Having put our two boys on the flight home to the UK for the start of the new term yesterday, today Pauline, Magnus, the cats Teddy and Tiger, and I left France in our new, more compact car for Italy, hugging the coastal highway of the Cote d’Azur and the northwest coast of Italy, before striking into Eastern Tuscany next to the border with Umbria. We have rented a house about 30 minutes from Cortona close to a village called Mercatale.

It is a stone house on the side of a hill with a large garden, pool (OK, we are ever optimistic) and a beautiful view. The original part of the building, according to the owner, dates back to the 1400s and has had extensions and additional floors added to it over the years.  We can well believe this because it is pretty medieval throughout with uneven walls and stone floors and steep steps that take you into a warren of rooms. The plumbing, such as it is, has little water pressure and alternates between searing hot, warm and cold when showering. Timing is everything.

When we left France, spring had well and truly sprung. There were new leaves on the trees, the daffodils were blooming and, while the sea was still too cold to swim, shorts and tee shirts were not out of the question on some days for the hardiest. We arrived at the house on as a beautiful sunny afternoon, but only 9degC dropping to 2degC by the evening making our lovely stone house an ice box, since there is no heating. There is, however, a huge fireplace in the living room and our landlords provided kindling and firewood. Sadly, this had had not dried out and we almost smoked ourselves out of the house, having to open the windows to let the smoke out and the cold air in…

…six weeks to go…