Second
house
The story behind the poem
This
poem is about what will hopefully be our new home in Italy, in the
mountains above a small town called Valtopina in Umbria. We first
viewed it a full year before we made the commitment to buying it, and
being unable to sell our first house, were forced to buy it as a
'second house', which in Italy has significant (negative) tax
implications. The purchase involved us scraping together every last
cent we possessed.
The house, with its nine
hectares of woodland and grassy slope, is the place around which all
our dreams are now focused. I have long nursed an ambition to achieve
some measure of self-sufficiency and this is where I hope to try out
my wings. We have plans for landscaping, livestock, alternative energy
sources and, ultimately, a self-contained but satisfying lifestyle
which may help to make up for a past full of sorrow and
difficulty.
The house itself is
built but needs considerable 'finishing' before it is habitable. It is
modern in appearance, but grand and eccentric.
The land around, with
its dips and rises, dells and rocky outcrops, bordered at its lowest
point by a mysterious wooded gully which is like a whole different
world in itself, comprises the most exciting terrain I have ever had
the fortune to be able to explore at leisure. I only wish I could be a
child again. by Damaris West Read the poem
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