Jun 3, 2024 | A House In Italy
“I brought you some plants.”
“Oh bloody hell!”
Feck, did I say that out loud? I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but really? More bloody plants.
Neighbours were wonderful and very generous when they heard of my Dad’s passing. Instead of sending flowers to Ireland they brought me plants for my garden in Italy. Buckets of them.
These I will plant randomly, as I will forget what they told me they were and what size they will grow to. I did the same with the cuttings and plants they gave me for my birthday, and the 28 faded packets of seeds I’ve collected from shopping expeditions, with great unfulfilled intentions, at the beginning of each spring for the last five years.
I’ll battle the weeds and brambles and clear an area. Dig the holes required, battle the roots of old trees that no longer stand. Fill in the snake holes and avoid the scorpions. After fertilising the area with expensive organic stuff, I’ll carefully tip the plant from its pot and bed in the soil around it.
My nearly grown back nails will break again and no amount of soaking or scraping will remove the ingrained dirt.
For at least a month, my daily workout will include carrying two full watering cans per plant down the garden.
It will rain, then sunshine. Then rain again. Alongside the plants, the weeds will take advantage of all my hard work.
Then, one fine morning, my husband Ronan, will go out with his strimmer and strim the weeds, and all the plants I have carefully planted down to the roots because, “they all look the same” to him.
Bless his wee heart.
I’ll then spend a week, and a small fortune, tracking down and replacing the same plants so that the neighbours won’t be upset. And the process of digging and planting will start over again.
And I can only hope some might survive the next round of impromptu strimming.
May 17, 2024 | RE# Your Life
I’ve had lots of readers and writers ask me to do a Rosie Retreat in Italy in Autumn 2024. So here it is! Applications will close on the 30th May so apply now to join me for an experience of a lifetime in Tuscany Italy!
Jan 10, 2024 | A Rosie Moment, Living In Italy
I wasn’t going to run a retreat in 2024 as I wanted to take time out for myself but I am already missing the people that I would have met this year! So I have decided to run a women’s retreat in June. We will have morning writing sessions but these are optional so if you are not a writer you can still come along and enjoy the fun! Click here to find out more information.
Photo: Class of 2023!
Sep 26, 2023 | Book Updates
I’m not going to lie… putting book 5 out into the world is scaring the hell out of me.
I write what I call ‘living memoir’. I write ‘humour’ for the most part. Someone, and I wish I could remember who, said the ‘Rosie Life’ series is like ‘reality TV in book form’. I also read a writer say: ‘When you write you are very vulnerable. You stand on a stage and say this is how I feel does anyone else feel the same?’ … Book 5 is making me feel very vulnerable.
I knew what was going to be in Book 1 and 2 of ‘A Rosie Life In Italy’ as I already lived it before the books were published. I wrote Book 3 while it happened and I had book 4 up for pre-order at the end of Book 3. I had no idea what was going to happen in Book 4. It turned into a book about my mother’s experience of Italy.
Book 5 was the same. I put it up for pre-order at the end of Book 4 knowing certain things: I was grieving for my Dad and someone I loved dearly had been told they had incurable cancer.
But incurable is a very general word. After all life is incurable! We are all going to die and none of us know if we have 40 years, 5 years or a bus could run us over tomorrow.
When I put Book 5 up for pre-order I knew I was going to be going through emotional unchartered territory and to have to write about it scared me. I knew this book had to have an ending and I didn’t know what it was going to be… I knew the ending I didn’t want it to have.
Putting Book 5 out into the world of my lovely readers scares me. Some of my beta readers have said it is the best book I have written yet, but that does not give me comfort. I am scared it will go against my readers’ expectations. Book 5 includes lots about Italy as I got to know it more, and lots about its bureaucracy and navigating the Italian health system. There is some renovation but not as much as the other books, so that is why it might disappoint and that is why it scares me—Book 5 includes more of my personal life than the other books.
These books are my living memoirs. I don’t know what is going to happen. And I didn’t know what was going to happen in Book 5. It is a little different than the rest but I do hope you will enjoy Book 5 as much as the rest of the series. I will be anxiously waiting on your review to hear what you think of it.
Three days to go!
Sep 12, 2023 | A House In Italy
Ronan has been busy during the last two months creating a courtyard–just in time for the end of summer :D.
We were having some friends over for dinner on Saturday and needed some extra chairs. So I pulled out the old chairs that were left in the house when we bought it, gave them a wash, a light sanding and painted them with paint that looks more like wood stain but worked out well.
I added new seats I had bought online (a set of 6 for €49) and the chairs were ready just in time for dinner al fresco with friends that evening!
Total spend: €70
LINK TO WHERE TO BUY THE Chair seats
Before and After:
