*Sadly, there are no photos of this event. I bricked my phone shortly afterwards and lost the lot*

The Torre Miletto event is held to mark the close of the local summer festive season. It happens on the evening of the 24th, at the beach near to the tower of Miletto; a rather uninspiring square, white lump on the end of an equally uninspiring peninsula, a solitary finger lifted towards the Tremiti islands off out in to the Adriatic sea. Although the Tower is a locally respected landmark it’s definitely no Eiffel or or even a Pisa.

In sight of the tower’s feet, the local beach and carpark unfurl like a red carpet providing the stage for this noted event – The closing event of the local summer festival of street parties and events highlighted by fireworks at midnight.

With one inexplicable delay after another, we arrived just on dusk to find the car park filled with the regular traders that are eternally absent at western events; Chinese plastics, African handicrafts, shoe and handbag sellers, and of course the sweets traders. We parked the car a little way up the road, disconnected the trailer and walked it right up the middle of the stalls like a pet dog. Goodness gracious! I love this trailer! It is so nice to deal with!

Perhaps 50 metres from the main stage, we set up on the beach-side edge of this car park strip, in a space four spaces wide – Goodness knows why there are parked cars here in the middle of a street party!
The band tweaked their settings – even one guy got told off by the guy on the microphone. Yeah.. parking cars in here is a pest. Get lost!

I disregarded the curious prods of passerby’s as I set up and waited for sufficient crowds to develop. As the crowd drew in, they blocked out all of my light! I couldn’t see any colours! I ran to a seller and bought an overpriced, rechargeable hand-light.

There isn’t much really to say about this night – I had to work for every customer that came along, yet the crowd was forever thick, albeit somewhat timid. They were a little less brave to give their money, tho’ I am now beginning to feel I am somewhat becoming used to the variety of people I meet. Some days up, some days down, some easy, some hard… unlike commercial enterprises – street life is dynamic!

The next day, I found out that in spite of my own frustrations at arriving late, there was a benefit to it… shortly before I’d arrived, there was a near riot between local and visiting traders over pitch rights to the event. Ahhh… street life. It’s awesome!