Life at Podere Patrignone in Tuscany

We've got a new blog!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 14:02:00 +0000

Yes, it's true. And you can find our new blog, called Things to do in Tuscany, right here...

http://patrignone.com/blog

There's loads of new recipes, news features, ideas of what to do in Tuscany and where to go when you plan your holiday in Tuscany.

The page is simply an archive of our older material, which you're still free to enjoy. It's just that our new blog is way more interesting and cool. Really.

Reunions and roses

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 13 May 2014 13:59:00 +0000

It's been a hectic few days here, nothing new there but we have been thrilled to welcome back Simon & Kayleigh who were kind enough to involve us in their wedding two years ago. The lovely couple had been here on holiday two years prior to their wedding and came back for a wedding rekkie a year later after they had become engaged and decided this was the place for them. It was our biggest wedding to date with 54 guests for our 6 course banquet on the terrace with the Tuscan hills and a dramatic sunset for the perfect backdrop. Weddings are always a hairy affair for us! We stop sleeping about two weeks prior and start to panic that some unforseen event will ruin the bride and grooms most precious day......no pressure! The larger the number, the hairier it becomes! However, Kayleigh was a bride organised unlike any other and arranged the event with military precision.....oh if all brides and grooms had a Kayleigh! It left very little for us to panic about and it was a huge success and lots of fun. Spending an entire week with a couples friends and family makes us a part of the festivities and it is all very personal. We have become friends with all of our brides and grooms and it is such a pleasure when they come back (apart from the hangovers!). If you are looking to get married in Tuscany or at Patrignone have a look at our weddings section here http://www.patrignone.com/58/Patrignone_Weddings.html.
As a suitable send off for Simon and Kayels we had our weekly banquet last night as it was their last night with us. Everyone staying came along and enjoyed the four course banquet and I made sure to do some of the dishes from the wedding including deep fried battered sage leaves with anchovy, crostini with gorgonzola dolce and caramelised pear and rosemary crusted chicken fillets with tomato, caper and olive salsa. Dolce was dictated by the garden this week with pistacchio and rose cake. We have three large pushes of these wonderful, dense pink roses that are very heavily perfumed. Their flavour is heady enough to make a delicious licquor and the petals, when sugared are beautiful and yummy.

Local markets and good food

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 06 May 2014 13:39:00 +0000

Tuesday is Poggibonsi market day. Poggibonsi is our nearest large shopping town, about 20 minutes drive away. There are a number of large supermarkets, a couple of big industrial estates and lots of ugly buildings. Unfortunately Poggi, as it is called by us locals(!), was hit very badly in the Second World War and was not sympathetically restored. It thrives as a community and holds, arguably, the best food market in Tuscany every Tuesday morning. Poggi market is the reason I tend to cook for our guests on a Wednesday. I buy all of our Pecorino and parmesan from Andrea Frati who runs a small stall with his brother that they have taken over from their mother and grandfather. They don't make the cheese but they do make their own salscicca (Italian sausages, 100% meat and delicious) and their own porchetta. Porchetta is Tuscan barbeque! Slow roasted over night with rosemary, sage and fennel, it is served in slices. I find everyone elses very salty, too salty but Andrea's is delicately spiced and seasoned, the meat is tender and the crackling is delcious and crunchy. In my opinion, this is the best porchetta in Tuscany! I buy my fruit and veg from a lady and her daughter who grow their own produce and sell dried beans, homemade 6 year old Vin Santo (desert wine), homemade salsas and honey. I know when I buy from them that the food is ripe and seasonal and therefore delicious and good for us. When you come to Italy food is bound to be one of your reasons for coming so don't miss out on your nearest street market. Don't be put off by the language, many market holders won't speak English but pointing is a universal language and they will automatically offer up cheeses and meats for you to try before you buy. See our website for a list of markets closest to us (http://www.patrignone.com/57/markets.html)

Pasta verde with ragu Bolognese

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 19:20:00 +0000

Life at Patrignone revolves around food, certainly for us, and for most of our visitors too. If you ask our guests their top 3 reasons for visiting Italy, I can guarantee, food will be in there. Italian culture and pride is centred on their local cuisines and it has gained them the justifiable reputation of being among the best cooks in the world. And when I look at all the local old timers around here bombing about and nosing in to everyone's affairs, I know it is their diet I want to live long and prosper!
Winter at Patrignone, when it's just our party of 5, affords me a bit more time in the kitchen. Everytime I venture outside to check the chickens or dig some parsnips I keep telling myself I need to spend more time in the garden, less in the kitchen! But it's too cold and muddy and I don't like it! I am a fair weather gardener.
Still, in the absence of Nonna Carla, Simon's Bolognese mum, in the winter, ragu making falls to Simon or me. This week me, as Simon continues his forth week of battling the 'flu. I have to confess that making ragu goes against all my usual culinary instincts. I am not a great recipe follower, a bit of a flourisher, and not terribly patient......ragu requires the exact opposite so you need to be feeling the ragu! Are you feeling it? If you are then step boldly forward and I will do my best to guide you to the perfect pasta sauce. Along with the perfect green pasta.
Firstly, you will need about an hour for the prep and then to be around for a good couple of hours while it simmers. If you want to eat it straight away then make your pasta dough first. This ragu will give plenty for the pasta (10-12 people) and then give you 5-6 bags of similar sized portions to freeze for rainy days.
Ragu Bolognese
1 onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
2 celery stalks, finely chopped
400g minced pork
800g minced beef
3 salscicca (Italian sausage)
1 large glass of white wine
800g tinned tomatoes
1 litre tomato passata
2 heaped tbsp tomato puree
1/2 nutmeg, freshly ground
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
3 bay leaves
200ml whole milk
Good Olive oil
Now, every Italian I know would tut, but for those of you without excess time on your hands, use a food processor to chop your onion, celery and carrot. Whilst you are doing this put a heavy bottomed stock pot on a low to medium heat. Put your onion in first WITHOUT oil to sweat out the liquid. Don't ask me why this makes such a difference but I promise it does and is a technique running back generations in the Govoni family! Whilst this is sweating, heat a large frying pan with 2tbsp olive oil. When this is hot, add your pork mince and mash with a wooden spoon or fork to break up in to small bits as it browns. Now, if you do have extra time on your hands you might want to consider further mincing or chopping your meat to make a very fine sauce. Keep cooking this meat until any liquid has evaporated and it is lightly browned. Pour in to a bowl, add more oil and do the same with half your beef. Keep an eye on those sweating onions and when they are dry enough to start sticking to the bottom of the pan, add 4 tbsp olive oil and your celery and carrot. Keep frying this until it is all soft and everything looks a similar colour (this is called a sofritto). Again, when your beef juice has evaporated and the meat has browned a little set it aside and do the second half of the beef. By the time this is done your sofritto should be ready. Tip in all the mince with the white wine and stir occasionally until the wine has evaporated. Whilst you are doing that, remove the skin from the salscicca and crumble them in to your frying pan. Mash this again until the meat is cooked and golden and as fine as you can get it. Add to the stock pot. Pour in all your tomatoes and spices and bay leaves and give a really good stir. I grind my nutmeg in a coffee/spice grinder to save time & fingers! Bring up to the boil and then lower the heat. Add the milk and continue to simmer. Add more liquid if necessary and if just right put a lid on. Check every now and then for a taste and to adjust the seasoning but it won't be ready for a couple of hours at least. I then think it always tastes better the next day. Like I say, this should be enough for one large meal serving 10-12 people as well as 5 - 6 bags for the freezer.

For the pasta verde (10-12 portions)
400g fresh spinach, blanched, cooled and finely chopped
400g 00 flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 large eggs
Semola flour
Chuck all of the above in a food processor with a dough blade or mix and knead by hand. Knead until the dough is smooth and springy. Cut in to 6, roughly equal, pieces and knead each in to a smooth ball. Wrap in cling film and pop in the fridge for about an hour. Set up your pasta rolling machine (Imperia make the best, I have a 30 year old one here that works as well as my newer ones and I have tried several others that have been pants. They're cheap enough on Amazon). Sprinkle a liberal coating of semola flour on a large surface. Set on your widest setting and put the dough through with a good coating of semola flour. Fold the dough in 3rds like an envelope, turn sideways and run through the machine again. Repeat this at least 3 times until your dough is smooth. Then begin working your way down the settings until the last but one. Although you can put this dough through on the skinniest setting it is quite a wet dough and can tear. Also I like to be able to taste the spinach and it lends itself to being a bit thicker. Repeat this with all the dough and sprinkle a bit more flour over. Weather will affect this bit no end but you now want to leave the pasta until it feels quite leathery and dryish without getting brittle. This is a technique you won't find in many recipe books but it changed my pasta making forever! Mother-in-laws have their uses! Waiting for the pasta to dry out a bit (takes about 10 minutes in the Summer, about an hour now!). This will make it much, much easier to cut in to whatever thickess you prefer and the pieces won't stick together. In fact, without this method, making spaghetti is a nightmare. I cut mine in to tagliatelle for pasta ragu and this little lot will make enough for 10-12 people, depending on how many teenage boys you are feeding. I set whatever I don't use aside on a covered tray and use within a week or two. This is a bit of an epic meal I know but you have several meals with the ragu and 2 -3 meals for a smaller bunch with the pasta and it is really delicious. And I reckon the spinach in the pasta as well as the veg in the ragu give you an excellent, healthy meal! Enjoy. V x

Pasta Fagoli for a wet and chilly winter's day

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 10:33:00 +0000

If the weather with you is damp and cold too then here is a lunch to sort you out! This is a Govoni family recipe that is a firm favourite with everyone at this time of year. It's quick, easy, healthy and delicious. Pasta fagioli (Pasta and bean soup) (Serves 4) 300g dried beans soaked in cold water overnight or 2 x 400g tins mixed beans (cannelini and borlotti are great) I onion, finely chopped 1 celery heart, finely chopped 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped 1 small bunch of parsley, stalks finely chopped and leaves roughly chopped 1 litre boiled water 250g ditalini (or other small pasta, I use wholemeal) A large handful grated parmesan Patrignone Olive oil! If you are using dried beans, put these on to boil with plenty of lightly salted water until tender. Heat 1-2 tbsp oil in a heavy stock pan and add the onion, celery, garlic and parsley stalks. Fry until soft and lightly coloured. Now add the beans, with their juices from the tin and refill the tins with boiling water and add. If using dried, add the beans with 1 litre of the cooking water. Bring to the boil and simmer for about half an hour. Using a potato masher, mash some of the beans in to the soup, leaving plenty whole. Bring back up to the boil and add the pasta. Cook as per the packet instructions. Stir in the roughly chopped parsley leaves. Serve immediately with a generous sprinkling of grated parmesan and a generous glug of Patrignone olive oil. Some nice crusty bread on the side for dipping whilst you wait for the soup to cool is a good idea too.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 19:13:00 +0000

In the news...the 2013 olive harvest, discover the Enchanted Forest, Billy goes MIA, and Patrignone saves the World, a bit more than last time.

News from Tuscany

Podere Patrignone goes 'carbon positive'! Yay!

You may remember that Simon was ever so slightly nervous about how we would get this 1000kg monster biomass boiler plus two 1500L tanks into our beautifully restored capanna (shed) through over a foot of wet, sticky mud? Well, here’s how……

A big thank you to Ettore and his trusty tractor who managed the muddy bit! Anyway, that was last February and all is now up and running smoothly. What a treat it has been this winter to crank the heating up and not feel guilty about murdering the planet (and our bank account).
What we hadn’t properly understood was the volume of wood the beast consumes and what that would equate to work-wise. The trees must be felled, cut unto moveable chunks, transported, then cut again to fit the boiler, split, stacked, and allowed to dry for a year or so. This led to some frenzied activity this summer to ensure we had enough wood for both this year and some of next. An excellent way for Harvey to earn a few pennies and an excellent excuse for Simon to buy himself new toys (a bone-crunching wood splitter, and a scary circular saw, a saw so big, and so scary, it could do the old magicians trick in the blink of an eye).
And this month will see Nicu and Simon doing very good impressions of lumberjacks, cutting enough wood to last until the end of 2015! That’s a lot of wood, but thereafter they’ll only need to cut enough for 1 year.
Another unanticipated benefit has been our use of ‘biochar’. Simon can switch off the boiler at the end of the gasification stage (don’t ask me!) leaving him with a boiler full of lovely charcoal. We then grind this up and combine it with chicken poop and water for 48 hours before spreading it on to our veg beds. It’s a technique being used in the 3rd world in places with poor soil and little water, and Simon wanted to try it here. We ran a trial with our tomatoes, biochar at one end, and plain chicken poop at the other, with incredible results. Not only were the biochar plants bigger, bushier and better producers, they were also more disease resistant. Apparently the charcoal releases the nutrients more steadily or something clever like that…ask Simon! The important thing is it works brilliantly, and Simon has been ordered to keep me supplied with the charcoal I need for my veg beds.
This was a big investment for us, and even with grants, the payback could be 10 years or more. But it means we have reached the goal we set when we started this adventure: to be carbon neutral within 5 years. OK, so we were 4 months late, but we can now say that Podere Patrignone is carbon positive. This means that when you add together the electricity we produce from the solar farm (and the surplus we pump into the grid), the energy our solar thermals produce, and the carbon-neutral energy we generate from the biomass boiler, we are effectively removing carbon from the atmosphere.
So future guests can offset the carbon cost of their flights simply by staying with us. Not bad, eh?
And we’ve not finished yet. Simon plans to add more solar panels later this year, and we’re looking at ways of storing winter rain so that we can use it in the gardens in the summer.
We’ll let you know how we get on.

These beauties are just about ready to be squished. Lovely.

Olives, olives, and more olives!

Yes, this year has seen us pick more olives, and make more olive oil then ever before. After an unusually cool spring, it took a long time for this year’s olives to get going, and at the beginning of October, just a month before we’d usually start picking, I was starting to get a teeny bit worried. We had a team of local pickers ready to go, but the olives were just way too green and hard.
You can still pick olives when they’re green, but the ideal time to pick is when they are just a little pink. Too green, and you make too little oil, and the oil is very bitter. Too black, and you make lots of oil, but it is very fatty and greasy, with less fruitiness and a lower polyphenol content (the antioxidants that make olive oil so good for you).
It’s a fine balance, and those last weeks of October meant daily trips to the trees to see how the olives were maturing.
And by the 7th November, they were ready, and so were we.
And if I was expecting a routine harvest, I was going to be sorely disappointed.

The weather was being horribly awkward, with regular downpours halting the harvest for the day; you can’t pick if the leaves are wet or you’ll damage the buds that produce next year’s harvest.And we nearly had a pickers revolt, as they got tired and frustrated by the lack of progress, blaming my 'bushy' trees and the awful weather for slow progress. (We sent Max in to show them how easily they could be replaced with child labour, and that straightened them out.)But in the end, we made it. And we have over 1000L of the most amazing oil I've tasted. I'm always impressed at how our oil can be so different from one year to the next. Last year’s oil was full of fire and spice, a nutty chilli-oil without the chilli, but this year’s oil is warm and mellow, like a good brandy, full of fruit, and possibly the most aromatic oil we've ever produced.And now that our trees are producing more olives, I’m hoping the oil-lovers amongst you are going to start spreading the word to your friends and relatives. We have a 24 hour turn-around on all orders (more or less) so as soon as you feel the need, drop us a line, or order your taste of Tuscany direct from our website.Simon has been busy on Facebook with posts on how almost all commercially available olive oil is tainted at best, 100% fake at worst, so go to the Podere Patrignone FB page if you want to learn more on the subject. Scary reading! facebook.com/PoderePatrignone

Like some of our 100% organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil - just press this button!

