The Story So Far
Well I've been gradually setting out the memories - which I recorded to be able to send to friends back in the UK - of the 'final move to Italy saga'. Which if you remember started in February 2004.
This is Episode 2 - Part two. It was very long, so I thought that by splitting it up, it would make the reading 'less boring'. I still have Episode Three in 'reserve'
(hahaha - and you thought /hoped I'd finished....) and will put that in the blog when I'm sure just how many of you have 'survived' this one!!!!
EPISODE TWO continued….
Still written 15th August 2005
The ‘jungle’ (aka the garden) outside the house is coming on in leaps and bounds. I’ve started to get it tidied up a bit, but am letting everything (apart from some of the weeds) grow so I can see what I’ve got.
So far I’ve identified:
Four large blue hydrangeas
Five lovely hibiscus (purple and white flowers)
Two grape vines
Tiger lilies.
Hosta’s
And some other really beautiful flowering shrubs that I’m still trying to identify
We know what the fruit trees are now - I have:
One red plum (little ‘uns)
One yellow plum (fairly large)
One hazel (cob) nut
Four apple trees, two red skinned, two yellow (like Golden Delicious – but they’re not)
And what we thought may have been a young pomegranate tree has turned out to be a peach, and it has about a dozen small green ‘fuzzy’ peaches!
The yellow plum this year had only two plums on it, right up at the top of the tree. I could just see them from the terrace, then last Saturday a bl***y great jay (I know it was a jay ‘cos I looked it up – I never knew they were that big…) landed on the branch and, despite me shouting and waving my arms about, proceeded to gobble up both plums – greedy bu**er! So I don’t know if they’re sweet or not! The little red ones though are super. They (the trees) are all in a dreadful state, having been totally neglected for years by the brother who lived alone in the house. The 'village elders' tell me that he was a really nice guy but he was usually ‘Brahms and Liszt’ (pixxed) by 10 o’clock in the morning every day…that’s no doubt why he dropped dead aged 52! His brother and three sisters all live locally and I’m becoming quite friendly with the elder sister, she pops up to see me now and then and seems to enjoy the English habit of a cup of tea (with milk!!!).
There is also a young lad – Giovanni - who is growing vegetables on the land attached to my garden (that belongs to the elder sister mentioned above), he cuts the hay there, and in my garden for his animals (a zillion goats, one calf plus chickens, ducks and geese and rabbits) – these are kept elsewhere in the village. When he is gathering his ‘veg’ I get bagfuls of stuff free – about 30 fresh tomatoes, 5kg of courgettes, 2 or three kg of green peppers, and this week a ‘bucket full’ of new potatoes (that I can’t eat – I’ve only eaten four potatoes in the last 16 months). So as you can see the locals are really kind and nice. They have more than they need, and as I'm on my own, they are quite happy if I pass some on to my other 2 nieces who also live in Milan and have holiday places up here. In addition, this young lad’s mother – Nicoletta - now ‘does for me’ every week. I’m not allowed to do any heavy house work, or climb step ladders any more, so she is a godsend and she only lives in the next road, so no travel problems there.
All in all life is pretty good nowadays. I’ve finally come to terms with not working anymore, though I’m not going to pretend that I don’t miss the companionship and all the travelling….I really do!
It will be nice to send this by email now that I’m ‘on line’! But going to my village Post Office is quite an experience in itself. It’s in the basement of what was the village school, and is so large that if you swung a cat - if you had one - you’d kill it (all together now – aaaah!). Only one lady works behind the counter and one other person (her sister), sorts the mail then delivers it on her scooter. Going to the PO is where you catch up with some of the local gossip, the other places being the local bar and no doubt the church and ‘Oratorio’. The village isn’t very big, there are only 1020 residents and most of them seem to come originally from only four or five families. Many of them have never been farther than Lecco or Como (both about 40 miles away), and being agricultural people they don’t seem to have time for holidays, but nearly all of them have ‘baita’ (small mountain houses) either in the Val Gerola or at Madesimo in the Val Chiavenna!!!. They use these for the family and children when it is really hot down here. That’s where they take their goats for the summer and autumn too. I wonder if they make their own goats cheese up there?
