Girding our loins

We plan to start our olive harvest on Tuesday of this week. The olives are turning black so they are much more visible and we seem to have a reasonable amount. Two men were here last week picking our neighbours, they worked for 4 days and appeared to get plenty of crates though Pietro the owner has extra land below us so more trees.   MrFF has strimmed the orchard so it’d easier to put the nets down, no excuses we need to get to work.

However Monday we are taking our cat Olive to the vets to be sterilised.  We drop her off at midday and collect her at 6 pm.  This is a new vet, we were unhappy with the treatment Grigio received, the experience and the cost.  This place is larger and looks much more modern plus it’s not so far from the fashion outlet so we might spend a few hours there rather than traipse home and back again.  Olive is calm and friendly cat so we hope she will cope with the experience.  

Her friend the extremely feral Alfonso who takes full advantage of the automatic feeder when we are away is around too.  I’ve been feeding him and can get a little closer but he’s still very shy.  Olive like Alfonso and he isn’t greedy when food is around so once she is sterile we will be happy for her to have his company without his male attention.

So a day of stress for Olive then several days of exhaustion because of the olives, not a week I am looking forward to but I hope it will all be worthwhile.  

Who knows where the time goes

Definitely not our Comune who have had for at least 6 months all the required documents and extortionate fees required to comply with the violation order we received.  MrFF found documentation showing they should have responded to one part of the process within 60 days and another within 6 months, both dates have passed.  Then again it took them 40 years to discover the planning was not in order despite giving a habitation certificate, two changes of owner and collecting the charges all that time.

We provided all the reports and details required and thought we were on the home straight until MrFF had a conversation with our late friend Giovanni’s daughter.  Basically he was asking if the Comune were expecting some cash in a brown envelope, she thought not which is just as well as we wouldn’t have paid.  However she did tell us that Giovanni went through a similar process and offered to show us the papers.  Basically Giovanni built his lovely house without any permission and applied during an amnesty period in the 1980s to regulate this.  The file was huge but the big shock was that after he had all the documents in place it took 10, that’s ten, years for approval to be granted, including a court case after the Comune gave approval that was then refused and annulled in Rome but reinstated by the courts. We are only at year 3, 78 years old and wondering if we will ever see the end.

We take a little comfort from the fact that there are two identical houses in our road, if ours is not acceptable neither are they, both neighbours tell us they have approval in which case why can’t we.  

If you want to join us in this challenge there is an unfinished house beyond Giovanni’s for sale, it’s basically just a concrete frame that was started more than 30 years ago with no access road.   What a surprise it has no planning permission,  belongs to the now retired local police woman and she wants 35,000 euro for it,  a small price to pay for years of frustration Italian style.

On the road again

To be in Italy into November to pick our olives meant we could not return to the Schengen area until 21 September so we decided to make the journey to Kent on the 20th, stay overnight and take an early tunnel crossing next morning to drive to Dijon.  Best laid plans.  

We decided to include in our journey a return visit for me, first for MrFF, to Sissinghurst, my favourite ever garden.  That was wonderful, as lovely as I remembered.  We got to our hotel the Holiday Inn at Ashford late afternoon.  I suggested we fill the car with fuel then rather than wait till next morning but MrFF has sussed there was cheaper fuel en route, ever the Yorkshireman.  

Our evening meal and breakfast were excellent, our room was spacious and comfortable, it was going so well.  We got lost sourcing the cheaper petrol and despite expectations of getting an earlier crossing we ended up missing the one we’d booked.  The crossing we were now on was delayed.  In Calais there were diversions that involved travelling away from the port then back again.  We arrived at our accommodation around 7.30 pm.

We were booked for 2 nights and spent a pleasant day in Dijon using the local bus.  The city has a wonderful food market, interesting buildings and a walking route marked by little brass owls embedded in the pavement.  We went off piste a few times and covered over 5 miles, it was a relaxing day.

We left next morning but hadn’t got very far when we had a call from our accommodation. MrFF had left his computer bag in reception, it contains his wallet, our passports, iPad and house keys. We were so grateful to the receptionist for contacting us so quickly, imagine if we’d got all the way into Italy to discover the loss.  In fact when we pulled up in the car park the receptionist rushed out with our bag, we couldn’t thank her enough.   

We enjoyed our stay in Aosta before the final day on the autostrada.  In fact we had time to drive up to Pila the ski resort above Aosta that was a stage finish on this years Giro d’Italia. 

Our final day wasn’t as bad as we expected, definitely less lorries than usual, we wondered if it was a holiday in the north.  We finally exited the autostrada early evening,  I put our ticket into the toll machine, nothing happened.  I pressed the help button several times while MrFF went to apologise to the several drivers who were waiting behind us. One man came to help me, I explained the situation and he asked me where we had come from.  Aosta I said, Rome Sud he replied, that is just up the road and costs a few euros.  No Aosta I said, in the north, in the mountains, we left this morning. Then the help line came on, my helper took control and told them we’d come from Aosta, the screen showed 82 euros and some cents which I paid and the barrier opened.  

MrFF returned to the car,  my helper turned back to his, Aosta he said to MrFF smiling, I would have preferred Roma Sud said the Yorkshireman who then asked me why I hadn’t agree to Roma Sud and saved a lot of money.   

We picked up milk bread and pizza in the village and were soon at our house to be greeted by Olive our cat.  I was so happy to see her and for the journey to be over, let’s not think about having to do it in reverse in a few weeks time.

We’ve had friends here for a week, time mostly spent in the sun on our terrace, chatting and reading with some gardening.  Now they’ve left we need to think about the olive harvest.  The mills have opened earlier than usual,  people are picking. Our olives are very small but the ones I cut open seemed to have plenty of oil. Friends who started harvest at the weekend said it’s a nightmare with such small olives that are hard to detach from tree, it’s taking an age.  We will hang on a bit longer and hope our crop does too.

In italy

In case you are wondering where I am we arrived at our house in Italy just over a week ago.  The long journey was without incident and we spent three days cleaning inside and out before friends arrived to stay with us for a week.  

We are enjoying sunny lazy days with a lot of chat and of course the company of our cat Olive who appeared as we parked the car on the drive.  I’ll update you properly next week.