Snowy Italy and scones

It really shouldn't come as any surprise that following some of the worst weather to hit Italy, no one was prepared for it. 

Enzo tells me that Mayors are blaming the lack of co-ordination during a bout of heavy snowfall around Paradise (aka Italy), on the Civil Protection Agencies and vice versa.  Some of us of course, already knew what was coming because the washing hanging outside to dry had already been drenched in all-day rain on 4 ocassions. Don't the authorities watch the weather forecasts!?

All this unpreparedness had people stuck on stationary, frozen trains for up to 6 hours - and we really do mean frozen.  TV news reports displayed pictures of snow-bound trains, perhaps I should explain further. By snow-bound, we mean that for one group of travellers, the snow was actually on the inside of the train. No food, no refreshments, just a six hour wait in the middle of nowhere.  Traffic has been backed up all over the place and there is of course the unfortunate plight of homeless people trying to keep warm on the streets during sub-zero temperatures, many of whom have suffered hypothermia and in some cases death.

• Snow falls in Rome as Italy is hit by cold snap
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Here in Paradise, which is a little south from Rome, we had been receiving rain and thunderstorms all through the day and night.  Little wonder then that we were struck by lightening which took out our internet and phone service.  Since there has been a whole list of people all over Italy waiting to get home, without water, heating, light, phone and isolated, our problems have paled into insignificance as we've waited to be reconnected.  Actually, we're still waiting.

Since our mobile service was intermittent, we began here and there, to receive news and photographs of snowy scenes from all over Paradise:

Meanwhile back in Paradise, we too are expecting to receive a downpour of the white stuff.  So there is only one thing to do while waiting for all essential services to come back and for the next snow to fall here, and that's to get into the kitchen for a trip down memory lane.

Now it may surprise you, as it did us, that here in the Paradise kitchen we have never (never) made the infamous Depot Café scone (and since it was a trip down memory lane it seemed only prudent to prepare something with turmeric too - there's a chicken Balti a-brewing in the fridge as we type). For weeks now I have been playing around with the new Paradise iPad.  One of the first jobs for the new recruite is to carry an extensive library of recipes and photographs so that Enzo can flip through at any given time of the day or night, to decide what he fancies for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Scrolling through the Penultimate notebooks that I've created for each catagory thanks to this amazing application, he came across our recipes for Scones.  And so it came to pass that with the iPad stood in the kitchen on its frame and my large handwriting visible from where we gathered and combined the ingredients,  these little babies were pulled from the Paradise oven this morning smelling sweet and good enough to eat!

We adapted the recipe just a little - we didn't have the cranberries, but essentially the recipe is as it is for our Ritz Carlton Scones.  Stuffed with cream cheese and some of our Paradise orange and rum marmalade, these Peach Yogurt Scones were a breakfast fit for a King. Or in our case, Enzo, who is (although no one knows it yet) the King of Italy.

Just in case we don't receive the snow as promised by the meteo this morning, here's what happened on Thursday - hail!

Do excuse the quality of the above picture from Paradise .... "Enzo, as soon as it's warmer and dryer out there, I promise I will clean the windows!"