End of Episode Two….
Still written 15th August 2005
The ‘jungle’ (aka the garden) outside the house is coming on in leaps and bounds. I’ve started to get it tidied up a bit, but am letting everything (apart from some of the weeds) grow so I can see what I’ve got.
So far I’ve identified:
Four large blue hydrangeas
Five lovely hibiscus (purple and white flowers)
Two grape vines
Tiger lilies.
Hosta’s
And some other really beautiful flowering shrubs that I’m still trying to identify
We know what the fruit trees are now - I have:
One red plum (little ‘uns)
One yellow plum (fairly large)
One hazel (cob) nut
Four apple trees, two red skinned, two yellow (like Golden Delicious – but they’re not)
And what we thought may have been a young pomegranate tree has turned out to be a peach, and it has about a dozen small green ‘fuzzy’ peaches!
The yellow plum this year had only two plums on it, right up at the top of the tree. I could just see them from the terrace, then last Saturday a bl***y great jay (I know it was a jay ‘cos I looked it up – I never knew they were that big…) landed on the branch and, despite me shouting and waving my arms about, proceeded to gobble up both plums – greedy bu**er! So I don’t know if they’re sweet or not! The little red ones though are super. They (the trees) are all in a dreadful state, having been totally neglected for years by the brother who lived alone in the house. The 'village elders' tell me that he was a really nice guy but he was usually ‘Brahms and Liszt’ (pixxed) by 10 o’clock in the morning every day…that’s no doubt why he dropped dead aged 52! His brother and three sisters all live locally and I’m becoming quite friendly with the elder sister, she pops up to see me now and then and seems to enjoy the English habit of a cup of tea (with milk!!!).
There is also a young lad – Giovanni - who is growing vegetables on the land attached to my garden (that belongs to the elder sister mentioned above), he cuts the hay there, and in my garden for his animals (a zillion goats, one calf plus chickens, ducks and geese and rabbits) – these are kept elsewhere in the village. When he is gathering his ‘veg’ I get bagfuls of stuff free – about 30 fresh tomatoes, 5kg of courgettes, 2 or three kg of green peppers, and this week a ‘bucket full’ of new potatoes (that I can’t eat – I’ve only eaten four potatoes in the last 16 months). So as you can see the locals are really kind and nice. They have more than they need, and as I'm on my own, they are quite happy if I pass some on to my other 2 nieces who also live in Milan and have holiday places up here. In addition, this young lad’s mother – Nicoletta - now ‘does for me’ every week. I’m not allowed to do any heavy house work, or climb step ladders any more, so she is a godsend and she only lives in the next road, so no travel problems there.
All in all life is pretty good nowadays. I’ve finally come to terms with not working anymore, though I’m not going to pretend that I don’t miss the companionship and all the travelling….I really do!
It will be nice to send this by email now that I’m ‘on line’! But going to my village Post Office is quite an experience in itself. It’s in the basement of what was the village school, and is so large that if you swung a cat - if you had one - you’d kill it (all together now – aaaah!). Only one lady works behind the counter and one other person (her sister), sorts the mail then delivers it on her scooter. Going to the PO is where you catch up with some of the local gossip, the other places being the local bar and no doubt the church and ‘Oratorio’. The village isn’t very big, there are only 1020 residents and most of them seem to come originally from only four or five families. Many of them have never been farther than Lecco or Como (both about 40 miles away), and being agricultural people they don’t seem to have time for holidays, but nearly all of them have ‘baita’ (small mountain houses) either in the Val Gerola or at Madesimo in the Val Chiavenna!!!. They use these for the family and children when it is really hot down here. That’s where they take their goats for the summer and autumn too. I wonder if they make their own goats cheese up there?
End of Episode Two….
posted by Carole B @ 9:00 AM
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