Summer comes to Calabria

The snow covered Malito that I wrote about a few weeks ago now seems but a distant memory. Today it felt like spring - dare I say almost summer here in Calabria! I was actually hot and had to take off my winter coat as the bel fidanzato and I strolled around the little village. Normally we are alone as we go for a passeggiata in the winter time, as most (sensible...lazy) people take the car, even when they are only going to the bar 10 metres down the road. Today however the village came to life as people who I have never seen in my life were saying 'salve' as we walked around! As you know we decided to move to Malito in the middle of a freezing, cold winter so I have not yet made acquaintances with all of the village folk. And my memory is so bad that I forget the people that I have met in the past, so I just smile, and say hello to everyone to be on the safe side!

Taking advantage of the beautiful weather, bel fidanzato and I went to visit our old country house with our engineering friend who is going to do a project/plan of the house. You may recall that the family has a few old, run down houses and we are going to do one up and live there.

At first we wanted to live in this gorgeous house, but it is nothing but the shell of a house and it would cost a fortune to get electricity etc...connected there.



After a lot of discussion, and going back and forth, we decided to do up the old school house, rather then the townhouses in the village. I will post some photos of the old townhouses as they (there are 2, 1 next door to the other) are absolutely beautiful albeit run down....but being in the centre of town there is no garden and I - being Australian - have grown up with a big garden and eating outside in the warm weather. So I wanted a garden. Bel fidanzato also likes the idea of lunches and dinners outside, of having lots of room to do as you like, and having almost total privacy. So, the school house it is!

This photo is the only one I can find on my laptop, and I will have to post better photos of the place, but we are very excited that soon we will have the plans and can look into starting work!



The work will be slow as the house is massive not to mention rundown. Fingers crossed we can start with a new roof in the summer and go from there.

I'll keep you posted and post better photos of our house to be!!!!!