FESTIVALS AND FIRES SUMMER 2009

With regards to Villa Silvana, luckily we have managed to get bookings all season again, even though the recession is in full swing(or so they say) so that’s brilliant and the clients continue to be lovely and appreciative which is always so nice to hear and the company and the conversation keeps us entertained, Apart from us trying to acclimatize to the Italian way of life, it really is still beautiful here and we do love it and remark every day how lucky we are, I’m starting to feel better and of course little Isabella is adorable, they go mad over her and she really does get compliments every time we go anywhere, the women coo and even the men go gag gag and come up to us to play with her, Oh imagine when she’s grown up, uh oh daddy’s already worrying about her future Italian boyfriends.She’s now eating solids and feeding herself and is crawling and adventuring all over the house, “Danger will Robinson!” So we’ve tried to prevent any future upsets with buying her a comedy crawling helmet, which we tried not to laugh about, and she does look ultra cute, but its essential with our hard tiled floors.We’ve found a local baby sitter,which helps here language learning skills, who comes around to play with her, to keep her entertained, as it always just mummy otherwise and we also have found her a little friend in our village Georgia, who is exactly the same age and its lovely when they play together, as I didn’t think I would meet any other mothers stuck out here on the Mountain, so that’s lovely company for her and you never know maybe one day Michael and I might go out for the night for dinner but its difficult to fit that in anytime soon.

Our one year wedding anniversary was recently, 14 years later, and we had a very exciting pizza takeaway, which I’m sure must sound terribly pathetic but we haven’t even managed to have a pizza since her birth as I always take her to bed by 8.30 and of course nothing opens here until late. We can’t believe a year has past since the wedding, let alone the fact that in 2 months she’ll be a year, how time fly’s.

Well lets hope there’s no more dramas and illness this year, although in my soul I know with children comes sickness, can’t avoid the inevitable I suppose, although yesterday just to finally top of our ‘what ever will happen next lifestyle’, the mountain caught fire. Hah

I’d just put the washing out and was wondering who was having a bonfire in 45° heat and looked outside at flames as high as houses eating their way up the mountain, quite frightening I can tell you, it only takes a lazy **** with a fag butt in this weather, so we called the fire brigade, while contemplating whether or not to leave the house and if it would arrive on to our land before the vigili di fuoco would arrive but it didn’t Gracie Dio but it took sometime for them to put it out, and it burnt half the hill, and the sky was black for hours, we were only grateful we were on a change over day and had no guests around to deal with.

Well we’re off to our local village festival tonight, after our change around, the mad tidy up the house, apartments, pool and land hours and after our guests arrive and are settled. we always enjoy this little festa as there’s food, wine, dancing, games and singing and we now know half the village, so we can go up there and sit with them all and enjoy ourselves.

LIGHTENING STORMS AND ILLNESS SUMMER 2009

Finally I have an opportunity to sit down and write and my excuse is not because I have a baby or two businesses but because Yet again, a big storm hit us, because The Villa is on the side of the mountain, we are in a prime spot to be hit by Lightening, ('Egors' would love this house) So we have no computer, I’m still using a friends one. Ours blew up in one of our typical (all or nothing) storms. The weather normally as you know is always awesome here but as the saying goes, when it rains it pours, like you wouldn’t believe.

Now you would have thought we’d have learn’t our lesson about unplugging phone lines etc, when these storms come in, as we can normally see them on the horizon over the sea and if you recall this has happened to us another 3 times before, when the lightening has blown the computer and phones but just the modem blew those times. This time it came out of the blue and struck the house and we didn’t even have enough time to dive for the plugs, in fact they actually jumped out of their sockets in a terrifying way and the computer went bang, as loud as the thunder clap. Ah gawd What drama, another thing to fix.

