Category Archives: Umbertide

Terrazzo update

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Hi everyone 😊 This is an update on stuff outside. It’s really hot now so I spend my mornings out on the Terrazzo. It is cool and there is usually a breeze. I had to deep six one of my tomato plants because it was diseased. Sad. But we still have two. They look good and have some nice fruit. Second picture is a sprinkler I got. I’m having problems with the irrigation system in this bed and have a call in to our gardener who installed the system many years ago. I like the sprinkler. I got happily all wet trying to adjust it. 😎

The fish FINALLY woke from their long winter nap. We still have Qua. But the other two are new and small and have no names. I do like watching them play.

Some other pictures of plants. I put captions on them.

These are the lavenders. White and purple. And the red maple at the end.
This fern was nearly killed by an invasive plant but seems to be making a comeback. And the impatien is pretty.

Here is where I sit in the morning when it’s cool. I like to look at the surrounding mountains. Pretty.

Finally, a funny story. There are these big bottles used for wine here. Called demijohns in English. Damigiana in Italian. They used to be common and found in the recycle centers, tossed away. It seems now they are scarce and they are sold for a good price mostly among us immigrants. Anyway, I was driving back from errands and I saw an old man crossing the road near our house with a big, green demijohn. He was headed for the glass recycle receptacle. I made a quick turn around and sped back. Lucky for me the bottle wouldn’t fit and he was just leaving it. I asked if I could have it and he happily gave it to me apologizing because it was dirty and saying I needed a plastic cap. He assumed I was using it for wine. Anyway. Here is my prize, all cleaned up.

Today is laundry day. Did you know power is less expensive on Sundays and in the middle of the night in Italy? Yes, it is. Being summer, I no longer use the drier. Everything dries on the rack outside in minutes. Solar drying 😁 These just came inside so I can fold in the cool inside. The sheets smell like sunshine! ☀️

Summer, here we come!

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The weather is picture perfect right now. Quite warm, 31C or 88F today and getting hotter. Our terrace is the perfect extended living space. Last night we inaugurated eating dinner outside, and then watching a movie. 🙂 It was lovely. Luther smoked a cigar but I really think he has decided that cigars are no longer a big part of his life. It is hard for him to transition. But it’s a good thing. Maybe now it will be an every-now-and-then thing rather than an every night thing.

Today is a holiday here. Republic day. The day, in 1946 when they voted that Italy would become a republic. Nothing is open. I had a basket of the kumquats that I harvested from my tree sitting on the counter for a week mocking me to use them. I found a recipe for kumquats and apricot chutney. So today I amused myself making a batch. It’s quite tart and a bit piquant. I think it will go as a relish with many things.

Last Saturday night we had rather an unexpected experience. Goes to show we can still mess thing up after all these years 😁 We used to have a restaurant in town called Locanda Appennino. It had a lovely outside summer terrace which sat right on the city walls. Sadly it closed several years ago. Recently friends told me it was open again under new management.

We had friends visiting in town who own apartments in the countryside and we always try to have a meal together when they come. I made a reservation at this new place for us all. Or at least I thought did. I first called the number on the Internet and ended up with the old owner who said they were closed. But I “knew” they weren’t! So I found another number and called it. I made the reservation and let our friends know.

Saturday we went into the restaurant and looking back on it now, they didn’t seem to have a reservation for us but said if we came back they would open up the terrace for us. So we did that and returned.

The place was a little basic (understatement!). I think it must be a work in progress. The owner and cook were your basic, rather “rough” Umbertidese. But sweet, as all Umbertidese are. They told us what they had. Basically an antipasto assortment, a primi which was tagliatelle with ragu, and a secondi of pork. We had one vegetarian so we asked for a non-meat pasta which they made for us. The wine was red…or white in re-used bottles.

