Those Efficient French Police, A Complicated Salad and the Singing Beast

With heavy hearts on Wednesday 1 November, we lock up our little Italian house for the winter and set off on the long drive: (Approximately 1330 miles), back to Calais and then the ferry over to the UK. The drive is okay, the weather had threatened to be bad, but it’s sunny all the way up the boot of Italy, Switzerland is dull and grey with a little snow at the side of the road at the Gotthard Tunnel. France is pretty much like a spring day in England, the sun is bright but there’s a chill in the air. After 13 hours of driving we take a break at a service station, and grab a few hours sleep. The following morning we continue on our way, half an hour into the journey and the red brake lights of the traffic in front glare angrily out of the mist. I slow and come to a stop, two lanes of stationary traffic with perplexed drivers wait to see what is happening. Seconds later and the wail of sirens is heard and a blue French police car squeezes between the two lines of traffic, six minutes later we are sailing past two vehicles moved onto the roadside, their crumpled bodywork giving us a clue to why we were delayed. The traffic flows quickly once again, and I wonder if the British counterparts of these French gendarmes would have had the traffic moving again so quickly? If this was the M6, probably not.

We pass through Luxembourg into Belgium, where we stop for some lunch. I opt for a salad bowl, all looks normal at the start. Sliced hard boiled egg and onions begin the dish, but as I uncover the lettuce and tomatoes I discover cheese, then ham, then potato. Okay so that’s not too bad, but it got worse, after another layer of leaves there was cous-cous, beans, more onion, some olives and then blue cheese. I beginning to wonder who thought this combination of ingredients would be pleasant when I hit a dollop of cold mashed potato. I decide to give up when the cold mash gave way to chopped salami. The salad is abandoned and I eat the bread roll that came with it, making a mental note to avoid all Belgian service station salad bowls in the future.

We arrive at Calais, board the ferry and feeling peckish we decide to try the curry, bad idea to be honest, it was not the best I’ve ever tasted. We disembark after a short delay and once again the driving begins, this time we’re heading north. For me the most boring, soul destroying part of the journey is the stretch from Dover to The M1. The roads are wet and the spray from lorries makes it hard to see further than a few feet ahead. Three and a half hours later we’re climbing out of the Berlingo and opening the front door and falling into bed.

Monday 22 November 2010. Rehearsals for Beauty and the Beast begin today, I meet the cast and we spend the day singing the songs from the show. I’m playing the beast and have ten songs to sing in the show, five of which are solo’s I have Two big numbers to do, one is ‘Love Changes Everything’ and the other is the Elaine Paige, Barbara Dickson duet, ‘I Know Him So Well’. I have to sing it, changing the him references in the lyrics to her. The first day goes well, our director Lara gives us the blocking for the songs and by the end of the day we all leave with a headful of dance moves and lyrics jostling for space. I come home and call the lovely Natalie Cástka, to tell her I'm singing 'our' song, as when we did panto together last year, we sang it together in the van. I was Barbara Dickson, by the way.

Day two of rehearsals go well, we’re putting the blocking into the script and going over the songs and dance routines. The rehearsal space is small and intimate, but we don’t mind as we’ve gelled well as a cast. I’m playing opposite my friend Steph, who I worked with earlier in the year. (She’s on the blog posting: Sunday 20 June 2010). The girl playing the house-keeper, Dora is Chlöe and she fits in really well with us as she likes filthy jokes and can’t stop talking too. I prepare dinner as the iPod shuffles in it’s dock, Tim Curry sings ‘I Can make You A Man’ from the motion picture, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Make me a man I think, that’s a nice gesture as all I’m making is pasta sauce. We open a bottle of Fragolino and chat as the tomato and chilli sauce bubbles away, soon we’ve opened the freezer and shots of homemade limoncello are being quaffed.

Wednesday 24 November 2010 and we have the afternoon off to work on songs. Steph and Chlöe come over to my place, we have lunch, which is a salad with olives and anchovies. We crack open a bottle of wine, followed by another, then we have limoncello shots before videotaping ourselves as we rehearse songs in my living room. The dogs love the animated actors leaping around and think it’s a good game, before Jacob rips the front of my script apart. We open another bottle of wine and tell jokes, rehearsals forgotten. I have to say this acting lark can be fun sometimes.

