italy News November Decmber in Macerata Le Marche

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	News November 2002

_{Our new arrivals last month seem to be creating quite a bit of interest from you on how they are progressing. Well they are now displaying their own personalities, and the names seem to reflect their developing natures, Daisy is small and petite, Poppy is much stronger in her ways and build. Daisy has proved herself to be accident prone, in her first week she has fallen from a height, been stung, trodden on a thorn, discovered that heaters burn, and electrocuted herself by chewing on an electric cable, but she has recovered after each event to go on to the next accident. Poppy on the other hand seems to get into all the same mischief, but always escapes unscathed and ready for the next ‘wizard adventure’. Mitzi has now firmly taken them in hand, and is well into their lessons on how to become a fully fledged Fearless Guardian, with no insect or other small moving or stationary object safe from their scrutiny, and every nook and crany is checked out right around the perimeter of the house.}




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	_{On to other things in case you get totally bored by the subject of dogs. After thinking that winter was about to set in, it has suddenly turned around again. We have been enjoying another burst of warmth and sunshine, and the mountain peaks have become snow free again. In between guests we have had family and friends visiting and they have all been able to go home with a suntan, which is nice after such a disappointing summer. Hope it continues for a while longer as even here long nights and winter can still dampen the spirit, but the plus side is having friends and nice people around to lighten the winter period. Then there are always the ski slopes to try, we have never tried our hand at skiing so that might be another adventure we could attempt. We are only about thirty minutes from the slopes so if I can brave the cold maybe!(Liz may disagree). One of the pleasures we have discovered here is the Marche way of cooking meat over hot charcoal by an open indoor fire with a blend of herbs and salt. It is such a simple way of cooking that we were amazed that we had not seen it done before, but what a great evening it makes. It is a real treat to sit round the log fire all evening, cook a meal, then finish of with roasted chestnuts all from the same fire. We have not been able to do this to much yet, as the weather has been to good to light fires but it is some thing to look forward to and make winter even more bearable. We have now become passable “Italians ”and are well set up for this winter with a good supply of logs laid in ready for whatever the weather has in store for us, all cut and split by me which has helped with our integration process. Guests still keep coming even through the darker months for various reasons, from buying property to just coming back again to share another bit of “our Italy” so we always seem to have some thing happening so we continue to count our blessings for having discovered our place in life.}

News December 2002

_{Well we are fast approaching the end of another year in Italy and time has not diminished our love affair with this country or our deep respect for the wonderful people. As this page is being prepared to go ‘on line’ for December we are getting ready for our annual pilgrimage to England, this time it is a bit earlier so we are back “HOME” in plenty of time to be ready for Christmas. Here the Xmas period is confined to a few weeks before and not as in England, a few months before. It still makes this time of the year seem so special the way it should be not just a long grind hoping it will soon be over, even presents have more meaning and are tokens of friendship and not how expensive will the gift be, and the spiritual side of Christmas is still just as important as the family side. It is a shame that our family will not be able to be with us this Christmas, but for them it is a balancing act between their work commitments and the rest of their families ties but we will be able to be in touch, thanks to some of the better aspects of progress, the telephone and the internet it does make the world a smaller place.
A brighter side is we have friends with us over the new year, so with them and the great local people we are still looking forward the ‘festive season’.

An update on our puppies, or more appropriately young dogs now, is that they are becoming an integral part of the family under Mitzi’s firm guidance, it will not be to long before they are fully fledged ‘fearless guardians’, that is when they learn carpets and furniture do not need “killing”. If you are new to our site, you will have to click on our past months news buttons to follow this story.}

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