The antipasto was good and varied. We had cheeses, meats, roasted baby onions and radishes on platters to begin. Then a plate of the thinnest sliced eggplant ever (super good), and a plate of bruschetta fegato, (liver). Oddly, no bread. In the end, we all got fed and had a laugh. 😆

At nine o’clock I got a call from the other Locanda Appennino. Yes, there are two. I was so embarrassed that I had reserved a table for six on a Saturday night and then was a no show. I never would do that. I even told him when he asked where we were that we were there now, eating. Until we figured out the confusion.

We are finally enjoying summertime in Umbria ! 💚

Chinese store

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Last week was pretty busy. I finished the final medical tests my doctor prescribed. I visited Ely, at Calagrana to pick up a chair a friend had left for me. It was early because I had gotten blood taken for the test at 7:15. The morning was lovely and I don’t think there is a more perfect, calm and beautiful spot than Calagrana’s terrace. Ely made us a couple of cappuccini and we sat on the terrace and had a nice talk. We should do that more often.
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I also needed to pick up a couple of demijohns and a terracotta pot I bought from a lady nearby who is continuing to downsize her home here. They have lived here a long time but moved back to Maryland a few years ago for health reasons. They can’t yet let their home, up above Umbertide, go. I don’t blame them. It is pretty up there. You can see the city in the distance.

She also has cacti which were blooming. I am planning to make my planters, which are not irrigated, into a succulent garden and she is going to give me some of the cactus.

Next I did something I seldom do. I visited the Chinese store. You’re probably scratching your heads aren’t you? But this is a “thing” in Italy. I don’t know why I have never written about this before. Every town of any size in Italy has their version of a Chinese store. Owned by Chinese people (obviously) and full to the brim of all kinds of things. Too many to list but to name a few: office supplies, toys, kitchen tools and supplies, clothing, pool toys, pots for plants, art supplies, etc. To shop here is to get cheap stuff. Don’t look for quality or tasteful things. But for everyday things that people need, you can be pretty sure you can find them here.

What did I buy? Well, I bought a new wooden scraper spoon, some shelf paper, and a bunch of new clothes pins. Boring but necessary things. So there you have it! Another odd thing you’ll find in Italian villages and towns.

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Otherwise, tomorrow I am getting cataract surgery. I’m very excited. I may not have to wear glasses anymore! And today we also did some planning for a short trip over to Sestri Levanti in Liguria for our anniversary. We went one other time, staying at Vis-a-Vis (thanks Matt🙂), just after Covid, and wow, what a difference between then and now. Then we had our pick of any room we wanted. We had two balconies, one sea view, the other town view. This time, I had a very hard time finding a nice room with a terrace and view at all. Back then, no one was traveling. Now, that’s not the case. It is the opposite. Anyway, it is not exactly on our anniversary, but we will celebrate as though it is.

That’s all the news fit to print. Enjoy spring. Our weather has turned glorious! Enjoy yours, and Happy Memorial Day.

Busy Saturday

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Lots going on in Umbertide today! I headed into the center of town to visit the market and also to do a short shift at Books for Dogs. I had forgotten that Sunday was the big, exciting day when the Giro d’Italia goes through town. See the banner below. It is a very famous bicycle race. Almost as famous as the Tour de France. Of course, ours is more important HERE. The cleaner up people were out mowing grass all along the route. Including the park next to the river.

It was a pretty day. The market was busy. Slow Food had a booth open. I bought some asparagus, spring onions, baby zucchini and some itty bitty new potatoes. But there was lots I didn’t buy, like new peas and fava beans. And the brand new local artichokes! It is so nice to see all these new spring veggies after a long winter of the same old winter veg. Inspiring.

I did my stint at Books for Dogs. A busy day. Now that the weather is nicer more folks come out. A couple of pictures of the goods. The winter things are gone and we are ready for the summer.

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In my own garden I took a couple pictures. The first is our Christmas tree. He is spending his summer on the terrazzo and seems quite happy, judging from all the new growth. The next photo is the lemon tree with all its flowers. it also is very happy. And last is a teensy, tiny lemon just forming from the flower. There are probably a hundred flowers so it is not possible for them all to become mature lemons, as time goes by, some fall off.

