Fill your days with life, not your life with days
It was a bit of an anti climax. We arrived at the studio at 01:00 on Friday 13th December to watch the general election results unfold. We were to be audience members for Channel 4's Alternative Election Night. We were hoping for a more exciting night, but the exit poll put paid to that. The …
Photo: As we queued for a show we bumped into friends and sat together to watch the play. We've been back in London for nearly three weeks now. Jan has been up to Northampton twice a week to see her Dad. Since rushing back to the UK from Italy, he has rallied a little. Back …
Photo: Before leaving we have to prepare the house and garden for the winter. We've been busy in the garden preparing for the big garage, cantina and portico build in 2020. We spent two days fitting a 50m Cor-ten border between the garden and what will be gravel in front of the house. It took …
Photo: Crostuovo with truffle shavings is mandatory in the autumn at Antica Osteria Da Gustin If you search for 'SPN' in Google you get all sorts of results including Service Principal Name, a spinning class, an IATA airport code (Saipan International) and Scientific Pitch Notation (I have no idea either). What you won't find is …
End of term party at Renton, Fano For the second year running I've been teaching English to my Pansèr clubmates. I like to teach British culture as well as the language. To be fair, they really like to learn about our culture. This year they learnt how to fly the Union flag the right way …
Our friend Rita's cousin was playing a gig. Would you like to join us? asked Rita and Patrick. Sure, we said, having no idea what we were letting ourselves in for. A great time it turned out. Rita's cousin is the lead singer in an Italian band called CoverDrive (I wonder if they know about …
Photo: One final coffee at Arté Caffé before Gerard and Bernadette drove back to the Netherlands. For the second time in two years we've had to say goodbye to Dutch friends in Italy. After nearly 20 years Gerard and Bernadette sold their beautiful house in Cartoceto to live full time in The Hague. Over the …
When Jan and I retired in 2014 we received this very special gift from our Oracle colleagues. The oak milepost was to be put in the garden once we had built a garage and modifed the driveway. We applied for planning permission. It's more complicated here because we live next door to a cemetry. We're …
Photo: A complicated set of rules just to sing badly. If a joke needs explaining then it's not that funny, goes the conventional wisdom. When it comes to mixing three languages then maybe we can be forgiven, so here goes... The Pansèrs organised a dinner. The main course was to be goose. Post dinner 'entertainment' …
After nearly 20 years in Italy our friends Bernadette and Gerard are returning to The Netherlands. We reckon we've known them for about the last 14 of those years. Earlier this year they put their house on the market, expecting it might take a year or two to sell. After a week they had a …
