White Almond Sicily

This year we are celebrating ten years of our Sicilian house. Sicily is an island full of outstanding beauty, delicious food, wonderful history and culture and the Sicilian people, who are amazing, who have their own way of life making island life completely unique which is another reason why we fell in love with the island so much so that we decided to buy a house there. Coming from London we are used to a fast pace of life. Over the past ten years we have learned to live like the Sicilians do. People now say "she is now more Siciliana than Inglese ", I have been told I dress differently and I even gesture like a Sicilian when I talk and eat. In Sicily I never watch television, well why would I need to when I have Mount Etna as live entertainment? It is often that I get Emails and messages from people looking to relocate to Sicily asking for my advice. My advice is to rent first because living in Sicily is completely different to going on holiday in Sicily. With th...

and so The Puppy Road Trip continues ….. Day Two After a delicious croissant with coffee and a last stroll around Dijon to stretch Daisy’s legs we drive to the Port of Genoa to board our 20 hour ferry to Palermo, Sicily. Mont Blanc We drive down through Burgundy and the French Alps towards the Mont Blanc tunnel. The views of the Alps are spectacular especially if the mountains are dusted with snow, we start to pass road signs displaying Geneva, Milan, Turin. Mont Blanc beckons us like a huge iceberg in front of us becoming larger and larger. There are strict rules for driving through Mont Blanc after a fire in the tunnel in 1999. Speed restrictions are strictly kept at a minimum 50 km/h and maximum 70 km/h at a minimum distance between vehicles of 150metres.  You can feel  the 126 surveillance cameras that line the tunnel watching your every move. On entering we say “Au Revior” to France and a big “Buon Giorno” to Italy on the other side. Onc...

In my post last month “an English Daisy in Sicily” I introduced you all to our rescue dog Daisy who we adopted from All Dogs Matter in London. When we adopted her we vowed we would never leave her alone and that meant taking her to Sicily, this is the story of ‘The Puppy Road Trip’. As The Sixth Puppy Road Trip is closely approaching it is time to once again share our travels with one lucky rescue puppy from London to Sicily ….. Day One Relaxation after The Puppy Road trip The alarm goes off at 6am, my husband, Daisy and I embark on the first stage of our three day trip home to Sicily. We head to the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone where we board Le Shuttle to Calais. Eurotunnel  is totally Pet Friendly, as we arrive the staff in the check in kiosks make such a big fuss of Daisy the fact that she is excitedly hanging out of the window as if to say “I’m going on holiday” probably helps.  At the Eurotunnel terminal there is a generous fenced off ...

One March day in 2011, whilst working at Ruth Kaye Design in Primrose Hill in London a lady who we knew fostered rescue dogs for a charity called All Dogs Matter walked past with a tiny 8 week old puppy that had just been abandoned that day, she was all wrapped up in an orange Ikea blanket. The puppy was gorgeous and she knew it. I went home that evening and told my husband, we checked the All Dogs Matter website and found her. My husband made an appointment to meet her and it was love at first sight for both man and dog, we called her Daisy. We vowed that we would never leave her and that meant taking her to Sicily with us. Therefore twice a year we make the long journey to Sicily by car, it has come to be known as The Puppy Road Trip. The Puppy Road Trip starts at the Eurotunnel with an overnight stay in Dijon in France then through the Alps and the Mont Blanc tunnel down to Genoa in Northern Italy to board a ferry to Palermo which takes 20 hours in the comfort ...