I am feeling better from my cough. So happy. I even have energy to do some gardening. I planted another tomato, this one Sardinian with a darker skin colour. I also planted a tabasco pepper because I couldn’t get a Jalapeño. They had scotch bonnets and habaneros but I didn’t want those. I also got two basil plants. Next week flowers, chives, sage will come.

Buona domenica to all.

Back to everyday life

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It’s good to be home, even with this crappy cough. I have a doctor appointment tomorrow but I’m doubtful she can help. It is just una brutta tosse, a bad cough, that keeps on giving! I had a surgery scheduled yesterday for a cataract but had to cancel because of it. I was disappointed because I’m looking forward to perhaps not having to wear glasses! How exciting.

Anyway, the weather is pretty good now. Not super warm but nice. I visited the Umbria Iris farm again last weekend with my friend Doug. We also had un caffè in the piazza and shopped the market. I’m very happy to have fresh eggs readily available. But that’s only in the spring when the chickens are really laying. I love fresh, free range chicken eggs. Fifty cents each.

Iris farm. Views are to die for. The maintenance on this place must be daunting! And the money invested incredible. Very nice to visit.

Doug bought three of these.
Iris’ for sale.

The day after we returned home we had our new handyman, called a tuttofare in Italian, Roddy, come and do the work we needed done around here. It took almost three days! The biggest part was the five windows that faced the weather that needed to be sanded and resealed. He also hung pictures for me and my curtains. And he replace a piece of wood that had been removed by another “helper” who never returned and he painted the two planters that looked really bad after their paint had sluffed off. It feels so good to get all the maintenance, and also things that I had waited for, for such a long time, done.

Here is the contact info for Roddy Gee owner and proprietor of Umbria La Vita. Www.umbrialavita.com
+39-340-162-8854
umbrialavita@gmail.com

I chose a new color, a light gray. The former owner was into pink. I am NOT a pink lover. So the new color really makes the old pink look crappy. Sooner or later that must be painted. But they look spectacular. 😁

We had aperitivo with our friends Christie and Jane and some of their friends one evening. It’s always good to see friends. 🙂

We also had our new friends Sarah and Don, who just moved here (!) over to our house so we could look over their applications for their first Permessi di Soggiorno. The beginning of a long road. It is always so nice to have new friends move into town. And we love helping them with the arduous process. I can’t wait to see their progress in their new home in the Niccone valley.

For me, I have a long list of things I want to get done. It is planting time and I need to get the energy to go out and get soil and plants for the planters. That’s tops on my list. Here are the baby olives on our little tree.

I will be working at Books for Dogs this Saturday. I will visit the market before work. We are in a transition season. The spring veggies are slowly showing up. Yay for the change of seasons.

Ciao for now!

Happy Women’s day!

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Today is International Women’s day. Here in Italy, women are gifted a sprig of mimosa to celebrate. I worked at Books for Dogs this morning and the town was festooned with mimosas. There were big buckets of it on traffic islands, and in front of stores. Women were walking everywhere carrying their mimosa. It is said the mimosa was chosen because it manages to flourish even in difficult conditions and is associated with women’s own resilience and ability to win their rights. Here’s mine. Gifted to me when I went into the Farmacia to fill a prescription 🙂

I normally park on the other side of the river when I drive to town on market days. The river was pretty and I saw my first fisherman!

My little kumquat tree is loaded with fruit. Most isn’t quite ripe yet. You can tell when they are ready because they get extra orange and soften. I have a great recipe for Chicken and Kumquats which I made tonight. My tree.

We have a plethora of pizzerie in our town 😁. They have all different types of pizza. From the super thin, almost cracker crust that is called Roman style to the thicker crust of the Neapolitan style. Last Thursday we went to Degusto which is very near us and Neapolitan in style. Delicioso. This is Luther’s. Mine was prettier but I didn’t take a picture before I destroyed it, by cutting it. Did you know they don’t cut pizza into slices here? You get the whole pie, uncut. I use scissors to cut it if I get it “to go”.

