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Raining today so a chance to update this page, have had a really nice spring period so far and everything is starting to look fresh and alive now. As always we are busy, and if you ever decide to stay with us you will get a taste of a real working traditional farmhouse. We are happy with our home, and our hard work over the last five years which we hope has produced a home that even the inhabitants of yesteryear would still recognise as the farmhouse they used to live in and earn their living from, but which in reality has gone far beyond the simple farmhouse with more bathrooms for the comfort of guests although in past years it most probably  had no bathroom or toilet inside the house, a kitchen that our local friends still wonder at but they do approve of our use of Italian taste and materials, again in past years in spite of the reputation for good food their kitchen would have been tiny with just a sink and wood stove because their food and taste was and still is very rural and simple. Also we have just had to include the luxuries that are “essential” to us expats that seem to have no value to local people who still live the traditional rural lifestyle, but its heart is still pure farmhouse. Our latest “luxury” is pictured here, oh how much hard labour this is saving, not to mention the extra “Browny Points” it is earning us, by showing we are still trying so hard to become REAL Italians maybe a way to go yet though, no parading round Piazzas and expat gatherings living the flowery dreams of books for us. Just long days, hard work, and pleasant times with close friends in-between, for us this is the real Le Marche and life lived in the real world, with its real rewards that can only come from the effort put in.
January / February 2006
Another (5th) year and life continues to settle us into the “Italian” way of life, so much so that the thought of living anywhere else fills me with dread, and this from someone who until our move here lived constantly with the travel bug to keep on moving. Although as Liz would soon say, it does not stop me from looking at that greener grass on the “other side” but now it stops at just looking and wondering.  One thing that has changed quite dramatically with the passage of time, has been the amount of friends who came to start a “new life” with a permanent no going back move here, and looked as though they were here to stay have now thrown in the towel and mostly returned “home”. Where at one time we had a healthy group of friends from outside Italy, now we seem at times to be almost the sole surviving people to have made the move long term and permanently. There are still fresh people arriving to ‘chase the dream’, but we now tend to keep to our distance as hearing these people in the markets and restaurants, with their plans, is something we stay away from as we now know they wont all make it but who are we to shatter their dreams they may just make it. The one thing that we, and others fail to recognise sometimes is Italy and Italians are a “foreign” culture that is more pronounced in our rural setting, and they do not bend to suit us, and the best that will be gained is to be accepted as “Honorary” Italians, as we will always be wanabe’s unlike England where every creed and colour suddenly become British! and pandered to, this is not a judgement just an observation whether rightly or wrongly made.
 But on to news, Christmas saw a large gathering of family over here with us, and a great time was had by all. The kids got their snow to play in and build a snowman, then up to the mountains to bob sleigh, followed by a trip into Sarnano for a hot chocolate so thick you could stand a spoon up in it, topped off with thick cream. This was the stuff memories are made of, and it most probably will be a very long time, if ever that this Christmas gets forgotten. The problem will be trying to top it again, but you never know we may be able to equal it.
We are currently exploring the possibilities of installing our own swimming pool, depending on the final costs, and accepting that even in Italy it will still only have a short period of use as winters here are still long.
With the knowledge that we have long very cold winters, we are sitting here by our log burning stove already planning out next winters heating strategy, which may eat into our pool fund for even more heating next winter.
Liz will escape for a week during February to visit family while I doggy sit (someone has to) so it will make break from the long cold days here, to long cold days in England, but I will survive okay as we now have authentic spices sent out for a decent curry! just don’t let our Italian friends know as they would never forgive us. The last authentic curry was in Rome during an autumn visit, we also discovered the bus to Rome from our local town this is the way to do it, no car to worry about which is not needed anyway as it is so easy just to walk everywhere, now back to stoke the fire up with another large log. One last sad note our friend and Liz’s mentor “Granny” as we lovingly called her who was our neighbours mother, died during January but she will remain on the April calendar page along with Liz this year as she taught her so much about the local way’s, and will be missed.