Wedding bells

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Jeff & Andrea again on their marriage here at Patrignone in July. Jeff & Andrea were returning for their third visit but bought along close friends and family to help them celebrate their marriage at Castellina’s medieval castle. It is a beautiful and romantic spot. The ceremony took place in the afternoon and then everyone came back here to enjoy prosecco and nibbles on the terrace followed by their banquet watching the sun set over the hills. A lovely day and a lovely couple, we look forward to seeing you again soon!

We have two weddings this year. Olivia & Steve from the States are tying the knot here in May followed by Shereen & James (a British couple living in Oz) in August. We are getting excited already and wish both couples all the very best. See you soon!

Certaldo's insanely fun festival

Jeff & Andrea, took our advice and visited the annual Certaldo street-theatre festival, Mercantia, just after their wedding. In the third week of every July this colourful international event is a must-see, with performing artists from all over the world and delicious local food stands (loads of truffles). If you are going to be in Tuscany over that week you must take the chance to spend a night up there. It really is a lot of fun, with music, and fire-eaters, trapeze-artists, and abseiling ballerinas galore. Jeff & Andrea are going to plan future visits to Patrignone around it, it’s that good.

This year the festival runs from 16th-20th

July. More info on www.mercantiacertaldo.it

Monte Amiata & The Enchanted Forest

Our greatest discovery last year was the spectacular Monte Amiata, south east of Siena and a couple of hours to reach the top of the mountain from our door. But, in my opinion, it’s a lovely drive and totally worth it. A ski resort in the winter, the mountain has great hiking, cycling and tree top adventure park in warmer months. Many local Italians disappear up there to cool down by a few degrees on hot summer days. Simon & I stumbled across it just by chance. We were having some ‘we’ time away from the kids, and Simon saw the mountain in the distance and said, “I wonder what the view is like from up there?”.
But what we loved most were the spectacular forests and handy barbeque and picnic areas. In September we went back with the boys and played cricket on the big grassy areas (much to the amusement of the locals), had a go at the adventure tree thingy, (like Go Ape in the UK, and geared up for kids from 4 to 49) and then for a barbie in the woods. The boys foraged for firewood, while Simon got the barbie going and treated us to marinaded steaks and ribs. We hardly saw another soul the whole time we were there, giving the kids ample opportunity (taken with gusto) to practice their primal screaming and play hide and seek. It was magical, it really was.
So if you want a quiet day away from the tourist bustle, and you fancy a change from the Chianti hills, then this is a great way to get away from it all. We’ll be back in the spring for sure.

Another Italy: Reggio Calabria

At the end of March we decided to take a quick break before the start of the season. Not having much time to plan, we listened to some of our local friends and headed south to a part of Italy we'd never seen. We broke our journey down with an overnight stay in Pompeii. Which was more impressive than we'd expected. Pompeii itself is a lovely town. Yes, it's touristy, but it's a pretty town, and kept well. We liked it. We will return when the two little boys are not so little and less easily bored.
The next day we continued south to the tippie-toe of Italy, Reggio Calabria,

and in particular, to the lovely town of Scilla. If you are planning on including Calabria as part of a trip to Italy I cannot praise Scilla enough. It is a beautiful fishing town with views across to Sicily (a 20 minute ferry crossing away) and the food, mostly seafood (not surprisingly), was wonderful. If this is a place that you’re interested in, please let me know, as I can highly recommend the lovely family run B&B where we stayed, with bedroom balconies reaching out over the water.
And the same can be said for the amazing hotel that we stayed in just a couple of clicks from Amalfi, on the way home: the views were just breath-taking.

Bye-bye Billy, bye-bye

Last summer was not all fun and frolicks I am sad to say. Billy, our pigeon whose gender had eluded us, began behaving more strangely than normal, when considering she was a wild bird who followed me everywhere – on foot – and wasn’t even afraid of the dogs. But she became even more needy and extremely vocal. And then she laid an egg. A-ha! So Billy was a girl, and a lonely girl at that. She sat on her egg for many days, but I managed to coax her down with a snack, and we had a little chat about the birds and the bees. Billy took all this in, packed her bags and moved out. Well, moved out in the sense that a teenager moves out – just around the corner (or down the valley) so she could bring home her laundry. She would be home by the time I went to let out the chickens, sweeping down as normal to follow me. She would get fed and watered, have a chat with us and her other local friends, but come dusk, off she would go. I was fine with this, as all mums are, glad to see one of my own making their way independently in the world, but returning home to check in at regular intervals. But then she stopped checking in. This may not have worried me quite so much (perhaps her mother-in-law had taken on her laundry?) if it had not coincided with the start of the hunting season and the arrival of a beautiful pair of sparrow hawks. Wherever Billy may be, I am glad she was a part of my life for two lovely years, and I think of her every morning when I make my way to the chickens, imagining her following in my footsteps.

Just after Billy moved out (already an emotional time), Annouska (one of our white chickens) got sick. She, like me, may have been mourning the loss of Billy, or perhaps she was just too hot to go on. So she didn’t. Sad times. However life goes on, and Simon kindly purchased 3 new hens for my birthday in October, and we are on to ‘B’ company now. Barbara is our new white Livornese who keeps Adele company (chickens are surprisingly tribal), Bernie & Beatrice are our beautiful black and gold Livornese.
The story doesn't end here, of course. I am hatching plans (!) to give the girls a man to boss around so we have have lots more babies. And I'm also looking into the idea of getting a couple of piggies. And maybe a cow. And a goat. And maybe some sheep. And geese, I've always liked geese...

STOP PRESS 25/1/14:

Charlie was playing one of her usual games of chacing Nicu's car up the drive last night. Unfortunately, she slippin in some wet leaves when going around a corner and ended up in front of Nicu. He was going slowly, thank goodness, and manage to get his brakes on fast, but Charlie still got a hefty clout. She hobbled back home OK and we kept her warm inside last night. Lucky, xrays this morning showed she hasn't broken anything, but she can't walk at all and is clearly in a gread deal of pain...she's sleeping quietly behind me right now. We'll keep you updated through Facebook...

Fancy a summer in Chianti?

You may or may not know (if you follow us on Facebook you will have heard all about it) we were left without a housekeeper slap bang in the middle of last season: not an enviable situation but we were saved by the awesome Ramona, who has helped us out on a part time basis for years, and had a bit more spare time than usual last year. If you have met Ramona you will know that she is a force of nature and a demon cleaner & ironer, as well as a great cook. She is also very clever, and she's finishing a nursing qualification which will keep her busy this year. So, we are looking for an energetic someone who can help us out for approximately 8 months this season. It is hard work, but it is also 8 months living in the heart of Tuscany with your very own cottage, with a sunny porch and views over our olive groves, and two days a week off to go and explore. If you, or anyone you can think of, may be interested, please get in touch with me.

Are you following me?

You don't have to wait for us to write another newsletter if you want to find out what's happening at Podere Patrignone. We have a Facebook page which we use quite a lot, and these posts also go to our Twitter feed. There's also a "Friends of Podere Patrignone" page where guests old and new plus other groupies can hang out and swap news, ideas, gnocco recipes. And there's a blog, where you'll find prettier copies of this newsletter, along with other interesting stuff. Feel free to join the cultural revolution and join us in cyberspace.

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Recipe: Asparagus & prosciutto tart

This was a very popular antipasti last season and is so quick and simple to make. It shouldn’t be long until you can get your hands on some fresh asparagus so here it is.

Torta di asparagi e prosciutto
Serves 8 as an antipasti or 4 for a light lunch with salad:
1 round of ready rolled wholemeal pastry
1 large handful of basil leaves
1 dessert spoon pine nuts, lightly toasted
1 handful grated parmesan
Juice of 1/2 lemon
10 or 12 asparagus spears (I prefer Sprue or wild, thin spears), tough ends snapped off
10-12 slices prosciutto
Extra virgin olive oil

Preheat your oven to 180C/360F. Lay out the round of pastry on to a 30cm/12" pizza tray, lined with parchment. Score a circle 2cm/1" inside the edge.
Put the basil, pine nuts and parmesan in a food processor with the lemon juice and switch on. Pour in some olive oil through the spout until you have a green liquid the consistency of thick double cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Spread this in the inner circle of pastry, fairly thinly. Save the rest of the paste in an airtight container in the fridge and serve on fresh pasta within the next week.
Wrap each asparagus spear with a slice of prosciutto and place on the tart in an attractive fan or any other shape that takes your fancy. Drizzle more oil over and pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the base is crispy. Serve warm.

More food news

It is with great sadness that we have to tell you that our favourite restaurant, the ever popular Al Macereto, has closed down. Fantastic food, personal and attentive service in a woodland setting, and only 10 minute drive…..it was the perfect, and we sent all our guests there. Those of you lucky enough to eat there will remember Wynn, the charming Italian/ Welsh owner. He turned 50 last year (like someone else we know), and after many years of slaving away and working all hours, he decided that it was time to try something new. I can’t say I blame him, but it is a great pity. Good luck Wynn...
Simon & I made it back to Ristoro di Lamole with great mates Mick & Jackie (of Hedonistic Hiking) in October. It was Simon’s first visit in over 4 years and we were left wondering why he had left it so long. Lamole is an idyllic spot to while away a leisurely lunch, with excellent food and wine, and excellent multi-lingual staff. The drive there is stunning if a little long, but well worth it (in day light!). This is always a must for any food-lovers with a romantic streak.

And that's all we have time for. We'll be back again soon, but not too soon. Keep an eye on our Facebook page, as that's where we'll put any breaking news. Thanks for listening! Verity

And if you really, really love this, feel free to spread the word in one of these fiendeshly clever ways.

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It's been a long time coming..................

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 16 Jan 2014 19:08:00 +0000

but it's on it's way.....the new Patrignone newsletter. Don't get over excited but it should help brighten a tea break or so, we hope. We will also try and keep this blog going, particularly regarding food and my cooking shenanigans as we get so much interest on FB and lots of questions from guests. My latest kitchen digressions are bread baking. Any excuse to have the oven pumped up all day to keep me warm! Having read last year, from Michael Pollan's amazing 'Cooked', about the real lack of nutrition in all predominantly white breads, even home made ones, I have been on a quest for the tastiest wholemeal recipes. Simon got me MIchael Pollan's recommendation, Peter Reinharts book on just that. He spends almost half of the book on the science and the history of his experimentation (science is not my strong suit) before getting to the recipes. I have completed his master recipe just once so far but it looked, smelt and tasted fantastic and was made with 100% wholemeal flour, regular not strong! I think I under kneaded as the crumb was a bit cakey but I will have another go on Saturday. I did also make 3 large ale bloomers from an old favourite Richard Bertinet recipe....not a high scorer on the nutrition stakes but really delicious and a great treat. Why the passion for bread? Obviously, all Tuscan food is delicious, seasonal and simple BUT the bread is white, saltless and a deadly weapon within 24 hours. There are hundreds of Tuscan recipes using stale bread, that is why! It is not only void of goodness but taste as well. I wander what Tuscan bread consisted of before the refining of flour?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 12:04:00 +0000

In this issue: KILLER mushrooms, DEATH by eggs, GREEN olives, mud, weddings and FURRY animals...oh, and we SAVE the World!

PATRIGNONE NEWS - JANUARY 2013

A note from The Editor

Verity is continuing her stewardship of our newsletter, adding this responsibility to her duties as mum, super-chef, chicken-girl, horticultural hack, jam-maker, master-baker, and dog-walker. She's produced another little gem here. Sorry it's such a long time since the last one. My fault entirely. I'm a bit busy too. Enjoy.
Simon - Ed

Funghi-fest

Welcome to the November edition of Podere Patrignone's newsletter. Yes, I wrote this in November and I have been waiting for our “Editor” to pull his finger out and do his thing. And now it’s January! And so much has happened in the last 2 months that most of my work will have to be written, darn it! Curse you Editor! [Sorry! - Ed]
You may remember that our last newsletter began with a slightly frenzied report on the lack of water last autumn and winter…..no such problem this winter. No siree. All we’ve had since November is rain, rain, and more rain. Outside where Simon has been working on the new biomass heating plant there’s almost a foot of mud. So, damp, muddy, cold. Yes, we might as well be back in Ol’Blighty.
The only people who’ve been really happy with the weather are the mushroom pickers. As I take the mutts for their daily constitutional, I am overwhelmed by the number of funghi in an incredible variety of shapes and sizes. All the local old boys are out in their droves (when they’re not trying to shoot stuff) and picking bags of them. This is obviously a tricky, and potentially fatal, hobby and requires great patience and skill, which is why I’m always worried when Simon gets his book out and says, “Let’s eat this one”. For now we are just enjoying looking at them all and keeping a safe distance, especially after hearing the tragic story of family in Pisa fed bad ‘uns by the dad on a home-made pizza.
Oh and Winter also means waking to the sound of gunshots at 6am, 5 days a week. This includes Sunday (our only opportunity for a lie-in), deep joy! However, I mustn’t complain too heartily as some charming hunters brought me over 3 kilos of wild boar meat a couple of weeks ago which has been stewed and devoured. - V

Olive-tastic

When I first wrote this back in November [again, sorry—Ed] we were still in the thick of our harvest. The lack of water over the summer meant the olives just weren't ripening. We normally pick our olives when they are between green and black (like the olives in the photo above). So this put Simon in a difficult position. Wait a bit longer in the hope that the olives ripen a little more, but risk worsening weather and a more difficult harvest. Or, pick now, make less oil (green olives produce less oil) and risk a bitter product because the olives are unripe.

In the end, the weather won. At the beginning on November there was a really strong wind, and more than a half of the olives in one field disappeared over-night. So Simon started picking straight away.

However, we needn't have worried. Yes we made less oil than we were expecting, but the oil itself is fantastic. Very spicy indeed this year, and fantastic on lightly toasted fresh bread.

We’re still shipping the 2011 oil to those who want oil that’s not too strongly flavoured for salads and cooking, but the 2012 will have settled down by the early summer and we’ll start shipping that too.

If you want to buy either, please email us and will sort everything out and get it couriered to your door. We’re shipping oil all over the world on a weekly basis to people who want to get their hands on the real deal. Remember, real olive oil and supermarket olive oil (even the expensive stuff in fancy bottles) is NOT the same thing. - V.

[I am in the middle of a massive rant on Facebook about Jamie Oliver’s so-called “olive oil” but they are all the same. Unbelievable that this crapola is still being bought and sold and fed to young children. It’s bad, bad, bad.—Ed]

Patrignone saves planet

At last! Something we can do with the crumbling shell of a building behind our house. For years we've been caught between two stools: put a roof on it, but be forced to demolish immediately it as it doesn't have planning permission, or demolish it, and lose those lovely hand-built stone walls forever.
In late November [yes, I know, this was a very different story when Verity first wrote it...Ed] me, Nicu & my builders started construction work for our new biomass & solar heating plant.
Yes, there was a lot of red tape, applications, forms, stamps, signatures, and money. But I'm getting used to all this now, and while it wasn't exactly stress free, I didn't lose a lot of hair in the process.
Inside will be a highly efficient, state of the art, biomass-burning boiler (logs or wood-chips) and above will be thermal solar panels. Between the two we will be able to provide hot water and heating all year around without panicking over extortionate, and ever increasing, LPG costs. And because our fuel source is renewable (the trees grow, we cut the trees, we burn the trees, the trees grow back, and so on), it means that very soon now we’ll be carbon positive. All our electricity needs (and more) are covered by the PV solar farm, and now we’re no longer consuming fossil fuels for our heat.
I say “soon” with a certain amount of trepidation. In a week our boiler arrives. It weights 1000kg (this is very heavy), and somehow, we have transport the boiler and the two 2m high1500L water tanks across a swamp of mud a foot deep. We have a plan involving tractors, palate shifters, and bits of scaffolding pole, but am nervous of discussing these plans in public for fear of ridicule.
In any case, even when/if we have the components in place, it’ll take a couple of weeks to plumb in before we go live.
So, maybe it’ll get used a bit this winter, maybe not. Either way I know we’ve completed our renewable energy plans, and just about within our 5-year plan.
And from now on our guests will be able to off-set the carbon from their flights to Italy just by staying here.
Finally, the guilt-free Tuscan holiday we've been promising our planet-conscious customers. - S

Want to find out more about our eco-values? Look here.

