Getting there

The garden is hardly returned to glory but it is becoming acceptable under the circumstances, some colour, some new growth and a lot of bare earth. 

The pots I have salvaged have not a single flower but hopefully they’ll survive the winter and perform again next year.  The kumquat is leafless but new shoots are appearing, meantime I am glad to have so many pots of large spider plants to brighten up the terraces.

Happily I have discovered 3 agapanthus that had been buried quite deeply as the creatures flung soil about digging their massive holes in the borders. I am not blaming any animal in particular but I have picked up 12 porcupine quills whilst working.  They could have planted by those shifty badgers, who knows.

The strangest discovery I’ve made relates to my lemon tree that started producing fruit a couple of years ago.  I was checking it and discovered not only new small lemons but small oranges too, I assume oranges they could I guess be grapefruit.  Definitely just one tree that I bought at least 15 years ago when it was small, labelled lemon.  It must have been grafted, I cannot wait to see what develops .

Meantime the lower lawn has been turned into a honeycomb of molehills, cracks and raised turf.  It looks like we've had a mini earthquake or some giant creature burrowing underneath it, it’s spongy to walk on and we worry one of us might disappear down a sink hole.  I try to remember that Giovanni tells me this is the animals territory and we are the incomers but I do think they are taking liberties,  they could be devastating the whole of the mountainside instead of our 3/4 acre of cultivation.

First days in italy

We arrived at our house on Friday evening after a fairly stress free journey. Even the dreaded day on the autostrada was calmer than normal as we had a whole stretch before Genoa that was cars only so very quiet.  MrFF found it necessary once again to drive over the St Bernard pass, if it’s open he’s on it.  At the top it was minus 1.5 degrees with snow drifting around in the air.

We avoided a 10k queue on the last few miles by diverting towards Tivoli. It cost us an extra half hour but we heard afterwards traffic was stopped for 3 hours.

We hadn’t been in the house 5 minutes when Giovanni phoned, he must have heard us calling the cats.   He said Grigio and Vincenzo were at his house and we’d be reunited the next morning which was a little disappointing but what’s another 12 hours when we hadn’t seen Grigio for 10 months.  The cats however had other ideas and within an hour they were at the terrace door.  Grigio was quite thin, I could feel her spine, and her fur was knotty and dull but she’s been eating well and been brushed regularly, the shine is coming back and we are so happy she is here. Vincenzo has grown a lot and looks really well, maybe he’s got into the habit of head butting Grigio out of the way to get to food, he’s currently under training to stop that.

The garden has been devastated by porcupine and badger, I have lost a lot of plants that had tuberous roots, dahlias, agapanthus, gladioli, even a large phormium I grew from seed had been uprooted and left to die.  I have at least 6 large empty pots and nothing is flowering in the ones that survived.  However, all the shrubs and trees seem ok, the olives look well  nd we are told the harvest will be good this year, time will tell.

The weather is good, usually warm sunny mornings and maybe some rain in the afternoon.  We’ve worked hard mostly outside, the front hedge is cut and I’ve done basic dusting and mopping inside.  I will get round to cleaning windows and the finer details soon as we have friends staying with us in about 10 days time after which I fear MrFF might start another project, watch this space.

Last days in Yorkshire

I am writing this in France where we are relaxing after the first stage of our epic drive back to Lazio.  We left ilkley late Monday afternoon, took the midnight ferry from Dover and after rest and refreshment stops en route arrived in the champagne region early Tuesday afternoon.  The driver took several sleep stops, MrFF can fall asleep to order, I can only sleep in a bed at night so I didn’t get any sleep for 36 hours and was a little tetchy when we stepped out for dinner last night.   I am rested now, we plan to take a walk as the sun is out after a wet start to the day.  Later we will have swim and a sauna, a quiet evening and back in the car tomorrow morning.  We are getting closer to those cats.

Before we left we had a delayed celebration for MrFF’s 76 birthday.  We took the little Dales minibus service that only seats 15 so you have to join the queue in good time, to Bolton Abbey,  see below.

From there we walked 10 miles of the Dales Way home, mostly following the river Wharfe. It was a sunny t shirt kind of day, we stopped in Addingham for a birthday lunch beside the river, here is the view from our terrace table, sorry about the glare from the glass balustrade.

MrFF offered the option of then taking the bus back to ilkley but I was happy to keep walking and we were home in time to watch a mountain stage of the Vuelta a Espana.   It was a glorious trip that made it even harder to leave Yorkshire but we did and tomorrow evening we should be in northern Italy for our final overnight in Aosta and at our house Friday evening.  Today we are enjoying the calm and the memory of our lovely walk a week ago.

Invincible Vincenzo

 

Giovanni sent us this photo taken one evening of the amazing Vincenzo, the cat who is afraid of nothing, certainly not a young fox.   Giovanni told us a while back that Vincenzo was king as he had tackled what translated as a ferret, now he says Vincenzo is a wolf.  We are so happy that the little cat who appeared in spring is spending his days with Giovanni and his family, they all seem very taken with him and I’m sure it’s reciprocal.  During school term Giovanni is on his own during the week, it’s only in the holidays the grandchildren are with him so I am sure he enjoys having a little cat companion.

Below is the most recent photo Giovanni has sent, he calls it family reunited. Bottom is Grigio, next Vincenzo and finally the cat we think is Vincenzo’s mother.

Grigio apparently comes and goes, Giovanni sees her every few days, she regularly calls by our house where she is caught on the camera and she also spends time with Anna who is resident for the summer at the bottom of our road.  Grigio just has to stay around another week or so as we plan to leave next week for Lazio.  Of course the downside is that we will only stay until early November, by which time the summer residents will have gone back to Rome, our cats will be alone and reliant on Mario regularly topping up their automatic feeder.  That needs consideration. For now we are grateful the cats are well fed and very excited to see them, what a reunion that will be.