Our attempts at country living in Italy: the dogs, the cats, the chickens, the horse and, oh, the humans. The veg patch. Sun, snow, rain, drought, mud, dust. And the odd earthquake or two.
March 16, 2009
It was a gorgeous, starlit, warmish evening
It was a gorgeous, starlit, warmish evening, and I was out looking for the dogs when I had this really bizarre, Harry-Potter-like experience: my torch picked out a pair of bright green, glowing, apparently disembodied eyes gazing at me from the walnut tree. I had Maxim on the lead and he wasn’t bothered by it at all so I figured it couldn’t really be an evil witch from the land of the dead come to suck my blood . . . so I continued to stare into the branches of the tree and the eyes stared back, occasionally blinking. It wasn’t scary but it was totally, totally freaky. My first thought was that it was an owl; but an owl would have flown away pretty quickly. What was so odd was that I couldn’t see any form or body around the eyes at all, even when I moved the torch beam. Just the eyes and the tree branches.
I gradually circled down and closer to the tree and the eyes followed me . . . And of course it turned out to be a damn cat — not one of ours — when I got beyond its comfort zone it leapt down and ran away into the night. Ok, that doesn’t sound like much but it was a very weird experience.
Alessio did the illustration for me and it's pretty accurate.
Stay at Palomba! Feed the chickens, groom the pony, walk the dog, dig the veg patch ... no, okay, relax on the terrace, swim in the lake, hike in the hills ... it's your holiday! Check out our rental apartment at www.palomba.it
I live in an old converted farmhouse in central Italy with my partner John and our son Alessio, aged 14. We scrape a living as a copy editor and graphic designer respectively (haven't yet sent the boy out to work, but it can't be long) and we rent out a pretty apartment during the summer. It's a really nice place to stay and this is a great area for a holiday. Great area to live, too.
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