A winter’s night in Tuscany. The babies are sleeping soundly, the Christmas lights are still up and on the trees outside, making the dark night a little less so. They’re almost the only lights to be seen for miles… there are the far-off twinkles of the lights of Pomarance, the town on the next high ridge west of Volterra, and the stars. That’s it. Every now and again I’ll hear the distant vibration-rumble of a truck on the main road, but other than that, silence reigns (except when Francesco snores). It is unusually warm this winter, with not a flake of snow to have been seen yet. We’ve almost given up hope, as the tulips and daffodils are already starting to push up out of the earth and the mimosa tree seems ready to precociously turn its bud-laden branches into an explosion of yellow poufs.