Deaf & Mute
I’ve just spent the last few days holed up in Lago di Iseo doing a
hell of a lot of listening to Italian. By the end it was pretty
good actually - one of the best ways to learn the language. In the
beginning I had the feeling I was both deaf and mute, totally
incapable of communicating with anyone. David of course didn’t have
any problems with the Italian - although he didn’t need to speak
all that much being permanently attached to Bea.
Anyway, the place was idyllic. We were hosted in Casa di Micheletti
as they called it, Marco’s place on the waterfront of the lake. I
think our hosts used our stay as an excuse to hold continuous
parties, with everyone getting together night after night after
night. I definitely ate well - with Elena and Simona shovelling
amazing Italian food into me at every opportunity.
Most of the time was spent at the converted machine-gun factory -
Associazione Nautica Sebina, doing a lot of work on the boat,
playing cards and finishing off the odd novel.
Despite being unable to communicate, another of the problems with
the place is the almost absolute lack of wind. You either have to
be up and sailing at 7am, or sit around all day waiting for the odd
storm to come through. Interesting.
After 6 days, I had spent 20 minutes on the water. Time well spent
maybe.
It was pretty amazing the people you run into in such a small
place. We met up with Glenn Ashby & Corey Caminesh the first
day - A Class World Champion and World’s best F18 crews. One of the
guys who liked to chat was the Italian Tornado coach for the 2000
Olympics. I met up with the runner-up in the Italian 470 Olympic
trials. It was also very funny for the guy who runs the cafe to say
I was focussed like Rod Davis on the Prada AC team. I don’t know
about that.
Now only a few days left in Riva. we depart for St Moritz on
Saturday.