Rehearsals continue all week, songs, dances, lines etc. Costumes are tried on, everyone laughs at me in the Beast’s head, then we all laugh at Steph in her bonnet. The weekend comes and we have snow, and it’s bloody cold. Saturday we go to Rozz and Spike’s for a delicious curry. We drink wine and chat and have a pleasant afternoon before leaving their lovely warm kitchen to venture out into the frigid early evening air. Driving home and the iPod shuffle brings us The Saturdays with ‘Higher’ feat Flo-Rida, a sunny tune on a winters evening. I spend the evening with my friend Adam watching Strictly and The X Factor: How gay are we? We drink lots of pecorino, a delicious Italian white wine that Spike kindly gave me five litres of earlier.

Sunday 28 November 2010. It’s cold outside, so after a brief trip into town to do some unsuccessful Christmas shopping, I come home and listen to music and do some work on my laptop. Before uploading this weeks blog and settling down with Adam for another evening of Strictly and The X Factor. The results shows. I wonder if Wagner will get through again, I hope not as my mate Coley will have the screaming ab-dabs, and his Facebook status will once again inform us of his disgust, as it has almost every day since the Brazilian entered the TV talent show. (I use the term ‘talent’ loosely).

And the answer to the earlier question is: Very gay.

The Object of my Desire

Sunday 14 November 2010 and the sun is doing a grand job of warming the Italian countryside. After breakfast we drive over to Atessa. The town is quite high up in comparison to where we live, and the change in temperature is quickly felt. Locals walk around wrapped up in top coats and scarves, I am one of those crazy stranieri that walk around in November wearing short sleeves> This attracts looks of amazement from the townsfolk; surely I must be aware that it’s molto freddo? The town affords wonderful views over the countryside, and my camera is working overtime to capture them. Why don’t the pictures ever really capture what the naked eye can see. We wander around the side streets for a while, waiting for a vintage car rally to begin, however only one car has turned up. We walk through the Museo……. A religious museum, where models of the Christmas story and the life of Jesus have been made. I’m not particularly religious, but the work that has gone into these huge models has to be appreciated. My favourite is a model called Christmas in Italy, Cobbled streets and tiled roofs have snow upon them and in the backyard of one house a little fat chef is putting a paddle of pizza into the miniature oven.

We are on the road to Piano d’Archi, when I spot her, she’s slightly older than I am and her body has a few of the imperfections that come with age, yet still she makes my heart lurch in my chest. The sign she holds causes me to brake sharper than I should have, the tyres screeching on this quiet Sunday afternoon. VENDESI. For sale, and underneath is her telephone number. Selling herself in this way may be a tad forward for a lady of her years, but in this situation who cares for propriety?

On the way home we stop off for a wander around the local cemetery, something I always like to do. We find a section of the grounds is given over to children's tombs, I saunter through reading the headstones. Photographs of children smile out from the gravestones, that is the one’s taken after cameras became readily available. Back when photography was the domain of the professional only, the photographs are much more chilling. No smiling children gaze out, but a faded black and white image of the child in its’ coffin.

I click on the hazards and jump from my seat and walk back along the road towards her. Cars skirt around the now stationery Berlingo, and i wait for three travelling in the opposite direction, before I can cross the road to stand beside her. At her side I smile down at her admiring her fine curves. The height difference between the two of would be apparent to anyone passing by, should there have been any transient footfalls.

Before spotting her we had stopped off at a new supermarket that has opened to check it out. Prices here are outrageous, many times higher than near where we live, it’s obviously because the shop is quite isolated, and will attract mainly passing trade, or those who have forgotten something and know it’s the only store open on a Sunday for miles around.  I am blasé in my admiration of her curves, and she remains motionless as I saunter around her, savouring her from every angle. I take out my camera and capture her beauty, before walking away, climbing back into my car and leaving her alone standing beside the road, waiting for others to stop and allow their eyes to roam over her form. If you’ve not worked out yet what the object of my desire is, it’s a powder blue classic Fiat 500.

