Update October 2006 – March 2007

I thought we had moved to Italy to ‘downshift' and take things a little easier but that is not exactly how things seem to have panned out. I now realise that we are probably just busy people and the idea of not having projects on the go is abhorrent to both of us. Whilst that keeps us happy, it also means that time flies, seasons change and we end up wondering just what happened to winter?

WEATHER:
We were blessed with a mild winter this year without too much rain. However, in the last few weeks weird things have been happening. For the first two weeks in March the weather was wonderfully warm (prompting a massive ‘dehairying' of legs and digging out of shorts!). Everything started sprouting and just as I was thinking about planting all my seedlings out a cold front moved in, temperatures dropped by 20 degrees and it snowed enough to earn the kids a day off school (with three boys you can imagine that we really do need to be snowed in for that to happen!). Thankfully we don't think that this will affect the olive crop as they only start to bloom in April and only my lilies and roses look a bit worse for the cold.

PERSONAL:
All is well in our household. Marco is chattering away in Italian after only 6 months at school and Torio is looking forwards to next September when he can start nursery school with his brother. I can't express how much I am looking forwards to a little extra time to myself to get on with some writing.

Talking of which, I have written a guide to purchasing property to Italy which you can buy on line if you are at all interested in buying a property over here and saving yourself plenty of money (follow this link to view the details: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Casa-del-Sole-Tuscan-Shop-Italy )

Richard is busy building and fixing and business has been brisk throughout winter which is great.

I have a new job training young Friesian horses at a breeders yard which is very rewarding and is getting me fit again.

This year our rental season begins in earnest in a few weeks so we are busy painting and fettling the two little houses at the moment.

We are looking forwards to actually going on a summer holiday this year – our plans are to travel to all the places in Italy that everyone tells us we should go to and we have never found time to do so… I can't wait!

ANIMALS:
All our brood are OK for once. The horses are pleased that the grass has started to grow. The rabbit spent most of the winter in the house entertaining the children. She is now house trained and very tolerant! Govey, the small dog we adopted last year, turned out to belong to someone so we reluctantly had to give him back! We have added 2 goldfish to our menagerie… Marco begged for them for Christmas. Needless to say, we are on generation 3 as the wretched things keep dying!

FINALLY :
We are looking forwards to a great summer and I hope you are too. Be happy.