Italian trickery

Over the past couple of days I have been in contact with a friend of mine in Italy,he is a retired miner 55 yrs is the retiring age for heavy industry workers in Italy,it seemed that a journalist had contacted the mine where he worked where I have a small exhibition of photos of my pictures,ostensibly to publish an article and photos in a monthly magazine based in Turin,we were both misled after agreeing to supply photos the punch line was they wanted 150 euros,therein lieth the rub,we then both contacted the lady involved and politely declined,typical Italians always trying to con you,it is after all home of the mafia,on the plus side it is full of wonderful works of art and so not all bad.
It is rather dangerous to try such stuff on with my miner friend as he has some history with journalists,he is reputed to have visited a bar in Turin where journalists hang out,and two of them were helped through a window which was not open,he is of rather large stature around 6feet 6inches,and not a man of many words.
The weather here has been cold and sunny over the past two or three days,I see that in Kansas City the ridiculous extremes of their weather are in play some days below freezing,the next in the 70's.
Yesterday Sheffield United lost at home to Sheffield Wednesday,the Le Blades were there for the game and will probably be a little disappointed with the outcome to say the least,not helped by the fact that their son in law lives in the village and is a Wednesday fan! who will not be averse to a little banter at their expense.
The days are getting longer which is always a welcome sight,and the hens go to sleep that much later around 5pm at the moment,snowdrops will be showing soon,and then daffodils,we have a snowy eagret flying around near the little house and also the heron which is the bane of Mrs Farmer Joe's life,as it likes her fish pond very much,looking out of the window we spotted 4 deer across the field,I think they are a family as in the summer two of them were not fully grown,but now appear to be,I pointed them out to Le Blades son in law who had called on his way from the seed merchants up the lane,thats the wild life covered.