Olive Picking, Vertical Driving and Remembrance

Sunday 07.11.10. Today is cool, there’s a slight breeze and the mist lingers thinly over the valley. We are collecting wood for the fire, kindling and so forth, when Dutch says, “Go look in the shed.” his eyes are wide so I ask why, “Just look, we have a visitor,” is his response. I open the door to the shed; when I say shed I mean half demolished brick building, and see our visitor. It’s a rat snake, about 4 metres long with a bulge in her midsection indicating she’s eaten recently. (I don’t know why I call it ‘she’, maybe just because it’s so beautiful). It’s past the time for her to be hibernating, and although the weather is clement it’s by no means hot enough on a daily basis for a reptile. I grab my camera and take a photo as she stares at me, her small eyes shining, then I leave her in peace.  My trusty iPod in it’s dock plays ‘Holiday In Cambodia’ by Dead Kennedys as the crunch of tyres upon the road indicates that Rachel and Paul have arrived. We grab our sacks of wood and head off the help them with the olive harvest. With military precision the ground is covered with orange netting and we begin raking the olives from the trees. In the UK ,we are used to seeing the advert for a well known pasta sauce, where a spritely old lady leaps ten feet in the air on a hot summers day to catch a falling olive. It’s a pretty picture but is far removed from the truth. Olives are harvested at the end of the year, not mid summer, so in reality it could easily be raining and cold rather than hot and sunny. The traditional way to harvest them is by hand and using an olive comb, It’s similar to a child’s toy rake in a gardening play set. You basically comb the branches and the leaves fold down and the olives fall to the ground, captured in the nets. It’s a therapeutic task and ideal for my OCD, as when Paul prunes out a branch I can sit and extract each olive by hand until the branch is olive free. Five and a half sacks of olives later, with aching necks from continuously looking up, we are fed by Brenda. A sumptuous feast is laid on for us, roasted chicken with all the trimmings, Yorkshire puddings like miniature explosions covered with gravy are devoured greedily, a generous payment for our toil.

Still fed from lunch, we have no need for dinner this evening, and with a glass of wine we settle down in the evening to watch a DVD: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, which for me turns out to be one of the most boring films I have ever had the misfortune to sit through.

Monday 08.11.10. The day starts off with a short lived shower of rain, the breeze this morning is fresh as I eat my breakfast, a boiled egg with a yolk the colour of Van Gough’s sunflowers. Paloma Faith sings ‘Play On’ as the rain arrives again. We drive to Megalo, a shopping mall at Chieti Scalo, only to discover it doesn’t open until 2.00pm on Monday. So we trundle into Pescara and browse around the DIY stores, we spot a few things we will purchase in the future as our property is restored. I buy some fence posts and netting to establish the boundary line, before we pop over the road for lunch. At 2.20 we visit Megalo, and for those who know me personally, you’ll be pleased to know it has a H&M…. cheap fashion, yay! We come home using the Satnav, which decides to take us through lanes at times wide enough for just one vehicle. I slowly navigate a hairpin bend and at once start to climb a steep, almost vertical thoroughfare. I have been to Dunedin on New Zealand’s south island, the town boasts the steepest street in the world, is that so, maybe the claimant had never driven through the Italian countryside. As we reach the top of the road, the car groaning in first gear, the wheels start to slip. With my heart in my mouth I’m hoping we make it over the crest as the option of going back down is terrifying. The wheels manage to grip the shiny surface and we are at last horizontal, that is until we make our way down the other side.

After dinner: spaghetti with a hot spicy sauce, and made with Terry’s secret addition, we watch several episodes of Cold Case before falling into bed and sleeping like the dead. Honestly this Italian lifestyle is quite tiring.

Tuesday 09.11.10. The sun is back, and as Ozzy Osborne rocks in the background with ‘S.A.T.O.’ we have our breakfast, before I evict two scorpions that must have come in with the logs last night. One is a magnificent specimen, quite large and haughty to say the least. Rather than kill them I’d rather put them back outside, the smaller one cooperates and crawls onto the dustpan with the minimum of effort before being taken outside. The bigger one refuses to play ball, each direction I want it to travel in, it chooses the opposite. Eventually I win and in seconds it’s back outside scrambling for somewhere dark to hide. I take the iPod over to the house and we put up our little piece of fence, and the Proprieta privata sign. I continue to clear the path between the two houses, I clear next doors jangle of weeds too, knowing the Italians will consider me crazy to do someone else’s work for them. At 14.00 I decide I’ve had enough and go back to the apartment and chill out. Brenda calls down asking if we want curry? (is Emmerdale set in the Yorkshire Dales?) “Yes, please,” is our resounding response. I do a little work on the laptop as Ke$ha sings ‘Stephen’, for a moment I ponder of my reason for having her album on my iPod, as she just gets on my nerves, the shuffles comes and k.d. Lang takes over with ‘Constant Craving’, the classic track becoming swallowed up by a devious gust of wind that blows up my short sleeves inflating my shirt.

