Don't you diss my anima

Sorry for the delay in posts but I have had my hands somewhat full over the last week or so. V went off to the UK to hang from trees....at least that was the plan, though wisely, they wouldn't let her.

I was left with the boys, Karri (my mate from Vancouver who I haven't seen in 5 years - check out her amazing restaurant at http://www.chambar.com/ - best restaurent in Vancouver!) and a couple of newly-weds enjoying their honeymoon.

I must admit, the couple of days before V left I was a little bit tense. Juts a wee bit. A tad snappy perhaps? Partly this was the injustice at being deserted, abandoned and left to fend for myself with all this work to do (despite the fact that I'm way ahead on the weekend away score sheet). Mostly it was fear. Fear that the boys would be unhappy, insecure, and consequently evil.

And don't get me wrong, it hasn't been an easy few days. Trying to keep up with a constant barrage of phone-calls and emails while being a full-time child-carer is no easy matter. Every time Sam went for a nap I would dash straight into the office and type feverishly for 2 hours. And after the boys were in bed it was back into the office for me.

I felt most badly for Karri. She's come all the way from Canada to see Tuscany (and us, I guess) and to get some down-time from her busy life and equally young family, and she's been stuck here with me and my brood. And the foul weather hasn't helped. Still, she's been bloody marvellous, keeping an eye on the boys when I needed to sort anything out, helping out around the kitchen...a real busman's holiday for her, poor petal.

Anyway, the long and short of it is, I loved it. We all got along brilliantly. Harv was the star of the show, being super-helpful and fun, spending loads of time with Sam, and just being an all-round superstar kid. Sam showed signs of stress early on but then really enjoyed spending time with his old man. We all got on like a house on fire, and I managed to keep enough of my work going to keep me happy.

More importantly, it made me realise what I've been missing. I have got to get a better grip of my work-load so that I can spend more time with the kids. It's all very well seeing them several times a day because we live and work in the same place, but it's not enough. I'll have to move more of my work so that I can do it on the PC in the house, and think of other ways to reschudule my work, even if it means working more at night. Whats the point of bringing our kids to grow up in such a fantastic place if I don't get to see any of it?

The next crisis

Last Thursday morning my main office PC started spitting nasty error messages at me, and while I tried to patch things up by rolling back the system but not luck. Things got suddenly very bad indeed, and it took me two days just to be able to get my data of the bloody machine. I then spent the next two days solid (well, as much of Sunday as V would let me use under these special emergencvy circumstances) rebuilding the machine from scratch. And here I am, finishing the blog I started over a week ago on the now-working machine.

It's amazing how much time techology can save, but if I add up all the hours of my life that I've wasted sorting out techology nightmares, I truly wonder if I'm ahead or heavily over-drawn.

Our first 2009 Patrignone dinner

Well, V and I haven't quite got our arses into gear yet because we nearly had 'a situation' on our hands on Saturday. Neither of us had properly checked my calendar and realised at midday that we had a meal to cook for our guests - all 8 of them. And to top things off, it was Independence Day on Saturday, with nearly everything finishing at 1! So I had the throw Sam in the car and dash around to three seperate towns lookig for a supermarket where I could get a few essential supplies, while V had the marigolds on and was cleanning Caminetto.

We had a few moments of pannic that had more to do with the shock of realising we were about to expose our cooking to our guests than the fear over ingrediants. Needless to say, it all went swimmingly. I tought my pork was over-done, but the pasta and cake were amazing, so V saved the day.

Anyway, just in case some other crisis takes over that prevents me from publishing this for another week, I'l press the button now, and check the spelling later!

The Easter Bunny, and things that go bump in the night

Easter, Easter, blah, blah, blah

Well, it's Easter Sunday, so happy Easter/Passover etc to those of you with a religious bent, and Happy Holidays to those of you without.

I must admit, Easter never really been much fun for me. Even if I weren't living in Italy where the TV is rubbish (and here it's badly-dubbed into super-fast well-neigh-incomprehensible Italian), I eat too much (usually out of boredom), and it rains. Today though, not really so bad, I must admit. Sam was super-tetchy this morning and did what he could to ruin any semblance of serenity at our Easter brekkie. But then we had an Easter egg hunt outside. V had sneaked out and strategically placed a number of sickly choccy eggs at various heights and degrees of difficulty, and off they went, our two, Jack'n'Helen's two and three youngsters belonging to a German family staying here.

And they loved it! But what most impressed me was how well-behaved they all were. Don't get me wrong: much running and high-pitched screaming, as you might expect. And the dogs joined in too, finding a few low-lying eggs and polishing them off sharpish. But some serious socialist redistribution of wealth going on, with kids adding their finds to the baskets of the not so quick-off-the-mark younger members. Sam was way too excited to really work out what was going on, and way too slow, but none-the-less he ended up with a basket-full, most of which were placed there by the other children. It really was sweet. If only they could keep that sense of fairness as they get older.