Tuscan Wedding bells

Having given ourselves a bit of a break from weddings in 2011, we made up for it in 2012. We do love a good wedding but each one turns us a little greyer and adds a few extra wrinkles. We did our biggest ever in June with the lovely Brits, Simon & Kayleigh. Kayleigh, it has to be said, could be the best organised bride the world has ever seen, which led to a very painless, stress-free wedding where we actually enjoyed ourselves as well as worked (& sweated) like demons.
Our second wedding was more intimate with a wonderful, musical bunch of creative Canadians. Our bride, Marissa, was a bridesmaid here a few years ago and we were delighted when she chose Patrignone as her ideal spot to tie the knot with the gorgeous John. We will always remember the sound of Marissa’s family rehearsing their music in our front gazebo as we ran around doing our preparations. Magical (where’s my CD!?)
And not forgetting Rino & Kirsty who stayed here for their wedding week whilst having their reception off site. A lovely Australian group, partly of Italian decent and with the best behaved and charming boys on the planet! Congratulations to you all and we’re hoping to see you all back for an anniversary or two. - V.

Remember the summer...? If you are lucky enough to be in Tuscany in May, you must not miss the Iris & Rose festivals in Florence, just spectacular. I finally made it this year before everything had gone over!

Death by scrambled eggs

So here they are! After much talk and little action we finally got around to getting ourselves a brood of chickens. Not only are they fun to have around and an attraction for the kids but, allegedly, they would provide us with eggs.
Simon spent many an hour researching thoroughly all the various coop options and decided to build our own. With Nicu’s help, in just a couple of days, a veritable chicken Duomo was constructed.
We visited our local man, supplier of, allegedly, laying chickens and chose two each of three varieties. Despite the warnings of another local chicken buyer not to go for Livornese (the white ones) as they tend to be naughty And fly off, I didn’t think anything could be naughtier than our kids, so I picked them anyway.
We held a nail biting vote on Facebook to choose the names for said 6, the only stipulation being they had to begin with A. Introducing Annie, Agnes, Agatha, Adele, Annouska and Alexia. I believe that myself and my nieces are the only ones who know which are which and I wouldn’t bet the life of a child on it.
Naturally, I immediately stopped buying eggs and waited patiently for them to settle in to their new, palatial surroundings. And I waited, and waited, and waited. Then we got a couple, then none. Then a few more, then none. Then 5 or 6 a day (more like it…..must have been all that talk of the pot) but then, again, none! We did not get enough for our own needs let alone enough to sell a few to hopeful guests. And these are the fussiest chickens on the earth! They only eat certain kinds and colour of scraps, leaving the rest to go manky.
Anyway, despite being warned by everyone that our chooks would stop laying in the winter, and after a further pot-related chat with a couple of slackers, I am still getting 5 or 6 eggs a day and am making fresh pasta, frittata and custard like there’s no tomorrow (when there will probably be no eggs). We have so many eggs we are getting thoroughly sick of them and have started freezing them. Hey ho.

This secret stash of eggs was found beneath their hut. They’d been squirreling away their produce for days, no doubt planning to exchange them for booze or tobacco or bribe a guard into helping them escape.

Vegetable gardening & other vices

This is the result of more hard graft on the part of Simon and the tireless Nicu. Phase two of my vegetable garden was completed in time for spring planting. Made from our very own cypress trees, these are much prettier and a darn site cheaper than phase 1!
Believe it or not, manure is like gold dust in these parts. How many cows, sheep, horses have you seen in Chiantishire!? And so, beggars can’t be choosers. Nicu and I had to dig well rotted, rather beautiful, goats pooh from a fantastic cashmere goat farm near Radda (well worth a visit). Fine if you are strong and in your twenties, not quite so easy for someone a little more mature and of the fairer sex.
I am dearly hoping that my chickens will help alleviate that necessity this year. For six smallish creatures they do produce an incredible amount of ghastly-smelling poop, which I believe is some of the best fertilizer you can have. However, if there’s one thing I have leant in 2012, it is not to count on your chickens!

Recipe: Crostini Fiorentino

This is a recipe from an old aristocratic Tuscan family that I don’t believe I have seen anywhere but in their home. It is extremely simple but delicious and an excellent appetizer at any time of year. Oh and it uses eggs!

To serve 6
1 baguette
4 fresh organic eggs
1 large beef tomato
1 tsp of rinsed capers
3 tbsp green herbs
Salt, Pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Start by boiling your eggs for 10 minutes and then placing in a bowl of cold water. Finely chop your tomato, capers and herbs and mix well. Peel and chop the eggs and then mash, wish a fork, in to the herb mixture. Add salt, oil and pepper to taste. Refridgerate for at least one hour before serving.
Slice your baguette in to 1.5cm (1/2 inch) slices and toast. Generously spread to egg mixture on top and drizzle more oil before serving.

Who’s in the house?

It was a truly sad day in November when our Pammy packed her bags for the last time and left us for more fun and exciting things. However, she did ensure that she had provided us with an able replacement for 2013 so mustn't grumble! It is a dirty, sweaty job but someone has got to do it. Anyway, Pammy, we would like to thank you for your tremendous efforts over the last two seasons with us. I will miss our kitchen cocktails! And warm welcome to Anika who will be arriving, from Germany, in March.

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The birds & beasts

As always, our animals have proved to be far more popular than us…...it’s OK, we’re used to it and we understand. They are much sweeter. When people get in touch after their visit it is not usually for anything other than to ask us how Charlie & Lola are doing, or to send us some snaps of them.
Well, they are both doing nicely thank you. Funnily enough they have both begun to shed a few pounds since the end of the season…...now why could that be!? Despite our pleas and firm instructions, both in person and in our Big Book, we were ignored and our dogs (and the cat for that matter) got very fat in the summer of 2012…….you know who you are!!
Not only were they fed by extremely disobedient guests but they were also invited in to/ encouraged to enter apartments and, I am led to believe, on to beds! This is utterly unacceptable and we know who you are and if you want to come back contracts will be signed, in blood.
The poor doggies are missing the wealth of fuss and attention as well as the wonderful walks our guests drag them on, and I am trying my best to take them off for a good ramble or run each day.

Billy the pigeon is still here despite risk posed by local nutters with guns. The cat has a nasty cough (too many cigarettes) but is otherwise fit and well. She spends most days staring at Billy from about 1m (and 4 panes of glass) away.
And the fish? The fish are huddled together in a big group in the centre of the pond, waiting for Spring. As are we.

Sam took this photo below of Lola which I think shows great artistic promise! Oh by the way, Lola is available as honorary bridesmaid for a small fee. [Not so small, actually—Ed]

And there you have it.

Was it worth the wait? Unlikely, but thank you anyway for getting this far. You’re very kind.
We’ll try and do this 2 or three times a year—I’ll give it my best shot anyway.
There’s a bunch of links here where you can stay in touch with things on a more regular basis, and I may even steal Simon’s blog as, frankly, he’s been pretty useless with that too. [Hear, hear! - Ed]
Until then, we wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you out here one day soon.
Ta-ta for now, and thank you. [Thank you too darlin’! - Ed]

Verity

Patrignone News - January 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:23:00 +0000

We're going to start working on a new newsletter and blog entry just as soon as we get round to it, honestly. Until then, here's the newsletter we sent out in January, posted here for the sake of completeness.

Editor’s note

Well, I have finally been sacked as main writer and assigned the job of Editor (i.e. spelling, grammar, word-processing, design, tea and toast). Verity has taken over most of the writing, and I’m sure she’ll be more diligent than I ever was. Sorry. It was good while it lasted. [Actually, no. It wasn’t—Ed]
Simon [Ed]If you have any questions, or would like news on anything in particular, write to us at : news@patrignone.com.

V’s views: where is the water?

Welcome to the January edition of Podere Patrignone's newsletter. Sorry Simon's been so lazy. I promise that the wait will be a little less next time; I finally have a little more time as the three boys went back to school last week after what felt like three years, but was in fact just three weeks holiday. We had a lovely Christmas back in the UK catching up with some relatives and introducing Max to English culture and grey skies. He liked the chips, but not the fish.

And while we are on the subject, we'd like to wish you all a very happy and healthy 2012. Right, on with the news.It has been an extremely mild winter for us thus far with temperatures yet to dip much below zero and very little rain. Great for our solar panels (more about them later) but not so hot for the olive trees and garden in general. It is wonderful to be able to get out walking and cycling with the boys every afternoon, and taking the dogs for walks, but we're a bit anxious about the lack of water. We had a warm dry summer last year which was slow getting going but perfect temperatures , rarely higher than the late 20's. But not a drop of rain fell throughout July, August, September and much of October. This isn't terribly unusual as November tends to make up for it with more than a third of our annual rainfall coming in this month (whilst we pick olives).But not this year. This year we had a tenth of what we would normally expect.So either we're going to have a very wet spring, or water is going to be an issue for everyone in 2012.Most of the water for our new organic vegetable garden came from our rain collection system, but the tank has yet to refill. I am still blindly optimistic that rain is on it's way; let's just hope it doesn't choose to fall when we have our first guests. Rain has a poor effect on guests’ psyche. [It makes them grumpy—Ed] The prospect of less rain in coming years will have an impact on how we decide to utilise the rest of our available land. Whether it be crops or livestock, they will have to be light water users.[What about Tuscan Tequila? - Ed]

You are what you eat

If you came to Patrignone in 2011 you will have seen our new vegetable garden with its six large raised beds. My first attempt at l'orto, and not too shoddy. [Even if you say so yourself—Ed] We had a big crop of incredible potatoes, amazing tomatoes coming out of our ears, as well as peas, broad beans, green beans, borlotti beans, rainbow chard, beets, onions, garlic and some fantastic salad leaves. We won't talk about my carrots.
Our local deer also loved my salad leaves. On their first couple of visits they only consumed one particular variety of leaves, so I just planted some more. However, they became impatient and began trying everything else. It didn't taste bad and so they told their mates. They had a small party, and ate the lot. It was near, though not total, devastation. Nicu and Simon built a fence in double-quick time (destroying Simon’s back in the process), and apart from the occasions when I left the gate open (!), all was well.I loved picking the food and preparing it straight away; you can't beat it. It has always been important for us to let our menus be dictated by the fresh produce available in local markets, but to be able to take the lead from our own kitchen garden was a real thrill. And phase 2? We have just started building another six beds. I want to try growing peppers, aubergines, zucchini, pumpkin, melons, celery, and more. I would also like to increase our yield of spuds as we munched through our crop in just 5 weeks. Water is bound to be an issue. But we’re experimenting with biochar to try an reduce our requirements, and we’ll have another try with drip-feed watering systems.And we’re going to need a lot of sheep’s poo from somewhere, both for the old beds and the new. Several cubic metres of it. [That is a lot of poo—Ed]
This time Simon & Nicu are building the beds using our own cypress wood, and I guess my new beds will need the same protection, so more fences. Simon is over the moon. [Really. I am.—Ed]Oh, and did I mention our new herb garden outside the Old Frantoio? Very cute, and handy for the main kitchen.

The battle for cleaner energy

Our solar panel project is well and truly up and running after the usual teething problems. Work commenced in September 2010 (immediately after Simon & I got married). Simon's clever idea was to create a shaded car park away from the accommodation, with less car noise and dust near the apartments. The panels form the roof and give plenty of shade so that guests don’t get 3rd degree burns when they go out.

Work progressed slowly, not helped by endless bureaucratic delays. At one point we were forced to redesign the structure to ensure it won’t collapse in an earthquake...more on that later. This meant a lot of engineers structural drawings, a lot of paperwork and a big additional expense, plus having to reorder materials and missing our arranged slot with our chippy. As usual, we were right up to our deadline to get the project signed off with the electricity company. Had we failed we would have missed-out on key grants. Anyway, having finally got everything squared off with the planners, built the structure, installed the panels, and wired it all up, on the 31st December 2010, just hours before the deadline, we were finally plugged into the grid.

Is the story over? Hardly.

On May 13th at 10.46pm, we were hit by a rather large shudder. It was enough to get us (and all our guests) out of bed very quickly, but at 3.1 on the Richter-scale, although the epicentre was just 3km away, it was not big enough to cause damage ...or so we thought.

It was only some days later that we noticed that our over-engineered super-strong earthquake-proof car port and solar array was now listing rather precariously. Bloody engineers! Some emergency reinforcement and some super-careful use of our trusty old tractor and the structure was straightened and reinforced, permanently. But it certainly gave us a bit of a scare.

Since then, we have been happily receiving all our day-time juice for free on sunny days, with the excess pumped into the grid. I have had to change a lot of life long habits, using the big power guzzlers (washing machines, dish washers, etc) during daylight hours instead of at night, but it is obviously well worth it.

We now would like to reduce our gas usage by having hot water solar panels and a biomass boiler for grey days...but this is all needs a lot of cash, plus the usual approvals and state funding, so keep everything crossed for us.

Wedding bells

You’ll be forgiven for not knowing we got married in 2010. We didn’t know ourselves until the last minute, deciding to make the most of the fact we had friends staying to tie the knot and have a party. Even the friends who were here didn’t know until they got here.

It was a lovely day, with food from our favourite restaurant (Wynn’s Al Macereto) and a party in the woods. Fantastic.

Last year was a quiet year for weddings with only one symbolic ceremony taking place on the Terrazza, a lovely couple from Northern Ireland who had married earlier in the year and decided to celebrate with their families in the Tuscan sun. The bride and her family were returning guests, and included an ex-priest who was able to don his old uniform and perform a beautiful ceremony. Congratulations again to Kate & Mark!
However, 2012 is a very different animal. We are playing hosts to three international sets of bride’n’groom (English, Canadian and Australian).

Weddings are a lot of fun, but they are also a huge amount of extra work and extra pressure. After all, there is rather a lot at stake!

So we limit the number of weddings we do, and unfortunately we’ve already had to turn down several requests for this year.

But we’re looking forward to this year’s events, especially the parties afterwards!

May the sun shine on them all!

[Oh please, oh please, oh please— Ed]

The Food Page

Having the brood and the business that we do, we don't tend to get out much. But we do try, and when babysitters allow try and find new places for us and our guests. And recently we have made a few great discoveries including some new restaurants, places and shops.

Simon & I returned 4 or 5 times to La Cantinetta di Passignano on our night off last year for amazing raw shellfish & seafood last summer. The restaurant-come-wine bar is nestled on the side of a hill in the very sleepy and pretty town of Badia a Passignano, just 25 minutes from here. It is decorated in a clean, fresh, anti-Tuscan style with lots of very comfortable outdoor seating. We used to sit and watch the moon rising over the vineyards whilst sipping prosecco with stunning antipasti and desserts.

Talking of desserts, their mascarpone cheesecake is amazing.

Our second discovery for great, traditional, home cooked Tuscan fare is Le Panzanelle in Lucarelli on the way to Panzano. The restaurant is run by two 30-something Italian women and their partners. It is a pretty and charming setting for really well cooked Tuscan fare at very reasonable prices, and with an extensive wine list. The menu doesn't differ dramatically from many others, but how it is cooked, in my opinion, does.