So we're really in difficulty without one, trying to run Villa Silvana and Michael’s property maintenance work by going to internet cafes and using friends computers around there houses, trying desperately to concentrate on replying correctly to the right clients, about the correct dates and bookings and enquiries for Michaels availability, while having friends blabbing on in Italian to you with the baby howling. Assolutamente Troppo stress
Its only really starting to sink in now, how different our lives are, not drastically, unpleasantly different but I didn’t really realize how set in my ways and selfish, I suppose, I was. Only now can I appreciate how spontaneous I was, how relaxed and free everything was and how all of that has changed.You see, even being unwell seems to be a big deal now, before the bubba I could just sleep anything off or take loads of medicine and fight it off but I still can’t take anything as I’m continuing to breastfeed.
Anyway the various specialist’s and tests have finally found out that I have hypothyroidism and now I’m going to see another specialist for that, and I hope he can sort me out, you know what its like it takes so long for anything to happen here. For me, despite the fact that my symptoms were caused by my thyroid

Well I’ve just had to leave a lot of things because i've been so ill and therefore we’ve lost some bookings and everything has been a real mess but at least things are kind of getting more organize ever day. Jez! Grande culo as they say over here- when you feel the weight of the work load is to much (which translates as heavy arse)

During this time of sickness and stress, (boring), I have however, found myself some fabulous friends and people to help us out(Grazie Dio) and we’re really getting a great close nit bunch around us now, I don’t know how much we fit in as I think we’ll always be the foreigners, ‘The British’, but we do have friends and they do seem to like us (who knows what they say behind our backs, as they do talk, we know) in fact they’re really big on the gossip, I remember that from filming Pinocchio and I’m sure we’re a great source of amusement and typically they are constantly telling us how to do everything, and I can’t overstate that enough, in fact I’m sure they’d tell us how to scratch our arses if they could.I need to find this delightful Italian trait amusing, which is hard because I don’t.

Oh dear how appropriate that film lost in translation is, its not that we can’t make ourselves understood, its just that however we would respond, no matter how tactful, would come out rude probably, even though a few harsh words wouldn’t probably be a bad thing.

Strong personalities is an understatement for the italians, I thought actors were bad enough.

Also we still seem to have lots of local friends who pop around nearly every day, so that helps keep me sane, some days we can have around 20 people arrive over one day, amazing how friendly they are, they really would do anything for us, they are so generous in so many ways.

So Apart from us trying to acclimatize to the Italian way of life, it really is still beautiful here and we do love it and remark every day how lucky we are, I’m starting to feel better and of course little Isabella is adorable, they go mad over her and she really does get compliments every time we go anywhere, the women coo and even the men go gag gag and come up to us to play with her, Oh imagine when she’s grown up, uh oh daddy’s already worrying about her future Italian boyfriends.

She’s now eating solids and feeding herself and is crawling and adventuring all over the house, “Danger will Robinson!” we also have found her a little friend in our village Georgia, who is exactly the same age and its lovely when they play together, as I didn’t think I would meet any other mothers stuck out here on the mountain, so that’s lovely company for her and you never know maybe one day Michael and I might go out for the night for dinner.

ENGLISH HOLIDAYS BUT PREFERENTIAL PUGLIA SPRING 2009

What a lovely holiday we had an England, it was so nice to have a break over there and we really tried to squeeze in as much as possible, although inevitably we did feel that we didn’t get to see as many people as we would have liked, we still managed to fit in a good few friends and family, even though it was only very brief, there's never enough time and certainly never enough money, England is still pricy in compariom to here.

We did however have a ridiculous debicle with British airways (where we were stranded on the run way, in terminals and coached half way around Italy for what should have been a simple 2 hour flight) we did loose a day, however they did give us a big voucher towards our next flight, which we thought was great so we’ll be using that on our next trip which hopefully will be for Xmas, after all the holidays makers have gone and we have done our usual off season building work, my god does the work ever stop, do the repairs ever finish and do our plans for expansion and change ever decrease, No. How exhausting the tourist business has turned out to be but there again who’s isn’t, besides just look at these new photos off our beaches, when these are so near who cares about the rest.
Also I’ve now got into the awful habit of treating ourselves to what our equivalent of takeaways are, over here, we have restaurants bars and cafes, that do something called “Tavola Caldo”– hot food cooked by the local mammas, which is a god send and makes life very easy and very delicious, its more than a little treat though but not hugely expensive and just means some days we can fit more D.I.Y because I’m not having to cook oops cheating, oh well

