OUR LONG HOT SUMMER!

Hi Everyone,

This seems to be turning into a bi-annual blog instead of a monthly update for friends and family back home.

Sorry chaps, but there is so much to do here that the days dash past and spring has morfed into autumn with hardly a conversation with any of you who haven't been out to stay. Get your bags packed next year and spend summer here at 40 degrees instead of in the rain.


This chap and all his relations have finally kissed their kith and kin, turned into Counts or Countesses and stopped their incessant row at night. WWF say they are becoming extinct so if they want a few vociferous pair, we sure have a them!!

I wouldn't mind if they courted all day but they sleep when we are awake and keep us awake when we want to sleep!!

Tuscany in August is HOT!

We had the wettest spring in 200 years and now one of the hottest summers in my LONG memory of hot summers!

We are desperate for water and we thank the powers that be, that we sank a new well whilst renovating the farm. There are people in the valley who ran out of water a weeks ago and are having to beg, borrow or buy water for drinking and washing.

Every time I water the garden, which is more often than I would like, I feel a tinge of guilt. The farmer next door came up to see if we had diverted his pipe from the stream as his supply had run out and his cows were thirsty!

I have a feeling he knew the stream had been dry for months and that he wanted to stick a pipe down our well.

Everyone in England must think I am mad after the rotten summer you have all had. I am so sorry for you all but have a nice little warm feeling somewhere deep inside me, that we left some years ago!!!

Elaine Taylor and Annie Hart came to stay early in spring. It reminded me of the holidays we spent together in Spain playing tennis with Mimi Doxford, Maisie Elliot et al. We ate, drank, and talked ourselves to a standstill. Oh, I forgot, we also shopped!!

Stephanie Cochrane also fitted in a visit. She came out with her sister, June, and although we did not have a lot of time with them, they were going on to Florence to meet friends, we certainly loved having them.Having a drink at Il Falcone. Well about to!

Next the Askins and Amhursts arrived and their laughter gave me enough endorphins for the rest of the year!! Julian's big love, after Susie that is, are four legged hairy animals. He has three badger baiters himself but Lamu thought she had gone to heaven when Julian and Carolyn put her before any of the other house guests!

GELATO AND WINE IS A GOOD COMBINATION!

I TOLD YOU THEY PREFERRED DOGS TO PEOPLE.

MR. WHIPPY ENTERTAINS!

Back to London for a couple of weeks to catch up with a few friends, doctors, dentists, etc., and then off to Julian's birthday weekend in Bath. The Askins had taken over Luckenham Park Hotel and we joined their family and eighty of his closest friends (!) for a fabulous two days of great food, fantastic company and a lot of silliness.

IT WAS A CELEBRATION OF JULIAN'S 60TH.

LUCKNAM PARK HOTEL

CHARLOTTE ARRANGED THE WHOLE WEEKEND AND EVERYTHING WENT OFF WITHOUT A HITCH. NO WONDER SHE DOES IT FOR A LIVING. SORRY SUSIE, I KNOW YOU HELPED A LITTLE!!

THIS WAS MY FIRST VISIT TO BATH BUT MY FATHER WENT TO SCHOOL AT CLIFTON COLLEGE AND USED TO TELL US HE COULD HEAR THE ROAR OF THE LIONS IN THE ZOO! MUST GO BACK AND FIND THE ZOO. IT IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY. VERY ELEGANT.

ON THE WAY BACK TO LONDON STOPPED OFF AT CANDY AND JONO SIEFF'S NEAR NEWBURY TO SEE THE NEW ARRIVALS!

We gave a summer party for about fifty people. I ordered a suckling pig from one of the porchetta vans in the Thursday market and he arrived with it hot and crackling in time for dinner. We had thought of cooking it in the pizza oven but this route took less effort and I certainly would not have known how to stuff it with herbs and kidneys. It was absolutely delicious. One guy came back for his fifth serving!!

Simo, Hessi and I made lots of salads and puddings. The kids went swimming and the wrinklies just talked and drank.

THEY DIDN'T LEAVE MUCH PIGLET!

Talking of pigs. We are demented by a group of about six little pigs who visit us every evening to see if the ponies have left any scraps of corn. I can get within six feet of them before they stick their little tails in the air and scarper.

I can walk right up to them and they carry on digging up my orchard!! The little chap on the right looked up at me and then just stuck his nose back into the ground and dug on!

HESSI SHOPPING AT FERRAGAMO'S FESTA

ALISON, A GREAT FRIEND OF FABIO AND HESSI. SHE LOOKS AFTER ALL THE FERRAGAMO HORSES AND IS A GREAT COOK

THE FERRAGAMO WEEKEND COTTAGE!

THE ONE PIG WHO DOESN'T DIG UP MY GARDEN BUT JUST SITS THERE AND LOOKS ELEGANT.

WHAT THE WELL DRESSED LADY WEARS TO GATHER WILD FINOCCHIO FLOWERS FOR WINTER STEWS.



