The Little Horse of Casa Cavallina

This is the first time a horse has been born in one of my houses. I have had pigs, chickens, sheep and turkeys, but never a horse. So exciting. Here she is. Bless the little horse of Casa Cavallina.

News from Casa Cavallina

The foal at Casa Cavallina was born last night in the stable. In the dark fell soft Spring rain. I am going there to see.

Miracles of Le Marche: 3. fate of a fence

Last year the cinghiale trampled my zucchini. At first I was delighted to know there were wild pigs just outside my front door and did not care about my mangled courgettes. Then it happened again, this time to the lettuce. And again, to the carrots. The cinghiale would trot up under cover of darkness, snuffle and forage around for the sweet delights I had planted, dig and stamp with their cloven hooves, bite and snaffle their way along the row of delicacies, thus destroying all I had created in one swift frenzy. So this year I got a fence. Sam went off in search of useful things with which to deter the saboteurs. He came back from the scrap merchant with twisted bedheads, rusting grills, wrought iron flourishes, bent gates, things once made by hand and since discarded as usless. He began, with care, to cut and join them into some kind of order. Soon my fence emerged and as dusk fell and the cinghiale were heard snorting in the bosco, a strange thing happened. It occurred to me I had seen my fence before. I ran inside the house to check. Placed on the piano was a 1950s postcard of our village, admired because it depicted a building, photographed in the heat of summer, with a brand new crazy-paving style fence, only we knew the fence was no longer there. By a curious twist of fate it was here, in my field, and with a new purpose befitting of a fence; to protect my strawberries from those greedy Italian piglets.

Song to Santa Lucia

On the wall in VILLA PAPARELLI is a fresco of Santa Lucia. I know this because she is depicted holding a plate displaying her eyes, reputed to have been torn out, however I gather they were later miraculously restored, and I am glad. Today a friend mentioned she was the Patron Saint of Earthquakes. I am not sure this to be true and if she has been called upon, but I do know her feast day, celebrated on the shortest day of the year, has become the festival of light. In certain parts of the world the youngest daughter, dressed in white, wakes the rest of the family with coffee, rolls and a special song. The coffee I hope has reached L'Aquila. To send more supplies please contact the RED CROSS.

Safe as houses

It seems fitting today, in light of the earthquake that has devastated L'Aquila, to mention Engineers Sebastiano and Antonella Ferranti, our recommended team of structural engineers who are involved in many of our restoration projects here in Le Marche. Their calm, cautious advice is well appreciated today as we are reassured that our buildings meet with the necessary code and specification to protect them from earthquakes of this magnitude. Le Marche is some way north of l'Aquila, we felt a tremor, but none of the buildings the Ferranti's have restored have any problems. For more information and technical advice about your home or your building restoration please contact me and I will put you in touch with Studio Ferranti. And my own house, preserved as was and loved as such, built over three hundred years ago from sturdy oaks and heavy stones from the river, swayed a little on her bed of earth, shed a little dust and settled back into position. Most reassuring. But I am aware for others it was not. To help the people in L'Aquila and surrounding villages who have lost their homes and loved ones, please contact the Red Cross.

Sea of Steps, Palazzo Alaleona

I have found a Sea of Steps. Not in Wells Cathedral, England, but here in le Marche in PALAZZO ALALEONA. In fact there are two; the elegant, undulating, wide stone stairs, shipped from Rome bearing evidence of a grand past and leading to the piano nobile, and the scale di servizio, the servants' stairs, a narrow, almost vertical brick climb at the other end of the building, up and down which the staff would have scurried in their continuous task of keeping house. I feel two tides of history as I step on these worn treads, twin currents of Italian society flowing side by side, separated by walls and circumstance, brick and marble, dark and light. Cecilia loved the back stairs. I cannot decide, but I would leave both exactly as we found them.