House For Sale in Le Marche

A lot of this year has seen us back and forth to England looking for a business. Domenico has had itchy feet for a while now to get back into the restaurant industry and we feel that for what we do, the UK would be our best option. I have mixed feelings about this as after a week of being back in the UK I really start to miss Italy.
We have also decided to sell this house and down size since this one is really too big for us now the kids have left. So we thought to find something we can use more for a holiday and weekend breaks when we want to escape back to Italy. We have nearly finished the first floor of the house apart from one room which we reckon will be the second bathroom. It has been a hard slog and we have now basically conked out! Here are a few pics of how it now looks.So if anyone is interested or knows of anyone looking to buy in Le Marche at a very reasonable price this house may be for them…. The fact that we haven’t touched the ground floor gives the new owner the chance to renovate and restore the lower level whilst still living in the house. I reckon there is a lot of potential for a B & B or separate apartments. Also the house will be available to rent whilst on the market as we are probably moving over to the UK in September.

Our Orto

With the rising prices of food in Italy this spring we decided to become more self sufficient and grow our own fruit and veges. A friendly neighbour stopped by with his tractor and dug up a large area for us to plant our ‘Orto’ and to give us a few tips on what and when to plant.

There is nothing more satisfying than eating your own grown food.The tomatoes and zucchini have really taken off, though when we arrived back from England last week the zucchini were a little over done and some have grown to nearly half a metre long. They are still pretty firm though so I will cut them width ways and make an eggplant parmigiana but using zucchini instead of eggplant.

When we go back to England I always get so bloated as the food over there just doesn’t agree with my tum. I can eat bread and pasta here, but in England it gives me terrible cramps. It makes me realize just how much healthier we eat here as the food is so simple and doesn’t need much done to it. Today lunch was fresh figs, prosciutto, fresh ricotta and melon, yum….

Milly's 1st swim and other adventures!

After a chilly spring the heat in June hit with a vengeance. It was particularly tough for Milly who spent most of the time in the house where the stone walls keep everything nice and cool.
One very hot day I decided to take Milly to cool off at the river, a short walk down the hill from us. The wheat surrounding the house was very long and overdue to be harvested which made the trek down there quite scary as I was worried about snakes. We eventually made it through the overgrowth and came to a relatively deep waterhole. Milly didn’t take long to be tempted in and she had her very first swim.

However what happened next has made me very reluctant to go down alone with her again. I suddenly heard a rustle in the bushes across from us and when I looked up I was in full view of a huge Cinghiale (wild boar), it resembled a woolly mammoth. Well, my adrenalin kicked in big time, I screamed at Milly to run and we both bolted as quick as we could whilst I was looking for a tree to climb up if it got near to me. We belted back up the hill through the wheat no longer caring if there were any snakes, luckily the boar stayed put and chose not to chase us. When we got back to the house my heart was pounding out of my chest and and had the taste of blood in my mouth.
I knew there were Cinghiale down at the river in the winter as the hunters come to hunt them, though for some reason I thought this time of the year they lived somewhere else…silly me!!!

I'm Back!

Well blogging has certainly gone down the tubes this past year, mainly due to the fact that telecom still haven’t got their act together and installed a phone line. Every 3 months we receive a text to say they are coming to assess things and every time it is the same old story- that they are working on it… I give up! I reckon that after the last 'run in' they had with Domenico who basically told them how dysfunctional the company was that they won’t be back in a hurry.

One positive thing though is that I have a new mobile that seems to work a lot faster when connected to the internet, so I am now able to download photos etc.and hopefully get this blog back on track.