Little things from home

You know what, we British do make good biscuits! In fact, I'd go so far as to say some of the best in the world. There I said it!! And last week I found myself missing the choice you can find on the UK supermarket shelves and for some bizarre reason ginger nuts in particular...so I decided to make my own (well, why wouldn't you!). Thank you, thank you Paul Hollywood for this fantastic Ginger Nut recipe...they tasted like the real thing and it was just what the biscuit doctor ordered!!

Wine time!

Cantina plastered and tiled

The Press after pressing!

It is that time of year again. I can't quite believe it, our third wine harvest since we've been living in Italy...where has that time gone! And this year, we are doing things a little differently.

For the first time we are experimenting with white, as well as red, wine. Already pressed earlier this week and starting to ferment nicely in our stainless steel barrel, we have just under 100 litres of organic white wine sitting, waiting and with any luck it will be as tasty as the red!

And this year the Montepulciano sat for four days in its skins instead of two with the hope of producing a deeper, heavier red. Let's see what happens.

Dougie has spent the summer reading about natural wine and every year we are learning more and more about the wine making process, as well as how to manage the vines during the growing season with the aim of producing good quality organic grapes. Susceptible to lots of diseases if the weather conditions are not spot on though, Montepulciano is not the easiest grape to manage!

Adverse weather early on in the growing season this year has led to reports that for the first time since 1950 France will exceed Italy in volume of wine production this year. No problem here though, luckily a couple of hundred litres should be enough for us!!!!!







The 2012 vintage!

Another Abruzzo autumn approaches

At the end of spring I didn't really feel I had anything to say on the blog, so I've taken a break for and a while. Now as autumn approaches, with a few things to write about  I have decided to reignite my blogging mojo! We have been living here now for over two years - where has that time gone! - and are happier than ever with that very big step we made back in June 2012.

We still have plenty of plans and projects for the house and garden: We are still making lovely fresh food with our organic veg grown in our garden, despite a relatively poor summer in terms of fruit and veg production, we have our third grape harvest fast approaching and Dougie's knowledge of organic wine making is increasing year on year, we are opening up our rental apartment for the winter season for the first time, we are improving our Italian language skills (although we do now have two personal translators in the form of Jake and Josh!), we are still trying to get to grips with how Italian systems work - but then we are reassured by the majority of our Italian friends that they too are still trying to work it all out after decades!  - and we seem to be slotting in nicely to our local community getting out and doing lots of activities.

 

So, autumn is on its way and we look forward to making the most of another year in this amazing region of Abruzzo.

A day of recycling

Today has been about putting some old bits and bobs to good use. Thank you to Katy for your donation of a pair of cords (which I have already used as Christmas stocking tops for my boys) and the old sink.

Now, the rest of the cords has been added to a couple of fabric scraps and an old mattress protector to make my new and funky sewing machine cover...

And the old sink has become my latest garden feature as a planter...

Happy recycling days!!

The climbing wall is finished!

The Easy Bit

Six days, a lot of measuring, drilling, hammering, lifting, painting and screwing and we have ourselves a fantastic climbing wall in our garage! But not just any old climbing wall, no...ours is an adjustable, tilting climbing wall...well, you know us by now, why do things the easy way!

In line with our efforts of putting everything to good use and reducing the amount of waste we create, the wall has used two old scaffolding poles we had lying around, left behind by the previous owners, to create the hinge and some bits of wood left over from building a partition wall in the cantina.

We would also like to say a big THANK YOU to Mick Cooke and the team at Entre Prises UK for their help for us climbing wall building novices. They thought of everything regarding the holds for our wall and their amazing speedy service was second to none.

The following photos show from the first framework going up to the end result - our very own tiltable climbing wall.

Enjoy...and come and climb...

The Centre Panel - Part 1 done...Parts 2 & 3 to go!

Just not enough power tools being used - get the grinder out too!

199 holes drilled...only another 140 to go!

Precision carpentry at its best!

And 199 T-Nuts hammered in...you can guess the rest.

Hoorah (or phew!) ...it works!

The highly technical threaded bar!!

The recycled scaffolding pole hinge

I'm sure the garage wall is strong enough to take it!

Part 2 painted while the man of the house works on part 3.

Ok - so it's all up.

So where do we put these then?

The exciting bit!

And it becomes a family affair!

Well, I had to try it didn't I?

The finished item!

Finally all the boys get a go.

Sneaky Sunday morning coffee, juice and cakes while we wait for Daddy to come back from the Rugby in Rome!

 

Building our climbing wall!

The panels have arrived (thank you Luca for you help),
The garage has been cleared
...let the build commence!


Soooo excited!!