We also love Volpaia, an exceptionally beautiful and sleepy little town with just 40 full time residents. Visit Paula in Bar Ucci for wonderful ricciarelli biscuits (my latest obsession, both eating and making them) and bubbly service. There are a couple of good-looking restaurants there we plan to try this year.

And we made it to the white truffle festival in San Miniato which is high on a hill between Florence and Pisa. The festival was great with heaps of stalls and eateries. We treated ourselves to a 10g truffle but fear we were had as it tasted of nothing! We know what we're looking for now so we'll do better next year. We were very impressed with the town and its varied and imposing architecture, so we will return.

Harvey and I accidentally stumbled across a superb gelateria in Florence. In the touristy areas quality tends to be pretty poor, and prices sky-high, but this place was fantastic. South of the Ponte Vecchio and just out of reach of most tourists, I had my first ever grey ice cream made from black sesame seeds, and it was delicious! For all of my other top tips you will have to come and ask in person.

Animal farm

I know you'll all be dying for updates on your furry friends so here it is.

Charlie & Lola are both doing very well. After problems with them fighting for dominance last spring, we had to keep them separate throughout the summer. This was such a pity for all concerned, as only one could be walked or played with at a time, but it was completely necessary after their brutal scraps.

They have been free to roam since October, and they have only had one scuffle. We are hoping that it was a one off so that we don't have to separate them again. If we do we may have to come up with a more permanent solution which will break our hearts, but we want them both to be happy and safe.

Meow continues to lord it over us all. She pops over every evening for her supper once the dogs are safely tucked away in their kennel. There have been no more eye-witness accounts of her famous loo-using trick, but as we haven't smelt or seen anything unseemly in here we assume she still pees in the toilet….clever girl.

We also have a new edition to our menagerie: introducing... Billy the Pigeon! Hussah!

Back in early October we were adopted by a pair of homing pigeons of unknown origin. They were originally named Pinky & Perky but by popular demand [Not so popular—Ed] they were changed to the more suitable [?!! - Ed] Billy & Brian. They were soon following me wherever I went outside, and eating from our palms. Very cute.

Unfortunately Brian felt that Patrignone wasn't for him/her (it really is quite hard to tell) and he/she left [luckily he/she didn't post a stroppy review on TripAdvisor - Ed].

Billy has stayed on and boldly walks in the front door whenever it's left open. Lola has not stopped chasing her [??! - Ed] and Miao, of course, loves watching her from our kitchen window whilst Charlie watches Meow from outside.

But for the moment, everyone seems to have found his/her/its place at Patrignone.

Oh and we are busy preparing a palatial palace for this years planned additions to our ever expanding family……chickens!

It’s not like riding a bike

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 20:27:00 +0000

It's more like pulling teeth

It's been a while since our last blog/newsletter so there's a bit of catching up to do...quite a lot actually. This makes the task all the more herculean. It also means I'm likely to give up ½ way as we did with the last newsletter (the so-called and unfinished 'June Issue', uncensored versions of which are now collectors' items and are making the rounds on some of the seedier file-sharing sites).

So like all anal-retentive, work-shy, issue-avoiding writers, let's start with a list of the things I should be writing about, in the hope that this actually feels like I'm writing something.

The year so far
Energy projects
The Kids
Nightmare guests from hell
Dogs & cat & small furry animals
Sculpture garden
Winter projects
V's cooking
Olives & farming...toys & traps
Wine & harvest
And...err...oh yes, the wedding(s).

See my problem? This is just a start list. I'll probably add a few more lines to it as I remember them, so it's going to take forever to write this lot.
I'll try and publish in chunks as I write them. But don't expect miracles. Tomorrow I'll be pouring concrete so my chances of getting more written are slim.

It's been a long, hot summer

It's been a really busy summer for us, that is for sure. We have been to the beach...twice. I've been in the pool...OK, more than twice, but loads and loads less than last year. Bookings have been on a par with last year, if a little bit ahead, so it's not that. I've been rushing around like a eejit trying to get these big projects moving (see below), so that's been taking up quite a bit of my time, but I'm not sure that explains our lack of free time either. In fact, work-wise, I think we've been pretty well organised this year. Ish.

There is, of course, the extra child to consider. That could have something to do with it. Having to deal with a toddler who, up until recently, has not been especially partial to sleep (unlike his parents, I might add), and who has morphed from an angelic, quiet, smiling, giggling bundle of joy, into speed-crawling tanty-satan-child with a scream that can damage hearing, literally, and can destroy anything not nailed down if you take your eye off him for a second (yes, another one...why us?). Max, started out easy (except for the not-sleeping bit), but is not definitely not easy. He's still cute, he still laughs a lot, and he and Sam are hilarious in the bath together as they were tonight. These little moments do make it all worth while. Just. I would be lying if I denied we'd considered the Ebay option on several occasions, both for Sam and Max.

Harv, on the other hand, despite the usual very-occasional preteenage strops, he's been an absolute brick, helping out with everything from looking after his brothers to waiting tables at weddings. (As a small gesture of thanks we bought him a mountain board, and we thank the gods he hasn't broken a limb yet, as we'd be up sh1t-creek without him...come to think of it, maybe we should have got him some Meccano?) Harv – you are a star.

Still, Harv and Sam are now back at school, and Max starts nursery for 3 mornings a week next month, so we'll soon see if we suddenly feel like we have oodles of lee-zure time. As if...

And right on cue, that's Max grumbling on the monitor...will correct mistakes tomorrow!

Saving the planet, Tuscan-style [not as easy as it sounds]

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:31:00 +0000

OK. Let's get something straight right at the outset. I'm no crusty vegan with a chip (no pun intended – see below) on each shoulder. I see myself as practical, direct, even business-minded if I'm going to be hard on myself. I'm not the kind of person who would smash up his TV and recycle the plastic into comfortable clothing. I like my TV. It's mine. Smash your own if it makes you feel better.

But any clear-headed business-minded idiot can see that grinding this planet under our go-gett'em heels does not make good long-term business sense.

When I lived in Bristol, I did my bit. I turned off lights, was careful with water, insulated my loft and windows, bought low-energy bulbs, I recycled. No big deal. But there was never any doubt in my mind that I was anything but a burden to the home-world. Maybe the damage I inflicted was smaller than it could have been, but it was there none the less. And those frequent flights to far-off places didn't help either.

Nevertheless, I slept well. Sure, I saw the same TV programs as everyone else that talked about 'zero carbon lifestyles' but they only served to emphasise how fantastical and impractical that kind of life is. No, you can't live in the real world and save the planet too. C'est la vie, n'est pas?

Now I am lucky enough to live in a beautiful place with lots of space. Lots of space, lots of trees, lots of fresh air. Lots of cold fresh air, lots of driving rain, lots of big horrible gas bills. Yes, finally, ecology has grabbed me by the short and curlies, and I have seen the light. After three winters of forking out huge sums of money because I'm single-handedly burning a big hole in Siberia's gas reserves, I have decided that enough is enough. I cannot go on raping Planet Earth any longer. It's too bloody expensive.

The road to ecological enlightenment

So, no altruistic desire to save tonnes of carbon has driven me to this point, but a simple matter of economics.

However, the scary thing is that once you start along the road to enlightenment, there is no going back. Once you start to do the calculations and realise how positively vile you are being to the environment around you, it's hard to ignore. Sure, I could switch to diesel oil and save a quid or two, but it's no longer enough to save money. Now I want it all. I want lower bills and a cleaner planet.

Read a bit more, study a bit more, and that isn't enough either. Now I know what I really really want. And I want it very badly.

Oh, to be a carbon-negative superhero

Yes, I've made the decision, and that's the end of it. V tries to understand, of course, sympathise even. But then she sees the amount of stress I am under and wonders, rightly, if the very small effect I will have is really worth the effort. Might I not be happier spending more time with the kids, more time on my tractor, more time drinking Chianti? Naturally, she's not actually said any of this. And she might not be thinking any of this. It's probably just the voices in my head. The same voices, by the way, that got me all steamed up in the first place. And they may have a point (so might Verity, but she'll have to tell you that herself – I could ask but I'm afraid I won't like the answer).

But this is what I do. I have big ideas that are very difficult to realise and therefore highly stressful to live with, big ideas that are not always successful. I fret, it stress, I have shout at suppliers, I rant about how unfair life is (see below), stress a bit more, moan a lot more, shout at the kids a bit, and eventually get on with it.

But this time, I may, on behalf of the planet, our children, and our children's children, etc., have bitten off more than I can chew.

The Plan

OK, those of you who have seen Patrignone know it is quite big. During the summer when we're full, we get through many many buckets of hot water every morning and evening. Sight-seeing is a dry and dusty business, and after a day at the Uffizzi your hair is bound to smell Renaissancey – beautiful but old and a bit smelly. In the winter, it is cold and wet here. Just to heat the absolute essentials means we burn a big tanker full of gas every month or so.

And yet every year we burn small mountains of olive wood from our pruning. For nothing. And the forests have to be kept clean and thinned out regularly to minimise the risk of forest fires. That wood is burned in open fires...pretty, but a total waste. Hugely inefficient.

So, Phase 1: install a large biomass heating plant designed to efficiently burn wood-chips from shredded olive clippings and surplus wood from the 100 acres of forest we own.

And no, burning biomass does not mean we are adding carbon to the atmosphere, because when you burn wood efficiently you are releasing the carbon trapped by photosynthesis. As long as we replace the wood by growing new stuff, then we are trapping the carbon we have released and we will be zero-carbon rated for all our heating and hot water.

Which brings me to Phase 2: install 150 square metres of solar panels to generate 20KW of electricity, all the juice we'll ever need, and more left over to pump back into the grid, so providing clean energy to others.

Put the two together, and it means that we will be completely self-sufficient for all our energy requirements and will have extra energy to sell back to the suppliers to make us carbon negative.

Cool, or what?

And my cunning plan does not stop there, as I plan to reinvest any savings and by more photovoltaic panels, or even a biomass electricity generator, so that I can generate even more green energy.

Not something you can do from a terraced house in Bristol, or a flat in London, or loft in New York, or most places where people live. But I am in a unique position. I have plenty of space and natural resources (sun, trees).

But there is a deep gulf between the thinking and the doing, and this great chasm must be filled before I am deemed worthy of this Holy Grail. And it must be filled with a great deal of money.

Bloody money

Yes, saving the planet don't come cheap. Total cost? Somewhere in the region of €250k to €300k ($350k-$400k) for phases 1& 2. The payback time is around 10 years, which means that going to the Italian banks and borrowing money from them is financial suicide for the project (money in Italy is very expensive). I am applying for EU grants via the local schemes in Florence but they will only pay a fraction of the cost, the paperwork is a bureaucratic nightmare and expensive, and the chances of success are slim.

Selling the dream

So, my next step was to contact a few carbon-offset companies. These companies invest in 'green' projects worldwide, and then sell the 'carbon credits' to corporate giants who need to salve their ecological guilt by buying credits to set against the horrendous damage they are doing elsewhere.

But my project doesn't qualify. For starters, most of these funds have to invest in projects in developing countries. Although Italy is becoming more 3^rd-world every day, it's not there yet, al least, not officially. Reforestation project in the Amazon: cool. Renewable energy in Tuscany: cute, but not cool.

Also, my ecological cajones just aren't big enough. The reams of paperwork involved to make sure the funds invested aren't siphoned off to buy arms for the local militia or some drug-baron's new speed boat are severe, which means the projects have to be large before they are worth the overheads. I am a mere snowflake in their eco-blizzard. Simply not worth the effort.

Don't get me wrong. Of course the developing countries should get more help.

But I can't help feeling that something is very wrong. Large sums of money are being paid to agents, monitoring agencies, project managers, and the carbon-offset funds themselves, all of which need to make a decent profit to stay in business, or at the very least, pay for offices and staff to keep the machine working.

And yet, my small project will pay for itself in 10 years or so. That means that the money invested now will be ready to reinvest in a similar project in just 10 years. It doesn't need any special monitoring as anyone can pop in and have a look any time they like (coming to Tuscany is not like popping over to the Congo). And since the Florentine-Sienese wars finished in the 1500's (btw I didn't know this – I had to look it up on Wiki) there are very few risks for a project like this.

Act small, think big

Safe, reliable, sustainable, long-term, and easy when given a bit of cash. OK, small yes, but what if there were 100 farmers like me willing to do the same thing? What if there were 1000? 10,000? There are 2.5 million farms in Italy alone. 10 million + in Europe. 2 million+ in the USA. Farming is hard and largely unprofitable without massive subsidies. And yet what do all these farms have in common? Space, sun and organic fuel or biomass.

Surely some bright spark out there can find a way to get enough cash to just a small fraction of these farms? A safe investment with the capital repaid in 10 years, and you get to help save the planet. Bargain!

That's not a bad deal. If someone had said to me, back when I was living in my terraced house in Bristol, "Hey lard-arse, recycling isn't enough. So how about you put some money in this here 'savings' account? You won't earn any interest, but you can take your money out when you like, and you are actually doing something positive towards cutting greenhouse emissions. Oh, and you get to keep your TV." Being as tight as they come, I might not have put all my savings there, but I might have put some of it.

So where next?

Honestly? I'm not sure. I am determined to make this happen, or have a heart attack trying. If I get a grant I'm 20% of the way there. Getting the rest could be tricky, but I'm not done yet...

I plan to make some noise via Facebook and Twitter, shake a few trees and see if anyone comes up with any bright ideas. Someone has even suggested starting my own fund to collect cash on behalf of small investors and invest them in local schemes, but I think I have enough on my plate as it is.

Anyway, got any ideas?

Where has the winter gone?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:36:00 +0000

When I started this blog entry in October (yes, my completer/finisher skills had taken a bit of beating recently) we were looking forward to a long winter break, some quality family time, plenty of crappy films, lots of cake. Since then three months have gone by, and we are open for guests in just 11 weeks. THAT IS JUST NOT LONG ENOUGH! I'll grant you, we have had lots of family time, lots of cake (you should see my belly), and lots of crappy films (God bless Kung Fu Panda). But I've not managed to get much of my big project done so far – getting us energy self-sufficient with solar electricity and bio-mass powered heat. More on that later. Because I'm forgetting something, I know I am. Something important, something big...some reason why I can think straight through lack of sleep. Oh, how silly of me. I remember now.

The baby

Yes, baby Max joined us just a few days after I started this entry back in October. I won't bother regurgitating the never-ending struggle with had with the hospital staff. It's ancient history now. Needless to say V has said "enough is enough", girl or no girl, I have recorded her statement, had it witnessed in front of a notary, and locked the evidence where she can't get to it.

But Max arrived whole, healthy, with a full complement of extremities, and V is fine – that's all that counts. He was a teeny weenie thing when he was born, under 3kg (that's less than a bag and a half of sugar in old money), teeny weenie hands, teeny weenie feets, big head (not a looker I'll grant you – we have no deluded ideas that he might wine any cute baby competitions or earn us any extra cash modelling, worse luck)...I could almost hold him in the palm of my hand.

Not now. No siree. Max is now a brute of a thing. Big. Really big. Remember Insectosaurus in Monsters V's Aliens? Bigger. V has a hard time keeping up and feels like she is being sucked inside out most of the time, but that's nature for you. He's gone from a wee thing on the 23rd percentile to a monster on the 91st percentile in three short months.

V is worried that she's over-feeding him, but I'm pretty sure he knows exactly what he needs, and makes sure we know it. And anyway, how else is V supposed to get through 7 seasons of Sex and the City? I wonder if this is the correct way to subliminally educate a baby...but V is bored of ER, so I guess he's not going to grow up a doctor. Oh well...

