A new addition...

Hello!

I know I haven't updated for ages, mostly because there hasn't really been anything to update. Was still waiting for the planning permission and not much else has been happening.

Until this week, and then 2 things happened at once! Firstly, I got my planning permission so the good news is that the building work should soon be starting (yay). And secondly, Shilah now has a brother, a 7 week old working line German Shepherd called Kofi.

My original plan was to get another rescue in Italy, but after a lot of thought and soul searching, given the circumstances and Shilah's temperament, I decided it would be best on this occasion to get a puppy from a reputable breeder.

So here is Kofi seeing his first ever snow!



He came home a few days ago, we had a few very stressful days with Shilah not sure how to interact with him but it has all calmed down now, and last night they both fell asleep like this..



The snow today has caused much excitement with both dogs (and especially Kofi who is not scared of ANYTHING!)



Shilah having fun out with his friends..



Puppy is keeping me on my toes and is constantly into everything (especially fond of trying to chew the laptop cable) so I will try and do more thorough update next week and will just leave you with one more piccie of cute puppy feet!

Pheasanty fings..

On my walk yesterday, my friends dog Jez killed a pheasant when she shot out from the undergrowth. He killed her outright thankfully but then just left her. Gill and I dithered about what to do..neither of us really wanting to touch it (especially as I'm vegan) but then seeing as though I am toying with the idea of breeding chickens for Shilah's food, I picked it up and bought it home.

I hung it up out the way while I ate my dinner, and Shilah seemed more than a bit interested..



Then came the not so pleasant task of plucking. I have never done this before and it wasn't all that nice, I have to say.



Now years ago, I remember offering pheasant to Coin and Starsky and neither of them would touch it. So although Shilah looked keen, I thought I better check before I bothered to de feather the whole bird. So I offered him a few pieces..

There they are on the floor..and yes..that's him walking away


No amount of coaxing would get him to eat it, and I gave up. It seems that really he just wanted to play with the bird. I think he possibly thought it was a new more improved version of his current pheasant toy..



So..my foray into the whole handling a dead animal and plucking it didn't get all that far. So the jury is still out on what Shilah will be eating when we get to Italy.

Everything including the kitchen sink.

I *may* have got a bit carried away with buying/hoarding stuff to take to Italy..

The plan is for me, my aunt and Shilah (and Shilah's bed and toys - and there are a LOT of toys) to go in the Fiat Panda and follow my parents and all my stuff in their estate. It is a big estate and with the seats folded down, surely there is enough room to fit lots and lots of stuff..no?




Obviously I have to take my clothes and essential things that have sentimental value. This didn't amount to much seeing as though I got rid of almost all my personal belongings before I went travelling last year. So, I still had looooooaaads of room. Furniture seems to be really expensive in Italy...maybe it's just the places I have looked but they go in for proper solid wood type stuff, which is much nicer but also way more expensive than your flat pack £10 Argos bookcase. So, I decided to get some flat packed £10 Argos bookcases and also a bathroom cabinet while I was there (they are bound to be expensive in Italy..) and then one thing led to another and I have ended up with this stash..



The other thing that seem to be extortionate in Italy are sinks. In one shop the cheapest normal stainless steel sink was £135!! So, I got this one out of the local paper for a tenner! It was found on an old building site but is still in the cellophane wrapping. Bargain!





It's all stuff that will save me money in the long run. Honest. But the question is...will it fit in the back of the volvo? If anyone has better spatial awareness than me, then I would be interested in hearing your opinion. ;-)

How to get a woodburning stove to Italy...?

I have always, always, wanted a wood burning stove, and I hope that it will be my main source of heating (with the central heating being used just as back up).

My builder said that he would be able to fit the stove for me IF I could get it to him before he put the roof on. I had seen a stove I liked on a website and they delivered to Italy for £250...so it seemed doable. The reason I wanted a stove from the UK is because they are all quite modern looking in Italy (and expensive) and I wanted traditional (and cheap!).

I asked my dad to call the company to ask about the stove and what accompanying flue bits we needs, but the lady was..how shall we say...customer servicely challenged that day?!

Dad explained which stove he would like, then enquired if they sold twin wall flues (as we could only see single wall ones on the website), she abruptly said we needed to go to a shop that sold flues (okaaayy...I thought we had?). Anyway..undettered my dad then asked if they sold the chimney part ..and she replied 'I am too tired for this'.

Ummm...

She then repeats ' I am too tired to be talking about chimneys on a Friday afternoon'.