May / June 2005
Well June is now with us, our life these days seems to be almost totally work, but as we came here to make a lifestyle change and start a new career we could say that we have achieved it completely. Things that were so hard for us to deal with at the beginning now are just a part of our lives now and don’t warrant a second thought, and we only realize how far we have come when someone else arriving here starts talking about the difficulties and maybe they may have to end up leaving, which in fact some do but most do make it okay. All of our early projects like a new vineyard, fruit trees, and olive trees now are looking as though they have been here forever, even the house four years on has only one minor project to complete during the winter months (bad thought!) as our workload eases. Okay four years may be a long time elsewhere but here it is almost record breaking speed, and we have achieved this all by ourselves when we say we restored a house in Italy we really mean just the two of us, and this with a business to run as well. Going to stop now as being this humble and not blowing our own trumpet, may make you think we are proud of our life and achievements here. By the way here are is a picture of what was our cow shed room, now our utility room and summer dinning quarters helped by Toby and Max.
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April 2005
Although I had planned on not doing to many updates in case it all got a little repetitive, so many people have asked for some kind of regular update as they were still interested in our ongoing saga so I will go back to a monthly update from next month. As predicted our Italian urchins “dogs” did go through a period of gay abandon without Mitzi to keep them under control, but much to their credit they have gone through that and seem to have matured into a pair of fine young dogs with their own different personalities and ways, to our surprise “Daisy” learnt so much from Mitzi she has turned into her in a miniature form. As I prepare this update some of our family visiting us are taking in a film in the lounge, they have had some glorious weather but today it has turned wet and miserable. But it has given the grandchildren Toby and Max a day off from being slave driven by me into mixing concrete for one of our more major renovation projects, a second kitchen and dinning room for our summer quarters down stairs. While their Mum and Dad skived off to Assisi and Perugia for the day we got down to some serious floor laying and finished the floor during the day, to get ready for the repointing of the stone work, still Mum and Dad had a great day out and  came back with glorious reports of Assisi in particular but never came back with a sample of Perugias most famous export “Bacci chocolate”. Yes even four years down the line we are still fitting in our own renovations in our spare time between managing property for our clients, and we are pleased to say looking after our guests both returning and new.
Another Christmas is on us and this year no snow (yet), so we have been able to get around much easier, although there is still plenty of time for it to make up for lost time. The mountains do look very nice with snow-capped peaks and good skiing for those people who enjoy it, but for me I will stick with a good warm fire. As always we would like to say a very prosperous new year to everyone who are friends, guests past and future, and people who visit our site for help and advice, and as you see we are still updating.
Well that resolve about not updating did not last long, just as I thought there was no more to say I looked out of our window and realised just how much our vineyard had come on from the time it was just a patch of earth. So here are the before and after shots of the same patch 2 and a half years on.
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Anyway winter came and went and all very mild and un-winter like it was we had quite a lot of snow just before Christmas being the heaviest it made it special yet again nothing like snow for the festive season, then lots of projects for clients mixed with our own house and guess what!! the place is now finished never thought we would ever get there but a nice feeling even got a couple of Portico’s as you can see in our spring photo here.
Peppe (above) cant wait to show us the quality of his grapes and I must try harder until I can match his crop, on my reckoning might get there in about another ten years now allowed to get much more involved in the wine process so must be a sign he thinks I am slowly learning also Dante (grandad) is slowing down a lot now so the workload on the rest of the family is growing so any help is welcome even from a soft Englishman. House owners doing their final visits for the year for a few weeks now so still plenty to keep us occupied, off out shortly to our favourite “Le Querche” to join some owners making me feel hungry already so will close now and get ready.
Did look at the picture below of me on my tractor and saw the vineyard was still bareĀ today it is in full flow and established now really quite proud of it and produces great wine. Life still throws us suprises both good and bad the latest bad one is Electricity, the other evening we did not have enough electricity even to power our cordless phone, called out the engineers and they tracked the problem down to the house above us draining all the meagre power and leaving us with enough to give what looked like one candle power. The main problem is after telling us what the cause was they then said we have to call in an electrician to monitor it then certify the low power here?? after them coming to tell us the problem why can't they just put in the new line it was their own diagnosis. Still there you go Italy still can throw trouble at you, most probably drag on for months now before we can get the line upgraded and cost us a considerable amount of cash just to provide what they contracted to, but still not leaving our bit of dodgy paradise it does have so much to compensate, will try to keep a little more up to date in future.