After the delicious curry, I wander down into town to take some photos and shoot some video of what we have here at Guarenna. We are remote regarding the position of our house, we are one of only 7 houses and a small rabbit farm. However just a few minutes down the road we have a plethora of shops and suppliers. I find the deserted railway station, it’s forlorn and neglected, windows in the ticket office have fallen victim to vandals. There is talk of it being reopened and linked to the main line that goes to Val di Sangro. The evening sees the shops open up for trade, and the lights flicker on inside the Pizzeria on the bend in the road that leads to Altino.

Back at the apartment we try out the halogen cooker we purchased a few weeks ago, it looks impressive sat on the worktop, glowing orange like a mini spaceship. Thirty five minutes later we have braised fennel (courtesy of Tina), roast potatoes, carrots and beef. It works a treat and will save us a small fortune on electricity bills we envisage.

Wednesday 10.11.10. Today I realised that I’d been living since we arrived an hour ahead of time, to be clear what I mean is my phone has auto update, so it must have updated when the clocks went back, but since we arrived in Italy it has updated again, this time forward. So I have been rising at around 06.00 rather than 07.00, no wonder I’ve felt knackered at the end of the day. We travelled today to the English war cemetery at Val di Sangro, a small group of us gathered for a remembrance ceremony. We have our poppies on and Lynn has brought a poppy wreath to lay. We had a short service held by a clergyman who works for N.A.T.O. in Napoli, I read a poem called, ‘Don’t Call Me Hero’ halfway through. We all agreed the service was lovely, and the warm sunshine helped. After the service we all went onto a nice little restaurant in Lanciano and had a fine meal with friends old and new.

We came back home and took a trip down to the shops to buy some wine and whilst there we stopped at the pizza bar, Valter served us a tasty pizza bianco, with a sausage and cabbage topping and a strong shot of coffee. Dutch had a look around the new shops that have opened, before we popped into the supermarket. At the till a gangly youth with scraped back hair and silver rings on both of his thumbs, pushed past to chat to girl in front of us. He was so obviously in awe of his reflection, as he kept glancing at the window, now transformed into a mirror by the darkness outside, “Pity, you couldn’t get a suit that fitted properly,” I think to myself as he checks himself out once again, “And those trousers could do with a good pressing”. Perhaps crumpled is the look that all narcissists are going for this season. Back at the apartment, and we open a bottle of prosecco, Rocky is outside barking into the dark, something is obviously winding him up tonight, and Liza Minnelli sings ‘Don’t Drop Bombs’ from her album ‘Results’ for which she collaborated with the Pet Shop Boys. After what we’ve been doing today, I feel the song title quite apt.

Thursday 11.11.10. We woke up today to the most magnificent blue skies, a handful of cotton candy clouds drifted overhead, and the sun warmed us. Breakfast was a disaster, first I dropped the frying pan and spilled the last of our olive oil on the floor, next a fly landed on the last two slices of bread we had and did it’s dirty fly dance all over it. To top off the breakfast calamity, I noticed our last two eggs were already broken in their little plastic holder. A mental note to drop into the supermarket later to buy more breakfast type provisions is made as The Verve play ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony. I go machete mad over at the house and hack away at the bamboo that’s over 8 feet tall, once cleared we have more of a view of the valley, a couple of trees are chopped down and it’s time to retire for the day, as the sun is high now and it’s too hot to work outside. We have lunch, focaccia with pecorino Romano followed by a steaming bowl of risotto Milanese. After lunch I lie outside in the sun to soak up a few rays, however after just 5 minutes I’m back inside and in the shade, enjoying a beer as Tears For Fears play, ‘Watch Me Bleed’.