And that was that. I thought at first that this might be an employee that was leaving that day or something, but turns out it's the womans own company! Me thinks someone might need a little retraining in how to deal with customers who are about to buy something from you!!

So..I decided I didn't want to buy from the mad woman incase she was too tired to actually send out the stove or something, so I resorted to trusty old ebay and found this stove for £220.

(His name is Stevie stove) :-D



So now it was only the small issue of how to get a 93kg stove and 40kg worth of flue bits to Italy. Luckily I found someone via an expat forum was heading to Italy with space in his van the following week. And double luckily..he only lives 10 miles from me in England and a few miles away from where the stove needed to be delivered to at the other end!

All packaged and ready to go..



The stove will wait patiently at my project managers house until it is ready to go into the cabin. Hopefully next time I post a picture of Stevie he will be up and running and burning merrily!

Refurbishing on a budget

I don't need toooo many things for the cabin (not having a TV or washing machine for eg) but I do need some basics. On the last trip to Italy (to sign the final deed for the land) my dad and I spent 2 hours in a furniture shop doing the virtual kitchen planner with the sales assistant. It was a nice kitchen...'country style' and would have come to about £2300 (eeek).

That evening we were sat in the very basic accommodation we had rented where there was 2 brick walls holding up a sink with a piece of hessian sack tied across the front. And I thought...I quite like that! Maybe a fitted kitchen wouldn't really look right in a cabin and a more rustic look was called for..

So, I mentioned it to my dad and he suggested that he could build me a kitchen much more cheaply. It would only be base units and I would like a curtain across the front of the sink cupboard, and then shelves on the wall. (thanks dad!)

Once we got home, I got ebaying and found 15 of these great doors for £5! Bargain! They are solid oak and will look lovely once I sand them down and then paint them. As the interior of the cabin will be all wood, I am thinking of either a light green or light blue for the kitchen.



My other budget busting idea was to make a 'rag rug' which I got from here..

http://www.modabakeshop.com/2009/02/braided-rag-rug.html

So I cut up 5 old jumpers, braided them and then sewed them together! It's made a really warm and thick rug, although the colours are not what I would have picked especially, I had to make do with whatever old jumpers were available!

Finished rug..



I am planning to put it in the bedroom, and someone has already claimed it as his own!




ps- Talking of budgets and money (or lack of it)...thanks to anyone who has clicked the adverts on the side of the blog as so far I have earned £20 from it! Woohoo...and if you have time please could you click on a couple each time you visit..so I can keep his lordship in the quality of biscuits he has come to expect! ;-)

The teething problems..

My original plan was to get a cabin 'kit' delivered from England something a bit like this..



That would have left me with a nice cushion of money to live off until I found some way of making money in Italy. But it turned out that the cabin kits wouldn't meet Italian building regs..the bedroom sizes were too small (not sure why the government cares what size bedroom I am sleeping in?!)..the roof height too low etc.

It all looked a bit doomed to failure, as I couldn't afford a 'proper' house but then I was put in touch with a builder who would build me a cabin that would conform to all the regs, and *just about* be in budget. Not the budget I originally hoped for but something that I at least had the actual cash for. Don't have an actual picture but this is the drawing of the 55 sqm cabin.





This cabin also came with a bathroom fitted, all the electricity, gas central heating, damp proofing etc. I really want to get back to as basic a lifestyle as possible, but I am realistic enough to understand that I don't know how to live this way yet. My dream would be to live without electricity and all the other 'mod cons'. Although man has lived this way for 99% of his existence, I don't know how to live this way. So I am going to have to start slowly and then gradually try and work out how best to live on and with my land.

So once the building issue had been worked out it all seemed plain sailing until we hit a snag called the 'non existent road' !

This darkened area is my bit of land, and on the map this shows what looks like a road running through the middle of it.



But as you can see in reality.... there isn't. (view from half way up the land..looking down to the narrow part)



What seems to have happened is over the years the family which owned the land (and all the neighbouring land) decided to 'move' the road to a more convenient route. The old road had just grown over and so no longer existed. (This is exactly the kind of mad thing you are warned about when buying abroad! haha)

This presented a couple of problems. One of which is that building laws say that you must build at least 10 metres from a land boundary and 20 metres from a road. My original plan was to put the cabin on the flat part at the bottom of the slope, but the plot was too narrow to accomodate building it 10 metres in and 20 metres away from an imaginary road. (!)

The land gets wider as you go up but then we would be trying to build on a slope and that would mean flattening out the land which a) I didn't want to do and b) would make the cost go up.

