In the news...the 2013 olive harvest, discover the Enchanted Forest, Billy goes MIA, and Patrignone saves the World, a bit more than last time. News from Tuscany More stories from deepest, darkest Chianti Yes, it’s hard to believe, but it has been a whole year since our last newsletter, and what a busy and exciting year here at Podere Patrignone. Well, it's been exciting for us. You may think otherwise... Podere Patrignone goes 'carbon positive'! Yay! You may remember that Simon was ever so slightly nervous about how we would get this 1000kg monster biomass boiler plus two 1500L tanks into our beautifully restored capanna (shed) through over a foot of wet, sticky mud?  Well, here’s how…… A big thank you to Ettore and his trusty tractor who managed the muddy bit!  Anyway, that was last February and all is now up and running smoothly.  What a treat it has been this winter to crank the heating up and not feel guilty about murdering the planet (and our bank account). What we hadn’t properly understood was the volume of wood the beast consumes and what that would equate to work-wise.  The trees must be felled, cut unto moveable chunks, transported, then cut again to fit the boiler, split, stacked, and allowed to dry for a year or so.  This led to some frenzied activity this summer to ensure we had enough wood for both this year and some of next.  An excellent way for Harvey to earn a few pennies and an excellent excuse for Simon to buy himself new toys (a bone-crunching wood splitter, and a scary circular saw, a saw so big, and so scary, it could do the old magicians trick in the blink of an eye). And this month will see Nicu and Simon doing very good impressions of lumberjacks, cutting enough wood to last until the end of 2015! That’s a lot of wood, but thereafter they’ll only need to cut enough for 1 year. Another unanticipated benefit has been our use of ‘biochar’. Simon can switch off the boiler at the end of the gasification stage (don’t ask me!) leaving him with a boiler full of lovely charcoal. We then grind this up and combine it with chicken poop and water for 48 hours before spreading it on to our veg beds. It’s a technique being used in the 3rd world in places with poor soil and little water, and Simon wanted to try it here. We ran a trial with our tomatoes, biochar at one end, and plain chicken poop at the other, with incredible results.  Not only were the biochar plants bigger, bushier and better producers, they were also more disease resistant.  Apparently the charcoal releases the nutrients more steadily or something clever like that…ask Simon! The important thing is it works brilliantly, and Simon has been ordered to keep me supplied with the charcoal I need for my veg beds. This was a big investment for us, and even with grants, the payback could be 10 years or more. But it means we have reached the goal we set when we started this adventure: to be carbon neutral within 5 years. OK, so we were 4 months late, but we can now say that Podere Patrignone is carbon positive. This means that when you add together the electricity we produce from the solar farm (and the surplus we pump into the grid), the energy our solar thermals produce, and the carbon-neutral energy we generate from the biomass boiler, we are effectively removing carbon from the atmosphere. So future guests can offset the carbon cost of their flights simply by staying with us. Not bad, eh? And we’ve not finished yet. Simon plans to add more solar panels later this year, and we’re looking at ways of storing winter rain so that we can use it in the gardens in the summer. We’ll let you know how we get on. These beauties are just about ready to be squished. Lovely.   Olives, olives, and more olives! Yes, this year has seen us pick more olives, and make more olive oil then ever before. After an unusually cool spring, it took a long time for this year’s olives to get going, and at the beginning of October, just a month before we’d usually start picking, I was starting to get a teeny bit worried. We had a team of local pickers ready to go, but the olives were just way too green and hard. You can still pick olives when they’re green, but the ideal time to pick is when they are just a little pink. Too green, and you make too little oil, and the oil is very bitter. Too black, and you make lots of oil, but it is very fatty and greasy, with less fruitiness and a lower polyphenol content (the antioxidants that make olive oil so good for you). It’s a fine balance, and those last weeks of October meant daily trips to the trees to see how the olives were maturing. And by the 7th November, they were ready, and so were we. And if I was expecting a routine harvest, I was going to be sorely disappointed. The weather was being horribly awkward, with regular downpours halting the harvest for the day; you can’t pick if the leaves are wet or you’ll damage the buds that produce next year’s harvest.And we nearly had a pickers revolt, as they got tired and frustrated by the lack of progress, blaming my 'bushy' trees and the awful weather for slow progress. (We sent Max in to show them how easily they could be replaced with child labour, and that straightened them out.)But in the end, we made it. And we have over 1000L of the most amazing oil I've tasted. I'm always impressed at how our oil can be so different from one year to the next. Last year’s oil was full of fire and spice, a nutty chilli-oil without the chilli, but this year’s oil is warm and mellow, like a good brandy, full of fruit, and possibly the most aromatic oil we've ever produced.And now that our trees are producing more olives, I’m hoping the oil-lovers amongst you are going to start spreading the word to your friends and relatives. We have a 24 hour turn-around on all orders (more or less) so as soon as you feel the need, drop us a line, or order your taste of Tuscany direct from our website.Simon has been busy on Facebook with posts on how almost all commercially available olive oil is tainted at best, 100% fake at worst, so go to the Podere Patrignone FB page if you want to learn more on the subject. Scary reading!  