrimoni gay in 10 paesi nel mondo. L’Italia, con la Grecia, un’eccezione in Europa

Vai su link:  Repubblica report on Gay Marriages

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News from the BBC in London this morning;  A  judge has overturned California’s Proposition 8 which banned Gay Marriages.

His basis is that in banning same sex marriage through proposition 8 the state denies equal rights to some of its citizens and therefore should be renounced.

I learn that this has ramifications for all states in the USA  who will have to review their positions on same sex marriages.

A small step with potential for big change hurrah!

As always when I learn of another country or state allowing gay marriage, I offer a free weeks honeymoon here at Bellaugello Gay Guest House here in Umbria, Italy, to the first newly married couple in California under the new law.

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This morning out of curiosity I did a search for Bellaugello Gay Guest House B&B on Google.  Interestingly in Eng;lish my website comes in the first page or second of a google search, however in Itlalian it is nowhere to be seen.

I am off to discover why and to remedy the situation.

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What is it about Italian guys?  Tonight I received a telephone call asking for accommodation for this evening.  I happened to have the Duca Suite available as it is between guests, so I said yes and we agreed a price.

We discussed the route, the guy was coming from Firenze, and I could hear him writing down the route. He asked if he could phone me if he got lost or could not find his way – it is easy from Firenze but I was reassured by his question.  I asked him what time he expected to arrive and he said about 8 to 8.30.  He gave me his name and stupidly I did not take a credit card number.

Not for the first time the Italian did not show.  He never bothered even to telephone and say he was not coming, the room was ready, big cozy bed and luxury bathroom as have all the suites here at Bellaugello Gay Guest House in Umbria, but the guy did not show

Lesson learnt, no credit card number no reservation…

and by the way mystery non-show guest if you read this not only did you annoy me greatly but you missed a fabulous dinner with scintillating conversation from real cute guys…  As she said in the film ‘Pretty Woman’ “BIG MISTAKE”

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After the storm has arrived sunshine, clouds scud across azure skies and the greens for which Umbria is famous are ever more intense and verdant, the air feels fresh as if it has been washed (as has my car for once!) and luckily the garden has survived with only minor damage.

For once I had been in time and picked the soft fruit that was ready, plums, blackcurrants, apricots and figs.  Some made jams and marmalade, others bottled or made into sauces.

I am cooking dinner tonight at Bellaugello Gay Guest House, and thought to cook chicken cacciatora, or at least my version of it.  I have lovely plump red juicy tomatoes, a  gift of red peppers and herbs aplenty in the garden, and so thought to make this traditional dish.

To these ingredients I want to add some wine, it has to be red.  I have a bottle of Sagrantino di Montefalco.  This is a wonderful wine from vineyards around the pretty Umbrian town of Montefalco to the south of Perugia.  A wine that is well worth searching out at your local wine merchant. The bottle was opened last night and I had planned to continue drinking it tonight.  The question is do I sacrifice a glass or two and put it in the chicken dish, or do I open another less fine wine and add that instead?

Hum…. I shall ponder the answer.

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Most evenings I spend a couple of enjoyable hours watering shrubs, hedging plants, borders, pots and the lawns here at Bellaugello Gay Guest House.

The summer suns not only bring forth a myriad of flowers and fragrant blooms but also dry the ground out at an alarming pace.

Here at Bellaugello we have a spring, some two hundred metres below the house.  Water  runs out of a vein in the ground.  Last year we rebuilt the ancient catchment and filter tanks and installed a strong pump to pump the water up some seventy metres to the hill behind the house some 350 metres distant from the spring.  We have buried three enormous tanks on the hill to ensure that we have a ready supply of water for the garden and in line with our eoc policy have also connected the lavatories and washing machines to the spring supply.  Drinking water for the house comes from the mains supply which runs through the property.

Anyway back to last night, I noticed that some of the paeonies were looking tired and dry, so pulled a hosepipe over to refresh them, then went off to cook dinner.

Half way through dinner the heavens opened and the rain began.  Distant rumbles of thunder, small flashes of lightning, and dark rolling clouds.

The wind picked up, the past few days we have had that warming sirocco coming from the south, and cleverly or dangerously disguising the heat of the sun and ineffectiveness of some sun creams, but last night it picked up and blew a gale.

By the time I got to bed the storm was overhead, skies lit up, bright as daylight, thunder roaring all around and rain, rain, rain.  Wagnerian Valkyries flew, Harry Potter was whirling in a quiditch match, and Mendelsson’s waves were crashing in Fingals Cave.  Why oh why does it have to do that to me?  Months of drought and then a night of deluge.

I woke this mornig to find the road washed into the drive, sunloungers and umbrellas blown over, lavender flattened, and flower heads turned to mush.  Yes I do not have to water the garden tonight, yes there is more water for the spring, but the damage is great, and my work of putting the road back where it belongs will in no way be as enjoyable as the langorous hours of watering….

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Today the guys here at Bellaugello Gay Guest House related their various stories of the funivia in Gubbio.

There is a large hill that rises behind the medieval city of Gubbio and there are three ways of getting to the top – walk, drive or take the funivia.

The cable-way runs from just outside the centro storico to the summit near the church of San Ubaldo.  It is kinda old fashioned in that it runs continiously and you have to step into the cars, well they are not really cars they are more like cages, in fact they are cages suspended from the moving cable.

There are two ways of looking at the ride, the first is it might not be for the faint hearted or those that suffer from vertigo, the other is that it gives you plenty of time to enjoy the panorama over the cotto roofs of Gubbio whilst hugging your man tightly, personally I opt for the second choice.

Once at the top there are a selection of restaurants, of course the church of San Ubaldo with its simple but pleasing cloister, and a lovely walk downhill through the trees past the three chapels and back into the city near the catherdral.

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