It was decided in the end that the only place to put the cabin was the flat expanse at the top of the hill. I originally discounted the idea because it felt more sheltered at the bottom but now I am pleased with the position as it is further from the road ( even though it's a private dirt track so not exactly the M25..but still) and the views are even better at the top of the hill.

I am still left with the minimal threat that is someone decided that they wanted to go across the non existent road then I would have to let them..but seeing as though there is an access road to the side and finding the old road would prove difficult, I am hoping that this never becomes an issue!

How I came about the land..heavenly intervention?

For those of you that know me, you will know all about Coin and Starsky as they were both the loves of my life. But just incase there are other people reading this, I will quickly explain. Coin and Starsky were my previous German shepherds, I lost Coin last year at age 15 and Starsky the year before aged 11. They were both my best friends and both very different. Coin was quite possibly the most chilled out, independent GSD there was and Starsky was naturally anxious, a clown and a mummy's boy, he was my soulmate.

Coin and Starsky..




In between losing Coin and looking for land in Italy, I went travelling, spent 3 months in California, some time in Alaska and then in Canada, hand rearing orphaned wildlife (you can see my other blog for that story). So in May this year, I decided to look for a place to settle down and started looking at Italy, mostly because my mum is Italian and I do speak some of the language.

I had been looking for a month or so and had a trip planned with most of the week booked up with viewings. With hindsight, none of the other plots would have even been suitable because they were all out of my price range. I had under estimated taxes..fees..building costs...

So a few days before I was due to go on the weeks fact finding mission to Abruzzo, I logged on to an expat forum I had joined and was told...'You have a personal message from Starsky'. (??!!)

So I open it up and it is indeed a message from Starsky (but not MY starsky), but a lady on the forum who has this username. She is an estate agent and has a piece of land I may be interested in.

I first saw the land on my second day in Italy and I knew driving up to it, before I even saw the plot that this was going to be the one. It was by far the nicest plot, with spectacular views all around, only one neighbour and was also the only one within my budget (although didn't know this yet- that was still to come!).

I agreed to buy it on the spot, and infact didn't bother going to even look at most of the other plots. I do believe in fate and in some kind of life after death and I truly believe that Starsky is still watching over me from wherever he is and directed me to that perfect bit of land. :-)

Me and Starsky..

My Partner In Crime

This is Shilah, who will be setting off with me to pastures new.. He is a 13 month old German Shepherd, who I rescued 3 months ago.



He was found tied to a tree on a travellers site, weighing only 18kg (to give you an idea..he is 34 kg now and still on the lean side). He was considered too high drive for a pet home and so was sent to work as a prison dog but after 2 weeks they didn't want him either and that's when he came to me. :-)

His passions in life include playing and more playing..with maybe some playing thrown in..



Can't wait to show him the land in Italy, after having been chained up for a lot of his life he is finally going to be able to run to his hearts content!

He also has a new hobby of tracking, this is where someone walks a path and then leaves him a reward at the end (his ball) and then he tracks the scent that the person has left and follows the trail. This is possibly one of his favourite things to do in the world (even more than playing). Might even try and train him to hunt truffles! haha

Shilah tracking..



He is a bit unsure of new dogs sometimes, so I am slightly nervous as my only neighbour has 2 dogs which I am sure will be coming into my land to say hello. They seem friendly enough to people so hope they are equally as friendly with dogs and will become Shilah's playmates.

The neighbours dogs looking cute..



Shilah has been through the PETS passport scheme (getting his rabies jabs and blood test etc) and we picked up his passport this week. I love the fact it has a space for his picture!!



He is all ready for the off...we just need a cabin building now!



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Moving to Montebello...

Hello all,

So in a few months (hopefully) Shilah and I will be cramming everything into a Fiat Panda and driving to Italy to start a new life. The piece of land is a 10 minute drive from a small rural village and is at an altitude of 3000 ft (lots of snow!)

Thought I would write this blog to post our step by step progress (and worries..disasters etc! haha)

It's a bit daunting because although I know some of the language, I don't have any friends or relatives in Italy. It will be just me and my dog.

Some pictures of the land....

The view..



Where the cabin will go




The field leading to the Gran Sasso National Park at the back of the land..



Ok..so that's the intro to the land. It is 2.5 acres and about a 5 minute drive on a dirt track (up a steep hill) from the paved road.

Now to the intro to the poor unsuspecting accomplice I am dragging along with me!