Life In Lockdown – Our Coronavirus Quarantine in Italy

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On Tuesday, 10th March 2020, Italy was locked down in a bid to control the largest Coronavirus outbreak outside China.

According to Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, ‘locked down’ means, “I stay home.”

The borders are closed and there are restrictions on all but essential travel. Pretty much everything is closed, other than food shops and pharmacies. Although tourists will apparently be allowed home, they have to justify their movements.

But just because we could move, does that mean that we should?

Continue reading “Life In Lockdown – Our Coronavirus Quarantine in Italy” →

Locked Down in Italy – Our Novel Coronavirus Survival Strategy

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Sunday 8th March 2020, in Northern Italy, I awoke to the headline;

Coronavirus: Northern Italy quarantines 16 million people

Outside China, Italy has the largest number of confirmed cases of the novel Coronavirus, nCoV, and Covid-19 disease and it is spreading rapidly.  Overnight, the President of the Council of Ministers issued a new Decree. The extraordinary decision had been taken to lock down one quarter of Italy’s population to contain the spread. The measures will remain in place until 3rd April 2020.

By the evening of March 8th, the decision had been taken to close public spaces such as museums – along with all the ski resorts in the Val d’Aosta. Continue reading “Locked Down in Italy – Our Novel Coronavirus Survival Strategy” →

How to Survive Coronavirus – Even If You’re Caught in a Hotspot

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Coronavirus – so called because it looks like a crown

I try to find a balance between sense & sensational

Life was normal a couple of weeks ago. Then, the new strain of Coronavirus landed in Italy. Subsequently, everywhere north of Pisa was declared a Coronavirus hotspot.

Unwittingly, Mark and I are caught in the epicentre. We are spending our winter skiing in Northern Italy, which makes us extra keen to appraise ourselves of the facts relating to Coronavirus and how to keep ourselves safe.

Precautions have been put in place by the Italian authorities, although life in Italy continues pretty much as normal. The British media, on the other hand, seems to have launched into the usual Doomsday frenzy of hysteria and scaremongering. Continue reading “How to Survive Coronavirus – Even If You’re Caught in a Hotspot” →

Sunshine Blogger Award

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I would like to thank Sharon of the excellent Australian blog Gum Trees and Galaxies for the nomination. Gum Trees and Galaxies follows the adventures of a couple in a teardrop caravan – with dogs, books and random tangents thrown in. These are certainly a few of my favourite things. If they are yours, do wander over and say ‘Hi’!

The Sunshine Blogger award is given by bloggers to bloggers who inspire positivity and creativity in the blogging community. Continue reading “Sunshine Blogger Award” →

The Battle of the Oranges – The Carnevale di Ivrea

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“The tomato festival? That’s for boys. The orange festival is for MEN!”

Fun for Non-Skiers Involving Flying Fruit & Friesians!

Since we had non-skiing Dutch friends staying with us in Monte Rosa, it seemed only fitting to take them to an Orange Festival. Continue reading “The Battle of the Oranges – The Carnevale di Ivrea” →

Squaring The Circle – How To Import an Unregistered Belgian Truck from Holland into the U.K.

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How do you get an unregistered 24.5 tonne Belgian truck back to the UK from Holland when you’re in Italy & your LGV licence has expired?

Decision made; we found the vehicle of our dreams; paid the deposit; specified a few extras that we wanted the dealer to install before we collected her…

All that remains is to get her home. Continue reading “Squaring The Circle – How To Import an Unregistered Belgian Truck from Holland into the U.K.” →

The Birth of The Beast – How To Source & Spec. an Overland Truck

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Big Blue and Kismet have served us well. They bore us across the Carpathian mountains & along a footpath in Romania, but we’re not sure they are up to the Gobi Desert

With the election of Boris Johnson and the prospect of Brexit becoming inevitable, we formulated a Brexit Busting plan.

“Let’s go to Mongolia!”

With Big Blue & Kismet, we truly did courageously split our infinitives and ‘Boldly Go Where No Van Has Gone Before’ – across the Carpathian mountains and along a footpath in Romania. However, we need something more substantial to ensure our safe conduct across the Gobi desert, so we started our search for a 4×4 overland truck. Continue reading “The Birth of The Beast – How To Source & Spec. an Overland Truck” →