CHILLED AND COSY WINTER 2009

Life here hasn't really changed much, we were really quite chilled and don't really go out much anyway, so things aren't that different, no wailing from a distraught mum here, I have insomnia anyway, so lack of sleep is just something you deal with, michael would sleep through a tornado and if he doesn’t he’s not really the type to be ratty or moody, lucky me, he's been awesome and is an amazing dad, probably would be VERY different, with everything, if we lived in the uk though but because life on the side of a mountain is so quiet, almost soporific, then there's not too many things to get upset about, apart from the never ending problem of money, which I’m sure would be the same any where.
We continue to be visited by our local friends, not too many just the right amount as doing the big social scene is probably still a bit exhausting for all off us, we’re just not that used to it any more, strange as it sounds, although some days do still remain manic, with people popping in, Michaels clients arriving or asking about the work he’s doing for them, with local plumbers, electricians, security men arriving and of course the never ending questions and enquires coming in for villa Silvana
Still it has been enjoyable times just us three. Isabella is so adorable and such a good girl, don't want to say its easy as that's just asking for trouble but it all seems natural and obvious, (of course until something goes wrong)
However i can imagine having more than one child is an absolute nightmare, as when she does sleep, i do rush around trying to get things done and Michael's obviously not getting as much work done as he should do, as we're awfully distracting.
I heard the premier of the last film i did- Young Victoria was very sucessful and my friends are all starting a big epic shortly which I would have adored to be working on, however things have changed, I have many other commitments now, maybe when Isabella's a little bigger but I can’t leave michael in the middle of a tourist season with a baby and his jobs as well, could only ever think about a film if it was in winter really, not sure whether I’m pleased, relived or a little disappointed.

BABY'S ARRIVAL AND FANTASTIC ITALIAN NHS. WINTER 2008

Firstly we would like to thank everyone for their kind words and best wishes and apologise if our communication has been a bit off track, this is because I have been travelling to the hospital every day for the last seven days, 2 times a day and it’s a good hour away, so therefore have found it difficult to do anything but visiting.
However I would finally like to announce the long awaited arrival (3 weeks late) of Baby Isabella Rosa Foley, On Friday 17th at 9.15 pm.
We have been very impressed with the Italian hospital, its staff and the way we have been treated and sue has made quite a few friends since she has been in Hospital, as she already knew a few of the other ladies because we had been visiting the hospital every other day for the last two weeks previously, to have the baby monitored as she was quite overdue.
So after quite a few days in hospital before the birth, with countless tests and 3 days of induction treatmenta, finally a decision was made for a caesarean section as nothing seemed to be working, this was just as well as Bella weighed in at 3.8 kilos
Anyway I am pleased to tell you that both mummy and baby are very well and sue is recovering quickly after her surgery. Isabella so far has the Foley genes and temperament and seems to be the best behaved baby on the ward, and because she’s that much bigger, has constant complements from all those who meet her.

Well the relatives, neighbors and friends have come and gone.
They have told us what we already know, our baby has the biggest eyes, roundest head, daintiest hands, and perfectly formed feet and she is far more beautiful than all the others and that she is more alert, smarter and better natured than any other child, ever! Hilarious! and the advice, don’t even get me started on that, do this, don’t do that.
I mean I know that sounds harsh but you should hear the rubbish coming out of their mouths, people can’t help themselves, it is entertaining but ...
Anyway at least we can now settle back and peacefully enjoy this truly exceptional infant, This perfect infant that spends all her time crying, no actually she’s a quiet, patient little thing who eats, sleeps and is awake at all the right times, thank goodness, we are lucky.
However, as we marvel over this creature we have been occasionally thinking “This child is so small, so fragile, so helpless. There is so much that can go wrong. Will we be able to do the right thing?” and inevitably we also wonder if we are going to get through the next few minutes, or even the next few hours and want to know, “Do all newborns look this way? cry for no reason? stare into space? Projectile vomit? Why do they get hiccups, squirm and fuss?” This mainly happens when we are awake with the baby in the middle of the night, naturally.
However sue's still convinced she had less sleep when filming, due to stress, long hours, crappy schedules, dodgy hotels, noisy neighbors and to much booze.
Still although these thoughts run through our heads. We know that we are expe­riencing what most normal parents go through during their first few weeks with a newborn. It’s a crazy schedule, obviously we’re sleeping very little, I’m hardly getting anything done and Life centers on a small, delightful but demanding infant and although we had limited experience with new­borns, we can see she’s quite advanced for her age already doing things beyond her time, which is great and rewarding, all this is probably because she stayed in sue's belly for so much longer and she’s so different to the Italian babies, everyone remarks on this because obviously she looks so much more northern European in comparison to these tiny black haired little ones. Exciting times