No bathroom updates to speak of. They finally got the wooden form that they needed to use to cut the tiles around the shower stone. But that’s as far as they got. I hope next week we have more progress. This has been a major roadblock. I realize things happen on “Italian Time” here but this is getting tiresome. Oh well. Piano, piano.

It’s Marzo!

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A gray Sunday but it’s my normal laundry day, because the electricity is cheapest on a Sunday, so I’m just enjoying a quiet day. Starting Tuesday the temperatures are really warming up. Daytime from 15 to 18 or about 60 to 65. Not too bad.
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This past week I made progress on the inscrutable Italian health system. It can be hard to get appointments here, especially if you want a location or a doctor specifically. But my doctor wants me to see a Hematologist because she has some concerns about my blood tests. She specified the appointment was urgent and was to be within ten days. Mainly this was to speed it up, not because it was really urgent. I went to the CUP in the Farmacia (they make appointments) who said I would get an SMS with the appointment. Which I did, the next day! So I’ve got an appointment next week. I’m not concerned at this time but it needs to be checked I guess. And I really am only writing about the process, which involves a steep learning curve. I am on the wait list for two other appointments. If it’s not an emergency it can take some time.
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Meanwhile I worked at Books for Dogs/Libri per i Cani yesterday. I’ve written before but this time I took a few pictures so you could get an idea of the shop. The charity supports two canile which are kennels for rescued dogs plus one other which rescues anything that needs help. I love that she, and she does this all alone, does this.

We get a constant stream of people either donating things for us to sell or those who love to browse for a bargain. We keep busy checking people out and also pricing and displaying the goods. There are a lot of regulars too. Some I like. Some are a bit of a pain. Yesterday a woman came in just at closing and spent a lot of time browsing. She had several things but wanted me to throw in a set of measuring cups that were priced at €2.00. Well, I wasn’t in the mood at that time so I looked at her and said “it’s for the animals”. She put them back. 🙄 Here is the shop. You may notice the Italians are dressed like for the Arctic? Stocking caps and puffer coats. Yeah. They wear these until June. They dress for the calendar, not the weather. To each their own, right?! 🤣

You can get some bargains there for sure. People sometimes bring in Armani designer items and other designer things. The goods do tend to turn over pretty quickly. They also sell furniture. They rent a garage for the bigger things and there is a catalog with pictures. This three piece set of antique inlaid dresser and bedside tables is in the shop. They are asking only €240 for the three.

They also sponsor fun things like quiz nights and bingo at a local restaurant. The quizzes are in English but the bingo is very popular with the Italians too.
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Bathroom. Slow but steady progress. It is amazing how much work goes into a small bathroom. Floor with spacers.

Grouted floor.

Grouted wall.

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Italians have something similar to our chicken soup. Not literally but the food that you eat when you’re not feeling great. Called pasta in bianca, pastina in brodo, riso in bianco or maybe straciatella (egg drop soup). All light and comforting. I made my version this week. It is a soup of pasta in a nice home made chicken broth with a bit of greens. Very much a classic and light comfort food. This is mine 😋

Buona domenica a tutti!

Winter in Umbria

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Umbria is a four season area, as is most of Italy. People seem to think Italy is warm in winter, especially in the south, but this isn’t true. But it’s also not terribly cold except in the mountainous north. It does snow in most of Italy but usually only a little. They had snow recently in far south Sicily. Our temperatures here can get as cold as the upper 20s at night with normal daytime temperatures in the day in the 50s. It can be gray and damp, with quite a lot of rain. I don’t like the season much but it can be very beautiful in a stark way.

