Fill ‘Er Up and "Check" the Oil!
I arrived in Fossacesia in time for il raccolto, the olive harvest. The harvest here came a bit later than usual, in part due to rain...
At Home in Fossacesia
- Nov 19, 2021
- 5 min
Inauspicious Beginnings, with a More Auspicious Twist
My triumphant second arrival at the house in the epoch of Covid proved to be a trifle short of entirely triumphant. It started with the...
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- Nov 23, 2019
- 6 min
Harvest Boon
My visit to Fossacesia this fall was full of wonderful surprises. The surprise of having friends here who only months ago were strangers...
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- Nov 11, 2019
- 1 min
Down with the sun, up with the color
Well, I’m just back from 12 days in Fossacesia and recovered from a 24-hour post-flight bug. (Thanks again, bacterial convention that is...
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- Oct 6, 2019
- 3 min
Dog Days Redux (This one's more cheerful)
On Wednesday morning, I had a tea date at my home with Angela, a Manchester native who now lives in nearby Torino di Sangro. She arrived...
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- Aug 18, 2019
- 3 min
The beach is back.
Usually, you can count on July in Italy to bring 31 days of sun. Not this year. On July 10th, I took a pullman from Rome to Pescara,...
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- May 20, 2019
- 1 min
A Few of My FavoriteThings
Wrought-iron bed that three people can fit in, Sketches of horses where artist has written… Since I left off talking about the artisanal...
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- May 7, 2019
- 2 min
Scenes from Fossacesia
Meanwhile, my niece Victoria visited for a few days from Dublin, where she’s spending the year. It was lovely to bond with her outside...
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- Apr 28, 2019
- 5 min
Four Friends and a Few Nuts
My road to a home in Italy, and then to a habitable one, and then to one in which I feel at home has been and continues to be a tortuous...
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- Feb 6, 2019
- 6 min
Not Quite at Home Yet
The more time I spend in Italy, the more I’m aware of what a stranger I am, culturally. It’s funny to say that because I think of Italian...
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- Jan 16, 2019
- 2 min
An unexpectedly brief stay in Fossacesia... and an unexpected and sorrowful goodbye
I got home from Italy last Tuesday night, 15 days earlier than I’d planned. There were so many things I’d hoped to do during this last...
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- Nov 5, 2018
- 1 min
Gekko who’s coming to dinner.
Every once in a while, I see in the corner of my eye something dark and darting, usually high on the wall. It gives me a real start until...
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- Oct 26, 2018
- 2 min
A recurring character
As I begin sketching out posts for this blog, I notice that I’m not consistent in my first-person pronoun. Sometimes it’s “I,” other...
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- Sep 29, 2018
- 2 min
"I have a little house in Italy."
The words are magic. The reality is, too. It’s also terrifying, comical, humbling, and stressful. The magic lies in turning the key and...
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- Sep 28, 2018
- 2 min
A Long Way from Rome
People who’ve visited Italy often rhapsodize about how warm and welcoming are the Italian people. I’ve had that experience, too, but not...
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- Sep 26, 2018
- 3 min
How I Got Here
Like so many others who visit Italy, I fell in love with the sound of the language, the landscape, the cobblestones, the moons, the...
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- Sep 22, 2018
- 1 min
The House, Before
I bought the house from an older man named Nick, who’d been born there. He and his wife had emigrated to Canada and remained there for...
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- Sep 21, 2018
- 2 min
When All Else Fails, Go to the Tiles!
When I closed on the house, I, like Frances in Under the Tuscan Sun, had only the dimmest idea what to do next. The similarity in our...
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- Sep 20, 2018
- 2 min
Call in the Cavalry!
As it turned out, the GC wasn’t good enough. Expenses were piling up and work was moving glacially. When my father, a builder and land...
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- Sep 19, 2018
- 1 min
The House, Now
This is the little house as it stands now. There’s still a lot of work to be done, partly to reinforce it structurally because the roof...
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- Sep 19, 2018
- 1 min
Altar, Ego
Perhaps only in a second home in Italy can you have a shrine to yourself at the top of the stairs. Yep, that’s me, sort of — if I were 30...
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- Sep 9, 2018
- 2 min
The House, Someday. Maybe.
The significant work I’d still like to do would be twofold: tame and landscape the outdoor area and extend the house into part of it....
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