Anyway, bottom line: it was fine. Maybe I'm softening in my old age. Maybe it's having kids. Maybe I'm having a stroke. And I'm looking forward to roasting some lamb and beef later...might even do some Yorkshire puds!

We need more juice

I am getting really worried about our electricity supply. I am worried bout our teetering-on -the-edge boiler too, but our lekkie supply, or lack of it, is starting to press on me. One of the meters tripped half a dozen times this morning, just because someone was using the dishwasher while someone was using a grill. These things on their own aren't the problem. The problem is we all have so much more stuff plugged in than we used to do. 5 years ago my office would have had a PC and a phone. The PC might have been switched on once a day. Maybe. Now there's a PC, a router, a UPS, a phone, a network hard drive, the power-supply for the high-speed internet aerial, a printer (on standby, but still consuming) and who knows what else. As I walked into an apartment to try and find out what was tripping, I saw a mini-computer, a phone charging, an iPod charging, a couple of kids toys, and that was just in the kitchen, never mind what was plugged in the bedroom sockets. Even though these devices are usually low consumers, there are so many of them that our tiny supply is no longer up to the job. So as soon as something big is added (like a grill), pop.

I'd love to put in a photo-voltaic plant, but I just don't have €50k lying around, and if I did, I'd need to spend it elsewhere. But just think - free, zero-carbon electricity! So many karma points!

I'm not sure what I can do - we are, after all, in the middle of no-where, but something has to happen, that is for sure. I'll call the sparky on Tuesday, and get the ball rolling. That's immediately after I've called a couple of people to come and quote us on a carbon-neutral bio-mass heating system. Though unless I take a farmers exam (the one I failed last year because my Italian is so naff) I can't actually buy it until the end of the year. I just hope the main house's boiler lasts that long...or we're toast.

Midnight rumbles

And we had our own mini-earthquake here yesterday. V and I both woke up and said "What the feck was that?". Everything shook, just for a second, then stopped. Nothing serious. Nothing even unusual - Carla says she used to get them here all the time. Italy's history is littered with destructive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and so on. The peninsula is a warren of fault-lines and sliding tectonic plates.

However, our little shudder is a timely reminder of how awful things must be for so many tens of thousands of people just a couple of hours drive from here. It's mad - very weird to know how terrible these people must feel, all those thousands who have lost their homes as well as their town, those terrible, terrible souls who have lost loved ones, and yet I feel detached from it all. It could be happening on the other side of the world, and I feel guilty and sad that I don't feel more connected to them.

Maybe my anger after the tsunami is still there under the surface. 250,000+ lives stuffed out in minutes, seconds even, and yet the story was off the front page in days. The biggest single loss-of-life in my life-time, and people were bored of it far quicker than they get bored of some no-news event on Big Brother. I was livid, and stayed that way for weeks. Until I too forgot.

If you feel guilted into making some small contribution, try this link here. It's hard to know if it'll make any difference, but better to try than not to.

And finally...

Lola is in my bad books again. She's been in the pond and torn out my pampus grass! So I had to wade into that icy cold water and rescue the roots before the carp ate the lot. I have replanted and hope that the poor plant survives. Bloody dogs!

Fact or fiction? Cold water and the moving Earth.

The truth, the whole truth?

It is tricky. I'm doing this blog because I want to be able to produce a record of some of things that go on here. It's partly for me. I already find it hard to believe some of the things we've achieved and some of the mad things that have happened. But it's also for people who've been here before and want to keep up with our day-to-day dramas. And for newbies who've never been but want to get a taste for what goes on here before they decide to join us in our oasis of Tuscan calm and serenity.

So what do I do when things go wrong? Do I come clean, 'fess up, spill my guts, weep like a baby (virtually, of course). Do I lay into 'problem' guests and flay them alive on-line? Am I being fair to rant at people that can't rant back? Would it be right to do so? And what about when things do go wrong, when it really is our fault? Won't telling the truth put people off from coming here in the first place?

Tricky.

On the subject of problem guests, I am going to have to err on the side of modesty and compassion. So I'm sorry to say that you're not going to hear about particular guest problems right now. You may hear about them in the future, and tomorrow you may hear me talk about some of the real hum-dingers we had last year (heavily disguised, of course).

As for other problems that start and end with us, well, I think they're fair game, don't you?

X-treme washing

So, let's paint a picture. I'm in the middle of a course on safety considerations in wine-making cantinas when I get a text from V: call as soon as you can PLEASE, we have no hot water and guests getting antsy. I make my excuses and call V from the corridor. I talk her through some immediate tests, but it's pretty clear the boiler is, in some non-trivial way, buggered. There is, as V so expertly pointed out, no hot water. None. I go back into the course and panic for a few minutes about what to do next, before deciding I couldn't understand more than 10% of what was being said in the lecture anyway, and my time would be better spent getting my sorry arse back home ASAP.

