Sunday 5 April 2015

Buona Pasqua!

Today has felt like a real day of decadence - a lie-in, a walk, a delicious roast dinner, wine and a log fire. What luxury!

Our feline and canine friends were all kind enough to allow us to sleep in until 9am today, which was a first, and didn't go unappreciated.

After our lazy start, we had bowls of hot porridge for breakfast before heading off for a walk with Reggie. Yesterday's rain had mainly dried up, although the air was still damp and it was markedly cooler than it has been of late. We decided to walk up the cava track today so that we could be sure of being able to let Reggie off the lead to allow him to have a proper run around. He seemed to enjoy the freedom, bounding around all over the place, and we seemed to reach our usual turnaround point on the track very quickly - we therefore decided to walk a little way further, and took a steep track uphill towards what appears to be some form of hunters' hide (at least we don't think it was part of the Gothic Line!)

Petasites albus (White Butterbur).

Petasites albus (White Butterbur).






Reggie cocked his leg twice while out walking today, so he really does seem to be growing up! It's a little sad to think that he's losing his puppy-ish ways, but we praised him heartily each time he did it.

After a good hour's tramping around we got back to the car and headed home to light the oven and bring in some firewood.

We'd had a vague plan forming in our heads for a couple of weeks to cook up a proper roast dinner for Easter. The plan almost crashed and burned when we got back from the supermarkets yesterday and realised that we'd failed to buy a chicken - but thankfully the other alimentari in the village, which is a little more butcher-focused than Amanda's, came up trumps and saved the day (at least it saved us from having to trek back to the supermarket yesterday afternoon).

We therefore set about preparing our chicken for the roasting tin along with garlic, thyme and lemon, then ferried it down to the waiting oven in the apartment (for the record, we still don't have a working oven in our house, so this sort of cooking involves trekking across the garden).


While the chicken started to cook, we prepared potatoes, carrots and cabbage, and before long we were sitting down to an Easter feast of roast chicken, roast potatoes, steamed carrots and buttered cabbage - washed down with prosecco of course. Such a treat!

We didn't neglect our furry companions in our festivities - when the man in the alimentari had chopped the head and legs off the chicken for Stuart, he had also removed all of its innards and wrapped them up separately, so Lucca, Florence and Reggie shared between them the bits we humans would rather not eat, but what they probably consider to be the best bits of chicken.

After clearing the lunch things away, it was back to our PCs for another afternoon of tinkering with the website for me, and working on seed planting Excel spreadsheets for Stuart.

New on our website you will find:




We've also made some additions to the spring flora page and started work on a 'history' page about the history of our property (at least as much as we know of it).

So, while the last two days have felt luxuriously relaxed and slow-paced, we really haven't been sitting around doing nothing!

Before we knew it, it was 7.15pm and time to shut down the PCs for the day, close the cold frames, put the geese away, stoke the fire and pour another glass of wine.

Happy Easter!

Thank you, Hannah, for our beautifully drawn Easter card, which depicts me 'chopping a brambel boosh as well as saying SIT to Regy', while Uncle Stu is 'wisaling'. We love it.


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