From Canada?

Between Easter, the Anniversary of Liberation Day (April 25), Italian Labour Day etc, it's a period of long weekends and school holidays for many Italians. For those like us who work in the tourism industry, it means we've got some 'movement' and we are fortunate to make the acquaintance of a number of new faces in a short period. It's obvious that during our time together horse riding or on the high ropes that we get to chatting and many people want to understand my reason for leaving Canada and moving to Italy. The answer is quite simple: I'm happy here!

I came to Italy 8 years ago looking for "an adventure" and many believe I stayed because I fell in love. While this is true to a certain extent, it would take more than the love for a man (especially a born and raised Montieri farmer man like Simone!) to make me stay. The truth is that I found something more, even though we appear to have less: there are no movie theatres, no clubs or discos, no department stores or large grocery stores, there aren't the advertisements competing for my attention, no traffic jams nor is there the constant drone of vehicles passing by on the street. In short, the things that we have 'less' of are some of the things that make my life here so pleasurable.

That's not to say that life is easy here - we have to work like stink just to keep things going! The night before a national holiday (April 25) one of our horses had colic so we took turns walking with him and sleeping (not comfortably) under an olive tree. At 3a.m, tired and full of anxiety for this horse and the fact that he might die, I looked up at the night sky and took in the sight of an uncountable number of stars (visible thanks to the lack of light pollution)  and it reminded me that our problems weren't that big compared to that universe out there. In fact, the horse was still with us the next day and we pulled off a successful and full day of activities with fun and friendly people despite the exhaustion that was lurking in the background.

Perhaps I'm not able to express myself properly but I know that once you arrive here at our farm Fattoria Venere in this little corner of Tuscan paradise, you'll understand what I mean and why I stayed in Tuscany...