The captain was sad that in the earlier mail post I didn’t describe our postino, an unsmiling fellow who refuses to acknowledge us when we meet on the street. He’s one of those scooter-riders who always has a burning cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth; maybe that’s why he doesn’t smile.
(Um, no. This is not a photo of our postino. Darn.)
In any event, he, like the other postini, delivers the mail by scooter. Where a passenger might sit he has a large plastic bin into which the post has been put in delivery order. While it seems that he doesn’t make the trip all the way up to our house every day, he does come in all kinds of weather. We’ve seen him picking his careful way along the road, hunkered down against a driving rain. So if it’s ‘neither sleet nor rain…’ that keeps our postino from his appointed rounds, what is it? Whim? Lack of mail? Post Office scheduling? A mystery!
An Ex-Expatriate 
I want one of those scooter postpeople! Our postlady drives a little white/yellow company car and arrives promptly at 12:30pm everyday. Kinda takes the whole fun out of the mail service in Italy though. Gotta love scooter delivery!
Our house is well below street level. The Cap’n rigged up a funny thermometer in the shape of a woodpecker that someone gave us to tell us if the mail has been delivered. If the woodpecker is leaning against the mailbox, no mail. The postino flips the bird (ahem) over to a peg away from the mailbox when he drops the mail in. That way we don’t have to go up all the steps to check the mail. Clever, no?