Harv, though initially not over-enthusiastic about having another little runt to annoy him (and I can see his point), is now a major help and shows wisdom and maturity well beyond his years. Most of the time. Sam hasn't tried to murder Max yet, but to the most part is pretty ambivalent, though he does surprise us with occasional shows of very cute affection. But he gets bored very quickly, and doesn't yet comprehend that this thing that eats, poos and sleeps (in that order) is soon going to be his very own little brother, someone to play with and torment in equal measure.

All in all, we couldn't be much happier. Max is sweet natured, smiles a lot, and has trained us to respond to his cute smiles and noises rather well. He doesn't cry much, and rarely 'purple-screams', something Sam would do regularly, just for kicks. We're tired, and today we're all home with bad colds so we're feeling a bit jaded, but all in all, things are going well.

Mustn't grumble, eh?

Clear it, and they will come...

Despite having a new baby to wear us down, I have managed to get one big project finished this winter. Those of you who have been here before might be aware that well beyond the swimming pool there's an old olive grove, abandoned 70 years ago. It was so overgrown that it was almost impossible to walk through it, filled as it was with lethally spiny bushes wielding 3" wooden spines that would puncture anything short of sheet steel. Even getting the tractor near it was next to impossible. And yet, from above, one could easily see the olive trees poking up above the 3m high brush. This is no small field either. About 5ha (15 acres) by my reckoning.

And it needed to be cleared. Land that is left to go wild can soon find itself reclassified as forest, and if that happened here our ability to grow anything except trees would be lost forever. So one misty morning, armed with my tractor, chainsaws, and 15 tonne excavator (it's big, really big, and very cool) me, my friend Ettore, his brother Stefano, and his cuz Mauro set off for the bottom field to see what could do in 2 weeks.

It was carnage. Image a bloody medieval battle, with all the hacking, gouging and gutting that goes on. This was nothing like that. But imagine instead the sound of heavy machinery bouncing back off the hillside, the insistent constant whine of chainsaws, and the constant smell of diesel fumes. We worked like maniacs, often into the dark (until we realised that walking back up to the house in the pitch black was more dangerous than juggling chainsaws).

By Saturday night when we took stock of what we had done, and what was left to do, we were amazed. The equipment had taken a pummelling (the digger broke down twice and my tractor managed to impale itself on a tree stump, though its injuries weren't fatal) but we'd cleared almost 3ha and resurrected the most beautiful olive grove. Many of the original trees were long dead, but we managed to recover around 100 old trees that, with some heavy pruning, should bear fruit again in 2 or three years. We also found a couple of rows of the original frees they used to use to hang grape vines on (before they started using poles and wires like they do now), with the ancient dead vines still in the ground. We cleared nearly 200m of old dry-stone wall, with some of these walls 2m high...how on earth did they build these things? It must have taken them years! And we may have found an old spring, though we have yet to finish clearing it properly.

On the Monday we moved up the hill a little to start clearing some more rows of olives...and then the rain came. You can't work with heavy machinery in the rain, way too dangerous, especially on the kind of slopes we have here. So we packed up our tools and called it a day. It didn't stop raining for a month, and even now the ground is way too wet to risk going back there in the tractor, but give me a couple of dry weeks and we will head on down there to finish up. I think we only need a couple or four more days, and a field that once looked beautiful 70 years ago will look beautiful once again.

[I'll post some pictures here as soon as I have found them!]

And the olives?

In a word, disappointing. We only managed to press 350 litre of oil this year, a third of what we managed last year. Everyone else is in a similar boat, so expect olive oil prices to shoot up everywhere, but when we are such a small producer in the first place, having so little oil is upsetting. We should be fine...there should be plenty to go around, but my hopes of establishing strong links with one or two large buyers is on ice, as no one, no matter how forgiving, can really plan their business from one year to the next when their supply is so erratic. I will need to plant more trees and slowly build up my supply capability before I can seriously position myself as a reliable supplier.

And why was the harvest so poor? Apparently, a strong wind blew in from the sea during the flowering season, and this salty breeze damages the flowers and prevents fertilisation. Allegedly. I know I lost at least 15% of my crop during a hail storm, and this may have been an under-estimate. Plus we had the longest hottest summer in 100 years, and that stopped the olives from growing and maturing. Take your pick.

Still the upside is that the oil is lovely: nowhere near as biting as last year's, but a warm, mellow flavour that I am very happy with.

What else?

Well, Sam started school. Traumatic. The first day was hard. Leaving your screaming little boy behind is unbelievably hard, torture. It is amazing how well are programmed to protect the little sods. The pull is visceral and real, and the need to hang about outside listening to him cry in the hope that he'll stop was too great. So wait I did...and wait....and wait...and after about 3 whole minutes, he stopped. Thank God. And when, as I went back to collect him a couple of hours later, he started screaming blue murder the minute he saw me, how bad did I feel? Quite bad, actually. Again, pure programming, my genetic memory saying "don't you ever leave the carrier of your genes with strangers who might eat him or feed him to sabre-tooth tigers".

But all is fine now, of course. He loves school, is slowly starting to learn the language, and is picking up lots of annoying bad habits from some of the spoilt Italian kids in his class. To be expected.

Kim left us at the end of October. That was really hard...tears all round on that one. She had become a real part of the family and we miss here sorely. However, as I speak V is organising our 1 week of holiday and if all goes to plan, we're going over to France to ski for a week in the same town where Kim is working, so we'll get the chance to catch up with her properly.
We wish her good luck cruising the seven seas in super-yachts next year...and why wouldn't you!? Good effort.

Actually, I don't have the heart to bore you with my woes on the heating plant and solar energy front, so I'll save that one until I have some good news for you.

Meanwhile, the weather this winter has been atrocious. Not much of the lovely snow you've all been telling us about (lucky sods) but weeks and weeks of torrential rain. The Christmas break was particularly horrendous, but here is a shot I took when we did get a bit of the lovely white stuff.

A presto.

Another insane few months in paradise?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:50:00 +0000

I know I promised to keep my blog regular (sounds somewhat intestinal, but needn't be), but I'm sorry, it just can't be done. Even as I write this I have a pretty good idea that it'll never get finished and published today, perhaps never, for the following reasons:

There is quite a lot to say, and I am inclined to ramble and get distracted easily (as you can see)
There are lots of photos to find (and my 'photos to be sorted folder' contains nearly 14 gig of crap to sort through)
V could explode at any moment which means the next time I'll get a few hours free to indulge myself in blogging could be late spring...2012

So I'll try not to deviate or repeat myself. Fat chance.

PS Of course, it's a couple of days later, and in the car taking the boyz to school I had a brain-wave...why not write a para or two every other days and just publish?...forget making it look pretty, spell-ckecking...might try and get everything I wrote yesterday ready, publish and be damned....

Hospitals are rubbish. Doctors are lazy. Nurses are useless.

I generalise of course. If you are nurse, or a doctor, or a hospital, I probably don't mean you. If on the other hand, you live or work in the area of Poggibonsi, then your chances of getting caught in the crossfire are increasing. And if you happen to work at Poggi hospital, don't come anywhere near me as I may just stove your head in for the fun of it, even if you work in the café. It wouldn't do much for you (especially after V has jumped up and down on your life-less carcass a few times), I know, but we would feel a whole lot better. Actually, that would be bliss. Any volunteers?

As we all know, V is expecting. She's due quite soon now and we have a preliminary date for the caesarean of 19^th October. Our GP here recommended that we go to Poggibonsi hospital because their obs & gynae (sp?) department is supposed to be one of the best in Italy. Good to know.

And you know what, I am sure most of the doctors there are brilliant. We have certainly met a couple of really excellent ones. Our problem is that we've seen rather too many docs since V got preggars, over 7 that I can remember. And the system here means that although someone is supposed to be following our case, no one has to. So they don't. It makes the NHS look like Nirvana. The doctors run the show completely, and if ever you want proof that doctors make useless administrators, this hospital is it. So if your first doctor happens to be a useless piece of ### that really doesn't enjoy or care about her job in any way shape or form, then you can find yourself in deep shite. Because our first two visits were with a doctor so lazy and indifferent that she really honestly didn't care what happened to us or the baby, from then on we were invisible. We tried to get ourselves back in a sound footing by changing to a better doctor (one that had been recommended to us), but by then it was too late. We were out of the loop, in between the cracks, down the drain.

Now this wasn't a big problem when everything was hunky dory, but during a routine scan they found that V's amniotic fluid levels was too low, and that's when we really started to wish we were having this baby back in the UK. No one, but no one, wanted to take personal responsibility for our case and see it through. This means that every time we had a bank of tests (and there have been lots) the doctor reviewing our notes would be a different one, with a different view. But that doctor would not want (nor have to) make any decision whatsoever because we weren't his/her patient. And when we asked who's patient we were, we'd be told it didn't work like that, and that we weren't allocated a specific doctor. Catch 22. So no one ever had to make a decision because they could all claim that they were not our doctor.

You also have to picture a medical system based on a semi-feudal hierarchy, with the doctors, with their vast intellects and infinite knowledge (because they are doctors and went to university) lording it over the lowly patients and support staff, who, quite frankly are way too stupid (because they are not doctors) to understand what is going on and should consider themselves blessed by God to have even 5 minutes of time with such superior beings. Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, oh great ones.

This attitude is, of course, passed on to all those who work in the hospital so that at almost every point of contact, from doctor to nurse to admin, you'll find yourself on the end if the same arrogant, condescending attitude. It's a real eye-opener. There's not a hospital in the UK that would last 5 minutes without being ripped to shreds by the press, or the staff, or the patients if they behaved like this. But here, I think people must assume that the more arrogant the staff, the better the hospital.

Last Friday was almost the final straw. We'd been into hospital on the Wednesday for more blood work, swabs, scans, ECGs, you name it. We hadn't been given or explained any of the results. We saw useless-idiot 'dottoressa' (the doc that we'd seen on our first two visits) who flicked through the results, and said she couldn't make any decisions because we weren't her patient (though clearly we were more her patient than anyone else's). Bear in mind that V was 36 weeks gone and needed a date for her caesarean. When I pressed her and asked her to at least look at the timetables and book us a preliminary slot, the look on her face was a picture. Honestly, unless my Italian is worse than I thought, I really didn't ask her to eat ### or to take a dive out of the 4^th story window she was sat next to. Once her mild shock at being asked to do something had worn off (didn't take long), she told us to come back on Friday to see the doctor who might be carrying out the caesarean. No appointment, just come along and try and get 5 minutes with him. We knew this was dodgy as, but what could we do?

We had an appointment with the anaesthetist on the Friday in any case, so we went along. The anaesthetist was miraculous. I say 'miraculous': he didn't walk on water, raise the dead, bring world piece, etc. But he was thorough (was the first doctor to take us though all V's test results and explain each one, and it wasn't even his job to do so), extremely gentle, courteous...the first really patient-focused doctor we'd seen, and it was a blessed relief, I'll tell you. The next two hours weren't so encouraging. We waited, and waited, and waited. We tried to leave a note for the doctor with the nurse in charge, asking him to call us so we could come back when he was less busy. But the nurse looked at me like I was insane, as if to ask a doctor to call a patient was tantamount to calling the doctor's mother a camel. (It is considered quite bad form to call anyone's mother a camel in Italy. Apparently.) Rather than risk the doctor's subsequent wrath (and possibly endangering the lives of her, her family, all her friends, possibly everyone she's ever met) by giving the doctor a note, she repeatedly went looking for him to ask him to see us. He was clearly very busy, and we were perfectly willing to come back another time, but sure enough the doc finally came to see us.

And boy was he pissed.

We rushed us down a corridor to a room with a scanner (which didn't work well as a piece of theatre because V don't rush, no way, no how), and while he scanned her he proceeded to rant about his extremely busy and nightmarish day. It truly was horrendous, I'll grant you. And then moaned about how he can't be expected to interrupt his schedule and see anyone who just turns up. Good point I thought. V was nearly in tears at this point, but I don't think it was out of sympathy towards the doc. I'm pretty sure it wasn't. But then I told him how his crappy colleague had told us to come and see him, without an appointment, and how it was her fault, not ours, that we were here at all. And I asked him what other course of action we should have followed? A very pregnant mother who, according to the doc who gave her the last scan, needed watching very carefully. No date booked for a caesarean then needed to be performed in no less than 2-3 weeks. No medical person (doctor, nurse, or midwife) we could talk to help us get on track. Exactly what was the right way for us to go? What alternative (and perhaps more proper) course of action should we have followed?

At this point the doctor calmed down a bit, and actually apologised. He then took us to an office, gave us an appointment for next week, and even gave us date for the caesarean.

Amazing. After 2.5 hours of considerable stress (one of the things all the docs have told V to avoid), and some considerable, semi-heated Italian-style 'discussion', we had exactly what we came for and could go home. Well, actually, we went out for our last supper alone for quite some time. Very nice fish restaurant in Poggi. Brilliant in fact. Lovely salmon carpaccio, amazing sword-fish...sorry, I digress.

And by the way, this doctor is one of the good ones. He actually seems to care. And he's thorough, and when he's not stressed, over-tired, over-worked and annoyed, he really is very pleasant.

But like all the docs here, he's working within a system so dependent on those at the very top (the docs) to make all the decisions, that no one else is willing to take any responsibility, and the docs themselves will duck additional work almost at any cost. Some of the docs, after you've harangued them for the right length of time, will do the right thing and actually help their patients, while others just don't care. Maybe they did one day, maybe they did once care about being good doctors, and the system has beaten it out of them. Don't know. What I do know is that I intend to be as pushy and irritating (I can do pushy, and I could have been an Olympic irritator – it's a gift, ask V) as I need to be to make sure everything happens as best it can. Or maybe we just need to learn to bend over and take it like an Italian...?

I don't think so.

A house in the trees

Ever since we moved out here we've been talking about building a tree house for Harv. Of course, with everything else that's been going on, a shed in the trees has always slipped down the priority list. But one evening, while Harv was in the UK and I was out with my cousin Marcello having a pizza, I mentioned the idea to him. And that was that. Oh, did I tell you he's builds kids furniture for local kids hospitals, custom kitchens, etc? Hand bloke to have around. Over the next hour we had some ideas down on paper. I then worked out some detailed plans and measurements, bought the wood, and one hot Wednesday in August, we started work.

[End of day one]

It took three days of extremely hard labour, and Harv worked right alongside us the whole time, building some muscles he'd never had before in the process. Marcello was amazing, and knew exactly what to do every step of the way. Friday evening and the job was done.

[day2]

[The team]

[Day 3]

[Harv taking Sam up for the first time]

Harv and some of his school mates slept out in it on Saturday night, cooked salciccia on a camp fire, and went wild in the woods until (by way of a walkie-talkie) I told them to shut up and go to sleep. But it was good seeing them all go native in the fresh air.

Stories from Tuscany

To come next time I write....

Manic summer and the heat
Worrying olives
School for Sam
Bookings for next year

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:27:00 +0000

Finally. A bit of peace.

Sorry for the hideous gap between posts. It really was my intention, deluded though it may have been, to post every week. Fat chance. I have tried a couple times, but take last Thursday, for example. I asked V and Kim to look after dinner on their own so that I could babysit and get some writing done at the same time. Made the fatal error of 'popping' into the office to just check email one last time, and found 16 emails I needed to reply to. So as Kim and V were sitting down to a hard-earned glass of Vin Santo (a small one in V's case) near 11 o'clock, I was still furiously tapping away putting the last of the enquires to bed.

You see, 11pm here is early afternoon is the US, so while I'm about to collapse in a sweaty heap, they're just getting going. So I reply to an enquiry feeling all sleepy and floppy, hoping that'll keep them quiet for a few hours, but before I get a chance to log off and sneak out of the office I get a perky and enthusiastic reply back with twice as many questions as they asked the first time! Have a heart!

