Our life in Italy

The house 'immersed in greenery' as they say here

Italy has been our home for 8 years now, and this house for half of that time. This blog, which I hope will be a daily one, is intended to document the joys, difficulties and irritations of daily existence as they occur.

We have our own intrinsic difficulties. My husband, Clive, is disabled and I am partly so through a scoliosis.

We have no family but are great dog-lovers, although things aren’t easy in that department either. Our thirteen-and-a-half-year-old dog was recently put to sleep having become incontinent and semi-paralysed. Our six-year-old dog has just been treated for cancer. Our four-year-old dog plays ’chicken’ with the post van but in spite of this is in good health. We’ve just adopted a puppy who needs to urinate about every fifteen minutes.

I love living here. Clive is more circumspect. The earlier entries in this blog are by him and reveal a different attitude.

Maybe, by keeping abreast of our daily life, you will be able to tell whose view is the more accurate. Does the pain outweigh the pleasure? Will my writing betray a less rose-tinted reality?

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Do visit our main website as well at www.italyhouse.co.uk

The end of a chapter

Actually the end of a book.

Today I finally finished the novel I started writing 24 years ago.

Back then it was going to be my ‘magnum opus’, my semi-demi-autobiographical debut on the literary scene, which would launch me to fame.

Instead it underwent surgery several times over as its second half was altered, either more or less drastically, interspersed with long periods of convalescence in my bottom drawer.

Its various titles bear witness to its different guises:

• Kingfisher Fire until I discovered that Rumer Godden had beaten me to it with her ‘Kingfishers Catch Fire’ – a big blow that
• Black Gentian
• The Green Tree
• The Colours of the Sea
• The Warden
• The Jay’s Feather
• Wild Goose

Clive read through the final version. He found a phrase which he said sounded like ‘To the Batmobile!’

The photo is a possibility for the ’cover’ of an electronic book version.

Wild Goose

Oleander seeds

Twin oleander seedheads – front one entire, back one split

It looks like a war canoe with fur-clad warriors bent to the oars, but it’s in fact the split-open seed-pod of an oleander.

We planted 50 little oleander bushes along one side of our drive when we widened it and put in lighting. Now only about 40 of them are left because of the toll taken by the heavy frosts over the 5 winters we’ve been here.

They’ve never grown massively like they do in the valleys, but they do bloom, all colours - dark red, deep pink, pale pink, white, and my favourite cream which has a delicious heavy, sweet perfume of honey and vanilla.

It’s one of my winter jobs to cut off the dead heads. In theory I could plant the seeds and grow replacement bushes, but apparently it’s quite a business to get them to grow and they don’t come true to the parent plant. Instead, I’ve been filling the gaps in the row with hibiscus seedlings which grow by themselves.

When I do cut off the dead heads, I have to dispose of them carefully and not put them on the compost heap in case we ever have a bonfire, because burning oleander branches produces toxic smoke.

All parts of the plant are poisonous but their (alleged) foul taste makes them unattractive, fortunately.

Speed

Nothing to do with drugs, although you might think the dogs were on them.

Kepler being chased

In the photo, Kepler is hugely enjoying himself  being chased by the others.

Joules only makes a token chase, but Taylor runs like a big cat and bowls Kepler over when he catches him.

They none of them pay any heed to me. I stand still so as to be as stable as possible because they’re quite likely to run headlong into my legs.

It never seems to bother them, but it certainly does bother me.

Insect-trapping light

I don’t think the manufacturers intended this particular feature, but our ceiling lights are extremely effective insect traps.

Ceiling light with trapped insects

They consist of a light bulb (or 2 light bulbs) mounted on a ceiling plate with a frosted glass dish suspended just below them by means of clips in the form of leaves.

Insects are attracted to the light, crawl along the ceiling and drop into the dish where they are fried and/or can’t find their way out.

As time goes by, the dish collects a dark centre of dead insects and the light passing through dims proportionately.

Therefore we have to clean the debris out every so often. One clip on each light pulls out on a spring stalk and allows the dish to be removed. It’s a horrid job, fraught with the danger of breaking the glass.

We did it today, though, for the light above Clive’s new desk position, and I was astonished by the number and variety of insects whose attentions we’ve been spared.

The ’harvests’ of these lights are generally more abundant than those of our purpose-made insect zapper!

Vescia again

This morning we managed to change doctors in Valtopina ASL, quite painlessly, and went to the surgery in Vescia for a second time.

On the right: entrance to the Vescia surgery

The timing was perfect in one sense because late last night Clive discovered a lump under his left arm. He was able to get the doctor to examine it and she confirmed his fears that the lymph node was swollen.

She prescribed a strong antibiotic and a special cream, and told us to come back in a week’s time to see if it has reduced in size.

She also took names and phone numbers of the various characters involved in the lymphedema treatment and E112 saga, saying that she will phone them when she has a moment.

We’re very worried about the swollen lymph node because it can spell all kinds of trouble, but at least we don’t feel quite so alone any more.