A Year in Italy

The house as we first saw it

It's exactly a year since we moved into our little olive house in Capezzano Monte - I can hardly believe it!  Fortunately our landlady, Maria Louisa, is willing to let us have it for another year.   Although it's very small, the main advantages (apart from hardly any housework!) are the peace and quiet and the wonderful views of the Mediterranean with the olive grove and chestnut woods falling away like a dark shadow beneath us. 

We are very lucky and I'm trying to repay my good fortune by doing as much writing as I can, though the temptation just to loll about on the terrace with a book in one hand and a glass of wine in the other is sometimes irresistible.    We've now been here through all the seasons and in July the weather is getting very hot (touching 40 the other day) and the olive grove which, a couple of weeks ago was waist high in grass and wild flowers, has begun to look like a desert.  It's the fire-risk season and the owners are obliged to strim the grass as a precaution.  Having had a wild fire within a few hundred yards of the house last year we can understand the need.  But it's hard not to regret the loss of the flowers - though most would have died from the drought anyway.  It probably won't rain again now until the beginning of September.

The main change here is that Neil has built himself a little hut - just a roof on posts with cane blinds around two sides - to use as a studio.  In just a couple of weeks it's gone from this -

To this - I'm told the proper name for it is a Man-Cave!

 So tonight we will be having a drink to celebrate our year in Capezzano Monte and hoping for another year here in what is almost paradise - fingers crossed!