Mothers Day 12 May 2013

Looking for ideas for Mothers Day then why not adopt an olive tree from the Casa Margherita grove. Perfect for the Momma. To find out more go to www.casa-margherita.com

A good day out - really!

AgriUmbria is a favourite show here at Casa Margherita. All that is new in agriculture and horticulture and much much more. Old tractors like above. Resistance is futile.

Every year we go and as always Rachel wants to return with a couple of floppy eared rabbits and a Jerusalem donkey. We resist as always but this year I did finally buy a lemon tree which I had been craving after for some years. So maybe next year the donkey.

Rant and roll

Online car insurance. Couple of clicks and job done. What's this? To pay with a credit card with Direct Line Italy I need to print a form off, fill it in including all my credit card details and fax it back to them. Do not compute - fax and online. I then need to wait a couple of days before cover is in place.

Unbelievable. But hardly surprising in a country that cannot form a government and is unable to elect a President.

Dreary dreary me this place is maddening sometimes.

Springtime in Umbria

This weekend the weather has turned for the better with lots of sunshine. This has in turn encouraged people to get out in to the countryside and in the olive groves and pick some wild asparagus. One of these precious spears is shown above. They grow at the base of olives trees and in embankments.

They are eaten in a wide variety of ways but in a sugo with pasta is one or in an omelette another.

Other olive grove news is that we have finished pruning here at Casa Margherita and so it is off to a new grove I have rented this week to knock that into shape.

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....