ITALY TRIP - hard to leave home

I've always said "You need to live where you live."

My philosophy is to build a life that you are happy to inhabit - work which you believe to be worthwhile, community involvement that embeds you and contributes to your identity and satisfaction with life. Hobbies which develop your skills. 

Ideally, instead of fantasizing about the next holiday, one should approach it with a modicum of regret, a disruption to the life you have built up. 

That is certainly how we have felt as we approach our Italian trip this year. 

I am leaving behind my books, my enamelling gear, my thriving pot plants. Nigel is abandoning his fruit bushes where redcurrants, blackcurrants and gooseberries are all coming to maturity, his first tomatoes ripening in the greenhouse. 

Both of us hate leaving our roses in their full glory.

Yet it is our community that has come to our rescue.

A young lad from church has agreed to water our patio pots and restock our bird feeders for the dozens of finches and tits who feed there.

Carole has agreed to be foster mother to my seven orchids in full bloom.

Our neighbours have agreed to empty our mail box and in return we have asked them to help themselves to soft fruit as it ripens.

The garden will have moved on when we return, but hopefully our friends will have everything under control.