An interesting weekend

Sometimes a weekend comes along and contrives to effect a change. You can't always pinpoint something definite, but somewhere in there it leaves a residue that seeps through the consciousness to manifest itself ... who knows how?

This last was such a weekend. While on the surface it seems as if it was quite normal, there's just a tinge of out-of-the-ordinary about it, something intangible harbouring the prospect of some kind of change. Perhaps it was the combination of things - images of a different age, tales of theft and burglary, and a life hanging in the balance, conjuring sad memories ...

Saturday was steeped in antiquity visiting the ruins of Urbisaglia, a small town just 10km from us with the most extensive and best preserved Roman ruins in Marche. Fascinating stuff, with an amphitheater (for gladiatorial contests), a theater, a temple, and an underground reservoir fed by an underground aqueduct that was a master of engineering, inclining at an exact and consistent 1% below highly irregular and undulating territory. At its peak in the 1st century, the 'Urbs Salvia' colony - the only one outside of Rome to bear the distinguished 'Urbs' title - was home to some 30,000 citizens, far more than live there today.

While I was imagining the Roman nobility taking their seats for the evening's performance in hte theater, Maria was visiting a couple whose house we pass all the time, and whose solar panels and windmill intrigue us as ecological and economic energy alternatives for our house. Aside from what she learned about energy, she was concerned to see burglar guards on all their windows - apparently they were burgled, and the owner (a local Italian from Tolentino) told several similar breaking-and-entering tales, ostensibly the work of the local Albanian population who have nothing to lose and do not even care if someone is in the house.

That night, we learned that a Londoner we know that lives nearby had a load of cash and jewelry stolen from their house when they were out in the morning. They live a fair distance from Tolentino, where this other burglary happened, in a small hamlet where they know everyone else.

That night, I went down to our house and installed locks on all the doors.

Sunday involved a hike to the Lame Rosse (red blades) near Lake Fiastra with our Colmurano friends. It's a unique place, with wind and rain creating contorted and precarious designs in just this one spot - it's unclear why this is, but it's really quite beautiful, and so the reasons are unimportant.

It would have been a routine Sunday hike had we not stumbled upon a baby cinghiale (wild boar) in one of the ravines nearby. The most precious of little furry animals, it was clearly very young, still sporting its umbilical cord, and very unstable on its feet. It was also in dire straits, constantly in search of its mother's teat, but finding none. Wild boars can apparently be rather ferocious - not least with young around - and so we watched the poor little thing's struggles with cautious fascination ... from a distance.

We couldn't understand why it would have been there on its own, particularly at that precarious age, since it didn't look like it had fallen, and it was highly unlikely to have been abandoned. We even contemplated taking it home, but I'm not sure it would have made it to the car - it's jerky struggles brought back the haunting images of Mr Young's final moments, and I was filled with a sadness when we left. I wonder how it is today...