MIKE & SOPHIE TEACHING AC TO PLAY BACKGAMMON.

LUNCH FOR LILLIS LYON, HER NIECE AND DAUGHTER FROM AMERICA. THEY WERE OFF FOR A COOKERY COURSE IN TUSCANY.

OFF TO CAPRI WITH TEL & FEL. THE MEN GOT SOAKED ON THE TRIP OVER

BEFORE THE SOAKING LEAVING NAPLES!

INTERNATIONAL JET SETTERS.

THE HARBOUR OF CAPRI.

I really must post this or it will be another five months before publication.

Am off to see to my apian friends now. We have already had about twenty-five kilos of honey and should have double that again. I want to put them to bed for the winter so that when I go to London I won't worry about them going hungry.

It is the most wonderful weather here still and the colours are turning to autumn. The walnuts are ready, the mushrooms are arriving at my kitchen door, the only thing left to bottle is the quince jelly and I am going back to my first love, riding.

We have found a great stable about ten minutes away run by the top dressage rider in Italy. I have signed on with the hope I will get fit and lose weight!!, in time for James and Lisa's weddidng in India late in December.

More on this later.

THESE ARE SOME PHOTOGRAPHS I FORGOT TO INCLUDE IN THE LAST BLOG!!!

AC AND KOOKS IN HER BEAUTIFUL HOUSE IN MARRAKECH.


A STORK ON A STALK WITH HIS FISHY SUPPER!

WHO WOULD BELIEVE THAT TWO HOURS AWAY FROM LONDON COLOURS ARE THIS VIVID AND BIRDS LIKE THESE STORKS ABOUND.

SPRING, SPRING, SPRING

Spring approached hesitantly this year. A blast of colour from our apricot, peach and almond blossom was met with a crisp, white frost! And consequently they all bit the dust.

Alan Titchmarsh told me on television that these blossoms should be covered with some form of protection against early frosts but this proves difficult, if not impossible, when one is dealing with trees as tall as ours!!!



We have lost most of our early fruit but the cherries, apples and pears will make up for the loss. Luckily the flowers on the olive trees do not show until much later in the year after any fear of low temperatures.

Our daffodils and tulips are now over but were a wonderful splash of colour under grey skies.

Some came to London with me and brightened up our stay.






The wisteria is out at the moment and plants that I only put in a couple of years ago are covering the wall below the house.

For the past week we have been enjoying wonderful blue skies and warm winds.




The terraces are knee deep in spring flowers, poppies, wild lupins and many I have never seen before. Prince Charles would approve!!

The kitchen garden is keeping me busy and I fall into bed exhausted at about eight every evening. No trouble in sleeping after a day in the sunshine and hard manual labour! I wonder how many years will I be bothered to grow my own?

Now the olive terraces are waist high in grass and need the attention of the Ferrari, (bright red tractor mower), so anyone thinking of retiring to a life of milk in honey in Tuscany, forget it. I work harder here than I have ever done in London. Different, more enjoyable work, but work nonetheless.







The ponies are loving the spring grass and if anyone ever wondered who did most of the chasing in a romantic relationship, I have had proof from Sock's behaviour that it is definitely the male of the species. I have felt positively sorry for poor Knickers. Still the exercise is keeping her figure trim! He chases her around the field constantly. He's very brave because in the midst of galloping she is lashing out with her back feet and often catches him either on the knees or in the windpipe. He is can be seen lying on the floor coughing his little heart out!



This is a picture of Socks working out if he could drop from one of the terraces on to Knickers bones without her noticing!!!



He did and they are now both dead!!!!

The locals will be pleased, they eat horsemeat here.

I often pick it up by mistake when shopping and feel a slight shock. Why do the Brits feel upset when offered horse meat for consumption? We eat everything else on four legs, why not horse?

Is it because they have served us so well as loyal, uncomplaining servants during wars and in preparation of our lands for growing foodstuffs? I have never forgotten being offered horsemeat by the woman who sold us our farm. She pretended not to hear when I asked what we were eating but waited until we had finished and asked, had we enjoyed our meal. Of course we said we had, only to be told we had been eating horse.

A mental feeling of having been cheated intentionally and her evident pleasure in our discomfort will stay with me for ever.

Irrational?

Aziz and I were invited by Kokoly Fallah to visit her in her new home in Marrakech. I have always loved this city since early in our marriage we drove over the High Atlas Mountains, into the desert at Quassersat, and on to Taradant. We had a very dangerous but exciting incident on that drive but do not have time for the story now.

Kooks has a lovely new house just off the golf course and my stay was made by going to watch the storks/cranes making their nest on the tops of the palm trees all around the Amangena Hotel and golf course.

The colours, sounds and smells of Morocco always give me a thrill. So close by plane, so different only two hours away.




Kooks new house and a wonderful spice shop we found. We spent hours being made-up and drinking sweet tea.



The Amangeena Hotel. (Wrong spelling I am sure)




Alladin's Cave