With all the rain that has been falling in the past couple of days I am not encouraged to prepare my orto (Italian for allotment) for the new growing season. It’s been quite a tough winter here: four considerable snowfalls plus the earthquake (which, like last year’s earthquake, occurred in January – hope it doesn’t become a regular fixture). However, at the beginning of this week I did manage to survey my contribution to the “good life” (remember that lovely sitcom with Felicity Kendal and the recently lamented late Richard Briers?) and felt I should commit myself more fully again to this languorous escape from supermarket vegetables and the daily grind. Here are some of the photographs taken of my “paradise garden”.
From London to Longoio (and Lucca and beyond) Part One 
I hope spring begins in earnest soon. I am a bit sick if the cold.
As someone famously said “If winter comes can spring be far behind?”
Spring is a miraculous experience. The whole world comes alive after the winter in which it seemed that everything was dead. The world comes filled with color and the scent of delicious greenery. The world that seemed so dull and cold has come alive once again. Little did we know that beneath the cold hard ground the plants and trees were preparing for rebirth. Spring gives us hope for rejuvenation in our own lives as well. Spring is a time to renew the excitement and zest for life that lives inside.