We had a nice week of rather pleasant weather here and got to tour around the area a bit. We had several meals with our friends Angela and Giorgio from Ragusa who showed us around the old city of Ragusa, now called Ragusa Ibla. On a couple of occasions we went over to our property and walked around discussing what we have planned there. You could smell the sweet scent of almond blossoms in the air while we walked along the stone terraces picking wild asparagus for dinner. Later that day we sat down with a bottle of local red wine (Nero D’Avola) and watched the sun set over the horizon. The next day we returned with Giorgio and his architects to start measuring the old buildings up. Later that night we went into Modica and had a wonderful dinner at a famous Sicilian restaurant that has been around for over a hundred years! I must say that the food was excellent and quite different from the fare we have in Fiji.  We’ve added more photos so please have a look at the links to the right. Ciao, John and Diana

Ah yes, another temperature based post!  It is finally warming up a bit here and we’ve been out and about touring the countryside and visiting our property. We’ve been meeting with our builder about the first renovations and even managed to get our water connected!  Next stop, the electric company. It’s a good thing we are used to the slow pace of things in Fiji as Sicily is also running on “island time”. It may even be a bit slower in some circumstances. I’ve finally gotten a few photos up on a website for everyone to have a look at.  I will move them to another location with better view options in the next day or two but for now, just click the link to the right to see a page of recent photos. The photo of the geese was taken from the steps of Abby and Lyle’s house in Montana. We’re off to the land now so more to follow soon.

All the best!

Ciao everyone,  Well, we are now in Sicily and I must admit that it is almost as cold as Montana today.  I wonder what my fixation on cold is? Might have something to do with living in the tropics so long.  Anyway, we stayed at a very nice hotel http://www.villacarlottahotel.com/ our first night here. It was a bit dark and cold to try and get Lizzy’s “Piccola Casa” or little house ready for its latest visitors. When we did get to Piccola Casa this morning we found it in perfect condition as Angela had had it cleaned and stocked for us. We even have fresh cheese, olives, tomatoes, bread, meats, and of course WINE!  Lizzy always seems to know what we will be wanting when we get here and she stocks up things before she heads back to the islands in the fall.  Tille the Fiat is running great and tomorrow a will give her a proper wash and complete checkup. Tonight we had a very nice dinner at home with Giorgio and Angela and talked about getting plans and permissions to start work on one of our small ruins.  Tomorrow we start the process….

Hi everyone, Montana was pretty cold for us after Fiji weather. One night it even snowed and we woke up to about an inch of slush on the ground the next morning. It was great seeing family and friends there but we definitely could have used more time. Maybe next year.  We had a great flight from Fiji to Los Angeles, they upgraded us to first class and we really enjoyed the extra room and service.  I take back most of what I’ve said about Air Pacific in the past! Now its very hard to fly economy class again.  We’re at the Los Angeles Airport now waiting for our 3:00 p.m. flight to Frankfurt which take about 11 hours. Then off to Rome and then the last leg of this trip to Catania where Giorgio and Angela will be waiting to take us to San Giacomo. We’re starting to get pretty excited about being in Sicily again. I can’t wait for a little pizza at one of our favorite spots. It will be great to see everyone again and see the improvements to Lizzy’s Casa Iside (Resort and Spa!)  Once we get to Sicily I’ll start updating the blog with photos of the area, sorry we don’t have much to show you now but it will be worth the wait.  That’s all for now. Più a venire. (More to come.)

Well, we’ve been watching the weather in Montana and it has been unseasonably cold for this time of year. The last few days have seen the weather way below freezing. This is something that we just haven’t experienced for many years. We were hoping that by going back at this time of year things would be a bit warmer in MT. Oh well, we’re only there for about 5 days so I’m sure we can manage for that amount of time.  It will be a bit weird for me to wear shoes and socks again as well as having on long pants. I’ve only had pants on in Fiji 4 or 5 times during the last 6 years. The temperature there now is 20 degrees F. Temp in Sicily 47. Temp in Savusavu…80.  Where’s my gloves?

Well, its only a few days and we head off to Sicily with a side trip over to Montana to see some family and friends. Diana is busy packing for the 2 month trip while I’m busy making sure we’ll have everything we need on the new laptop to complete a bit a work that has piled up recently. Its been very hot here in Fiji lately and we’re looking forward to escaping from one paradise to another. On our last trip to Sicily we toured most of the island via Tille, our friend Lizzy’s Fiat. This year we’ll stay around San Giacomo more and spend some time organizing the renovation of one of the small buildings on the property. This should be quite an experience since neither of us speak much Italian right now. We’ll be putting up some photos of our trip as we go along and I will include a link in future updates, to our Box.net page where they can viewed. Stay tuned for more adventures as we travel between our two island paradises.