In the afternoon we head off towards Civitella and the home owned by our new friends Lyn and John, the journey takes us up snaking single tracks, the views are spectacular, Lago di Bomba is still and silent below us as we slowly labour upwards; more steep roads to navigate, with another portion that’s almost vertical. We reach a fork in the road and start to now descend until we come to a halt outside Lyn and John’s house. The house is beautiful, quite large and with a delicious uniqueness, that the original Italian furniture they inherited with the property brings. We have a drink on the terrace, overlooking the mountains, here you really do feel like you’re sitting on top of the world. Gunshots are heard in the distance, however the hunters remain hidden among the dense greenery below us. The sun begins to drop from view and we make our way home, with a parting gift; a bottle of Lyn and John’s own olive oil from their trees. Once through the door a hunk of focaccia is torn away from the loaf and we use it to soak up some of the oil. The kitchen is filled with sounds of approval, it has a deep green, fresh taste followed by a peppery nudge at the tongue. The flavour is as bold as the mountains overlooking the olive grove, with hints of fresh cut grass and the Abruzzo rain, clear and pure. With oil this good you don’t waste it on fried eggs, but we can’t resist it and at dinner time we use a little give us phenomenal roast potatoes.

Friday 12.11.10. After breakfast we drive to meet Tina at Castel Frentano, after a brief confusion as to which fountain we should be at, we clamber into Tina’s car and head off to see her properties. The first is in the historic centre of Lanciano, it’s a mini maze of rooms and floors with what looks like a cupboard door on one floor, but once opened it becomes a secret bathroom. We next travel to San Vito and see the apartment, it’s part of an old palazzo, and has a magnificent view out over the sea. The juxtaposition between the old building and the ultra modern interior is very clever, the high gloss blue kitchen sits well with the whitewashed walls. We see an idea Tina has had for a space saving bathroom at our place, and it’s a perfect solution for our second bedroom. On the way back we drop into the abbey at Fossacessia and I take some pictures as we saunter around the cloisters enjoying the temperate day and the peace. Back at Tina’s house we have a glass of wine, then try her olive oil, it’s surprising how different each oil tastes, Tina’s is more peppery with a slight bitterness at the edge that’s quite pleasant. We eat pasta sat on the patio, which has a breath-taking view over towards the Majella mountains, which at the moment have a generous covering of snow on top.

We stop off at the supermarket to buy some odds and ends, once back home I check my e-mails, my inbox is groaning under endless Facebook update messages and spam, I delete 79 messages and quickly read the three or four that are of interest. I check over the contract sent to me for the acting job I shall be starting when we return to the UK, but ignore the script as I don’t intend to spend my time here learning lines and songs, I can do that when I return; 3 days is plenty of line learning time before rehearsals start. ‘Prologue’ by Kate Bush plays as we pop chicken into the oven for dinner and open a bottle of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.

Just before bed I step outside and look down into the valley, the lights below sparkle like gemstones, Aladdin would have believed this view to be his cave.

Saturday 13.11.10.  I wake up around 04.00, it’s warm and I haven’t slept well, I toss and turn until 07.00, when I get up to make a cuppa. Already the day has woken, the sun is up and the skies are as clear as ice. Birds are singing as I open the door, letting Rocky in to say, hello. We catch up on the BBC news, looks like the weather in the UK is grim, according to the report it’s high winds and rain over most of the country.  ‘Demigod’ by The Humans plays as we finish breakfast, before we set off for Lanciano. We take a stroll around the outdoor market, that is a sprawling mass of stalls selling everything from jackets to jewellery. The stalls have taken over the streets and alleys and neighbours squeeze past each other with a cheery, buon giorno. We buy some ceramic numbers for our house before bumping into Tina, who’s at a clothing stall, searching through the vintage items. After the market we pop over to Tondis to purchase some shopping and a wine rack, as we leave we notice the temperature on the farmacia, it’s 19^o so we have to drive with the windows open, It’s hard to believe we’re almost mid way through November. After Lunch I sit outside working on my laptop for an hour or so, finishing as the iPod shuffles and ‘Boy On The Dancefloor’ by Lisa Scott-Lee bounces out into the sunshine.

