We spent a wonderful weekend at Ravello, on the Amalfi coast, gorgeous despite rain on and off all day Saturday. Among the delights, one of the best menu manglings ever.

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It is difficult to find, and impossible to park once you do, but Sforno will make it worth your while. I'd heard a bit of buzz about it, but what finally tipped the balance was a review in Puntarella Rossa. OK, she thinks the location is "convenient". Perhaps it is for many; we rounded up some chums and made plans for an expedition.

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Something was up down at the rough ground along the Tiber where Mellie and I walk each morning. A couple of police cars and a crowd of cops, some plain clothes, some in uniform, sheltered from the drizzle under flimsy, collapsible umbrellas. There's a makeshift encampment all along the banks, hidden from the street by tall stands of "bamboo" and by the topography, and from time to time a drunk (more often than not) emerges and Mellie barks. It's a vaguely threatening place, not least because there's a sense of invading someone's space and being unable to explain that one means no harm.

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It snowed last night here in Rome. Just a centimetre or so. Not a romantic white blanket; more a grubby bedcover that the dog had been chewing on. Down in the scrub near the river, where we walk, we were not the first to leave tracks. The feral cats, fed each day in munificent abundance by the old l...

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I hadn't realized quite how much I might miss having internet access at home, but I do. Yesterday I phoned Telecom Italia once again to discover when I might have a line at home, to be told that as a result of "technical problems" the earliest they could say was 28th January. I asked first on 17th N...

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