Olive oil is healthy

Eating a Mediterranean diet rich in either extra-virgin olive oil or nuts cuts by 30% the chances of those at risk of heart attacks or strokes suffering either event or dying of a heart condition, research rpublished by the New England Journal of Medicine reveals.

What better way to start eating more olive oil than by buying some good quality Italian olive oil direct from the producer and here at Casa Margherita and you can also by our cookery book which is full of Umbrian recipes to inspire your Mediterranean cooking. Go to www.casa-margherita.com

Olive grove fashion

This season we are mainly taking our stylistic cues from Ron Moody's Fagin albeit with the use of contemporary fabrics with splashes of colour on the wrist trim.

Prune and rant

As I slowly prune the trees here at Casa Margherita into shape you are afforded a lot of time to mull and muse on stuff.

Today was politics.

The USA fail to put a stop to the long signaled budget cuts despite the knowledge that failure to do so will be a brake on US and world economic growth and so exit from recession.

1 in 4 Italians vote for a the new M5S party who want to draw a line under the old moribund political system and make some radical (not really) changes. Having won this powerful position they are not now willing to engage with any of the other parties thereby wasting a vital opportunity and consigning Italy to another period of flux it can well do without. Things could change on this....

France elects a socialist government whose almost first act is to alienate the drivers of economic growth by raising the highest tax rate to 75%. How old school is that. A one term President, Mr Hollande.

More olives tomorrow. What will I muse on....