Portents and the Public Pregnancy

Saturday 30 October 2010. As we leave the house for our trip over to Italy, the iPod on shuffle as usual begins to play ‘Teeth’ by Lady Gaga, one of the songs used in last nights show. I ponder is this an omen and if so what is this portent forecasting? The drive to Dover is uneventful, until we drop into a service station for something to eat. We eat some hurriedly prepared fast food, or should that read horridly? I go to purchase a newspaper when a woman runs into the newsagents waving a white plastic stick. At first I think it’s a plastic knife, but as she gets close I can see it’s a home pregnancy test, she’s obviously just been into the public toilets and peed on the stick. She hands it a man, who I presume is her boyfriend/husband. “Look, it’s the same as the last one,” She says. There’s no expression on his face, so I’m left wondering if it’s good news or not. I leave the couple staring at each other, and walk over to the British Legion stand by the entrance, and after chatting to an old soldier there I purchase four poppies to take to friends in Italy.

We arrive at the Premier Inn at Dover and are checked in by Holly, a very efficient and friendly girl on reception, she tells us, “You’re in room 221. It’s a lovely room, with a view of the harbour .” Now here’s another omen: You can guarantee if someone tells you something is ‘lovely’ there’s going to be a snag. The room is very nice, the change from Travel Inn to Premier Inn seems to have brought about a change in decor and comfort, for a motel the standard has been lifted. We watch the end of Strictly, the celeb’s are dressed in Halloween garb and Gavin ‘spoonface’ Henson, dances shirtless, no doubt in an effort to grab the female vote. We have a glass of dreadful wine, purchased from the BP garage and watch the X-Factor. The show also has a Halloween theme and the contestants are dressed to compliment this. (Hardly original). I have no real comment about the performances, the show is just TV fodder that passes the time. As we’re leaving at 4.00 we turn in early, at least we have that extra hour when the clocks go back. The window to our ‘lovely’ room overlooks the entrance to the pub next door, so up until midnight we’re subjected to the entrances and exits of it’s customers and also it’s smokers, who congregate outside to puff away. The rest of the night, after the pub closure is punctuated by smokers who leave their rooms to stand outside; beneath our window to partake of their nicotine fix. I eventually lose my temper with a woman, who is sat on the the concrete telling two of her friends, loudly, about her boyfriends failings in the bedroom. I open the window and shout, “Shut the F*** up.” It works, cigarettes are hastily extinguished and the three scurry back inside the motel.

Sunday 31 October 2010. The ferry trip and the drive is okay, nothing of any great interest happens, apart from the small French village we pass through that has a sign advertising an event in the town hall. Apparently on Saturday evening at 19.30 there will be a chance to sample a need exciting food, coming into the village: doner kebab and cous cous. Oh what a joy they have in store. We reach Colmar, and once again, for some reason our SatNav cannot navigate to the tunnel, it always takes us over the mountain…is it a mountain? For the first time we are happy to be taken out of our way by the electronic navigation device. The view is spectacular, autumn has arrived and the trees boast every autumnal hue possible. We enter Switzerland and trundle along until we feel the need to stop for a break, we pull into a service area and are greeted by a sex shop. I can’t see the motorway services back in the UK adopting this type of retail outlet. The window display is tasteful, they have butt plugs called Anal Invader and vibrators of every shape and colour. Young men enter the store giggling, and in the corner I see a burly looking man in a check shirt browsing through a magazine.

We drive through the Gotthard tunnel leaving behind weak sunshine and light, only to emerge the other side into darkness and rain, there’s a thick carpet of snow at the roadside. Driving conditions are appalling but we continue on, determined not to stop until we reach Italy. Over the border and the rain continues, we skirt around Milano and down the autostrada; stopping at a service station for pizza and a pee, before finally pulling onto a parking area outside Parma. We set about sorting ourselves out for a night sleeping in the car, every permutation of position is attempted before we settle down. The heavy rain sounds like someone is throwing handfuls of gravel onto the car roof, suddenly there’s a flash of light and a thunderclap so loud the car shakes, so loud was the bang that a local police car came to investigate.