facebook.com/PoderePatrignone   Like some of our 100% organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil - just press this button! Wedding bells  We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Jeff & Andrea again on their marriage here at Patrignone in July.  Jeff & Andrea were returning for their third visit but bought along close friends and family to help them celebrate their marriage at Castellina’s medieval castle.  It is a beautiful and romantic spot.  The ceremony took place in the afternoon and then everyone came back here to enjoy prosecco and nibbles on the terrace followed by their banquet watching the sun set over the hills.  A lovely day and a lovely couple, we look forward to seeing you again soon! We have two weddings this year.  Olivia & Steve from the States are tying the knot here in May followed by Shereen & James (a British couple living in Oz) in August.  We are getting excited already and wish both couples all the very best. See you soon!   Certaldo's insanely fun festival  Jeff & Andrea, took our advice and visited the annual Certaldo street-theatre festival, Mercantia, just after their wedding.  In the third week of every July this colourful international event is a must-see, with performing artists from all over the world and delicious local food stands (loads of truffles).  If you are going to be in Tuscany over that week you must take the chance to spend a night up there. It really is a lot of fun, with music, and fire-eaters, trapeze-artists, and abseiling ballerinas galore. Jeff & Andrea are going to plan future visits to Patrignone around it, it’s that good.  This year the festival runs from 16th-20th  July. More info on www.mercantiacertaldo.it Monte Amiata & The Enchanted Forest Our greatest discovery last year was the spectacular Monte Amiata, south east of Siena and a couple of hours to reach the top of the mountain from our door. But, in my opinion, it’s a lovely drive and totally worth it.  A ski resort in the winter, the mountain has great hiking, cycling and tree top adventure park in warmer months.  Many local Italians disappear up there to cool down by a few degrees on hot summer days. Simon & I stumbled across it just by chance. We were having some ‘we’ time away from the kids, and Simon saw the mountain in the distance and said, “I wonder what the view is like from up there?”. But what we loved most were the spectacular forests and handy barbeque and picnic areas. In September we went back with the boys and played cricket on the big grassy areas (much to the amusement of the locals), had a go at the adventure tree thingy, (like Go Ape in the UK, and geared up for kids from 4 to 49) and then for a barbie in the woods. The boys foraged for firewood, while Simon got the barbie going and treated us to marinaded steaks and ribs. We hardly saw another soul the whole time we were there, giving the kids ample opportunity (taken with gusto) to practice their primal screaming and play hide and seek. It was magical, it really was. So if you want a quiet day away from the tourist bustle, and you fancy a change from the Chianti hills, then this is a great way to get away from it all. We’ll be back in the spring for sure. Another Italy: Reggio Calabria At the end of March we decided to take a quick break before the start of the season.  Not having much time to plan, we listened to some of our local friends and headed south to a part of Italy we'd never seen.  We broke our journey down with an overnight stay in Pompeii. Which was more impressive than we'd expected. Pompeii itself is a lovely town. Yes, it's touristy, but it's a pretty town, and kept well. We liked it. We will return when the two little boys are not so little and less easily bored. The next day we continued south to the tippie-toe of Italy, Reggio Calabria,  and in particular, to the lovely town of Scilla. If you are planning on including Calabria as part of a trip to Italy I cannot praise Scilla enough. It is a beautiful fishing town with views across to Sicily (a 20 minute ferry crossing away) and the food, mostly seafood (not surprisingly), was wonderful.  If this is a place that you’re interested in, please let me know, as I can highly recommend the lovely family run B&B where we stayed, with bedroom balconies reaching out over the water. And the same can be said for the amazing hotel that we stayed in just a couple of clicks from Amalfi, on the way home: the views were just breath-taking. Bye-bye Billy, bye-bye Last summer was not all fun and frolicks I am sad to say.  Billy, our pigeon whose gender had eluded us, began behaving more strangely than normal, when considering she was a wild bird who followed me everywhere – on foot – and wasn’t even afraid of the dogs. But she became even more needy and extremely vocal. And then she laid an egg.  A-ha! So Billy was a girl, and a lonely girl at that. She sat on her egg for many days, but I managed to coax her down with a snack, and we had a little chat about the birds and the bees.  Billy took all this in, packed her bags and moved out.  Well, moved out in the sense that a teenager moves out – just around the corner (or down the valley) so she could bring home her laundry.  She would be home by the time I went to let out the chickens, sweeping down as normal to follow me.  She would get fed and watered, have a chat with us and her other local friends, but come dusk, off she would go.  I was fine with this, as all mums are, glad to see one of my own making their way independently in the world, but returning home to check in at regular intervals.  But then she stopped checking in.  This may not have worried me quite so much (perhaps her mother-in-law had taken on her laundry?) if it had not coincided with the start of the hunting season and the arrival of a beautiful pair of sparrow hawks.  