One of my brothers-in-law has a beautiful garden. He constructed a pavilion and a bar-b-q area which has a wood oven to cook breads and pizza. As well as the flower borders with raised beds there are lawns, fruit and olive trees. Below the terrace the land stretches down to the river and there are vines, a fenced-in orchard of fig trees where a few sheep graze and an allotment. Right at the bottom of the land are the outhouses for the chickens.
The land is kept watered regularly because there's a huge storage tank filled with rain water. Yes, it does rain heavily during the Winter months and, in fact, there's been a lot of rain there over the last few months. Nevertheless, we enjoy gathering there (when we are over in Italy) and sitting in the pavilion during warm evenings.
I always think that this garden has an English influence as my sister-in-law grows many flowers that we would have in our own garden in England, especially rambling and standard roses, Sweet Williams, petunias etc. and I think this is because she lived in England for many years.
She and her husband have been our good friends after I met my husband at their wedding, married a few years later and our children grew up together. When we are over in Italy and all together we have some wonderful parties in the garden.
This is a rather grainy black and white photo of my sister-in-law's wedding. I'm standing at the back by the glass door with my future husband next to me (second right). Last year my sister-in-law and her husband celebrated their golden wedding anniversary, so it's 'a sort of anniversary' for ourselves when we first met and now my husband and I have known one another for fifty-one years.
We have heavy snow here again and we've just heard that the schools are closing early so we are on stand by again.
