Our builder has been trying to have Mr. You & me for dinner at his house for months now. I thought it was a very nice thing for him to do. You see, in a previous Life, he was a cook and had his own restaurant. I figured it would be a sure bet for a tasty meal. And, since he is also a hunter, he would serve-up a kind of meat I NEVER would consciously fix!!! 

The problem all through the summer, fall & part of the winter to-date was to catch all of us three in the same Time/Space Continuum of the Lunigiana. The culprit was Mr. You. Please, don't tell him I told you so. Anyway... over our from-New-Year's-to-Epiphany holiday week in Codiponte our builder caught us with an invitation, ready & willing & hungry!!!

Naturally, our builder lives in a complex... a main house for living, a club-house for barbecues & dinners for his clients, a fabu swimming pool, stone patios & stairs everywhere and tons of farm land which has to be mowed. As the birds fly, he is really only about 4 or 5 kilometers away. As the roads go, however... well, it was a harrowing drive. Way beyond through the woods and over the hills to Grandma's house, etc. While I drove, Mr. You talked on my cellphone with our builder, giving me the latest as to up, down, left, right, over, under & through the maize of country lanes threading our way through the suburban forested wilds to our builder's part of the Lunigiana.

We made it. 

And, I must say, the view from his club-house... next to the large car-port... was spectacular.... from the frozen locality of Zeri in the north to the Carpanelli Pass to the south... even in the sub-zero air. 

Then, we asked for a bathroom. It was a long drive. Now, we like our builder, don't get me wrong. But, he made a big boo-boo with his club-house. NO BATHROOM FACILITIES!!! We had to follow the stone stairs up to the main house... a hike. Our builder showed us the way, turned on the lights with a remote, pointed in the general direction of the nearest bathroom and left us to do what we were desperate to do. We were stopped DEAD in our tracks!!! A part of the lemon yellow sponged wall paint, there, in the Living Room with beeg screeen teeVee, were a herd of carved wooden horse's heads on an arresting array of very, very over-stuffed sofas & club-chairs just daring us to make a wrong move. Thankfully, none whinnied as we tip-toed to the hangar size Master Bathroom. I've never been in a bathroom with two toilettes!!! And none, God Blessed, whinnied as we slipped out the door for our meal of BAMBI!!! in all its various AND delicious incantations. Instead, the horse-heads stayed in our designer stomachs. Gads.