Wherever Billy may be, I am glad she was a part of my life for two lovely years, and I think of her every morning when I make my way to the chickens, imagining her following in my footsteps.  Just after Billy moved out (already an emotional time), Annouska (one of our white chickens) got sick.  She, like me, may have been mourning the loss of Billy, or perhaps she was just too hot to go on. So she didn’t. Sad times. However life goes on, and Simon kindly purchased 3 new hens for my birthday in October, and we are on to ‘B’ company now.  Barbara is our new white Livornese who keeps Adele company (chickens are surprisingly tribal), Bernie & Beatrice are our beautiful black and gold Livornese.   The story doesn't end here, of course. I am hatching plans (!) to give the girls a man to boss around so we have have lots more babies. And I'm also looking into the idea of getting a couple of piggies. And maybe a cow. And a goat. And maybe some sheep. And geese, I've always liked geese... STOP PRESS 25/1/14: Charlie was playing one of her usual games of chacing Nicu's car up the drive last night. Unfortunately, she slippin in some wet leaves when going around a corner and ended up in front of Nicu. He was going slowly, thank goodness, and manage to get his brakes on fast, but Charlie still got a hefty clout. She hobbled back home OK and we kept her warm inside last night. Lucky, xrays this morning showed she hasn't broken anything, but she can't walk at all and is clearly in a gread deal of pain...she's sleeping quietly behind me right now. We'll keep you updated through Facebook... Fancy a summer in Chianti? You may or may not know (if you follow us on Facebook you will have heard all about it) we were left without a housekeeper slap bang in the middle of last season: not an enviable situation but we were saved by the awesome Ramona, who has helped us out on a part time basis for years, and had a bit more spare time than usual last year.  If you have met Ramona you will know that she is a force of nature and a demon cleaner & ironer, as well as a great cook. She is also very clever, and she's finishing a nursing qualification which will keep her busy this year.  So, we are looking for an energetic someone who can help us out for approximately 8 months this season. It is hard work, but it is also 8 months living in the heart of Tuscany with your very own cottage, with a sunny porch and views over our olive groves, and two days a week off to go and explore.  If you, or anyone you can think of, may be interested, please get in touch with me. Are you following me? You don't have to wait for us to write another newsletter if you want to find out what's happening at Podere Patrignone. We have a Facebook page which we use quite a lot, and these posts also go to our Twitter feed. There's also a "Friends of Podere Patrignone" page where guests old and new plus other groupies can hang out and swap news, ideas, gnocco recipes. And there's a blog, where you'll find prettier copies of this newsletter, along with other interesting stuff. Feel free to join the cultural revolution and join us in cyberspace. Podere Patrignone Friends of Podere Patrignone Our Website Email us Twitter Google+ Recipe: Asparagus & prosciutto tart This was a very popular antipasti last season and is so quick and simple to make.  It shouldn’t be long until you can get your hands on some fresh asparagus so here it is. Torta di asparagi e prosciutto Serves 8 as an antipasti or 4 for a light lunch with salad: 1 round of ready rolled wholemeal pastry 1 large handful of basil leaves 1 dessert spoon pine nuts, lightly toasted 1 handful grated parmesan Juice of 1/2 lemon 10 or 12 asparagus spears (I prefer Sprue or wild, thin spears), tough ends snapped off 10-12 slices prosciutto Extra virgin olive oil Preheat your oven to 180C/360F. Lay out the round of pastry on to a 30cm/12" pizza tray, lined with parchment.  Score a circle 2cm/1" inside the edge. Put the basil, pine nuts and parmesan in a food processor with the lemon juice and switch on.  Pour in some olive oil through the spout until you have a green liquid the consistency of thick double cream.  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Spread this in the inner circle of pastry, fairly thinly.  Save the rest of the paste in an airtight container in the fridge and serve on fresh pasta within the next week. Wrap each asparagus spear with a slice of prosciutto and place on the tart in an attractive fan or any other shape that takes your fancy.  Drizzle more oil over and pop in the oven for 20-25 minutes, or until the base is crispy. Serve warm. More food news It is with great sadness that we have to tell you that our favourite restaurant, the ever popular Al Macereto, has closed down.  Fantastic food, personal and attentive service in a woodland setting, and only 10 minute drive…..it was the perfect, and we sent all our guests there.  Those of you lucky enough to eat there will remember Wynn, the charming Italian/ Welsh owner. He turned 50 last year (like someone else we know), and after many years of slaving away and working all hours, he decided that it was time to try something new.  I can’t say I blame him, but it is a great pity. Good luck Wynn... Simon & I made it back to Ristoro di Lamole with great mates Mick & Jackie (of Hedonistic Hiking) in October.  It was Simon’s first visit in over 4 years and we were left wondering why he had left it so long.  Lamole is an idyllic spot to while away a leisurely lunch, with excellent food and wine, and excellent multi-lingual staff.  The drive there is stunning if a little long, but well worth it (in day light!).  This is always a must for any food-lovers with a romantic streak. And that's all we have time for. We'll be back again soon, but not too soon. Keep an eye on our Facebook page, as that's where we'll put any breaking news. Thanks for listening! Verity And if you really, really love this, feel free to spread the word in one of these fiendeshly clever ways. Share Tweet Forward to Friend +1 Share Copyright © 2014 Podere Patrignone, All rights reserved.

