One year on

One year ago we moved to this amazing place to start new adventures. What a year! We have laughed often, cried sometimes and I think achieved an enormous amount in a short space of time. Our feet don't seem to have touched the ground and we have so much more that we want to get done...bring on year 2!!

I honestly believe we deserve to be proud of ourselves and I wanted to share some of my thoughts after our crazy first year. Here they are in no particular order:

Top 6 things I love about being here

1. Good cappuccino almost anywhere for only a euro.
2. Skiing and sledging in the winter; walking, canoeing, swimming and cycling in the summer.
3. Default blue skies year round (although they have not been quite so 'default' so far this year!)
4. My new English and Italian friends, who have all been so welcoming.
5. The amazing mountain views we see everyday when we look out of the window...
6. Seeing my children blooming in a new culture and language

Top 6 things we miss:

1. Crumpets
2. Decent Tea (our families have been superb at keeping us supplied on various visits!)
3. Cheddar cheese...please cheddar companies start exporting to Italy (more specifically Abruzzo)
4. Friends and family - thank goodness for Skype!!
5. Indian, mexican and chinese food...in this part of Italy you eat Italian, full stop!
6. Porridge!

Top 6 things that frustrate me about being here

1. How beautiful this region is, yet how difficult it is for people to find out about it.
2. How difficult it is to find out information about how things work...and contrary to what others would have you believe, things do work here...just in a somewhat complicated, sometimes illogical fashion!
3. How long everything takes (post office queues, making hospital appointments, paying bills)
4. ...

no...that's it...I honestly can't think of anything else. Must be a good sign don't you think?!!!!!

Catching Fireflies

During the last month or so we have been watching the amazing phenomenon of fireflies floating around our garden. During a barbecue with our 'Irish Bugnarese' friends on Thursday night the spectacular fireflies were out once again. Inspired by the book with the same title by Tony Rocca that Dougie has just finished reading all nine of us decided to go catching fireflies. I can't begin to describe the cries of excitement from the grown ups each time they managed a catch, suffice to say it is difficult to know who had most fun - the kids or the adults.

We transferred six of our catch into a large glass jar with holes in the lid and when all the festivities were over and we were snuggled into bed the fireflies were our nightlight for the night. Dougie and I sat in the dark fascinated watching them for ages . Released in the morning, I am pleased to report that all flew away happily and now we have the jar on standby for the next time!

The Guest Garden

So one of this year's bigger projects was to make a private garden for the apartment, something I have been wanting to do for about four years now. Those of you that are following us on facebook may well have already seen the photos. Now, here comes the story!

Should we, shouldn't we, should we, shouldn't we? We should-ed and shouldn't-ed for a while (we have taken to our new country's 'piano, piano' - slowly, slowly - approach quite well I feel) and then the true face of team Reid revealed itself. Seriously, work isn't worth doing unless you are under serious pressure!! So, with just ten days to spare before our first booking of the season we went to the builder's yard and made the decision to go for it. From then on in there was no turning back!

Poles are in!

Fence is going up.

 Creating the garden involved:

• digging holes and concreting in 7 posts and 4 corner spars
• wiring the posts
• attaching the fence
• putting up screening for privacy
• knocking through the wall from the terrace
• digging out and transplanting 7 rather (too) well established laurel bushes
• building and paving a step
• capping a wall and finishing to make the garden entrance
• painting the wall
• creating a culinary herb bed

What can I say? True to form we got the job done with 3 hours to spare! Yes, if it hadn't been for the fact that our lovely Dutch guests  (the De Bruine family) arrived late evening, we might have had to warn them to mind themselves because the paint was still wet. But as it was, they remained blissfully unaware of our frantic building, clearing and painting, interspersed with all our usual guest preparation duties.

Before the breakthrough.

The moment of no return...

  

Digging out the hedge

Even our neighbour helps!

And still the digging continues...

A work in progress

6 hours before arrival

3 hours before arrival

Now, there is a private little haven for all our guests to enjoy!

June is all about the cherries...

Yes, I know, it has been, well...a while! We have been crazy busy this month with guests in the apartment, the end of school and all the various activities that involves, Dougie's mum to stay and a trip to England to see our lovely friends, but in truth...June has really been all about the cherries for all of us!

We have made cherry jam, cherry liquor, cherry cheesecake, cherry pie, cherry milkshake and cherry smoothie and the cherries keep coming! We have frozen a few kilos to see us through the winter and today we have picked another 5kg. More jam on the horizon methinks!

 

Doing the things we love...

Jake, Josh & their friends at the start!

Today is Mother's day in Italy, so, I spent some quality time with my two boys and approx. 100 other people taking part in 'bimbimbici' (www.bimbimbici.it) It's all about encouraging sustainable travel from home to school - perfect for us, as we have been trying as much as possible to take the boys to school by bike for the very same reason.

We cycled about 15km in total, after abandoning Josh's bike with the cycle organisers within the first half kilometre as we were holding up the back markers! This posed two problems 

1. Josh wanted to cycle and giving his bike to a stranger to put in his car did not go down well
2. Jake had cycled on ahead with his friend under the impression it was a race and he had to be at the front

Picture this: Mother (me) just 500m from the start with the cycle organiser's car and ambulance held up whilst mother tries to reason with 4 year old that he needs to go on the back of my bike and give his bike to total stranger, whilst both mother and 4 year old are in a panic that 6 year old son is way up ahead, nowhere to be seen, cycling in a throng of people on the main roads possibly in a panic himself as he didn't know where we were. Reality: Jake was so intent on 'winning the race' that I don't think he had even noticed mum and brother weren't with him!!

Seriously though, we had a fabulous cycle in beautiful countryside. We stopped at the Sulmona prisoner of war camp for a half time break and watched a moving film about the British, Canadian and American soldiers that had been held in the camp, the escape attempts and the local heroes that helped them - another gem of a discovery in this area that completely undersells itself - and then took a nice slow cycle back to Sulmona once Jake finally believed me that it wasn't a competition!

Woohoo...our own peaches!

 
Oh yeah! Getting ready for producing our own peaches this year. We have started planting a small orchard (well, orchard is a bit of an exaggeration - more like a couple of rows of fruit trees, but orchard sounds good doesn't it?).
 


 
 
A month ago, adorned in my pink cords and pink jumper - who said gardening couldn't be glamourous?...ahem!! - on a rather cold and misty, March morning I planted out six peach trees (baby gold 6 and baby gold 9 varieties for you fruit tree geeks out there!) some will be eaters and some will be for bottling, freezing and jamming...yum, yum...can't wait. 





In exactly one month, these babies have flowered with beautiful pink blossom and I had to share the photos with you!

Arrampicata! Sulmona Climbing Club.

In summer 2012, after several years of wondering whether there was any climbing in Sulmona and drawing a blank from most of my enquiries, quite by chance we discovered the Sulmona climbing club. What's more, we were even more impressed when we discovered it also had a funky bar on the side!!

Since September Jake has been going to climbing lessons twice a week and loves it, and mum (me)has been on the odd occasion too. What started as a way for Jake to integrate with other kids his own age in a less formal setting than school has now become a bit of a passion! Here are some photos of him 'doing his thang!' 

As of last week, the climbing club as we know it closed. It is re-opening in a different part of Sulmona in 8 weeks time. I want to wish Luca the very best of luck for the move and we look forward to trying out the new walls soon!!