I guess I shouldn't grumble, and in fact I'm pretty sure I'm not. (Or am I?) We're already picking up some great bookings for next year, and those are the kind of things that mean I'll be able to put my new biomass heating system in this winter and still afford to feed the dogs (rather than eat them).

But it does mean that writing this blog slips down the priority list. And I do know there are some lovely people out there reading this (and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for not making this entire exercise completely futile), but this blogging thing is so one-way that right now, as I type these words, it feels more like I'm talking to myself than talking to you. What I'd really like is a way to write this and have people take the piss, correct my spellings, and generally interact with me while I'm telling my nonsense story in real time. Now that would be a fun way to blog! [Please note that this idea is copyright Simon Zimbler ©2009].

Anyway…tonight V and Kim and Lucy are cooking up a storm, so I'll try and get some stuff published and add the photos tomorrow. Onwards. [Though need a beer first.]

And now, the weather

Fcuk, it's hot. Really really hot. It's dark outside (9pm here), and I swear it must still be in the 30's outside (that's nearly 90 to any Shermans out there in Blogville). Yes, the guests are loving it. Yes, the kids are loving it too when they can get in the pool (which by the way, is like warm tea). I don't mind it at 6.30 when I get to take Sam to the pool for a swim, but frankly, the rest of the time it's a major pain. My office is like a really dirty, untidy oven in need to some serious filing (there, sadly, the analogy is a little thin). And unfortunately (see non-grumble above) I am spending rather a lot of time in my steamy cell at the mo, so it's hard to get outside. And even if I could get out, the land is bone dry and harder than Harvey's Italian homework, so completely unworkable. We need some rain out there pretty badly, but the forecast is for sun, sun, and more sun, though hopefully the temps shouldn't be quite so punishing.

[Now that's what I'm talking about – just been brought a plate of V's broccoli orecchiette by Harv – starvin'!]

Of course, all this heat is even harder on V, who is at least 2 or 3 degrees C hotter then everyone else; a normal side-effect of being consumed from the inside out by our as yet un-named parasitic offspring. It also means it's a little bit like having a quite sizeable (though I hasten to add her bum is still in great shape) hot-water bottle in bed with me, at a time when a hot water bottle (especially one that has to shift and change position every few minutes…again, struggling with my analogies this evening…more beer) is somewhere near bottom of the list of things I'd like in bed with me on a hot, sultry mid-summers night. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.

Dogs

The dogs are a bit poorly today. They rather stupidly followed a guest on a run that took them onto the Poggi-Castellina road (!!) before they decided they'd bitten off more than they could chew and decided to head back. They've both lost large chunks of skin from their paws and are hobbling around feeling very sorry for themselves. No chasing cars for a while. Poor stupid mutts.

But at least they are alive. Anyone following my equally infrequent Twitter/Facebook entries recently will know that these dogs have been skating on thin ice recently. They have always barked at night. Those cheeky pesky night-time critters know the doggies are well and truly locked up, and do tend to tease them somewhat. One night when the dogs were going more nuts than usual and I was on my way out to terminate their all-too-short lives I found a porcupine digging up stuff right outside their kennel! I mean! Fair's fair! That's just plain cruel! No wonder they were going ape!

Anyway, a couple of weeks back we had four nights in a row when the dogs woke us up every half hour. No amount of beating with a heavy steel rod would shut them up. I was seriously considering the shallow-grave option, but we decided to risk letting them loose all night instead. See if they would go and bark elsewhere, like deep in the woods maybe?

First night: OK, so they weren't barking outside our window, but we could definitely hear them barking outside someone's window. So we slept even less because we were worrying about how many of our guests were going to bawl us out the next morning and demand a full refund or Lola's head on a silver platter. As it happens, I tentatively asked each and every guest, and not one of them complained of losing sleep. The cheerful bastards! So second night V and I did hear them, but we weren't nearly so worried so we slept better. And the third night, we heard them even less. Great! Carla's theory was that the dogs would scare all the critters away and that these night-time beasties would then learn to keep their distance from the house. This in turn would lead to less barking. Everyone wins.

Except that on the forth night a poor young couple who had to be up at 4am to drive to Rome were in fact woken at 1am by an excitable Charlie who'd found a hedgehog in the Tinaia garden, and said hedgehog being somewhat spikey and impregnable, so exasperated Charlie that she insisted on barking at the f'ing hedgehog for the next 2 hours (and possibly beyond). The guests were lovely about it, and said it was OK, and they didn't mind too much (likely story), but we can't risk pissing off guests (not too much anyway), so the dogs are once again locked up.

And actually, they've been pretty good since then. I mean, they wake us up at least once a night, but nothing like the all-night barkathons we'd had before. Maybe they got all that chasing-things-in-the-dark business out of their system and are happy to just snooze? We'll see.

Guests

I know I'm not supposed to mention current or recent guests, but someone I used to work with back in my advertising days has just spent the week here with her acquired-by-marriage Irish family. It was lovely to catch up with Jo after several years, and to meet her beautiful kids and wonderful outlaws. They left this morning and we were very sad to see them go. However, I've hunted high and low for any remnants of that bottle of Irish whiskey but the gits must have polished it off! How dare they! Come back! Bring more whiskey!

He's back!

Harv has been in the UK for 3½ very long weeks, but he got back yesterday, and we're all over-the-moon about having him back. None more so than Sam who spent all afternoon climbing all over him and repeatedly hugging him and giving him kisses. Very cute. Welcome back Harv!

The Swallows

They came, they bred, they had four fat chicks, and now they're gone. We still see them all catching bugs all ar

ound the house, but when I looked this evening their nest was empty for the first time. Very sad, though frankly how all six of them managed to fit on one tiny nest I'll never know. But it's been lovely to watch them do their thang from so close up…a new experience for me. Let's hope they make the massive migration to Africa and back without a hitch and all come back to make new babies (and fresh piles of swallow poo) next year. Bye birdies!

No more oil!

Hard to believe, but the last of this year's oil is all boxed up and ready to make it's journey across to Canada. I have around 50 litres of liquid gold left, and that should just about last us the season (as long as no one gets greedy and snaffles more than their fair share). Let's hope November's oil proves just as popular! I have3 or 4 5-litre tins left if anyone wants them...? Going...going...

A Tuscan wedding...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:11:00 +0000

A 'big' wedding in Chianti

Well... big for us, that is. And a huge week for the happy couple. And a very happy they are (phew). Yes, our biggest week of the year so far is over. All the planning and tension gone. I'd like to say it's a relief, but the truth of the matter is we had a great time last week. It really was fantastic fun. And getting back to 'normal' life (whatever that means in this highly unpredictable environment) is nice but a bit sad at the same time.

OK, now I know back when I started this blog that I was not going to get personal, that I was going to avoid talking about current or recent guests on the grounds that I might incriminate myself, embarrass people, get sued for libel, and so on. It's going to be quite hard to talk about last week without bringing a few real people into the story, but I'll do my best.

Here comes the bride, and our first foul-up?

So first off the bride and groom arrives. This was a week ago last Sunday. Said hello had a bit of a chat, and then a bit of a panic when another car turns up that we weren't expecting. As they wind down their car windows to say hello, I smile back, and then my heart freezes when I see the arrival instructions I must have sent them at some point.

This is one of the things I fear most of all: the dreaded Booking Cock-up - someone turning up having booked a lovely 2-week stay with us, only we have a wedding party arriving and we're full for the week, for example. So I smile, and try not to look too startled, while I quickly dash back into the office to check just how serious this cock-up is. At this point my heart is beating like a jungle drum and the sweat is starting to gather at the back of my neck. My pants are feelin clammy too - it's hot!

Of course (of course!!??) there is no cock-up, just a slight mis-communication between V and I about a new booking that I had failed to warn V about. In fact, the newbies are here for only 3 nights, and they leave just as the full wedding party arrives. But for a minute, V and I both thought we were going to start our first day of this wedding week with a snafu. That was a close one.

Let's taste some wine

So the next couple of days is taken with me ferrying the B&G around to the British Consulate and the Siena Comune to sign various bits of paperwork. Again, each of these small but significant steps is a potential bear trap, as I approach each hurdle with a not insignificant shortness of breath which I mask by pretending to be unfit (not hard, or even untrue, so not 'pretending' in the strictest sense, or any sense at all). Anyway, the system as it is works well as it usually does, and the small inherent risk that always comes from having a brush with bureaucracy in Italy doesn't in fact cause us any problems. By Tuesday lunchtime, everything is in place, and we know without a shadow of a doubt that barring some natural disaster, there's going to be a wedding on Friday. Breathe.

So that evening, we celebrate by tasting some whites for the wedding receptions. Three bottles, so be precise. So we spend a very pleasant evening under the stars drinking beautiful white wine watch kestrels and bats flying acrobatics over our heads. Mustn't grumble.

The invasion begins

The next day is not quite as relaxing. 28 friends and rellies arrive throughout the day, and meanwhile we're preparing more pizza dough than Patrignone has ever seen in one day. That night everyone gets together and while we try and keep people plied with antipasti and pizza, the two wedding families get together and get to know each other on the Terrace. And you know what, I love making pizza, really I do, but I have now firmly crossed Pizza Chef off my list of potential back-up careers. It's bloody hard work! We churned out 30 pizzas using 2 ovens in around an hour and a half, peanuts compared to most good pizza restaurants! We were knackered by the end of the night!

Still, everyone seemed to have fun, and that's what counts. They app partied until the early hours. We went to bed and slept like corpses.

(Until the f-ing dogs started barking at 4am at some random night-beast in the woods!)

Finally, the big day

Well, to be fair to us, we were pretty well prepared. Ettore had arrived with the lamb(s) the night before, and beautiful it (they) looked too (though, of course, not as beautiful as they would have looked bouncing across summer meadows, but that's life, innit). V had organised the food down to the last detail and was raring to go. The tables and chairs were in place and just needed decorating (just!). The only thing we were missing was a married couple and their entourage to feed.

So I did my bit and took them all to Siena for a wedding. A convoy of 7 cars and a minibus, with me at the front with the bride and her parents, all snaking our way through the tiny streets of central Siena trying reasonable hard not to clip startled tourists as we drove past. There is a pre-defined route that all cars must follow into the Piazza del Campo for a wedding ceremony, and I promise you it is NOT easy. It really is like being a rat in a maze. But when we suddenly rounded a corner and drove right into the Piazza del Campo, well...wow, what a sight. Takes your breath away every time. And driving into it feels so naughty! I pulled up right in front of the Palazzo Publico with the bride, while the other cars parked in the Piazza del Mercato behind: here's an aerial view for you...

So, a short wait outside, the excited procession to the Wedding Chamber in the 1st floor, and then the wedding itself, presided over by the Mayor and translated by yours truly (yes, I was nervous, yes, I did sweat a little, no, it wasn't too bad - no damp pants). I won't go into too much detail because it was their day, not ours, but it was a lovely, moving experience in the most amazing of surroundings, and I felt completely thrilled for them both.

Hello. My name is...

Now the next bit I will talk about because it was pure theatre, pure luck, and pure magic. After the ceremony, lots of cheering, lots of clapping, confetti, smiles, tears, hugs, kisses...and then we all troop off across the Piazza del Campo for a post wedding drink in a bar, cheered by crowds of clapping tourists (thank God they weren't hungry and it could have got nasty). Prosecco and beer, and I'm not ashamed to admit I went for the latter. It was hot!

So, we're all drinking and chatting and smiling, when suddenly there's a bit of a murmur, and it spreads through he group like a Mexican wave, finally getting to me. I stand up to see what the fuss is, and someone says, "You know what, it's really is him! That's Michael Caine!" Sure enough, the G is smiling away and chatting to the most famous British actor of all time. And next, the big man (he really is very tall) is standing up and moving out into the Piazza, to be joined by a very smily B and the G's uncle (official photographer). Photos are taken, Sir Michael shakes hands with the G, kisses the B, and waves to us all as we clap and cheer from our tables before returning to his table. Very cool. What a nice bloke.

The G told me later that this is more than a special moment for him. Mr.C. has been his idol since he was a small boy, and he even has a large canvas picture of him in his flat at home. To meet Sir M ever would be a privilege, but to bump into him in a bar on the Piazza del Campo, 20 minutes after he's got married, and have a wedding photo taken with Alfred himself? Not possible. The G said he's just had the two best moments of his entire life in a half-hour period, luckily, in the right order.

Amazing.

[Photo copyright Patrick White 2009]

Food, more food, and a party

The reception in the afternoon was a breeze. It was bloody hot out on the Terrace, but there was breeze to cool things off, and plenty of ice-cold wine and water. V put on a fantastic wedding banquet, half a dozen different hors d'oeuvres and antipasti, home-made ravioli, fresh Sardinian lamb, Kim's amazing lemon tart...all spread out over around 4 hours or more. I was head waiter, and I swear I must have walked around 10 miles. I can't really do the plate-balancing thing too well (never head silver-service training) so that increased the number of trips needed significantly. And there would have been a whole load more too if the helpful guests hadn't helped by stacking plates for me! They were all so sweet!

And then, once we'd cleared everything up, put the final plate in the dish-washer, polished the last glass, and straightened the last chair, we collapsed. A shower, feet up on the sofa, a large icy screwdriver (not my usual, but it was all I could lay my hands on with minimal effort).

Then V went to bed, while I popped over to the party in the woods to say hello and have a quick drink before I hit the hay. Only, it didn't quite turn out that way. People kept giving me beers, more beers, Prosecco, more beer, and so on, which meant I didn't get to bed until 2am, and by then I already had a headache!

And Sam woke at 6.30am, little darling, so V had a bit of a lie-in while me and Sam watched Charlie and Lola on TV.

Since then....

Well, of course it's nice to get back into a more evenly paced existence, but you know what? I really liked being flat out, 100, 100 degrees hot manic for a while, and being part of making this week such a special one for the B&G is a big buzz, more fun even than winning a big advertising pitch back in the old days. We all felt very proud of the work we'd done and enriched by the people we'd met. We'd got though the biggest week of the year with flying colours, and had fun in the process. Now that I like.

I'll post a few pictures with this when I get a mo...now fly away, little blog, fly.

Let the rumpus begin!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 20:29:00 +0000

Someone's BIG Tuscan wedding day

OK, this is probably going to be a short entry, and there may not be another for a while. We have a big wedding here next week...well, big-ish...OK, not that big really, but we're still 'brickin' it' (as they say back in ol'Blighteh) a little. It's not that we're not well, organised, or that we're not on control, or that we're worried much about the practicalities. There will be a wedding (at which I will act as official translator, and despite years of doing large stressful business presentations to many big important people, I will probably be extremely nervous and sweat buckets), there will be a reception banquet here on the Terrace for 30 (and V will cook some amazing food, and they will drink not indecent quantities of good Tuscan vino, and everyone will be happy), and there will be a rave in the woods (OK, this isn't usual, but each to their own and I'm thinking it might be great fun so I'm definitely going). All pretty normal, not especially risky, nothing to get too worried about.

And yet there is the knowledge that this is probably one of the most important days in this young couple's lives thus far, and its success is largely down to us. If we screw up, we ruin their big day, and possibly their entire lives. One slip from us and they probably get divorced in three weeks, she looses her job and ends up working in a supermarket, he gets a serious alcohol habit and a gambling habit to boot and ends up penniless and destitute.

That's a lot of responsibility. A lot. Of responsibility. It's a BIG deal. And this is what is making us nervous with less than a week to go (err...actually 3 days now - yikes!). So we have had two project management meetings in two days, have several charts and tables, and many many lists. And if one small thing slips through the crack, someone is going to pay.

