Annec's activity

2 great Italian words: Sistemare - means everything from making the bed to putting your financial affairs in order Controllare - to control (obviously), but also a much wider sense of being in charge of something

I don't give a toss who any of you are.  But I know bullying when I see it and Esme in her earlier guises was certainly that.  I notice she's now returned to her habit of name-calling.

This sort of thing is death to a forum, and my comments in this post are only to try a little to prevent that happening here.  I speak as someone who has been a member almost from the first, and certainly longer than any of those who choose to behave idiotically on here.  I do not take part in any offline, behind the scenes, private messaging stuff since my life does not revolve around this forum and I'm not interested in stupid arguments. Thus I don't know all the ins and outs by any means, but I have seen on this forum a level of bullying approaching the pathological.  From years of observing I'm inclined to accept Beery's version of event, though I think he may have allowed Esme to get under his skin and his resultant scratching does him a disservice. Point being, anyone who genuinely wants to keep this forum going, don't be put off by a thread like this. Although it's almost inevitable that someone will now say that these threads get the most reads and keep things interezting, my response is that public executions would also draw huge crowds.  That of itself doesn't make them a good thing.  Most sensible posters will be ignoring this thread so that it burns itself out.

... for breaking ground.  But they aren't any good for digging holes for planting.  Nor for forking up deep-rooted weeds.  Speaking of forks - that's something else I'd bring from the Uk.

Thanks  for advices received. I decided to wing it and arrived to find nyself confronted with a very confusing plethora of signs and mini car parks everywhere. Having failed to factor in the Rome rush hour I wasn't in the mood to drive round and round trying to work it all out. I went straight to Hertz who let me park for free. Reckon it saved me E50.

It seems inevitable that large agricultural consortia will arise (in  fact they already exist - much of the land round us is farmed on a "contract" basis).  our immediate neighbour, late 70s, has a son still living at home who may be prepared to keep onthe v8neyard but since he has a factory job I doubt he'll beprepared to put in the hours his father does on his tractr.  mind you q2uite a lot of Luigi,s friends (all retired) say he is mad to carry on working so hard.  They are all content with their pension andtheir orto. When discussing the current economic sitch, the common refrain is "At least we have the orto, sempre mangiamo"

she gives lots of verylocal names (somehwere called Tuva for instance, that she can see from her house), so a localmay be able to pinpoint it

not sure she gives the name of the village Penny. let us know if you track it down

...money arrived at Italian bank within 24 hours.  I used their "priority" service (8 Euros instead of 3) to avoid panicking for 3 days about whether it would work.  Couldn't have been much easier and I'm now a convert!  Thanks again Steve

Thanks steve. i've set up a currencyfair account and will give it a test run tomorrow.