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..