Our one year anniversary

Fiona McKinley
Nov 3 · 5 min read

1st November was the anniversary of our moving to Italy, we have now been here exactly one year, how has it gone by so quickly? From the daily 9–5 with just the weekend off to nearly six months skiing just about every day to a summer spent renovating our house, what a dramatic difference! We certainly made the right decision to move here and whilst we still have a long way to go on the house it’s been worth the upheaval. Now autumn is most definitely here and the leaves on the trees are all shades of orange and yellow and falling rapidly, coating the ground. The new ski season is fast approaching the weather is getting colder, there is snow in the forecast and we have our lift passes for the season so let it snow!

The cherry tree in autumn colours

As well as the snow Christmas is also approaching, the shops are now full of festive items as you might expect, Lidl has its usual huge range of seasonal biscuits and cakes but sadly no mince pies, I will have to see if someone will bring me a jar of mincemeat from the UK so I can make some. They also had Christmas cards but sending them is not a big tradition here as it is in the UK as can be seen by the price — 79P PER CARD. Luckily we have a batch we brought over with us last year so I’ll apologise now to anyone who receives the same card as they did last year.

We do still have some mundane tasks that we have to do, this week I discovered the one advantage of not having an oven — you don’t have to clean it! How do ovens get dirty so quickly, I’ve only been using it for a couple of weeks — I don’t suppose having chestnuts explode when they are being roasted helps — they stick to the inside of the oven like glue. Finding oven cleaner is not easy either — perhaps Italians all have self cleaning ovens, eventually some was found and I spent several hours cleaning the oven, such fun!

Last week we went to collect our new driving licenses, I knew it had been too easy. Mine was ready, no problem, Simon’s had a spelling mistake so it had to be sent back to be re done and was to have been ready Wednesday morning, we went to collect it and discovered that half his categories had been left off so once again it has had to be sent back! We now have to wait another ten days for it to be done again, maybe third time lucky.

Last Sunday we went to the annual Aosta Valley honey festival in Chatillon which is a town about half an hour away. It was a lovely warm sunny day, Chatillon is a very pretty town with many old buildings and a river running through it along a deep gorge. On arrival the first thing we saw was a display of Apes (which means bee in Italian). These are basically miniature trucks built on a motorbike base with three wheels and loved by the Italians who put them to all sorts of uses. Just about every farmer has one as well as anyone who needs to fetch and carry, they are also loved by youngsters as the 50cc version can be driven at 16 on a provisional license. The display had everything from the battered old farm truck to the racing Ape with go faster stripes — yes they even have Ape racing in Italy — look it up on youtube, it’s mad! Once past the Apes there were many stalls selling honey from local producers, the event is also a competition so the different types of honey are judged and prizes awarded. As well as the honey there were stalls selling local produce, delicious breads with honey, figs and nuts (we just had to buy some), roast chestnuts, biscuits, cakes, all sorts of local wines and liquors and many other things. As it was a festival based around bees and honey the organisers thought it would be a good idea to have a live bee hive in the centre of the town. It did have a high Perspex barrier around it so people couldn’t get too close but the bees were able to come and go out over the top. They thought all the samples of honey, cakes and other sweet treats were wonderful — not so wonderful for the humans who had to make sure the piece of cake they were about to eat didn’t have several bees clinging to it! Hopefully no one got stung.

The river running through Chatillon

Work on the bathroom is ongoing, the walls are well on their way to be ready for tiles with insulation and plasterboard going up, new water and waste pipes are in as well as ducting for new electrics and the frames for the toilet and bidet are also in. The cistern and plumbing for these is all being built into the walls so it will all be hidden and we will have a nice sleek bathroom. This week has been a week of deliveries, plasterboard for the bathroom and new boots for Simon on Monday, units for the bathroom on Tuesday, plumbing supplies and water pipe on Thursday. The tiles for the walls are due this coming Monday. We are now well known at the local builders merchants and frequent visitors to the local DIY shop. The DIY shop is nicknamed ‘the empty shelf shop’ as stock levels are appalling, if you want to order something it takes at least a month for them to get it, a far cry from B&Q who would have it in a couple of days. But it’s how it is so you just have to put up with it.

Work in the bathroom

As I mostly wrote this yesterday a quick weather update, Pila had its first proper snowfall last night and today! Freezing levels down to about 1800 metres and lots more snow due this coming week!

Pasta and Pistes

How we started a new life in the Aosta Valley, Italy

Fiona McKinley

Written by

Pasta and Pistes

How we started a new life in the Aosta Valley, Italy

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