Growing up......

I have been away from the computer a while with the last Harry Potter book and I have also taken up knitting!!! My poor family is going to have to suffer my knitting creations. The summer holidays are well under way, not that you could tell by the weather we have been having. I took my eldest down to The New Forest (a gorgeous part of the world) for her Badgers camping trip. Ooooooo my baby is growing up. She is away for a week, which is the longest she has ever been away from home without us. She has been really looking forward to it. A week away from the parents! Thankfully the weather is dry at the mo. My youngest Luca was calling her to come with us as we were leaving, which nearly reduced me to tears. He still sometimes calls for her, poor thing does not understand. Anyway we are off to Legoland tomorrow, fingers crossed for good weather.

A Touch Of Sadness

I had the estate agents round today to take pics of my house. It dawned on me while I was running round like a mad woman cleaning the place ready for the pics that I was going to be leaving the house that I love for a new life in Italy. As they say, the penny dropped. I know the next house will be as lovely, if not lovelier then this house but I did feel a little sad. I am sure that it will dawn on me again once the house is on the market and I am showing people round. It prob sounds silly as I have been planning this for months and have been to Italy to look at homes. It goes on the market on the 10th September, arghhhhhhhhh! The day the children go back to school. I thought that it would be bad enough have people traipsing round our home without screaming children as well.

The grand prix was a disaster but I will leave that story for another day. Makes mental note to try and update blog more often…

Back to the drawing board….

Our offer was rejected, ho hum. I am trying to be philosophical about it, if it is to be our house, it will be. We have done everything we can *sigh*. We are now just keeping everything crossed.

On a good note, Amber is over her chicken pops and should be ok to go to her last day at kindergarten on Friday.

I do not think that I have mentioned that OH sister brought us tickets for the British F1 GP on Sunday. I am soooo excited. I have never been to one before and I am sure it is going to be a good one. I will be cheering on Lewis Hamilton and OH will be cheering on Massa =-)

Slug Hopscotch

Oh how the British like to talk about the weather! It’s been raining quite a lot this week, so much so that there has been a lot of flooding up north. Anyway I was taking the dog out tonight and had to do hopscotch down the road to avoid the plague of slugs (ewwww!) that the rain had brought out.

On another note, I have been making mental notes of food provisions that I want to stock up on before the big move. I know, I know, it’s a long way off but simple things and all that ;-)

Close but no banana!

Well our offer on the house was declined, which to me was really was no surprise. However we now have two options-

Option 1 Make another offer now of about €15’000 more and if that is accepted we will have to sell our house (with the mortgage financial penalties). Spring/summer is the best time to sell. Not that you would know that it was summer with the way the weather has been recently.

Option 2 Wait for another couple of months (after summer) and put our house on the market with the view to completing in the New Year. With this option we have no penalties and it gives us a chance to save a little more. The only downside is that somebody else might buy the house.

I feel sooo torn. We have put in a second offer that will be put to the owners on Monday, so fingers crossed. Here is a pic of me (with my wonky smile!) in the village that we hope to be living in.

Chicken Pops!

Poor Amber has chicken pox or chicken pops as she calls it! Found them last night just before bed. She seems ok with them. OH told her to be careful otherwise she will start to lay eggs, poor kid! So this morning she went to go back to her room to check for eggs in her bed. I did explain that Dadda was tricking her. It's just me who is going mad being stuck in the house! I have managed to tackle some of my ironing mountain and other household chores. I was only thinking a moment ago that this time last week I was in gorgeous Italy looking at houses *sigh*.

What a difference a day (or two!) makes…..

Packing took two minutes, which was a real novelty. I usually take about a week to pack for the five of us! Going through the airport without the kids was also a real novelty, bliss. Apart from sitting on the runway for about half an hour because we had missed out slot, the flight out was pretty uneventful. We invested in the Italian map for our sat nav a few months ago and used it for the first time. So finding our way was a piece of cake.

We were meant to be viewing three properties on the Saturday but unfortunately one of them was under offer. Having said that, the one that I really wanted to see was still available. The road that the villages are on is single track twisting up the hills, which is about 8km long. Not great for my travel sickness!! The first property was beautiful with loads of original features, which I loved. The second property, which is the one that I really wanted to see, is what I imagined it would be like and more. The views from the property are breathtaking.



It has four bedrooms upstairs, which by UK standards are good sizes. The lounge, dining room and kitchen/diner are all big. The only thing that is small is the bathroom. You cannot have it all! From the front of the property it looks like a normal house but as it sits on the hillside, it goes down another two levels that you cannot see from the front.


The first level below the house has its own (run down) kitchen, enough space to convert two bedrooms and also enough space to have a good-sized bathroom. Perfect for visiting relatives. According to the agent we will have them crawling out of the woodwork wanting to visit us once we have moved!! It has a nice sized terraced garden, plenty of room for my chickens! It also has about 5 hectares of land around the village, which we were unable to see because the owner is not entirely sure of where it is!!!! Lastly it also comes with a stone building at the beginning of the village that might be able to be converted into a little dwelling, perhaps for mother-in-law!! The keys were left with a neighbour so we were able to have a second visit on our own, so we went back the same evening and took lots of pics.

On Sunday we got up, had breakfast and headed to Lucca for the day. We hired a couple of bikes and went for the obligatory ride around the wall! Lucca was also full of antiques markets, which was lovely. So we spent the morning cycling and browsing. We then stopped for a gorgeous lunch before heading to the airport to check-in. After a few wrong turns (the air was blue in the car and the sat nav nearly ended up out of the window!!) we finally found it in time. We boarded our plane in time but to be told that we needed to hurry because the airport is closing in five minutes for two hours because of an air display! Pisa airport is shared with the Italian military. Surprise, surprise, we did not make it and had to be unloaded and wait in the airport. I really felt for the families who had children with them.

So after much deliberation, we made an offer on the house on Monday evening. We are just waiting now to hear if the offer has been accepted or not. Fingers crossed!