It's been a long time coming..................

but it's on it's way.....the new Patrignone newsletter. Don't get over excited but it should help brighten a tea break or so, we hope. We will also try and keep this blog going, particularly regarding food and my cooking shenanigans as we get so much interest on FB and lots of questions from guests. My latest kitchen digressions are bread baking. Any excuse to have the oven pumped up all day to keep me warm! Having read last year, from Michael Pollan's amazing 'Cooked', about the real lack of nutrition in all predominantly white breads, even home made ones, I have been on a quest for the tastiest wholemeal recipes. Simon got me MIchael Pollan's recommendation, Peter Reinharts book on just that. He spends almost half of the book on the science and the history of his experimentation (science is not my strong suit) before getting to the recipes. I have completed his master recipe just once so far but it looked, smelt and tasted fantastic and was made with 100% wholemeal flour, regular not strong! I think I under kneaded as the crumb was a bit cakey but I will have another go on Saturday. I did also make 3 large ale bloomers from an old favourite Richard Bertinet recipe....not a high scorer on the nutrition stakes but really delicious and a great treat. Why the passion for bread? Obviously, all Tuscan food is delicious, seasonal and simple BUT the bread is white, saltless and a deadly weapon within 24 hours. There are hundreds of Tuscan recipes using stale bread, that is why! It is not only void of goodness but taste as well. I wander what Tuscan bread consisted of before the refining of flour?