WEDDING BELLS JULY 2008

Hello there, me again with my monthly update, my four mile essay which I hope you enjoy and don’t get bored reading.
Well the wedding was lovely, it was a very entertaining day, if not a little manic which I’m sure all of these events are.
I have to admit being very pleased that we didn’t go big and expensive, as it all seemed to be over in a flash. Typically just like baking a cake, all preparation and then eaten in seconds, and I have to admit I am a specialist on the subject of cake scoffing, it seems to be the one and only food fetish I have in pregnancy, at first I was blaming it on the fact that the carbs were stopping me feeling sick but obviously now that I’m past the morning sickness stage I have no excuse.
Michael says that I have the whole thing eaten normally before he even has a chance to get back from work, Um yummy, I’m sure babies first words will be Torte!
Anyway it actually worked out that not a single one of our friends could make it over in time for the big day, due to our excessively bad planning and short notice, how unbelievable.
We will definitely have another celebration in England (with baby)
I never imagine that with all my film industry pals that I would have wound up without a set director, photographer, designer, dressmaker, and card and invite designer, camera man, makeup artist and hairstylist!
There was me blurting on all of these years, saying I would always have the wedding covered with all my mates! Ha that showed me.
Oh my god so of course we had to find a local parrucchiere (hairdresser) and you will just die when you see the photos of what she did to my hair, I looked like an incredibly fat old Shirley Temple and because of course I was helping everyone else get ready, I didn’t have enough time to change it, as I actually only had ten minutes to get ready and put my dress on, (which by the way, was a Susan Howard sewing master piece!!! Not)
Wow we really are like one of those TV programs, we now make everything due to extreme change of lifestyle and lack of money, still I rather we leave meagrely and be happy, than be rich and miserable. ( well kind of)
Anyway so back to the wedding, which you can see on Picasso on the internet and can have a good laugh at my 7 months preggie belly and little baby curls, good grief, which I’m sure you’ll find interesting as you know how hideously unphotogenic I am.
Well Michaels family and most of mine managed to come at least, which is great as none of his family and not all of mine have been able to visit before and they all loved Puglia, obviously because it was of course up in the 40’s and a complete comparison to the rain they’d just left.
It was hilarious in the airport as we went to meet all 30 of them and I hadn’t seen most of Michaels family for ten years and a lot of the babies that I’d held in my arms, were now grown up children
As always there was an accident on the motorway and so we had to do a 6 car convoy into the interior to avoid it and it took 3 hours to get home rather than the usual 40 minutes. Ugh.
Of course the drama didn’t stop there, I was incredibly nervous about the alcohol consuming relatives, considering we’ve been stuck on this mountain side so long that we’ve forgotten how to party heavily and life here is insanely quiet.
Anyway we’d bribed our holiday guests with a very fruitful luxury hamper, they didn’t mind our entire families descending on the house and taking over the place, we’ve never had so many people in the pool before but it was great fun and everyone was totally blown away by the place, which was lovely to hear as you can imagine michael and I had been doing our usual house makeover job for a week(eat your heart out Laurence Llewellyn Bowen) before everyone had arrived, so the heat rose and the bubbly flowed and all was good and I was even more impressed when everyone left at a reasonable hour allowing the bump and me to put our feet up and not worry if we were ruining our guests holiday.
So both mum and dad and Michaels mum and dad were staying with us and on the day of the celebration the house was a delightful tranquil haven, we lounged and swam and got ready steadily, well we had to as it was 40+ degrees on the day of the wedding the hairdresser was lovely and soooooooooo cheap,(hence the hairstyle, only joking) and we all got a lovely Mercedes down to the beach club that Maurizio and Chiara had arranged for us.
Of course like all things in Italy it was organised in a very relaxed way and things took a long time to kick off and didn’t happen for quite a few hours after when they should have but everyone was more than content to sit on the luxurious white sofas that sat on the rocks looking out on to the sea.
Eventually when we did sit down to eat my mum and dad did us proud with a 10 course dinner consisting of (check this out)
1. Cocktails and nibbles
2. Antipasti: inc Carpaccio of tuna, Salmon, Swordfish, Parma ham, Octopus, Muscles, mixed sea food, Fried fish and lots of vegetables and little Crostini and Bruccheta
3. Tagliolini with lobster
4. Strozzapreti with Porcini mushrooms and truffles
5. Raw vegetable selection to cleanse the palette
6 Local Spigola (whole fish) meditterean style
7 Sorbet
8 Fillet of Beef, with oven baked potatoes and salad
9 A fruit buffet
10 My gigantic Cake (check out those pictures- well I had to have a big cake to make me look less fat)
And coffee and champagne- Poof, stuffed and delighted.
Funnily enough because I was being dragged left, right and centre and because I had more photos taken than Victoria Beckham on a bad hair day, I didn’t eat everything and therefore didn’t feel stuffed beyond extreme, also michael and i have got this large dining experience down to a ‘T’ by now, with our regular Sunday 6 courses and invites to various friends homes who seem to eat like this ever day, its incredible I just don’t know where they put it, they’re all as skinny as rakes(obviously apart from the big fat ones)
So to conclude it was a very enjoyable evening, although I can’t express how glad I am that its all over and we are now back into our snail paced tranquil lifestyle.
Also I've Got the baby room finished now at least, shame it wasn’t finished when everyone came, although you probably don’t find it that interesting, it makes me happy to get all these presents out that we’ve been given and play with them, what a big girls blouse I am.
Actually i think it hit home, particularly with michael, that we're actually going to have a little baby, once I got all these things out, neither of us have really registered it, as we’ve been so busy (obviously apart from my huge size and grumbling which is more than noticeable, we’ve been kind of ignoring it)
But as the big day approaches were trying not to over think it to much, as it’s our first, like all people I’m sure one can over panic.We shall see.

