Christine - Hunters: 1-0!!!

This morning we woke up a bit later than usual. It has been a very hard couple of days on the digestive side. Friday evening we hosted a very copious dinner because we wanted to show our Italian friends that the Belgian cuisine is quality-wise a very good match for the Italian one. And yesterday we were invited for an extensive lunch ourselves. So after two days of hard labour at the table we thought that we could do with a small break. I opened the curtains around ten and was thrilled to see that at least we'd have a white Boxing Day. The past couple of days have been quite warm and a bit rainy so the sight of the snow-covered trees and fields was quite a lovely surprise.

But then came the shock. Christine was raising the curtain at the side window of our bedroom and suddenly screamed that there was a car parked in the middle of our garden! I couldn't believe it at first, but indeed, there it was. Someone had driven by our letterbox and the pillar which will one day hold one part of our entrance gate, made a 180 degree turn through our rose beds and parked his car just there. We immediately sussed that it must be one of those bloody hunters again. I took the camera and went outside to take a couple of pictures as proof, while Christine called the Carabinieri. Who obviously didn't feel like driving half an hour through the snow on a holiday, so they advised us to call the Provincial Police (who's responsible for hunting issues) the next morning. So that was that.

Suddenly, Christine had a brilliant idea. She asked me to go and park our car at the entrance gate in such a way that the stupid idiot wouldn't be able to leave anymore. Which I did right away. That should come down as a shock to that bastard! A bit later we saw him, walking across our field. Again we took a couple of pictures. This man was in breach of the law no less than 4 times:

- Parking on private property

- Walking through a private garden (I'm not even referring to our field because this would be regarded as "agricultural land")

- Hunting in the snow (only allowed to a very select group of special licence holders)

- Hunting less than 100m away from a house

So we prepared ourselves for the confrontation, which obviously wouldn't be far away anymore. It was nearing lunchtime and the guy certainly wouldn't want to miss his hot tortelli. And indeed, Christine shouted at me that the man was headed for his car. Showtime! Just to be on the safe side, I quickly installed a very powerful studio microphone by the window just above the front door. In the not unlikely event that the man was going to utter threats to Christine, he wouldn't be able to get away with it so easily.

But eventually, the man turned out to be very... apologetic.

- "Private property is private property and this should be holy to everyone!", he exclaimed with a big, shining halo above his head. He probably realised that Christine was not the person to mess around with and he certainly didn't fancy walking home several miles through the cold and snow. His tortelli would probably also be cold by then. So he suddenly was the holy pope himself and assured us that he would make it clear to everyone that they're not to come onto our property!

Victory!!! :-)

BTW, if any of you speak Italian and fancy a big laugh, the recorded audio file is available on request in mp3 format! hehehe...