Another day in Ronco

---

Geo: 46.1445, 8.72654

We started very slowly this morning - no one but me was awake at 8am! It's easier to sleep in, when the sun doesn't come over the mountains until 8am. By 10.30, we had washed, played some soccer and fed our leftover bread to the deer.

At Ronco, we visited Eurosia, who is now working in the tourism office for Ronco Sopra Ascona, so that we could use the free internet in the tourism office. As we finished, Eurosia told us that the whole of Ronco has free wifi....from now on, we will be checking our emails when we go to town each time! As Steven and I took turns on the wifi the other walked through the village with the kids - the tiny footpaths seem familiar, but there is always something new to discover. The kids love going to the old communal washing area, and the viewpoint at the end of the village - and this time, the boys scampered up the mountain path behind the village to find new paths and places!

Then lunch with Martina and Floriano - they have a lovely home, near Porto Ronco, and are such good company! Their boys were at school and at Nonna Natalina's respectively - how strange it is for the kids to come home from school for lunch, and our kids can't work out why you wouldn't want to stay at school and play! We had a lovely lasagna lunch and talked non-stop until Floc returned to his shop (he has a tv installation and repair business at Porto Ronco).

After Steven worked on something on Martina's computer (which he also did 3 years ago!), we went together to "Locarno on Ice" - the ice skating rink that has been erected in the main square of Locarno. Well!!! Turns out Matthew is a natural - he used a penguin that he could lean on for a few laps, then took off. Tom also got the hang of it, but Georgia is like her mother, and was very nervous on the ice. Steven is quite good at it....I know my limitations and decided to help the children by NOT getting skates!

Back to Ronco, and to Zia Natalina's house, although the boys detoured to the school grounds so they could play soccer with Daniel (Martina's son) - Australia defeated Swizlerland 5-3!!! We had to negotiate hard to be allowed pop into Zio Marcello's for a drink - Zio had asked, but his sister wasn't keen to let us go! Then dinner with Natalina and Luciano, which was nice, and back up to our mountain house for some quiet time before bed.

---