Climbing Everest

Right, I’m back. Spring here in Italy is in full swing. The peach and plum trees are ready to burst into flower, the weather is balmy and still no sign of rain. The business trip last week didn’t go too well, but we’ll have to see. However we had a another few bits of news since, which may improve our financial situation significantly. I don’t want to go into too much yet, because it’s not certain, but things are definitely looking up. One of them though, was that one of the teachers at Susan’s school wants private lessons for himself (an English teacher mind and not for one of his pupils!). The ‘Path to Self-Sufficiency’ does feel like a climb up Everest sometimes. Somebody wrote Monte Everest at the entrance to our village across the road. There must have been a cycle race we missed. We often are on the end of stages of bike races and the 3 km up our hill are tough. I’ve done it myself.

We’ve been over to Arcola a couple of times already. We virtually finished completely cleaning up all terraces. A couple of olives still want pruning and some digging for spring planting is to be done, but that’s it. It’ll be the first time in 3 years that the whole place is in immaculate condition. Well actually in 8 years, since the place hadn’t been touched for 5 years prior to us taking over. Tomorrow we’ll be over at George’s in Villa, where we want to clear a couple of terraces for planting sweet corn and potatoes next month.