We're back!

Well it's that time of year again and we are in Italy getting Casa Leana ready for our season which starts when the first guests arrive on 28 March.  

We've been painting and cleaning and moving and buying, not to mention repairing and replacing!  It's always our busy time. So far we have painted the games room and the utility room.  Both quite striking colours and we hope our guests will like them.  

Weather hasn't quite kicked in yet so we have spent most of the time inside. Having said that, during the more milder days Leigh has been outside repairing the pergola roofs which we have to do every two or three years.  There is still much to do but we have to wait until the spring to carry out the pruning of the plants in the pool area but we've noticed our Italian neighbours are pruning their olive trees already (earlier than normal) so we are going to take a leaf out of their book and do the same.  We tend to copy whatever the locals do in their gardens as they obviously know best!  

One thing I always worry about is the laurel hedge which spans half the length of the garden - we planted it many years ago and it has to be trimmed at least twice a year.  It's such a big job and every year we think about getting a gardener in to help us out but we always end up doing it ourselves!  We lose a few of individual bushes sometimes which is frustrating as then it makes the whole hedge a bit wonky.  It's during the summer when the weather gets super hot and even though I water I obviously miss one or two now and then!  

We've done a bit of spring cleaning already but we usually sort that all out next month - in fact you may have noticed that the majority of things are done in March as we like it to be perfect for when the guests arrive of course!  But it does mean that March is a super busy month.  It's the nature of the beast as they say.  

We have some of our family coming in May and again in August so we are looking forward to seeing them as usual.  We also have a few old work friends who are contemplating visits so again something wonderful to look forward to this season.

Have a lovely week!  

D I A N A   xxx