In this issue: KILLER mushrooms, DEATH by eggs, GREEN olives, mud, weddings and FURRY animals...oh, and we SAVE the World!

PATRIGNONE NEWS - JANUARY 2013

A note from The Editor

Verity is continuing her stewardship of our newsletter, adding this responsibility to her duties as mum, super-chef, chicken-girl, horticultural hack, jam-maker, master-baker, and dog-walker. She's produced another little gem here. Sorry it's such a long time since the last one. My fault entirely. I'm a bit busy too. Enjoy.
Simon - Ed

Funghi-fest

Welcome to the November edition of Podere Patrignone's newsletter. Yes, I wrote this in November and I have been waiting for our “Editor” to pull his finger out and do his thing. And now it’s January! And so much has happened in the last 2 months that most of my work will have to be written, darn it! Curse you Editor! [Sorry! - Ed]
You may remember that our last newsletter began with a slightly frenzied report on the lack of water last autumn and winter…..no such problem this winter. No siree. All we’ve had since November is rain, rain, and more rain. Outside where Simon has been working on the new biomass heating plant there’s almost a foot of mud. So, damp, muddy, cold. Yes, we might as well be back in Ol’Blighty.
The only people who’ve been really happy with the weather are the mushroom pickers. As I take the mutts for their daily constitutional, I am overwhelmed by the number of funghi in an incredible variety of shapes and sizes. All the local old boys are out in their droves (when they’re not trying to shoot stuff) and picking bags of them. This is obviously a tricky, and potentially fatal, hobby and requires great patience and skill, which is why I’m always worried when Simon gets his book out and says, “Let’s eat this one”. For now we are just enjoying looking at them all and keeping a safe distance, especially after hearing the tragic story of family in Pisa fed bad ‘uns by the dad on a home-made pizza.
Oh and Winter also means waking to the sound of gunshots at 6am, 5 days a week. This includes Sunday (our only opportunity for a lie-in), deep joy! However, I mustn’t complain too heartily as some charming hunters brought me over 3 kilos of wild boar meat a couple of weeks ago which has been stewed and devoured. - V

Olive-tastic

When I first wrote this back in November [again, sorry—Ed] we were still in the thick of our harvest. The lack of water over the summer meant the olives just weren't ripening. We normally pick our olives when they are between green and black (like the olives in the photo above). So this put Simon in a difficult position. Wait a bit longer in the hope that the olives ripen a little more, but risk worsening weather and a more difficult harvest. Or, pick now, make less oil (green olives produce less oil) and risk a bitter product because the olives are unripe.

In the end, the weather won. At the beginning on November there was a really strong wind, and more than a half of the olives in one field disappeared over-night. So Simon started picking straight away.

However, we needn't have worried. Yes we made less oil than we were expecting, but the oil itself is fantastic. Very spicy indeed this year, and fantastic on lightly toasted fresh bread.

We’re still shipping the 2011 oil to those who want oil that’s not too strongly flavoured for salads and cooking, but the 2012 will have settled down by the early summer and we’ll start shipping that too.

If you want to buy either, please email us and will sort everything out and get it couriered to your door. We’re shipping oil all over the world on a weekly basis to people who want to get their hands on the real deal. Remember, real olive oil and supermarket olive oil (even the expensive stuff in fancy bottles) is NOT the same thing. - V.









[I am in the middle of a massive rant on Facebook about Jamie Oliver’s so-called “olive oil” but they are all the same. Unbelievable that this crapola is still being bought and sold and fed to young children. It’s bad, bad, bad.—Ed]

