Italian update

We’ve been here just over two weeks now and progress is good.  As usual the garden has been my priority.  I’ve lost a few plants, the badgers seem to take the tuberous ones so little sign of irises or dahlias, but generally everything is thriving.  My single orange is still on the tree and changing colour, it also has several new flowers which I hope will set.  My lemon tree is amazing, having been told it would never grow at our altitude, 750 metres, it’s full of fruit, new flowers and happy bees.

MrFF has been busy in the room below the previously leaking now retiled balcony Over the winter the walls and ceiling remained dry so he’s removed the old black mold, which fortunately was superficial and is busy redecorating.  He’s happy to work on his own with me joining in as required to do the cutting in round skirtings, switches etc and help with the cleaning, there was a lot of sanding down that filled the room with dust.

We’ve never used this room which is a pity.  Its huge room and opens onto the lower garden, it’s very private and slightly cooler in summer than the rooms under the roof.  I’ve always had a desire for a day bed in there or maybe a hammock for afternoon snoozes. 

Sadly there is no sign of Grigio.  We’ve walked out and called her a lot, it doesn’t look good as she hasn’t been seen since Christmas.   Meanwhile a youngish ginger cat has appeared.  At first we ignored him but since we have cat food to spare it seemed mean not to give him some, we are a soft touch.  He’s quite friendly, we can stroke him and pick him up, but he doesn’t hang around too long after he’s eaten. We get the impression he has a home which is fine, we like to see him but are glad he doesn’t rely on us.  We really don’t want any more of the stress of leaving a cat for months on end however well we provide for it. So for now we have Vincenzo our time share boy who is very sweet, we are trying not to get attached.

Finally we have a meeting with our geometra on Friday early evening about the planning violation.  He seems incapable of action, so far as we know he hasn’t made any approach to the Comune since we asked him to help us last August.  However his recent email acknowledged we were returning to the village after Easter so he was on programme, his own programme which bears no resemblance to ours.