Well another year has passed, if not a little fast here in Puglia, time just slips by, I still never have an idea what day it is,
Well I haven’t actually been here all year, as I managed to find a little work back in the fim industry, which gave me back a sense of normality, which admittedly can get lost, stuck here on the mountain with a small child and the wind blowing and nothing to see but olives and vineyards, I think I probably will need to make the effort to find a little more next year, if its at all possible, as life here is costly.
But things are slowly changing again now in our lives, as Isabella grows, She turned 3 in October and is a beautiful intelligent, if not (unfortunately) intensely opinionated and bossy child, with her mother’s personality already at such a young age, this is slightly scary as we can imagine what she will be like as a teenager. AHHHHHHHHHH
However it’s immensely enjoyable because she is so bright and does come out with the most hilarious statements. She had gone to playschool between 2 and 3 years old which helped her interact with others and increased her Italian language skills, even there, she seemed to have them all eating out of her hands and now from last September she’s started ‘Assilio’ which is junior school (there are four stages of school here in Italy, this is a small school near our village, with friendly teachers and a lot of very chatty mums, which is good for me) and she has quite a few boyfriends already, which is a worrying thing for Michael, ha ha, who is already preparing himself to deal with all these Italian naughty boys (monelli), they do love the blonds over here, we are so different to the norm, as apposed to the same as everyone else in England, its always nice to be appreciated.
Anyway we have enjoyed another pleasant year at Villa Silvana, with a lot of northern European guests, more so than others this year, of course they are the ones with money nowadays and we have found that the Germans, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish guests are some of the most pleasant polite, gentle and kind people on the planet and so incredibly tidy, in comparison to us Brits who tend to loose our heads on Holiday. For example we had two wonderful German guests that were both composers and every morning we would take our cappuccinos out to the balcony and listen to them playing under their pagodas, in the early morning, as the day was just warning up. What a delight.
We have continued to work on the villa, as much as we possibly can, adding and changing, painting and restoring. This winter we are planning more projects of creating a better work shop for ourselves and building a play area, in the land below the swimming pool, and renovating the pool, if and when time and money allows.
Obviously as you are aware Italy now stands in the same situation as Greece and although there have been no actual taxes added yet, the price of Living here is raising daily. When we originally came here we couldn’t believe how cheap the cost of living was, however the situation has changed dramatically. As a tourist, prices are still reasonable for restaurants and food but general living costs are scary and we have been told that the house tax (ici) will be reintroduced, as well as a number of other taxes, we shall see.
Luckily I got a few call outs this year to go to Malta and work on a Zombie film starring Brad Pitt and then I popped over to Berlin to Make up Hugh Grant, which was a wonderful opportunity for me to do a highly complex prosthetic aging makeup. Both of these films gave me back a sense of worth and kept me sane but without them we wouldn’t have survived this year and luckily now Bella is at school Michael can handle taking her, working and picking her up in the evening, without to much upset in her routine, however if its possible that others would like my help again, then we will probably except anything that’s going, as La Vita Bella is hard on the minimum wage.
Due to the fact that I have been a little freer, I have managed to paint quite a lot of large canvases for my show in early 2012. Our wonderful friend Maurizio has organised an Art show for me in the castle of Monopoli a near side town, in the hope that I will be able to, at least make some money from my paintings. He also approached two other galleries for me, that were interested in taking my paintings but he persuaded me to do my own show, gulp, as this way I will not have to pay a commission and because he knows everyone, he got me a room in the castle for free, cool but very nerve racking, I’ll let you know how it goes. Imagine its all very well and good trying to explain your art work in your own language let alone in another.!!! Ahhhhh Christmas just gone, we decided to stay at home and spent a different day with each of our group of friends over here, as going to England and Ireland would have been wonderful but too costly. However we have realise that we have chosen ‘La Dolce Vita’ but we are not surrounded by family in these Festive holidays and understand now how much the lifestyle is focused around the family, sometime more so than friends, which is still a little alien to us, however we enjoyed every minute of it with or without family and have had more dinners, lunches, invites and parties that we would have had at home in england/Ireland.
Also at Christmas, some how, I got roped in to singing for charity, with a group in our local Cathedral in Locorotondo, our local hilltop village. It was fairly entertaining and i thought about not telling anyone in case it could be intensely embarrassing but it was fun and i got to meet a new wonderful group of people, which i'm hoping will turn into a budding new friendship in this new year! Its never uneventful here that’s for sure.
Also in 2011 we finally had our first chance to participate in both the wine and the oil making. Two brothers that are friends of ours have land with both vineyards and olive groves on, nothing large just enough for family and friends for the year. Michael obviously did the majority of the work for our little family, as what with running around after little Miss Bella I didn’t have the opportunity to be stuck up a tree as much as he. After they had taken Giuseppe’s large truck and filled it to the brim with a Puglian white grape- Verdecca! They then transported it back to Nicola’s house and it was strained through a machine to get rid of the pips and pulverised and placed into large vats. I did offer my feet but they weren’t having it and insisted I stand there and watch and drink last year’s red-Necroamaro. Buona. che sacrificio! Later on after they’d covered up the vats, when the sediment had settled after some days we then came back and helped them transfer the purer liquid into Amphorae, even Isabella had a go at stirring the wine with a big stick and she cackled like a witch, funny little thing.
A few months later on the day of St Martino (the patron saint of new wines (good job) we had a whole day sacrificed to trying out our new wine, great, the bank holidays here are always for a good reason in my opinion.
So what with the strange way the economy is going and the hilltop Italian lifestyle we have chosen, things are not too bad really. It can be so quiet or completely hectic but both are pleasant as long as one or the other are not too overwhelming and we are praying to god that someone in the world will still have money and enthusiasm to come on holiday to Puglia next year (hopefully you)
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