Patrignone saves planet

At last! Something we can do with the crumbling shell of a building behind our house. For years we've been caught between two stools: put a roof on it, but be forced to demolish immediately it as it doesn't have planning permission, or demolish it, and lose those lovely hand-built stone walls forever.
In late November [yes, I know, this was a very different story when Verity first wrote it...Ed] me, Nicu & my builders started construction work for our new biomass & solar heating plant.
Yes, there was a lot of red tape, applications, forms, stamps, signatures, and money. But I'm getting used to all this now, and while it wasn't exactly stress free, I didn't lose a lot of hair in the process.
Inside will be a highly efficient, state of the art, biomass-burning boiler (logs or wood-chips) and above will be thermal solar panels. Between the two we will be able to provide hot water and heating all year around without panicking over extortionate, and ever increasing, LPG costs. And because our fuel source is renewable (the trees grow, we cut the trees, we burn the trees, the trees grow back, and so on), it means that very soon now we’ll be carbon positive. All our electricity needs (and more) are covered by the PV solar farm, and now we’re no longer consuming fossil fuels for our heat.
I say “soon” with a certain amount of trepidation. In a week our boiler arrives. It weights 1000kg (this is very heavy), and somehow, we have transport the boiler and the two 2m high1500L water tanks across a swamp of mud a foot deep. We have a plan involving tractors, palate shifters, and bits of scaffolding pole, but am nervous of discussing these plans in public for fear of ridicule.
In any case, even when/if we have the components in place, it’ll take a couple of weeks to plumb in before we go live.
So, maybe it’ll get used a bit this winter, maybe not. Either way I know we’ve completed our renewable energy plans, and just about within our 5-year plan.
And from now on our guests will be able to off-set the carbon from their flights to Italy just by staying here.
Finally, the guilt-free Tuscan holiday we've been promising our planet-conscious customers. - S

Want to find out more about our eco-values? Look here.

Tuscan Wedding bells

Having given ourselves a bit of a break from weddings in 2011, we made up for it in 2012. We do love a good wedding but each one turns us a little greyer and adds a few extra wrinkles. We did our biggest ever in June with the lovely Brits, Simon & Kayleigh. Kayleigh, it has to be said, could be the best organised bride the world has ever seen, which led to a very painless, stress-free wedding where we actually enjoyed ourselves as well as worked (& sweated) like demons.
Our second wedding was more intimate with a wonderful, musical bunch of creative Canadians. Our bride, Marissa, was a bridesmaid here a few years ago and we were delighted when she chose Patrignone as her ideal spot to tie the knot with the gorgeous John. We will always remember the sound of Marissa’s family rehearsing their music in our front gazebo as we ran around doing our preparations. Magical (where’s my CD!?)
And not forgetting Rino & Kirsty who stayed here for their wedding week whilst having their reception off site. A lovely Australian group, partly of Italian decent and with the best behaved and charming boys on the planet! Congratulations to you all and we’re hoping to see you all back for an anniversary or two. - V.



Remember the summer...? If you are lucky enough to be in Tuscany in May, you must not miss the Iris & Rose festivals in Florence, just spectacular. I finally made it this year before everything had gone over!

Death by scrambled eggs

So here they are! After much talk and little action we finally got around to getting ourselves a brood of chickens. Not only are they fun to have around and an attraction for the kids but, allegedly, they would provide us with eggs.
Simon spent many an hour researching thoroughly all the various coop options and decided to build our own. With Nicu’s help, in just a couple of days, a veritable chicken Duomo was constructed.
We visited our local man, supplier of, allegedly, laying chickens and chose two each of three varieties. Despite the warnings of another local chicken buyer not to go for Livornese (the white ones) as they tend to be naughty And fly off, I didn’t think anything could be naughtier than our kids, so I picked them anyway.
We held a nail biting vote on Facebook to choose the names for said 6, the only stipulation being they had to begin with A. Introducing Annie, Agnes, Agatha, Adele, Annouska and Alexia. I believe that myself and my nieces are the only ones who know which are which and I wouldn’t bet the life of a child on it.
Naturally, I immediately stopped buying eggs and waited patiently for them to settle in to their new, palatial surroundings. And I waited, and waited, and waited. Then we got a couple, then none. Then a few more, then none. Then 5 or 6 a day (more like it…..must have been all that talk of the pot) but then, again, none! We did not get enough for our own needs let alone enough to sell a few to hopeful guests. And these are the fussiest chickens on the earth! They only eat certain kinds and colour of scraps, leaving the rest to go manky.
Anyway, despite being warned by everyone that our chooks would stop laying in the winter, and after a further pot-related chat with a couple of slackers, I am still getting 5 or 6 eggs a day and am making fresh pasta, frittata and custard like there’s no tomorrow (when there will probably be no eggs). We have so many eggs we are getting thoroughly sick of them and have started freezing them. Hey ho.



This secret stash of eggs was found beneath their hut. They’d been squirreling away their produce for days, no doubt planning to exchange them for booze or tobacco or bribe a guard into helping them escape.