Monday 01 November 2010. I wake from a ’fitful sleep’ that would rival that of Macbeth at 06.10 and we continue on with our journey. We take a detour at Pescara to purchase some essentials and finally arrive at our destination, to be greeted by our friends with the most delicious beef stew in culinary history. We spend the evening sat in front of a crackling log fire with a glass of wine and an episode of ‘Supernatural’: Yes we have brought the DVD’s with us. Eventually sleep wins and we clamber into bed and the day is packed away into the memory box.

Tuesday 02 November 2010. After a refreshing nights sleep I prepare breakfast with the iPod shuffling beside the microwave, ‘Lose Yourself’ by Eminem plays as the pancetta sizzles in the pan, waiting for the eggs to join it before becoming an smoky bacon omelette. I turn out the first omelette as the iPod shuffles and once again Lady Gaga starts to sing ‘Teeth’, I wonder if this is an omen or coincidence, will I lose my teeth? Am I to be savaged in the Italian wilderness by a pack of ravenous wolves? I decide the song is linked with a happy time, therefore the portent must be good, besides I have no time to spend pondering, my omelette is now ready. Despite the date the day is warm and the valley is filled with birdsong, and after breakfast we drive to the local shops, on the way we see a cheeky little robin hopping along the lane. I’m glad we decided to buy a house here, we’re far enough away from civilisation to enjoy the peace of rural life, but close enough to town to enjoy the hustle and bustle of Italian life. We collect some wood for the fire from our land; how nice it is to say that, ’our land,’ the two words alone give the impression of the rural life. We start to mark out our boundaries, and it’s not as straight forward as we first thought it would be. The land isn’t in line with the house, but slopes off at a diagonal. Within minutes we are aware that the two small olive trees; Malcolm and Macdufff near our house are not on our land: a matter of centimetres puts them over the boundary line. Is this the omen, that we have less than we first thought?

We decide to look inside the loft space above the kitchen, the door opens and instantly I’m showered with dried rat droppings. With barely time to feel repulsed, a set of metal stairs squeal as they fall towards my head. I move and they come to rest upon the floor. We gingerly ascend only to find a third room, it’s dry and the floor is tiled, and despite being in the roof space there’s a window and space for a double bed. Good on you Lady Gaga, the portent’s a good one.

Today I’m as lazy as the day is, I go about things with the urgency of a sloth; but why would you want to rush about when the world around you is taking everything at a half a heartbeat? Dinner is followed by a stint in front of the TV with a few glasses of wine.

Wednesday 03 November 2010. Breakfast is eaten as Horse sings ‘Never Not Going To’: Now I am often perplexed about Horse, she has to be one of the finest singer/songwriters to have come out of Scotland, and major success has never emerged. WHY? The sun is high and my shoulders feel the caress of its’ rays: can it really be November? Despite the date, autumn has yet to arrive in Abruzzo, the trees here are still laden with healthy green leaves, the changing colours are yet to happen. Our friend Tina who lives in Castel Frentano calls with a lovely house warming gift, we show her around our house and excitedly tell her of our plans for the place. I finally paint my front door, green, as that was the colour that Zio Gasperino, (Uncle Gasperino) had painted it. We have decided to live for a year with the original windows if we can, to see if we can cope in the winter, as we’d love to keep the original ones if we can. Tina looks at our house through different eyes, and comes up with solutions to problems we’ve been bogged down with concerning layout. It suddenly hits me that we are actually doing this, leaving England for a new life in Italy. Little things like driving to places without the SatNav, or having fluid conversations with shop assistants make me realise I’m becoming a part of the way of life here.

I pop down into the village and buy a Sim card for my phone, it’s one that you buy credit for in advance, however unlike in the UK buying one isn’t just a matter of popping into the shop and handing over your readies. Here you have to show them your identity card or driving licence, also you must have proof of your codice fiscale, (Italian tax code) and an Italian address. All this may seem to be a pain in the ass, but think about the telephone crime it prevents if your number can be traced. I make a spicy tomato sauce for spaghetti as Black Eyed Peas sing ‘Shut Up’, we open the now chilled bottle of prosecco that Tina gave us, and watch ‘Zoolander’. It’s a film I’ve meant to watch many times but not had the time to devote to it. I find it highly amusing.