Bathroom
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I met with Irma yesterday to finalize all the bathroom things like under sink built-ins, shower seat, number of tiles up the walls. We still have to go pick the countertop for the sink and the circle in the shower. This last bit is a little hard to describe so you’ll have to wait to see it in the end. The plumber came and said they didn’t finish the demolition. So the muratore returned today and made a lot of dust and noise. When he was gone we were left with this. I think the plumber returns tomorrow. We’ll see…

Yesterday and today we had very high wind warnings. It boomed on the canopies out on the terrazzo. I drove to the Tuscan town of Sansepolcro where I get my hair cut. Even the VeeDub had trouble with the wind and we had to negotiate around a double trailer semi which had been knocked into the guardrail and partially jack-knifed.

Dreaming of spring! A la prossima a tutti!

Bathroom

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I promised some photos. The first two are of the bath after the appliances and plumbing was disconnected. The next one is today after all is gone.

Now, it’s ready for the plumber who’s coming on Monday. Then I think the muratori (wall guys) will come back and smooth the walls and floors and finished the enclosure for the toilet. After all that, the pretty stuff happens 🙂.
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Our weather has been quite mild for the last couple of weeks and lots of rain. Weekend coming up. We have a few things on. Tonight we are going to our Italian family’s house for dinner. This is Vera and her husband and a Danish couple that she works for. We’ve met them before. They are wealthy and that’s hard to do in Denmark! Tomorrow, I’m working at Books for Dogs then I’ll go to the market. Sunday we are meeting American friends who live nearby for lunch at Calagrana. They are the ones that we help with the olive harvest every year. Calagrana is closed for the season, but they open now and then for a lunch or dinner and we get an email when they do. We have not been since Thanksgiving, so I am looking forward to that!

Buon Weekend! (Yes that’s really a thing they say here. Much easier than fine settimana!)

Checking in

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Hi all. I thought I would check in with the few interesting things we have been doing. Being winter, and pretty darn cold, we haven’t been doing too much. I have been volunteering at the Books for Dogs/Libri per i Cani shop. It’s pretty fun. I work on Saturdays, either early or late shift.

Today the bathroom renovation began. The plumber came to disconnect all the appliances. So all the sinks and shower, bidet and toilet have been unhooked. Monday the true demolition will begin. I am not sure how long this job will take. I do know Irma has received all the materials for it, so once demolished I would think they would begin installing the tiles, sinks, toilet etc. The electrician must also come. Then the plumber comes back. Maybe a couple weeks? I’ll post pictures in my next post.
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On the cooking front I have made some wintery dishes. Chili, always a favorite, with borlotti beans. My favorite roast chicken from Thomas Keller of the French Laundry. So simple but so delicious. Then over the weekend I made a Kimchi Soup. Yeah, I know it’s not Italian, but I love those exotic tastes on occasion and this one pushes all the buttons. Luther thinks he doesn’t like kimchi, but when it’s used as an ingredient it is more acceptable. (He liked the soup 🙂) There are lots of discussions on the Facebook Expat groups about foreign foods. Many people are adamant that when you come to live in Italy you embrace the food. Others say they miss flavors of home and it’s perfectly ok to use them. And the third group also misses all the diverse cuisines of the world that are available in the U.S. For myself, I love Italian food, I also love comfort foods from home, and I love exotic tastes. So here is my kimchi soup in pictures 🙂

The recipe called for bok choy but that’s not found here. So I used bietole which is like chard, and very close to bok choy. This soup came together very quickly. It was bright and spicy tart and sour. Very yummy
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I met with a friend, Elizabeth Wholly this morning, for a caffè. My favorite bar is Bar Mary as my long time readers know. It is in the piazza. And in summertime, it is great to sit outside with a spritz or a coffee and watch the world go by. But in the winter, they only have one pretty barren back room and mostly the tables are filled with the old men playing cards. My go-to wintertime bar is Antico bar Giardino. It is just outside the piazza on one of the main roads through town. It, too, has a lovely garden, hence the name, but it also is cozy with deep upholstered sofas and chairs, quirky tables, many different rooms, vaulted ceilings nice barriste. Coffee is good, pastries tasty, nice wines for aperitivo. They have apericena, (drinks with snacks) in the evening. They also have a warm stufa 😁.

Stay tuned for the bathroom renovation!