Devon to Venice in pictures

Winter travels

Last month we took a crazy family trip to blighty to visit friends and family, I also squeezed in 4 meetings and some Christmas shopping, and to finish off we crammed in an overnight stop in Venice - phew!!!!

I have decided to split our adventures up into small bite size pieces rather than overwhelm this blog with too much blurb and endless snapshots.

So to kick-off the story of our little holiday, firstly we had to organise a house-sitter to look after our ancient buck-tooth lurcher Leo and our two teenage kittens Romulus and Remus, thankfully we have a wonderful friend who was able to simply take our place for 8 days and I have to say that I think the animals were delighted and totally spoilt. The forecasts for the UK were hideous and we really didn't think we would make it at all as we watched all the airports close and rail networks grind to a halt, but somehow we did manage to make it to London, to the only airstrip that was open on a very snowy and very cold Thursday morning. The idea of this trip was for our kids to see more of the UK as they had never visited the capital or travelled much before we moved to Italy. So we made it to London and managed to take in the following sights: The London Eye, Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Lots of snow and ice, Christmas lights, Harrods, Kings Road, Westminster Abbey, Eros, Tower of London, The Thames, Speedboats, Open top buses in the snow, Black Cabs - and many more lovely things all from our cosy if somewhat packed bus!!!!

After our mad trip into London, the kids and Gary went to The Natural History Museum which was wonderful and I met them there later (bad mummy working). My mobile broke and I couldn't contact my client to say I was late (not great) and I couldn't contact DH to arrange to meet, all in all I was very stressed charging across London in the snow, heart racing, dry mouthed and heavy hearted wishing I was with my clan. Eventually we managed to find each other under a huge dinosaur skeleton and I slowly calmed down and managed to enjoy some time with my tribe. TT loved the moving dinosaur and Archie kind of just put up with her crazy unflinching enthusiasm. The boy was pretty overwhelmed by London, the tubes, the traffic and the amount of people - he is sensitive and I knew this might prove a challenge, TT however wasn't phased, just became more stubborn.

After a long, long day in London which was stunning, all the historical buildings frosted with snow we hopped on a coach (thank god I booked a coach as the trains were all cancelled) and watched the snow get heavier and heavier as we trundled slowly but surely to the West Country.

We eventually got to Great Grandma's late at night and enjoyed shop bought salad and roast chicken with big glasses of wine. Memories of my night at GG's will be: Tea and Biscuits, The Radio Times, Itchy Wool blankets, Ice, Frost, Children’s TV, Archie's Asthma kicking in, time well spent with my 85 year old Grandma. A good start to our English escapades.

Olive Picking & Winter Sun

It is here, the Olive picking season, but oh the rain, constant and relentless bloody rain..aagghh. DH should be picking th Olives but can't and I am off to Blighty tomorrow and cant help then, we need to help G get them in before the frost or no oil! We had about 6 months supply from last year but could do with 3 times that amount and that means getting more time in the olive groves in between working. The rosehip syrup is going down a treat and the kids are having it on toast and an extra spoonful a day to boost the vitamin levels. I know I said I wouln't blog this week but wanted to share some lovely seasonal pics including the countryside around my house and some other random shots. I feel the year is running away with me, all I want to do is prepare christmas things and be homey but we need to focus on work projects and finances too - darn the real world stuff.

Anyway, we have extra boys tonight which is always nice to have a house full of noise so am cooking Shepherds pie and crumble - not v. Italian but it is cold and rainy and Nov!

All packed

We are about to head back to England for 2 weeks, me Tabby and Archie. Gary will stay and look after the dog, garden, house and business, he will also be helping my parents move house - so looks like I get the best deal. We are camping, going to the seaside, Dartmoor, seeing friends and from what I gather getting rained on!!

Italy is beautiful at the moment, scorched but wonderfully alive. The 'Horto' or vegi plot is yealding so much food, we have a tally to date of:

15 large jars Pasta Sauce

9 jars Cherry Jams

8 Jars Chutney

1 Jar sun dried toms in oil

2 tubs solar oven dried toms

2 icecream tubs dried figs

When I get back I plan to dry the herbs or freeze. I also want to try my hand at scented oil making, soaps and facecreams/herbals - any ideas? Also, Walnut Oil and peach jam, pomegranite juice and Cider!

I love it here overlooking the castles and olives, the lake and the old houses, we had a bold and solid deer turn up yesterday 20 foot from the house munching on fallen apples, big antlers. Tabby was 'sure' it was Rudolf on holiday and wanted to'Soft' him (her word for stroke). Yeepee, finally learnt how to knit my first row of stitches at midnight last night! A few pics here to go on until I get back to this beautiful country full of friends, sunshine and food!!!!!