Our first trip of the year to Abruzzo is in May.

This time we can really get stuck in to some real restoration work ! The roof has been fixed I've got a local carpentar making new chestnut windows and the next major job is the repointing.

The plan is to remove all the failing mortar and replace it with new, mixed from NHL3 lime and the local soft yellow coloured sand.The quarry for the sand is just up the road from us but I still need to discover how to arrange for a load to be delivered.Hopefully one of my neighbours will know who to speak to.

Of course not all of our time will be spent working on the house.We have the usual meetings to attend.One with the Geometra to go through our plans for the bathroom and another with Nicola who is making our windows.We decided on brushed steel handles for the windows.These should be in keeping with the clean light coloured chestnut and lime washed walls.Nicola is having problems finding the handles in Italy so I expect we'll end up touring the ferramentas (ironmongers)!

Garden Plans

Another major project this year is the creation of a garden close to the house that we can enclose from our neighbour Roberto's sheep! They dont eat olives but everthing else is fair game.My plans done in photoshop will need to be formalised and taken to the comune.

I hope they'll give us the go-ahead and won't think the plan is too 'English'.

We are also hoping that the dry winter has at least meant that the large hole in the neighbour's roof hasn't caused any problems.We'll see! I hope too that we can get some water butts for the grondaia to carry rainwater into.

The repointing is on my mind.Mixing up the mortar by hand will be very hard work but I'm not sure if we will be able to sort out a cement mixer on this trip.We have not had the rewiring done at this stage so powering it would mean buying a generator. We're also hoping the weather won't be too hot or we'll need to be hosing down the walls constantly.At least we have the delicious cakes at Cafe Anna to keep our energy levels topped up.

Our olives trees are another worry.The olives I bought back last year were all full of maggots so I need to buy some traps to hang in the trees Hopefully the results of our winter's pruning and feeding should give us a good crop this year!

I have decided this year to stop flying! It seemed to me that by doing so I was flyng in the face of my environmental beliefs.

So our trips in 2007 will be by Eurolines Coach to Rome!

From Rome we are hiring a Smartcar which works out at less than £100 a week and the car itself does 70mpg.How many bags of lime can it carry though?

If you'd like to follow our progress from London to Rome click below

Rome or bust!