There have been many books written about moving abroad, and they are all very good but in their own way they are boring, I found my house, renovated it, and now I live here, boring or what? Moving to France, Spain or Italy is a big decision and we chose the latter in the winter of 2002, at the grand old age of fifty, I think I found my second childhood, my children were all grown up and it was now time to think for myself, and of course for my darling wife, so me (David) and my wife Pam took the leap into the unknown and moved to Italy, dragging our daughter Georgina with us. We found, bought, restored and old farmhouse and opened Villa Sibillini Country House in February 2003. So that’s us - but believe me we have never had so much fun. The following short stories are mostly about me and the trouble I get myself into, laugh at me or cry with me it’s up to you.
Rubbish
As you can imagine running a hotel with a restaurant and bar, serving breakfast, lunch and an evening meal can and does leave you with a mountain of rubbish, so most mornings in peak season I am moving about 5 bags of rubbish. In Italy we have green bins at the side of the road, so after breakfast I load up my Land Rover with my five or six sacks and head off to my nearest bin.
However on this particular morning my closest bin was full so I headed to the next one, which is perched on the side of a hill. I park my car next to the bin throw open the lid and start to un-load my rubbish. Sack four, five and finally sack six. Now it is as sack six hits the bin that I realise something is moving, is it my car? No, that’s ok, is it me? No, it’s the bin! The green bin is taking off…….. Instinct tells you to grab hold and stop it, which I did, but then I started to move down the hill, so I let go and for the following seconds I was transfixed as the bin followed every contour of the lane and then turned right at a junction. Time to leave, I left still with the vision of the bin taking it’s self for a drive.
The next day I had a call from some friends asking how we were and they explained how some yobs had emptied the contents of a green bin in their front garden, I was of course shocked that such a thing could happen. Needless to say I have never been back to that particular bin.
