Ahhh, yes… the quiet of our little community of Codiponte is currently interrupted with the constant sounds of hammers, drills, shouting in dialect, tractors running to & fro’ and other disturbances. Often the fracas persists until well after Midnight some evenings. This bites into The Dog’s Sleep Time. Can only mean the villagers are well on their to setting up what-all for the Sagra dei Pomi 2015… September 4 – 5 – 6.
Not an inspiring assemblage so far as seen on this morning’s W-a-l-k with The Dogs. They could not understand why we were doing Our Afternoon Trek in the morning. Here are some rather desultory photos of tent-central… the middle one is the start of the announcer’s stand…
Not to worry though. String-lights, coloured mini-flags, and the country decor of the sagra traditionally revolving around hay stuffed into hand-me-down clothes for the pupacci and the accoutrements of the local agriculture industry… disks from the olive presses, antique pitch-forks, baskets made of chestnut slats… plastered with bright flowers, and yet to be pulled out of storage or created ad hoc for placement nearer the dates. The main motive may be to distract from the generic tents destined for food-prep and as dining halls for the famished.
The sagra is an amazing magnet. The August vacations draw all sorts of UP’s… Unidentified Persons… to Codiponte. Well, they are UP’s to me. Children & teenagers in tow. What a joy it must be for the nonni. This Next Generation is immediately enslaved with building, painting and fine-tuning the famous sagra floats, the highlight of the sagra’s Sunday afternoon festivities. I can do without il Ballo dei Bambini which follows. But then, doing away with that act would kill the make-work scheme to sew the little one’s dance costumes. I can already hear the exclamations of the genitori e nonni… Come sono carini i nostri bambini. Instead, the floats bring out all the village’s prosciusto’s to ham it up with the crowd at Parade Time. Much more fun and worth a good laugh at their antics. About every male in the town falls into this yearly category. Most adults… and they are ENTIRELY male!!!… sacrifice their holidays, as their kids do, sweating in the sun or shivering by cool night stringing, hammering, building, cutting, cleaning, mowing and spiffying up the sagra infrastructure and environs. This predominantly male population is quite competent with those manly pursuits of electricity, plumbing and construction. Welding is surely the most popular. Give a Codiponti-guy a soldering torch and there is no stopping what can be melted together to outlast the sagra for years to come, if the acrid smoke is any indication. Everyone seems happy though… again, guys at work… and with n’er a complaint. They collaborate well with each. Odd for Italy perhaps, knowing how Italians can be.
So, here are a few attractions from last year’s Sagra dei Pomi in anticipation of this year’s fun… to be posted in September. Oh! And I’ll put in the gads now…