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    • Nov 27, 2021
    • 3 min

    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...

    39 views0 comments
    • 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...

    34 views0 comments
    • 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...

    218 views0 comments
    • 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...

    57 views0 comments
    • 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...

    46 views0 comments
    • 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,...

    78 views1 comment
    • 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...

    61 views0 comments
    • 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...

    70 views2 comments
    • 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...

    55 views0 comments
    • 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...

    282 views4 comments
    • Jan 17, 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...

    100 views2 comments
    • 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...

    32 views0 comments
    • 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...

    87 views2 comments
    • 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...

    1,349 views0 comments
    • 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...

    162 views0 comments
    • 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...

    120 views2 comments
    • 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...

    114 views0 comments
    • 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...

    72 views0 comments
    • Sep 21, 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...

    63 views0 comments
    • 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...

    100 views0 comments
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