Neither here nor there

I didn’t realise I hadn’t blogged for a couple of weeks, no excuse.  We’ve had a few visitors at the penthouse but otherwise our Yorkshire life has continued as usual.  However that is due to change, we plan to leave for Italy at the weekend, ferry and overnights are booked, it’s definite.

So I am at the in between stage, half packed, mentally planning what I need to take whilst trying to continue normal life and feeling restless.  We’ve moved house a lot, at least half a dozen times, I mean actually given up one house for another not just decamping between two homes in different countries.  Every time I have tried to keep life as normal as possible as long as possible, not wanting to dismantle our home too early and to enjoy every final minute.  This strategy isn’t the best, it means a lot of final frantic packing but does avoid every room being filled with boxes for weeks, a half empty home with everything but the essentials gone. Of course last time we moved from Scotland back to Yorkshire the removal van had left long before MrFF started packing his office so I didn’t feel too bad about my own procrastination.

I suppose in my heart I would happily stay here.  I know we are going back to Italy to deal with another water leak, a battle with the Comune about a planning violation that took place in the 1980s and which they have been aware of for more than 40 years, all the usual stress.   The weather is still pleasant there but summer is over and dark nights are coming.  However there are two cats we miss terribly, Grigio and Enrico are fine, we’ve had updates and photos from Giovanni who they have visited regularly.  I really look forward to seeing them but leaving them again for winter will be as awful as ever.

I need to pull myself together, I could move balcony furniture and plants to safer sheltered places, but it all looks so lovely, maybe just one more day of this.