Anyway, if you don't hear from me for another 10 days or more, it's either because it all went really well and we had a few days down-time (ha!) after the wedding to recover, or it's because I cracked under the strain, went to the rave in the woods, and have not been seen since (though I'll let everyone know I'm OK by howling from the woods every now and then...I wouldn't want V to worry, that would be inconsiderate.) (PS So far so good! All paperwork for the couple is in order and they love it here. The rest of the party arrives tomorrow...should be fun!)

Other news?

I did say this is going to be a short entry, and I meant it. So here's a brief summery of other stuff that's happened:

Just shipped my first small shipment of oil to a deli opening in Vancouver. There was a tear in my eye as the courier took the tins away...make be proud boys, make me proud. [By the way, the tins are male, the bottles female...is this wrong?] Also packed another 10 tins off to Kathleen today - those East Coasters are hooked good and proper. I bet they've started smoking it, or even main-lining it maybe...they are HARD-CORE.
Big winds last Friday night ruined my planned quiet Saturday by pulling down a huge chunk of the lovely wisteria on the corner of the Villa, which also took down the drain pipe it happened to be tightly coiled around. So I spent my Saturday (with the help of Kimbers) hacking the felled wisteria and replacing the drain pipe. Both are now doing fine.
As is V. According to the Beeb the alien parasite is 25cm long. It's still rather quiet, and this is leading V to mistakenly believe it's a sweet quiet girl. Fat chance. The women in my family aren't a meek and quiet lot. So it's a boy, bound to be, just maybe the quiet thoughtful type?...naa, they don't run in the family either. We'll find out soon enough.
V ran her first Tuscan cookery class a couple of weeks back and all went swimmingly, though I can't say I was a huge fan of the grappa panna cotta. Definitely had a certain kick to it.
Our two lots of nesting swallows are both not keeping eggs warm. Cat hasn't shown much interest yet, but maybe she's waiting for the nest to produce something more filling?

OK, forgot to press 'publish' when I wrote this [idiot - Ed] so sorry it's a bit late!

Oh, and here's that interesting paragraph again. Thank you for all those who took the time and considerable effort to comment on how it was, by far, the most interesting part of last week's blog. This one [wink, wink] is for you...

Your Villa in Chianti

Are you looking for a villa in Tuscany, an apartment in Tuscany, or maybe a villa in Chianti? Are you looking for somewhere with amazing sunset views, a nice pool, surrounded by unbelievable scenery, run by interesting and intelligent young people? Are you perhaps thinking of getting married in Tuscany? Or are you mindlessly surfing the web when you should be working? If any, none or all of these things are true, and you have read this far, then we have it. In fact, whatever it is you want? We have the solution. 100% guaranteed. www.patrignone.com

Hot air and the Adventures of a Small Furry Animal (part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 13 May 2009 11:20:00 +0000

Sorry for the delay....normal service may be resumed...maybe

Finding the time to do this blog thing is harder than I thought. A lie. I thought it would be tricky, but assumed I'd find the odd half-hour here and there. Not so. So I've now got lots of things to talk about and about...well...two hours typing time, I guess, in which to do it all. V and Kim are cooking up a storm for guests tonight....finocchiona on freshly baked gnioccho (I'd better remember to check the spelling on this lot later!), Pasta Senese (my fave), roast pork, rosewater panna cotta and rose ice-cream (guess what's in season?)...anyway, enough about that. It's making me hungry, and I haven't budgeted any time for food. 3...2...1...go.

The Patrignone Balloon Fiesta

Mark and his balloon team were here all last week, and we had a fantastic, albeit brief time with them. As usual the pressures of normal life here meant I didn't spend as much time with him as I would have liked. But we had some fantastic flights, and even a bit of a drama to spice things up.

The first flight on the Sunday morning took us right over the Piazza del Campo in Siena...what a spectacular view that was! The landing was hairy to say the least, but hilarious. We were dragged 40m though a field of broad-beans/animal feed (depending on who's story you believe), and we ended up with the basket on its side, me and Harvey laughing ourselves stupid with Mark and Philippa well and truly on top of us. Thursday saw Patrignone's first ever balloon launch. We took off from Campo della Fonte and got some good pictures and some video of Patrignone from the air. If I can work out a way to get some of this video down-sized and uploaded without wasting half my life trying, I'll update this blog entry in due course.

On the Tuesday I was crewing, which means I get to tear around Chianti in a Land Rover following a hot-air balloon while talking into a walkie-talkie. What fun! Well, these things are normally rather straight forward, only this time things got a bit...shall we say "Interesting" at the very least. Mark was burning [balloon-speak - Ed] quite hard to get off the ground as the basket was a little heavy, and when he took off [showing off now - Ed], he lit some gas [made-up - Ed] to get high quite quickly. However, this caused to balloon to drop a flag telling Mark that the envelope was too hot. So Mark prudently decided to keep low [bored now - Ed] and look for a safe spot to put down so that someone could get out to lighten the load. Only the wind died completely, leaving Martin and myself running backwards and forwards across vineyards, ploughed fields, fences and ditches, while Mark tried repeatedly to circle around and put the balloon down in the same field, only to be thwarted when the breeze would pick up at the last moment, leaving him with no choice but to burn hard and go up and around again (I didn't know balloons could do that either, but they can), or risk ploughing into 20-year-old mature vines, and probably get us all lynched.

We eventually got down OK, and the two B&B guests who went up with Mark in the balloon absolutely loved every minute. For my part, I quite enjoyed the excitement, but could have done without the sprained ankle.

It was a tiring week, with lots of early starts for us all, but especially for Mark, who was up before the crack of dawn every day. So thanks a million Mark - you're a star and a half. And let's hope we can convince you to make an annual event of it, though maybe not every single morning, eh?

Furry Rodent Adventures

Sorry, but part 2 of the Adventures of Roger the Rodent will have wait until next time. I'm on a schedule.

Kimber's back

Yes, our intrepid Ozzie alla pari is back with us for another season, and with V up-the-duff (did I mention that before...no...?) we're very glad to have her. Though quite how insane she must be to come back for another summer of slave labour with us should be a worry to her friends and family alike. You would have thought she would have learned her lesson, wouldn't you? I guess it takes all sorts.

In any case, she's settled straight back in and you can hear all this from her point of view on her blog... The Kimba Chronicles (though shame about the spelling Kimbers).

Welcome back Kim.

[Am currently chompin on some fresh gnioccho brought in kindly by Harv...hmm...not bad, if I say so myself...]

V has a bun in the oven

Yes, V is indeed expecting another bundle of joy. Well done me. We don't know the sex yet, but V desperately wants a girl, and I guess I do too, if only to provide some familial balance, and V really really wants a cute thing to dress up in pretty clothes. So if it's a boy, expect an ambiguous name (Lesley/Leslie?) and don't be surprised to see the poor blighter in a skirt and shiny shoes from time to time.

We're obviously delighted. It's due via the sun-roof sometime mid-October. More news as and when...

Tuscan Weddings a go-go

I am supposed to be liberally sprinkling this blog with key search phrases like "Weddings in Tuscany", and "Chianti Weddings". Apparently such phrases will make my blog irresistible to the Google worms which feed on such stuff, growing larger and fatter and presumably ever hungrier for more snappy keywords. No wonder Google is so big. It's literally eating the Internet. (Shouldn't somebody do something?)

I am trying to remember to be good, but it's hard to [hmm...pan-fried finocchiona...I knew V wouldn't let me starve] write in a natural way while plugging the blog. Maybe I should have a blatantly commercial paragraph somewhere near then end that you can completely ignore?

Anyway, we've got four weddings here this summer, with another possible late booking for October (a couple who were here just last week, got engaged in Venice, and want to get married here...how sweet!). The first is in June (sorry, got distracted by a large plate of pasta... an occupational hazard round these parts) and it's quite a biggie.

We are, of course, more than a little nervous. The dearly intended have entrusted us with one of the biggest days of their lives, and by golly we're going to give them a day to remember! But it's a lot of work for us, and a lot of pressure. There's a lot to get right, but I guess we've been planning this for several months now, and everything is pretty much in place. I'm doing all the paperwork, which is pretty straight forward for a UK couple, albeit time-consuming, we've got the menu planned, the forest disco organised, Prosecco ordered, fresh lamb in the freezer (and when I say fresh, this little bundle of fluff was springing through Sardinian fields yesterday morning)...all is in hand.

But we're still a little on edge, and I guess it'll only get worse as the day approaches. And maybe that's the way it should be. We wouldn't want anyone accusing us of not treating the whole thing with the gravity and seriousness it deserves, even if the bride and groom are about as easy-going and laid back as you can get.

I think I'm getting an ulcer.

Our Swimming Pool in Tuscany is now open...and the swallows are back

And a whole month earlier than last year! We've has some amazing weather the last few weeks, glorious sunshine, blue skies, everything flowering and growing like mad after all the winter rain. So if you are looking for a Villa in Chianti with a lovely swimming pool, then make sure you take a loot at our website at www.patrignone.com before you book anywhere else. Thinking of booking an apartment in Tuscany? Well, what do you know?! We have just the thing!

See? Sounds shitty. Can't be done.

Oh, and the swallows have invaded in force. We keep beating them back, the rotten swine, but they just keep on coming! Why, oh why won't they leave us alone? We won't last long...tell Laura I love her. Two pairs nesting either side of the Villa kitchen. Stupid birds, but very chatty and pretty. Keep flying into my office to say hello. Miao'll get'em for sure. [Sniff.]

The final touches to our extra-virgin 100% organic olive oil

(Yes, I am still trying.) It's nearly then end of spring, so before the cantina gets too warm, I've been making the final adjustments to my olive oil. Basically, this means I've decanted off any sediment from the bottom of the storage vats from craftily designed taps in the conical bottom, filtered some of my remaining unfiltered oil, and done a little surreptitious blending. The finished product is extremely good - I'm really happy with it. Mind you, it's not like I can really claim much credit. Frankly, all I did was pick the olives, and that I most certainly didn't do that alone.

But it is none-the-less very satisfying to end up with such a good and completely natural oil.

Now I just need to find someone who can take a few hundred litres! I have a couple of promising leads in Vancouver, so watch this space. Meanwhile, my efforts to set up a more direct network of 'friends of Patrignone Olive Oil' (who buy direct from me and distribute to their friends and family to keep prices down) needs more work from me, and I intend to attack the issue with renewed vigour next week. I promise Kathleen!

Oh, and I found a 50 litre tin of unfiltered oil that I had set aside from a single day early in the harvest in October...and it's amazing! First come, first served!

And, I'm nearly done!

I just need to add some pictures tomorrow, but I'll press the 'publish' button now just in case some other catastrophe takes over.

Finally...please don't read this

Are you looking for a villa in Tuscany, an apartment in Tuscany, or maybe a villa in Chianti? Are you looking for somewhere with amazing sunset views, a nice pool, surrounded by unbelievable scenery, run by interesting and intelligent young people? Are you perhaps thinking of getting married in Tuscany? Or are you mindlessly surfing the web when you should be working? If any, none or all of these things are true, and you have read this far, then we have it. In fact, whatever it is you want? We have the solution. 100% guaranteed. www.patrignone.com

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 02 May 2009 19:11:00 +0000

As I write this there is a vicious storm looming. The lighting is striking close by, no more than a couple of klicks away, and set we've not had more than a drop or two of rain so far. Enough to give the air that deliciously strong scent of earth, dust, and iron, like blood in your mouth. But on the whole mustn't grumble, we're had a couple of fantastic days, beautiful weather, stunning sunsets.

We cooked for our guests last night. A full house - everyone staying here came to eat, and a merry old time they all had. We started the meal with a bottle of Prosecco out on the Terracotta Terrace watching a big red disk set through the thinnest of mists behind the Apennines. It was a bit chilly, but no one seemed to mind. People will put up with a lot for a good sunset or a spectacular sunrise.

We set wine enough for half a bottle a head, but we ended up supplying several refills, so there was much chatting, much laughing, and everyone seemed to get on really well. The food was great, much better than my over-cooked pork from last week. V has got into her stride really quickly this year, and the she did an Ossobuco that would be hard to beat anywhere, I kid you not. We had the left-overs this evening, and I swear it was even better than it was last night, as is often the way.

We sat and had a drink with our guests afterwards, before heading off to bed and leaving them to finish a bottle of decent Vin Santo.

The end is neigh

Yikes. The storm has now kicked off in fine pyrotechnic and apocalyptic style. That last crash shook every window in the house. Everyone else has gone to bed (it is past 11, after all) but how they're managing to sleep through all if this is anyone's guess.

Every time there's a big storm like this, we worry. Is a roof leaking somewhere, are we going to find an apartment flooded, is some poor unsuspecting guest going to get dripped on in their bed?
Of course, apart from the off drop or there, guests haven't had to cope with anything serious yet, thank goodness. But we have had bad leaks, and I guess, with a place as old as this, with some of the ferocious storms we get (like this one...it really is a hum-dinger), there is always the risk the someone may be going home with the kind of Tuscan adventure story they weren't expecting.

So we worry. We cross our fingers (metaphorically speaking), do a bit of praying (usually metaphorically, though not necessarily), and we hope for the best.

And right on cue, we get a power cut. The wind is howling out there, and it probably did something extreme to the power lines. I lost 15 minutes of pointless drivel, which you won't miss either, I promise you, and I headed out in the rain with a head-torch so see if there was anything I could do. As it happens, the problem was up the line somewhere and the power came back on of its own accord before I could get too wet. [By the way, don't let all this talk of storms put you off coming to Tuscany in April or May - most of the time it's lovely, honestly! Wait till you see some of my pictures!]

And what of our guests?

Well, as I promised some time ago, in the aim of being non-specific when it comes to guests, so as to avoid any direct finger pointing and embarrassment, especially to those staying here at the moment, I can't really talk about our current guests...except to say that they are all lovely. We had a group of young ladies leave today who got extremely attached to Miao and the dogs, and we were sorry to see them go to. Have fun ladies.

But it does mean that maybe I can recount an embarrassing story or two for last year, does it not? I mean, as long as I'm not naming names?

Furry friends

Well, let me tell you a story about a very resourceful critter. Small. Furry. Pink pointy nose. Whiskers. Not a small cat. Anyway, one of our guests came knocking on our door one afternoon to say someone or something had been at their fruit. Of course, we're living out in the country, trespassing on Nature's patch, so it's not surprising we get the occasional unwelcome visitor. We've had birds, mice, stray cats, lost dogs, even the occasional horse (another time, maybe). So we try to keep calm, and deal with the matter in a relaxed way. So out came the trap, grizzly metal contraction designed to dice and slice with minimal collateral mess. Actually, I jest. It's a steel trap much like the one used by the children-catcher in Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang. [Though quite why I should have though of that right now is beyond me. I must be losing the plot. Maybe I'd better go to bed and finish this tomorrow? Good idea.]

I need to finish these blogs when I can, because it's now 4 days later and I've lost my train of thought. And I'm really not totally convinced I should be airing our furry visitor stores in public! Should I?

I'll have a think...but for now. I'll stop here.

Don't you diss my anima

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 06:59:00 +0000

Sorry for the delay in posts but I have had my hands somewhat full over the last week or so. V went off to the UK to hang from trees....at least that was the plan, though wisely, they wouldn't let her.

I was left with the boys, Karri (my mate from Vancouver who I haven't seen in 5 years - check out her amazing restaurant at http://www.chambar.com/ - best restaurent in Vancouver!) and a couple of newly-weds enjoying their honeymoon.

I must admit, the couple of days before V left I was a little bit tense. Juts a wee bit. A tad snappy perhaps? Partly this was the injustice at being deserted, abandoned and left to fend for myself with all this work to do (despite the fact that I'm way ahead on the weekend away score sheet). Mostly it was fear. Fear that the boys would be unhappy, insecure, and consequently evil.

