Studio assistants

Like all good artists, Rachel has a couple of studio assistants who help her with the creative process.

It is very warm here at the moment hence Rachel painting outdoors. Still we await the rain as the ground is terrifically dry. I am still pruning most days.

What to say?

I was leaving my olive oil storage space when this man in a suit practically jumped in front of the car and asked me to drop him off at a supermarket down the road. I said yes and he got in. He seemed upset but asked if I worked. Is said I did and he said it was good to work.

He then said he was Albanian and had lived for 22 years in Italy and started to cry. He added that his wife had died 6 months ago and cried again. He was going back to Albania.

I offered my condolences about his wife and asked if the had family back in Albania. By this time he was crying a lot and asked me to stop the car and let him out.

What do you say?

Benediction

The local priest is doing the rounds before Easter blessing every house with the an offering duly collected. In older times when money was truly scarce payment was made with eggs. Being non Catholic and a tough kilometer down a stone track the priest has yet to pay us a visit.

Mind, the Church is finding times little tougher as Mario Monti (PM) has applied a property tax to all Church premises used for commercial purposes.

The marks we make

Google Maps have updated their satellite images of our area so you can see what we have been doing here at Casa Margherita.

It is very detailed so you can see the tyre tracks in the grove, the gravel square in the orto etc etc

Spring grove

Normally the olives groves would be looking like this with lush green grass and a carpet of spring flowers. This year is different as we have had hardly any rain and the landscape resembles that of summer when the grass is dry from the summer heat.

Let's hope we get some run soon.

Online Italy

Italy is not as advanced as many other countries when it comes to e-commerce but it is changing apace.
I used an Italian website yesterday and was presented with three options for my purchase which you don't normally see.

1) I could pay the courier when it was delivered but this would cost €4 more.

2) I could send them a cheque.

3) I could pay by bank transfer.

Maybe I should write to Amazon.

Per chi ama Trevi

This is a new page on Facebook which has been started by Nello Calandri to celebrate and remember Trevi past and as a guide to the Trevi of the future.

The picture above dates from the 1920-30's and in the very distance there is a blur on the hill shown with an arrow which is our house - Casa Margherita.

New strokes

Rachel, L'artista in residence, has reinvigorated her website which includes lots of new works and also a very flattering profile of moi. Check it out at www.rkwilliams.com

Lunchtime visitor

This hare spent some minutes like this and was only disturbed when our Westie grew suspicious of our interest from the kitchen window and then barked the house down.

Pruning beckons

I have finished the fertilizing and so now I am going to start the pruning.

Today we went to the monthly antiques market at Pissignano where I picked up these pruning secateurs. These were a bargain at €5 compared to €20+ at garden centres. They were even cheaper than the pair I bought at Norcia last weekend which I managed to leave in the shop. Doh!