Ruffano

Swallows, squealing, race through the streets and squares of the Centro Storico.

Men sit outside bars on plastic chairs.
They watch and discuss. Not gossip (this distinction is very important).

A group of teens joke with a grey-haired woman who has broken the housewives’ curfew to come out and enjoy the evening.

Her house, I imagine, gleams less than others in her street. And dust mice reside in corners untouched between weekly sweeps. But she is happy to have discovered that there is more to life than cleaning.

Other people's holidays

So you’re an expat. You’ve lived in your chosen country for a couple of years. You’ve learnt the language, you’ve adapted to the local customs and you can even cook a couple of favourite dishes. So what’s to stop you feeling like you completely fit in? For me, it’s festivals and holidays. There’s nothing like another’s culture’s feast days to send me straight back to outsider status.

I’m thinking about this today, August 15th, as it’s one of Italy’s favourite holidays, Ferragosto. Celebrated since Roman Times (according to Wikipedia), families get together, usually at the beach, to enjoy food, fun and fireworks. I guess it’s the Italian version of August Bank Holiday, but much more important.

But it’s on festival days like these that you often feel like an outsider again. You may be lucky enough to be invited to someone’s home to celebrate (Chinese New Year in Taipei, for example), but however much you enjoy the food and the company, it’s the true meaning of the festival that is hard to grasp. You can understand that this festival celebrates the hottest part of the year, or that festival celebrates the first new moon, but without the cultural background, the spirit of the event can be frustratingly out of reach.

My advice? Shrug your shoulders and adopt the ‘When in Rome…’ approach. You may not be able to understand exactly what it is that people are celebrating, but c’mon – good food, friends and time off – surely these are enough reasons to celebrate anything.

Buon Ferragosto.

Driving in Italy

The roads may be pockmarked
But most drive like Monza.
Accelerate, break
Take the racing line
Overtake, accelerate some more.

In their hearts all men here are Felipe Massa.
Except the old drivers in their rustic three-wheeled bees that buzz through the back lanes.
Always ensuring they stay
In the middle
And when navigating a roundabout cause others to pray
‘Not my way. Not my way. Not my way.’

Buying a house in an Italian kitchen

Last Friday at about 1pm my husband and I were was sitting in a stranger’s front room in Italy waiting to buy a house. It was a fairly standard southern Italian living room. The walls were covered with family photos, there were china ornaments on most surfaces and, of course, the obligatory Padre Pio plaque.

When you buy a house in the UK it’s all very unspectacular. You exchange contracts, then something electronic happens behind the scenes and later that day the Estate Agent calls to say you can collect the keys. In Italy the process is far more personal.

When you buy a property in Italy, the buyer and seller meet, usually at the offices of the buyer’s solicitor. The solicitor reads a detailed contract at the speed of a horseracing commentator and when she (or he) has finished reading everyone pretends they’ve understood what was said and signs it. Then you pay. And it’s not an electronic payment between banks either. The buyer pays by cheque, so it has the feel of a lottery win presentation. You almost want the bank to draw up a massive cheque so you can photograph the handover.

But this time he process was even stranger, because we didn’t complete all these legal manoeuvres in our solicitor’s office, we were in someone’s kitchen. And that, surely, has to be one of the weirdest places to buy a house.

A new life in Italy

It’s been nearly a year since we moved here permanently. But, as anyone who has moved abroad knows, a year isn’t long to settle in. Language barriers aside, it takes a while to adapt to new customs, find new friends and understand the nitty-gritty of life in your new country.

We’re starting to find our feet and Salento feels more like home every day. Neighbours and local shopkeepers recognise us and say hello and my son is starting to understand and speak Italian. More than anything, though, the arrival of spring has helped us settle in. As the weather warms up, we’re rediscovering the Salento we originally fell in love with.

Moving house is never easy, and it’s even harder when you change countries. But I’m hopeful that we’ll make this work.