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Holiday villa with private pool at Tuscan Paradise. An historic private 4 bedroom (all en-suite)18C farmhouse with private pool in Tuscany overlooking an amazing lake sleeping 8. Additional studio for a further 5 not let independently to ensure complete privacy.

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Our son Luke’s involvement with some members of his school - the Yehudi Menuhin School - in the annual Menhuin Festival in Gstaad, Switzerland, necessitated us to leave our building site for a few days and make the drive across the border. With the help of ‘Wendy’ , our satellite navigation system we set off confidently, but soon hit trouble as we left Italy because Robert had not loaded in the complete Swiss maps onto the system. We were soon lost. 12 hours later we felt as if we had seen most of Switzerland via the treacherous mountain passes, and quite frankly weren’t bothered if we never saw another log house again. Our displeasure was compounded by the horrendous cost for something as basic as a small beer, which was huge after being used to paying Italian prices. After an enjoyable concert we were eager to make our homeward journey.

During most of the blissful summer Italian evenings the television lay dormant in favour of the many performances dotted around the piazzas of Anghiari and neighbouring towns. There was jazz, circus and classical music - where Robert’s skills as a chamber music coach came in useful with some of the musicians. For most of August the whole of Italy’s industry takes a break. Our builders’ three week holiday vacation dragged on to five weeks. More crucially four of our original seven Albanian builders failed to renew their work permits and returned to their homeland. Luckily they were replaced, but we had lost our English speaking builder…we were going to have to work much harder on our Italian language skills, which had got off to a slow start. Our builder is always very patient with us, speaking slowly and using words he thinks we will find easier to understand.

The arrival of the windows and doors for the pottery studio got September off to a good start, well exceeding our expectations in their quality. The father and son team were insistent we went to their house for dinner as soon as the job was finished, which we duly did. Luckily for us the daughter was able to speak a little English, and a copy of an English/Italian dictionary was an indispensable part of the evening. We have found it a common occurrence here to be welcomed with open arms into the homes of the Italian people we have come in contact with. The iron handrail for my wooden stairs in the pottery also turned up in record time, beautifully hand crafted and fitted by another father and son team with a small business in Caprese Michelangelo..

The highlight of the month for me came with the arrival of a splendid new stainless steel ceramic gas kiln from Germany. However , my excitement would have to be kept on hold as the beautiful kiln was to stand idle for four weeks due to problems connecting it to our brand new gas supply.

Now the pottery was finished, give or take a little snagging to be dealt with later, the builders set to work on the rental house. All the windows and doors were removed and at least a metre of ground was dug out - we feared for the stability of the already unstable house, and once the roof came off nothing much was tying it together. Our fears were compounded when heavy rain hit the area, saturating the building. A break in the weather a few days later enabled Giorgio and his team to replace the chestnut beams , reinstate the cotto ceiling tiles and add the reinforced seismic ring beam to the roof.

The tobacco tower was begun after the roof was completed. This had always been a room of some five metres high where wooden beams were set from side to side and tobacco leaves were hung to dry. Our plan is for two bedrooms, one above the other, both with en-suite bathrooms. Once the level of the new floor was calculated - much discussion - the huge beams were inserted from the outside of the tower across to the opposite internal wall. The smaller beams were intersected. Robert was late to arrive on the site that day but immediately spotted that one of the beams was not level….after much disbelief on the part of the builders, and the use of a handy spirit level this was found to be the case and was rectified!

At last the bore hole was dug and we would finally have a reliable source of water. This had been delayed for some time as the water team feared they would lose their lorry in the mud. Seventy metres was what was needed, a little further than our diviner had predicted, but we would have more than enough water to supply all the buildings and the pool; but we couldn’t use it for sixty days! More waiting.

Last week our builder said the house would be ready by February, today it is March or April……che sera, sera.

Since we have been in Anghiari we have observed it’s musical scene closely and have noticed a large number of the local children play guitars, brass, drums and keyboards, but none appear to have been introduced to the delights of learning the violin. This is very surprising in a country which boasts the worlds’ foremost violin makers - Stradivarius and Guanarius - and some of the greatest music ever written for the violin. Vivaldi wrote many of his compositions for the students at the girls school in Venice where he was the musical director.

In September, Robert started flying back to the UK each week to teach his students at the Royal Academy of Music and conduct some orchestral concerts. He is usually away for 3 days and seems to be coping with the commute quite well. He loves his work so much and hopes he can offer his expertise to the local community here in Anghiari. We have an idea to set up a scheme that Robert has done many times before in the U.K. He begins with six children, hopefully learning on violins purchased by the commune. His skill in this field will surely have many more queuing up to partake of his wisdom in the seasons to come. A friendly neighbour introduced Robert to the Mayor of Anghiari who has welcomed the plan in principle with open arms and is enthusiastic to make things happen.