The good and simple life

We had lots of fun with my brother and sister in law, though it was the first time they had visited Italy and the first time abroad for my brother, they completely launched themselves into the experience and were enthusiastic about everything. We did the tourist trip to Rome on the train, went to the beach, walked round local towns, ate out in the village and visited friends. One morning I'd been up a while and around 8 am asked at their bedroom door if they were awake thinking to take them a cup of tea. When there was no reply I imagined our trip to Rome had exhausted them so I was very surprised when the turned up at the back door at around 9 am looking slightly hot. They'd got up at 6 and taken a walk down to the village and then up the mountainside to the little chapel that sits just below the summit. They'd spent a long time looking up at the chapel from our terrace, decided they just had to go and had a wonderful walk.
After they left of course we were into the decorating, Mr FF had the new wallpaper steamer in action straight away. It was very satisfying to peel off great sheets of the old paper but as expected the wall underneath wasn't good so we had the whole room replastered with a rough texture to which we applied two coats of white paintI'm don't know whether I like it or not, all the open plan downstairs of the house is a very rough white painted plaster that looks perfect but in a little bedroom I'm not convinced. It didn't help that we only finished the room at 9 pm on the Sunday, leaving less than 12 hours to clean the house (which was extremely dusty), eat, pack, sleep, close up and drive to Rome for our flight. I didn't really get chance to dress the room and the beds weren't made up so I'll add the finishing touches next time we go out and then decide. This was another major improvement to the property and pleasing as it was to get this done, it's the little things around the house that really make me happy.Hanging my solar lantern in the garden, it works so well with all that sun.
Picking a few wild flowers and herbs from the roadside using a little drinks bottle as a vase. You can see the texture of the downstairs wall here.Seeing that one of the shrubs I've been carefully pruning and tending these last few years is finally flowering well.Having a garden bonfire, these are banned in high summer so it was good to get rid of some debris now. I am so easily pleased and I am always pleased to be in Italy, roll on the next visit.