Today I have been in Italy exactly three years.  It has been a memorable, at times bumpy but overwhelmingly superb time.

I celebrated by watering the garden, only to be met by a torrential downpour reminiscent of the day I arrived three years ago at Pisa airport.  Then the flight landing was  delayed 45 minutes on account of an electrical storm over the airport.  I had left Scotland in sunshine, and had come to Italy for the same!  It then rained all the way to Gubbio.  I was in a hire car, and leaving the airport at 20.00 hrs meant driving at night in a Wagnerian storm.  Finally at half past midnight I turned into the drive of the Locanda Del Gallo at Santa Cristina, the wonderful country house hotel where Paola and Irish had thoughtfully left a chocolate on my pillow, it was a real welcome.

Today the storm is passing and there is a splendid rainbow over Bellaugello Gay Guest House, oh it is so good to be here in Umbria, I have made many many great friends, welcomed many charming guests to Bellaugello and Milo Edo and Jenny my three dogs, like me, are so very happy here in the Umbrian countryside it is an utterly beautiful place to live.