Hello All

We are now at our house sit in Perugia, where we will be on / off for the next 6 weeks. After Sorrento we drove up to stay at Norcia which is on the edge of the Mount Sibillini National Park. We both loved Norcia, which is a medieval walled city and is famous for it's cured meats and truffles. The hotel we stayed in was from 1850 and has been passed down from generation to generation. On the first night it was really damp and foggy and we took a spooky walk all around the cobbled streets in the dark, hardly anyone was around and it was so atmospheric.

The next couple of days were spent hiking the gorge (complete with a dog that decided to join us from one of the nearby houses !) and driving the National Park which was really beautiful with snow capped mountains. Those who know James well will not be surprised to hear that we had to go on a 'snow hunt' so up, up and up into the mountains we drove until we had found snow all around us. Then we found we couldn't get the car up the snowy road to continue on our journey - after much rolling back down the hill and trying again and again (including me giving a push) we remembered we had purchased snow chains for Switzerland but hadn't needed them. So, a first for us both as we fitted them onto the tyres and had an effortless trip to the top of the hill and back to civilisation !

We ate at the hotel, which had a beautiful restaurant with a big open fireplace that they cooked all the meat on - we had a delicious taster menu of a range of local cured meats to start, tagiatelle with local mushrooms and black truffles, then a meat feast of local sausage, lamb, veal and wild boar and finally a pastry dessert and all for the bargain price of less than 30 euros each. The lamb was so good we had to go back again the next night so I could have some more ! And on the subject of food cravings, James finally found a deli in Sorrento that sold cheddar cheese - having tasted it, he purchased a kilo for the house sit - it's like a house brick of cheese in the fridge !

We arrived yesterday for our new house sit, the couple who own the house have a huge area of land with several other properties which they rent out. They are taking several different holidays whilst we are here, so at the moment we are in one of the rental houses and will move into their main house in a few weeks time. The rental house is huge, with 4 bedrooms and acres of land around it which we can't wait to explore. We are in the middle of nowhere, at least 6-7kms from the nearest village so it will be another great experience for us to enjoy.

Love to you all x x