PREGNANCY, WEDDING PLANS AND RED TAPE SUMMER 2008

Our phone lines and internet have been down for ten days now with neither line working, which is hellish, just when we're in peak season and when we're trying to organise a wedding

But you can be sure I've gone past annoyed and stressed and out the other side and am now in a strange calm, where i go to a different town most days in my constant search to find a dress (which i might add is not easy- they simply don't cater for anyone a little bit large or pregnant in my case) and then inevitably i find an Internet cafe to check our mail, so this is a non stressful way of handling the situation, with a piccolo amount of shopping thrown in for good measure.
Obviously the only problem is that i can't ring anyone still, and we are still getting frustrated messages from people who can't get hold off us and don't understand the laws, rules and ways of a slightly slow (barking mad) country and are more than a little bit irratated with us but what can i do about this, nothing, so as upset as they are, i' can't be any more, its dangerous for the bumb, slow response by email is our only option right now.
Apart from this gargantuan problem, life in puglia remains hot and sunny and still lovely, Micheal is working lots and I'm continuing to take out clients and getting free lunches in lovely trattorias, trying not to put any more weight on is not easy but I'm not eating pasta and solo Una poccisimo di pizza.
I am slightly worried at how large I'm getting but everyone keeps telling me I'm small for my size,Eh! however i think they forget how little i was before.
We've had a lot of lovely appreciative guests as of late, the last ones said it was the best holiday they've ever had aaah and we are getting on well with all our friends who've come to our aid over the last few trying weeks to help us organise a wedding on a budget and deal with friends and family who can't get hold off us.
The saga continues for the struggle to attempt to get married on the same day as the celebration and at one point i almost thought we might be able to achieve it, how silly of me, what was i thinking! trying to out race Italian bureaucracy, had i gone mad (well in fact i nearly did) I am kind of relieved that we now have missed the time frame to achieve: collecting the documents, it was becoming so stressful that i was hardly sleeping- It was this manic rush to get the New computerised birth certificates sent over from England in time to get down to the British embassy in Bari to make a declaration, to then send that of to Napoli, and to then send it to Roma to then send it back to the Bari embassy and for us to the go back in collect it and make another declaration and then to Rush it to our own Commune to make the appointment with the major for the ceremony and of course we were told the the commune didn't work on a Sunday D'oh, DIO MIO.
However i saw the light at the end of the tunnel at one point, when i stupidly thought the documents would arrive quickly for England, ha HA HA, and that we would make the 21 day time frame and when we remembered a friend of ours had just been voted in as the majors first assistant and we'd asked him, to ask the major if he'd marry us on a weekend and the major had agreed, wow, as long as we had the documents Ha! another plan foiled as the birth certs still haven't arrived from england, so much for paying all that money for express delivery.

Oh well i can't say I'm not relieved,it was all becoming to much, we'll do the ceremony another time when the paperwork comes in its natural course of time , hopefully sometime this millennium, we're just doing it all the wrong way around but what can you do, when you have 5 weeks to arrange a wedding, are VERY pregnant, trying to run two business's, dealing with clients and guests and keep getting your phones and electric cut off. Celebration only marvellous, has anyone ever done it that way round before?
I'm not doing to bad considering.I've still got half my mind??? Who said planning a wedding in a foreign country was difficult, ha ha ha.
Inevitably this lack of planning or short notice or what ever you want to call it, has affected the turn out and I'm not all together sure if even 1/8th of my friends will be able to come, Che sara sara.

However I've got the invites designed in-Italian obviously, ordered the fabulous cake, well if i can't have 'the wedding', buy 'THE dress', afford photographers, gifts-bombonara,etc I'm gonna damn well have a massive Cake and the location is Fabuloso, Maurizio is compiling a gorgeous menu and we have decided to start at 6 when it is a Little fresher because the club is on the beach, it would be packed on a Sunday in the day and also be troppo caldo, its 40 degrees now Exciting, even if it is just me and michael
I have had grandad and grandmas rings melted down to make new ones for us and am flicking through the wine list right now as the sun sets, if only i could have a nice margarita to top it off, but i don't think the bump would like it, maybe Michael will make me a non alcohol one, he's getting quite strict with me, its funny.
Anyway these are the days of our lives, the weather is good, the food is delicious, what more can a girl want (apart from some kind of cheap wedding dress for a Large pregnant Lady?.)

WEDDINGS AND ITALIAN BUREAUCRACY SPRING 2008

So the wedding that we have talked about, thought about and mulled over for the last 8 years, ever since Michael proposed on that moonlit night, on a deserted beach, in the Caribbean, which now seems years and years ago. (8 to be exact)
Our lives have turned full circle since then, when we used to desperately grab intimate moments between juggling hectic careers and lives, to now spending every minute of every day together in our little piece of heaven in Puglia.
If you know us well by now, then you know all the things we've been through to get to where we are, from where we've been. We've achieved so much, over a long period of time, sweat, tears and exasperation has seen us through the tricky times of fighting to set up both business's in Puglia and to sell our old house and buy our new and to leave behind countries that we'd grown up in, and to find a new life and integrate as well as we possibly could.
We can't tell you that any of the things we've done have been easy but we have managed to laugh along the way and now with a little baby girl ( ITS OFFICAL, we've been told) on the way, michael has finally decided to make a good woman of me before the little one arrives, which should be sometime in September.
It won't be a large lavish affair, our lives are now so simple, that we don't want flashy invitations, menu planners, wedding photographers and all of the things expected of a normal wedding, this will be a simple affair, with our close friends and family, in what we think is one of the most beautiful places on this earth, but we hope we can guarantee it will be a celebration to remember.
As usual with all things Italian, achieving this has been a mere miracle, like all of the paperwork, bureaucracy and red tape that we have had to go through on a regular basis, trying to get married is not an easy feat. We have had to apply for a lot of certificates and are still in the process of making declarations, so we can achieve this on time but if we don't set a date and try to arrange it, when there are still flights and hotels available, for those who need them, then it may never happen.
So we are going out on a limb for 13th July, the wedding celebration will be on 13th, which is lucky for us as michael was born on this day and we met on this date 13 years ago, the celebration will be organised by our best friend Maurizio, who's name no doubt you've heard a million times, we are for ever in his debt and yet he is still doing things to help us.
Hospitality is Maurizio's forte and we shall be treated to the finest of Puglian wine, and a traditional Italian wedding menu, where we will have the pleasure of Music by the finest of Puglia's deejays-Antonio and you can sip your Bellini's and watch the sunset.