Good move, bad move. Necessary, but once I had managed to pacify a couple of none-too-pleased guests who had been forced to rudely shed their Chianti hang-overs by having a cold shower, I was not feeling so full of the joys of spring. The boiler was indeed kaput, but some cunning plumbing surgery meant that I managed to get the hot water back on-line within 30 minutes or so.

Still, every time I face an unhappy guest (and I can count them on the fingers of one hand, minus a thumb, and a little finger, and another finger) I do end up feeling somewhat depressed. I just haven't managed to grow a thick enough skin as yet. Not enough practice. I end up taking comments personally, I get defensive, angry, and it's as much as I can do to keep a calm exterior façade and try to mediate between the concerns of my guests (justifiable as they probably are) and the angry Mr.Hyde that just want so club them over the head with a spade. Still, I really, really forced myself to confront the issue head on (rather than sulk in my office), to embrace the pain (metaphorically), to disarm them (through gritted teeth) and you know what, it worked. I diffused the situation and felt much better for it myself, and they were happy too.

The reality is that almost everyone thought the whole cold shower thing was cool, a brush with rural living, another story to tell when they get back, a refreshingly dangerous way to start the day. But it's not those ones you have to worry about: it's the few who don't think it's funny, who don't think that waking up to thick fog after a chilly night and having to have a cold shower, is romantic, rustic, and charming. Those are the ones you have to watch.

All a bit cryptic, I know, but I may revisit this one at some future unspecified date and kiss'n'tell.

L'Aquilla

And, of course, relatively speaking, all this is trivial. Completely trivial. 220 dead, and the body count rising steadily. 14,000 homeless, without a shower, hot, cold or otherwise. This is not trivial.

The weird thing is that yesterday I managed to go to the doctors and do a small shop at the Coop without hearing a whisper. It wasn't until I got back at 10am and checked my email that I realised what had happened. Emails from concerned friends, past guests, and guests to come sent me to the Beeb to find out what was going on. Why had no one said anything? Why weren't there groups of people huddled around TV sets in the supermarket or at the surgery? I am not sure if I am generalising, but I am starting to worry that the Italians take their NIMBYism too seriously. Don't get me wrong, the TV and radio stations were full of the coverage, but from people on the streets, in the supermarkets...?

It felt very surreal to be watching this all on TV as if I were watching yet another 3rd world disaster, when in fact I could get in my car and be on the outskirts of this medieval-city-turned-hell-hole in around 3 hours. And of course, the thought of making the trip lamely crossed my mind on several occasions, but oh so much more pressing pressures, like finding someone to fix the unfixable boiler and calming a tetchy guest beat me into submission. And I couldn't leave V alone with 2 kids and 20 demanding customers. Anyway, can you imagine the scene? "Hi there, I've come to help." "Oh really, you a doctor, a trained rescue worker, a nurse...an engineer, a fireman maybe?" "Well, actually, no, but I can get hot water from of broken boiler, will that help?"

Or is that just another excuse?

Podere Patrignone
www.patrignone.com

Bed time. Our first guests of the year arrived this evening, a couple from Switzerland with a coulpe from Venzuela. Interesting mix but works for them. It's amazing how on edge we are before anyone arrives. The old paranoia kicks in hard and fast. What if they hate the place, find it too cold, too messy, what if they are in a foul mood, had a huge argument, have we done enough to make the place nice, will they be disappointed, will they hate us, what if they are petrified of dogs? Will they happy. Will we be happy?

Needless to say it all went fine. They love it here and despite the chill brought a couiple of bottles of wine out and watched the sun go down. It was a good'n too.

On we go. Big, BIG group arrives on Saturday - that's the real test.

End of 1st day's blogging. Not too painful. Wonder if I'll be able to keep it up.

Where do I start?

Do I wait for a more interesting day, a more momentous day? One where I have more time, or I'm in a better mood? Do I bother trying to go back and describe some of the truly scary things we've been up to here over the last couple of months? Some of them are really, really interesting and exciting, truly. Hmm?...maybe later.

What's happened so far today? Well, I've had a plumber out, followed by a heating engineer. Between them they fixed all the problems I knew I had, plus a couple I didn't know I had. So I guess I should have been feeling more stressed than I was. [Is it possible to be more stressed than AHHHH!?]

And just to round things off, one of my most recent attempts to be super-clever and improve our Google rankings has severely back-fired so our website is dead in the water, floating belly-up and drifting towards the rocks. So, I'm not at all happy. And I'm cold. And I'm hungry. I also eat when I'm stressed or unhappy, so time to go kill two birds with one stone.

I do hope my first post isn't a sign of posts to come...that would be sad.

Just had a huge lunch and feel much, much better.

Added to that, Andy, our Web Angel www.andyprice.me.uk, managed to untangle the knot I had made of our website and got everything back and on track. So the world seems a little calmer again.

Add to that the sun is beating down on us in a very Spring-like fashion, and I can surely say that I am ready for the next crisis.

Bring it on.