And don't get me wrong, it hasn't been an easy few days. Trying to keep up with a constant barrage of phone-calls and emails while being a full-time child-carer is no easy matter. Every time Sam went for a nap I would dash straight into the office and type feverishly for 2 hours. And after the boys were in bed it was back into the office for me.

I felt most badly for Karri. She's come all the way from Canada to see Tuscany (and us, I guess) and to get some down-time from her busy life and equally young family, and she's been stuck here with me and my brood. And the foul weather hasn't helped. Still, she's been bloody marvellous, keeping an eye on the boys when I needed to sort anything out, helping out around the kitchen...a real busman's holiday for her, poor petal.

Anyway, the long and short of it is, I loved it. We all got along brilliantly. Harv was the star of the show, being super-helpful and fun, spending loads of time with Sam, and just being an all-round superstar kid. Sam showed signs of stress early on but then really enjoyed spending time with his old man. We all got on like a house on fire, and I managed to keep enough of my work going to keep me happy.

More importantly, it made me realise what I've been missing. I have got to get a better grip of my work-load so that I can spend more time with the kids. It's all very well seeing them several times a day because we live and work in the same place, but it's not enough. I'll have to move more of my work so that I can do it on the PC in the house, and think of other ways to reschudule my work, even if it means working more at night. Whats the point of bringing our kids to grow up in such a fantastic place if I don't get to see any of it?

The next crisis

Last Thursday morning my main office PC started spitting nasty error messages at me, and while I tried to patch things up by rolling back the system but not luck. Things got suddenly very bad indeed, and it took me two days just to be able to get my data of the bloody machine. I then spent the next two days solid (well, as much of Sunday as V would let me use under these special emergencvy circumstances) rebuilding the machine from scratch. And here I am, finishing the blog I started over a week ago on the now-working machine.

It's amazing how much time techology can save, but if I add up all the hours of my life that I've wasted sorting out techology nightmares, I truly wonder if I'm ahead or heavily over-drawn.

Our first 2009 Patrignone dinner

Well, V and I haven't quite got our arses into gear yet because we nearly had 'a situation' on our hands on Saturday. Neither of us had properly checked my calendar and realised at midday that we had a meal to cook for our guests - all 8 of them. And to top things off, it was Independence Day on Saturday, with nearly everything finishing at 1! So I had the throw Sam in the car and dash around to three seperate towns lookig for a supermarket where I could get a few essential supplies, while V had the marigolds on and was cleanning Caminetto.

We had a few moments of pannic that had more to do with the shock of realising we were about to expose our cooking to our guests than the fear over ingrediants. Needless to say, it all went swimmingly. I tought my pork was over-done, but the pasta and cake were amazing, so V saved the day.

Anyway, just in case some other crisis takes over that prevents me from publishing this for another week, I'l press the button now, and check the spelling later!

The Easter Bunny, and things that go bump in the night

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 10:44:00 +0000

Easter, Easter, blah, blah, blah

Well, it's Easter Sunday, so happy Easter/Passover etc to those of you with a religious bent, and Happy Holidays to those of you without.

I must admit, Easter never really been much fun for me. Even if I weren't living in Italy where the TV is rubbish (and here it's badly-dubbed into super-fast well-neigh-incomprehensible Italian), I eat too much (usually out of boredom), and it rains. Today though, not really so bad, I must admit. Sam was super-tetchy this morning and did what he could to ruin any semblance of serenity at our Easter brekkie. But then we had an Easter egg hunt outside. V had sneaked out and strategically placed a number of sickly choccy eggs at various heights and degrees of difficulty, and off they went, our two, Jack'n'Helen's two and three youngsters belonging to a German family staying here.

And they loved it! But what most impressed me was how well-behaved they all were. Don't get me wrong: much running and high-pitched screaming, as you might expect. And the dogs joined in too, finding a few low-lying eggs and polishing them off sharpish. But some serious socialist redistribution of wealth going on, with kids adding their finds to the baskets of the not so quick-off-the-mark younger members. Sam was way too excited to really work out what was going on, and way too slow, but none-the-less he ended up with a basket-full, most of which were placed there by the other children. It really was sweet. If only they could keep that sense of fairness as they get older.

Anyway, bottom line: it was fine. Maybe I'm softening in my old age. Maybe it's having kids. Maybe I'm having a stroke. And I'm looking forward to roasting some lamb and beef later...might even do some Yorkshire puds!

We need more juice

I am getting really worried about our electricity supply. I am worried bout our teetering-on -the-edge boiler too, but our lekkie supply, or lack of it, is starting to press on me. One of the meters tripped half a dozen times this morning, just because someone was using the dishwasher while someone was using a grill. These things on their own aren't the problem. The problem is we all have so much more stuff plugged in than we used to do. 5 years ago my office would have had a PC and a phone. The PC might have been switched on once a day. Maybe. Now there's a PC, a router, a UPS, a phone, a network hard drive, the power-supply for the high-speed internet aerial, a printer (on standby, but still consuming) and who knows what else. As I walked into an apartment to try and find out what was tripping, I saw a mini-computer, a phone charging, an iPod charging, a couple of kids toys, and that was just in the kitchen, never mind what was plugged in the bedroom sockets. Even though these devices are usually low consumers, there are so many of them that our tiny supply is no longer up to the job. So as soon as something big is added (like a grill), pop.

I'd love to put in a photo-voltaic plant, but I just don't have €50k lying around, and if I did, I'd need to spend it elsewhere. But just think - free, zero-carbon electricity! So many karma points!

I'm not sure what I can do - we are, after all, in the middle of no-where, but something has to happen, that is for sure. I'll call the sparky on Tuesday, and get the ball rolling. That's immediately after I've called a couple of people to come and quote us on a carbon-neutral bio-mass heating system. Though unless I take a farmers exam (the one I failed last year because my Italian is so naff) I can't actually buy it until the end of the year. I just hope the main house's boiler lasts that long...or we're toast.

Midnight rumbles

And we had our own mini-earthquake here yesterday. V and I both woke up and said "What the feck was that?". Everything shook, just for a second, then stopped. Nothing serious. Nothing even unusual - Carla says she used to get them here all the time. Italy's history is littered with destructive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and so on. The peninsula is a warren of fault-lines and sliding tectonic plates.

However, our little shudder is a timely reminder of how awful things must be for so many tens of thousands of people just a couple of hours drive from here. It's mad - very weird to know how terrible these people must feel, all those thousands who have lost their homes as well as their town, those terrible, terrible souls who have lost loved ones, and yet I feel detached from it all. It could be happening on the other side of the world, and I feel guilty and sad that I don't feel more connected to them.

Maybe my anger after the tsunami is still there under the surface. 250,000+ lives stuffed out in minutes, seconds even, and yet the story was off the front page in days. The biggest single loss-of-life in my life-time, and people were bored of it far quicker than they get bored of some no-news event on Big Brother. I was livid, and stayed that way for weeks. Until I too forgot.

If you feel guilted into making some small contribution, try this link here. It's hard to know if it'll make any difference, but better to try than not to.

And finally...

Lola is in my bad books again. She's been in the pond and torn out my pampus grass! So I had to wade into that icy cold water and rescue the roots before the carp ate the lot. I have replanted and hope that the poor plant survives. Bloody dogs!

Fact or fiction? Cold water and the moving Earth.

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:44:00 +0000

The truth, the whole truth?

It is tricky. I'm doing this blog because I want to be able to produce a record of some of things that go on here. It's partly for me. I already find it hard to believe some of the things we've achieved and some of the mad things that have happened. But it's also for people who've been here before and want to keep up with our day-to-day dramas. And for newbies who've never been but want to get a taste for what goes on here before they decide to join us in our oasis of Tuscan calm and serenity.

So what do I do when things go wrong? Do I come clean, 'fess up, spill my guts, weep like a baby (virtually, of course). Do I lay into 'problem' guests and flay them alive on-line? Am I being fair to rant at people that can't rant back? Would it be right to do so? And what about when things do go wrong, when it really is our fault? Won't telling the truth put people off from coming here in the first place?

Tricky.

On the subject of problem guests, I am going to have to err on the side of modesty and compassion. So I'm sorry to say that you're not going to hear about particular guest problems right now. You may hear about them in the future, and tomorrow you may hear me talk about some of the real hum-dingers we had last year (heavily disguised, of course).

As for other problems that start and end with us, well, I think they're fair game, don't you?

X-treme washing

So, let's paint a picture. I'm in the middle of a course on safety considerations in wine-making cantinas when I get a text from V: call as soon as you can PLEASE, we have no hot water and guests getting antsy. I make my excuses and call V from the corridor. I talk her through some immediate tests, but it's pretty clear the boiler is, in some non-trivial way, buggered. There is, as V so expertly pointed out, no hot water. None. I go back into the course and panic for a few minutes about what to do next, before deciding I couldn't understand more than 10% of what was being said in the lecture anyway, and my time would be better spent getting my sorry arse back home ASAP.

Good move, bad move. Necessary, but once I had managed to pacify a couple of none-too-pleased guests who had been forced to rudely shed their Chianti hang-overs by having a cold shower, I was not feeling so full of the joys of spring. The boiler was indeed kaput, but some cunning plumbing surgery meant that I managed to get the hot water back on-line within 30 minutes or so.

Still, every time I face an unhappy guest (and I can count them on the fingers of one hand, minus a thumb, and a little finger, and another finger) I do end up feeling somewhat depressed. I just haven't managed to grow a thick enough skin as yet. Not enough practice. I end up taking comments personally, I get defensive, angry, and it's as much as I can do to keep a calm exterior façade and try to mediate between the concerns of my guests (justifiable as they probably are) and the angry Mr.Hyde that just want so club them over the head with a spade. Still, I really, really forced myself to confront the issue head on (rather than sulk in my office), to embrace the pain (metaphorically), to disarm them (through gritted teeth) and you know what, it worked. I diffused the situation and felt much better for it myself, and they were happy too.

The reality is that almost everyone thought the whole cold shower thing was cool, a brush with rural living, another story to tell when they get back, a refreshingly dangerous way to start the day. But it's not those ones you have to worry about: it's the few who don't think it's funny, who don't think that waking up to thick fog after a chilly night and having to have a cold shower, is romantic, rustic, and charming. Those are the ones you have to watch.

All a bit cryptic, I know, but I may revisit this one at some future unspecified date and kiss'n'tell.

L'Aquilla

And, of course, relatively speaking, all this is trivial. Completely trivial. 220 dead, and the body count rising steadily. 14,000 homeless, without a shower, hot, cold or otherwise. This is not trivial.

The weird thing is that yesterday I managed to go to the doctors and do a small shop at the Coop without hearing a whisper. It wasn't until I got back at 10am and checked my email that I realised what had happened. Emails from concerned friends, past guests, and guests to come sent me to the Beeb to find out what was going on. Why had no one said anything? Why weren't there groups of people huddled around TV sets in the supermarket or at the surgery? I am not sure if I am generalising, but I am starting to worry that the Italians take their NIMBYism too seriously. Don't get me wrong, the TV and radio stations were full of the coverage, but from people on the streets, in the supermarkets...?

It felt very surreal to be watching this all on TV as if I were watching yet another 3rd world disaster, when in fact I could get in my car and be on the outskirts of this medieval-city-turned-hell-hole in around 3 hours. And of course, the thought of making the trip lamely crossed my mind on several occasions, but oh so much more pressing pressures, like finding someone to fix the unfixable boiler and calming a tetchy guest beat me into submission. And I couldn't leave V alone with 2 kids and 20 demanding customers. Anyway, can you imagine the scene? "Hi there, I've come to help." "Oh really, you a doctor, a trained rescue worker, a nurse...an engineer, a fireman maybe?" "Well, actually, no, but I can get hot water from of broken boiler, will that help?"

Or is that just another excuse?

Podere Patrignone
www.patrignone.com

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 20:28:00 +0000

Bed time. Our first guests of the year arrived this evening, a couple from Switzerland with a coulpe from Venzuela. Interesting mix but works for them. It's amazing how on edge we are before anyone arrives. The old paranoia kicks in hard and fast. What if they hate the place, find it too cold, too messy, what if they are in a foul mood, had a huge argument, have we done enough to make the place nice, will they be disappointed, will they hate us, what if they are petrified of dogs? Will they happy. Will we be happy?

Needless to say it all went fine. They love it here and despite the chill brought a couiple of bottles of wine out and watched the sun go down. It was a good'n too.

On we go. Big, BIG group arrives on Saturday - that's the real test.

End of 1st day's blogging. Not too painful. Wonder if I'll be able to keep it up.

Where do I start?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 11:05:00 +0000

Do I wait for a more interesting day, a more momentous day? One where I have more time, or I'm in a better mood? Do I bother trying to go back and describe some of the truly scary things we've been up to here over the last couple of months? Some of them are really, really interesting and exciting, truly. Hmm?...maybe later.

What's happened so far today? Well, I've had a plumber out, followed by a heating engineer. Between them they fixed all the problems I knew I had, plus a couple I didn't know I had. So I guess I should have been feeling more stressed than I was. [Is it possible to be more stressed than AHHHH!?]

And just to round things off, one of my most recent attempts to be super-clever and improve our Google rankings has severely back-fired so our website is dead in the water, floating belly-up and drifting towards the rocks. So, I'm not at all happy. And I'm cold. And I'm hungry. I also eat when I'm stressed or unhappy, so time to go kill two birds with one stone.

I do hope my first post isn't a sign of posts to come...that would be sad.

Just had a huge lunch and feel much, much better.

Added to that, Andy, our Web Angel www.andyprice.me.uk, managed to untangle the knot I had made of our website and got everything back and on track. So the world seems a little calmer again.

Add to that the sun is beating down on us in a very Spring-like fashion, and I can surely say that I am ready for the next crisis.

Bring it on.

Life at Podere Patrignone in Tuscany

We've got a new blog!

Reunions and roses

Local markets and good food

Pasta verde with ragu Bolognese

Pasta Fagoli for a wet and chilly winter's day

News from Tuscany

More stories from deepest, darkest Chianti

Podere Patrignone goes 'carbon positive'! Yay!

Olives, olives, and more olives!

Wedding bells

Certaldo's insanely fun festival

Monte Amiata & The Enchanted Forest

Another Italy: Reggio Calabria

Bye-bye Billy, bye-bye

STOP PRESS 25/1/14:

Fancy a summer in Chianti?

Are you following me?

Recipe: Asparagus & prosciutto tart

More food news

It's been a long time coming..................

PATRIGNONE NEWS - JANUARY 2013

A note from The Editor

Funghi-fest

Olive-tastic

Patrignone saves planet

Tuscan Wedding bells

Death by scrambled eggs

Vegetable gardening & other vices

Recipe: Crostini Fiorentino

Who’s in the house?

The birds & beasts

And there you have it.

Patrignone News - January 2012

V’s views: where is the water?

You are what you eat

The battle for cleaner energy

Wedding bells

The Food Page

Animal farm

It’s not like riding a bike

Saving the planet, Tuscan-style [not as easy as it sounds]

Where has the winter gone?

Another insane few months in paradise?

Hospitals are rubbish. Doctors are lazy. Nurses are useless.

A house in the trees

Stories from Tuscany

Finally. A bit of peace.

And now, the weather

Dogs

Guests

He's back!

The Swallows

No more oil!

A Tuscan wedding...

Let the rumpus begin!

Hot air and the Adventures of a Small Furry Animal (part 2)

Don't you diss my anima

The Easter Bunny, and things that go bump in the night

Fact or fiction? Cold water and the moving Earth.

Where do I start?