New Year, New Life

Happy New Year, well it is still January right?

This month has really flown by, we basically have just tried to enjoy our time here and get to know the local area and our new home. Doing basic things like go to the supermarket and greengrocers, and also bought something from the Monday market.

We had a lovely Christmas in our home together. We had a walk on the beach on Christmas day and New Year’s Day which was a dream.  We have never done that before.

The weather is not too bad for December/January. When the sun is out it is like a lovely spring day in the UK, about 16°C but it feels warmer.  When the sun goes in, it is rather cold, but the coolest it has been is about -2°C in the middle of the night, so not too cold.  But we are definitely glad we got the fire sorted very early on.

Also we have had some rain. And when it rains, it does really rain.  Proper downpours and the roads get flooded, but it is all gone by the next day, if it is dry.  It is like nothing has really happened.  We also have had snow on the mountains for a few days which was very pretty.

Our second bathroom is very nearly complete, we have just a couple of things to sort out. It is basically like the other one but it is smaller in length so the shower area is a little smaller.  Hopefully that will be sorted in the week or so.

We bought a new sideboard and a bookcase, which is a nice thing to do.  It was a nice 30 minute or so walk to the shop called Casa Si, where we bought our sofa and chair from.  These were delivered quite quickly and they were assembled by the men who delivered them. We were not expecting that and it was for no extra charge which was amazing.  They were so quick and really nice and professional, we were impressed.

We are also waiting for the electric company to remove an old meter.  As the apartment was originally two knocked into one, one of the meters was decommissioned in the past but never removed, so it is now in our way as it is just above our TV, so we are staring at it when we watch the TV. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take some time for the person to arrive to remove it, which is a pain but there is nothing we can do apart from wait.

This is stalling us painting the walls. We are itching to get the not so nice and very orange paint effect off the walls, we were waiting until the meter was removed but it looks like we have to at least make a start as the old paint effect is really annoying us. So when the bathroom is finished we can at least make a start on that. Definitely looking forward to that being gone.

We have been enjoying walks around the local area, not too far as I have hurt my leg.  Think it is a trapped nerve which most of the time is OK, but with all the hills and steps in to our home can make it sore and unstable.

We have walked around the area which is up the hill from us, most of the properties are holiday homes, so it is a rather strange ghost town with a few residents and dogs wandering about.  Not sure if the dogs are owned by anyone, apart from the ones with a collar but they all seem happy enough with their freedom.

We have also had a walk to Baia del Carpino which is a holiday complex on the coast. At the moment, there seems to be not a soul there, but we arrived at a rocky beach and had a sit down in the warm sun completely by ourselves, it was bliss. I guess it will be a different story in the summer, when holidaymakers arrive.

We also had a walk up to the old Norman castle ruins that is across the valley and is at the top of the old town (Centro Storico). If you see my previous post you will see the view from our terrace and the castle is on the left.  We had a great view of our place through the old stones, which looks very nice indeed.  It is nice to see it from the outside which is slightly more difficult than if it was just on a road.

Torre Cimalonga

Centro Storico

Centro Storico

Centro Storico

Cat in Centro Storico

In between all of that, we have just been sorting through our stuff to make sure everything has a proper home.  John has also created a home bar. We had one in our old house in England. He has used the old door that was removed when we installed the fire as the bar, I did had doubts about at the time, but it actually looks great. Yes John, you were right all along.  So later in the year it will be a nice place to sit and have a drink, listen to music and just chill.

There has been one problem though, we have lost one of our boxes during transport by the looks of it, which is a pain.  It contained saucepans that my mother bought and never used as they looked too nice to use.  When she died, I made sure they were used and had a smile every time. So if you see any copper pans from Sainsbury’s lying around, they could be mine, would be a miracle if we get them back, but here’s hoping.

So that is basically it, I’m looking forward to updating you next month, February, the month of love. Who knows what the future holds. Sending you lots of love, until next time.