Thursday 04 November 2010. The sky is a menacing grey this morning, but through the clouds shafts of sunlight are rushing down towards the valley. After breakfast as ‘Bad Blood’ by Siobhan Fahey finishes playing, we drive to Ortona. We take the coast road and drive at a pace that allows us to drink in the views. We spend the morning walking around the market before stocking up with supplies at Iper, a large supermarket complex on the outskirts of the town. The afternoon is first spent trying to battle our way through the twisted mass of undergrowth that is our land, and second making another batch of Limoncello, ready for Christmas. Dinner is a delicious roast chicken, that is so far removed from the bland supermarket chicken back in the UK, with roast potatoes and veg. Then we realise there’s something missing, good old British gravy: Pencil is retrieved and ‘gravy’ is added to our list of items we must bring out with us from England. (Top of said list is, Yorkshire tea and HP sauce).

Friday 05 November 2010. We are greeted by a warm and sunny morning, in the distance the chug of machinery can be heard, down at the bottom of the lane olives are being harvested. Occasionally the buzz of a chainsaw can be heard and the shouts of men, giving instruction in dialect. It’s the olive picking season, trees are hanging heavy with a mix of green, purple and black fruits, fat, juicy promises of lucious oil. We walk over to our house and start to clear the land at the right hand side of the house. As we clear the weeds and dig through the unkempt earth we discover it’s not a slope but red brick steps. we toil beneath the hot sun, I can’t believe that it’s Bonfire Night today in England, and here I am in Italy this late in the year working outside shirtless. (not a treat for the neighbours I hasten to say.) The steps are finally revealed as ‘Kish Kash, by Basement Jaxx, featuring Siouxsie Sioux plays. Next we set about demolishing two low walls made up of odd bricks and concrete. I dig out some tree roots as Dutch cuts the vegetation behind the house down. We stop for a few minutes to marvel at our progress before setting about chipping away the horrid concrete covering the bricks around the front door. Four hours and forty five minutes later we decide it’s time for a break.

We have lunch and open a bottle of Maschio Traminer Aromatico; as the bubbles dance around inside the glass, I tear at hunks of bread stuffed with green olives and gobble it down greedily. Lunch over and I chill out reading a little before languishing beneath the shower, washing away the hard work of the day, finally at 15.00, I sit outside, open a can of Peroni, and listen to the men still hard at work harvesting their olives.

After dinner we watch a DVD, sadly without realising it’s set in Montreal, and the dialogue swaps from English to French in a whisper, and there are no subtitles. We persevere and as the credits roll, I realise I don’t have a clue what the film was about. I rectify this with a few episodes of the banal American sit-com, ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’, (do they?) The boxed sets of series 7 and 8 were drastically reduced in HMV, so I got them on a whim, thinking at least it’ll be some English speaking TV to watch in Italy. There’s part of me thinking I should have saved my money.

Saturday 06 November 2010. I wake several times from 04.00 onwards, each time I settle back into slumber, I dream about Lorraine Kelly doing a piece to camera about pantomimes. Now I like Ms Kelly, but feel her effervescent presenting style too much for the early hours. At 07.30, still tormented by Lorraine I rise. Ribbons of mist drift over the valley, the towns of Archi and Altino on the ridge opposite are hidden from view. A weak sun tugs at the mist but to no avail, the diaphanous ribbons are winning. Breakfast over and the mist has taken over the entire valley, even the houses at the base of the mountains have been swallowed up. The sound of the machinery and men harvesting now has no substance, disembodied noises emitting from within a cloud. In the distance to my right the dog that sounds like it has a perpetual sore throat barks.

Tina and Richard call over to look at the work we want doing on the house, before leaving to put a quote together for us. Tina leaves us with an enormous, fat bulb of fennel, she grew on her orto. We dig some more, uncovering a cobbled slope underneath the years of weeds and dull earth. To my left there is a commotion in the undergrowth, the squealing of what sounds like wild boar cuts into the stillness of the day. I take Rocky for a walk down the lane towards Merosci, the hamlet down from ours at Guarenna. I chat to some men who are loading sacks of olives onto a pick up, a handsome man shakes my hand and says “Hello”. and an elderly signora eyes me suspiciously, only smiling when I bid her good afternoon. As I walk back home, I see two magpies land a few feet in front of me, their heads bob up and down before they fly away. What is it they say: two for joy, another portent, and an accurate prophesy, at this moment in time my joy is immeasurable.