Dear Hive Friends and Homesteaders!
I'm sitting at a finally-rather-pretty-looking table, drinking Earl Grey and listening to the rain outide - and dripping into various buckets from the leaky roof!
There's a significant storm passing overhead, and the thin sheets for our tent were not quite keeping me cosy. It has been quite astonishing how quickly it goes from being roasted and sweating so very profusely - to a proper chill in the air ...and/ or dramatic winds animating the hillside!
We are deep into our new life and wild living, and there is no shortage of water - as we had been encouraged to fear. The soil and lower (smaller) plant life has been transformed completely; pale creamy crackling dryness is now green lushness. Fruits are plumping up merrily, and new vegetation is surrounding us...
Adding to our feeling of wanting to simply meld with nature and subsist here in the abundance! Perhaps we'll eventually get 'natured-in' and can turn the car into a greenhouse of sorts!
Even by my own standards of adventuring in new landscapes, this is quite extreme; the 'house' is relatively wind and water tight ....that is, until it keeps raining more than 10 mins or so. Then it's every man, book and cat for himself.
We even have an inside - temporarily, hopefully - cat now: Fridha, the first of our Guardia Sanframondi friends. She was a tiny tabby stray kitten around 3 yrs ago, who arrived at my Arthouse door, mewing with a gusto more expected of a cat ten times her size... and having grown into the most sweet adult gattino. Being the most pleasant and least intrusive of the three, she got to pioneer this new experience, QUITE different to the dramas of the Via Dietro Gli Orti.
She is ecstatic - and alternating between running around over-excitedly outside, and lazing magnificently on a favourite cushion. Even in 24 hrs, the difference in her character is quite pronounced. She seems so much more at ease in herself.... bar the occasional confrontation with the wee kitties from next door, who are super-keen to connect. She is quite terrified of them at this early stage. 🤭
Aside from feline friends and dancing with the elements, we are making all kinds of small forays into improving the structure of the building and the land. The initial shaping of steps into the garden, the gate at the top of them, setting up a more comfortable kitchen, harvesting/ drying/ storing our amazing cornucòpia of homegrown (though we didn't do much 'growing' of anything yet!) foodstuffs. We are plenty busy, as our cups (and rain barrels) spilleth over.
Likely due to the mystical silenzio all around.
Our last couple of days in Guardia were a torture in places, with not the usual one, but two hysterically-screaming neighbours, evidently conspiring together, condemning me for some heinous crime (of doing nothing at all untoward).
This heavy sense is palpable, of folks there desperately trying to gain an ounce of flesh from me before we leave for good. The recent years' tensions come to the surface, as we drive the long road to the far side of Molise, and as I lose the way yet again in the scorching midday sun, and we only just make it here without fainting.
So our relief at this new, divinely peace-full ambience is huge, and similar to Fridha's; we stretch our limbs to their fullest, gamble along the forest paths, breathe deeply in and out with enthusiasm, and marvel at our escape ...just as she does!
Then we eat.
Improvised 'cheesecake': broken biscuits and yoghurt, topped by just-plucked brambles and figs 😋 was our best treat this week.
But every meal is glowing with synchrony. The good vibes abound. There is nothing anywhere near, to interrupt or trespass. It is just how we hoped it would be, and will only get better, as we improve on it.
Dawn is attempting to break now; the cockerel is crowing repeatedly, the rain has ceased (though the drips are still thudding into the buckets!) and the powerbank can have a wee rest as I don't need the light of the lamp any more. It promises to be a gorgeous day, everything washed clean and plumped up damply... a landscape choc-full of fogs and humidity, and us relishing the brightening freshness that has been gifted to us.
Maybe we'll drive to a nearby town's market, and have a treat of brunch. And/ or a wellied walk of our land, plotting out ditches to catch more water next time. Either way, I'm off to plan a hearty breakfast for us, involving sweet potatoes and eggs.... yum!