Vegetable gardening & other vices

This is the result of more hard graft on the part of Simon and the tireless Nicu. Phase two of my vegetable garden was completed in time for spring planting. Made from our very own cypress trees, these are much prettier and a darn site cheaper than phase 1!
Believe it or not, manure is like gold dust in these parts. How many cows, sheep, horses have you seen in Chiantishire!? And so, beggars can’t be choosers. Nicu and I had to dig well rotted, rather beautiful, goats pooh from a fantastic cashmere goat farm near Radda (well worth a visit). Fine if you are strong and in your twenties, not quite so easy for someone a little more mature and of the fairer sex.
I am dearly hoping that my chickens will help alleviate that necessity this year. For six smallish creatures they do produce an incredible amount of ghastly-smelling poop, which I believe is some of the best fertilizer you can have. However, if there’s one thing I have leant in 2012, it is not to count on your chickens!

Recipe: Crostini Fiorentino

This is a recipe from an old aristocratic Tuscan family that I don’t believe I have seen anywhere but in their home. It is extremely simple but delicious and an excellent appetizer at any time of year. Oh and it uses eggs!

To serve 6
1 baguette
4 fresh organic eggs
1 large beef tomato
1 tsp of rinsed capers
3 tbsp green herbs
Salt, Pepper
Extra virgin olive oil

Start by boiling your eggs for 10 minutes and then placing in a bowl of cold water. Finely chop your tomato, capers and herbs and mix well. Peel and chop the eggs and then mash, wish a fork, in to the herb mixture. Add salt, oil and pepper to taste. Refridgerate for at least one hour before serving.
Slice your baguette in to 1.5cm (1/2 inch) slices and toast. Generously spread to egg mixture on top and drizzle more oil before serving.

Who’s in the house?

It was a truly sad day in November when our Pammy packed her bags for the last time and left us for more fun and exciting things. However, she did ensure that she had provided us with an able replacement for 2013 so mustn't grumble! It is a dirty, sweaty job but someone has got to do it. Anyway, Pammy, we would like to thank you for your tremendous efforts over the last two seasons with us. I will miss our kitchen cocktails! And warm welcome to Anika who will be arriving, from Germany, in March.












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The birds & beasts 

As always, our animals have proved to be far more popular than us…...it’s OK, we’re used to it and we understand. They are much sweeter. When people get in touch after their visit it is not usually for anything other than to ask us how Charlie & Lola are doing, or to send us some snaps of them.
Well, they are both doing nicely thank you. Funnily enough they have both begun to shed a few pounds since the end of the season…...now why could that be!? Despite our pleas and firm instructions, both in person and in our Big Book, we were ignored and our dogs (and the cat for that matter) got very fat in the summer of 2012…….you know who you are!!
Not only were they fed by extremely disobedient guests but they were also invited in to/ encouraged to enter apartments and, I am led to believe, on to beds! This is utterly unacceptable and we know who you are and if you want to come back contracts will be signed, in blood.
The poor doggies are missing the wealth of fuss and attention as well as the wonderful walks our guests drag them on, and I am trying my best to take them off for a good ramble or run each day.


Billy the pigeon is still here despite risk posed by local nutters with guns. The cat has a nasty cough (too many cigarettes) but is otherwise fit and well. She spends most days staring at Billy from about 1m (and 4 panes of glass) away.
And the fish? The fish are huddled together in a big group in the centre of the pond, waiting for Spring. As are we.



Sam took this photo below of Lola which I think shows great artistic promise! Oh by the way, Lola is available as honorary bridesmaid for a small fee. [Not so small, actually—Ed]

And there you have it.

Was it worth the wait? Unlikely, but thank you anyway for getting this far. You’re very kind.
We’ll try and do this 2 or three times a year—I’ll give it my best shot anyway.
There’s a bunch of links here where you can stay in touch with things on a more regular basis, and I may even steal Simon’s blog as, frankly, he’s been pretty useless with that too. [Hear, hear! - Ed]
Until then, we wish you all the best and look forward to seeing you out here one day soon.
Ta-ta for now, and thank you. [Thank you too darlin’! - Ed]

Verity