I remember the day in October when we unloaded the moving van into a house with no back door, no water apart from the standpipe outside, no heating, and no kitchen - but plenty of scorpions and mice. I remember Henry learning to walk here and saying his first words and the ecstatic look on his face every time Carletti lets him up into the cab of his monstrous turbo diesel tractor for a lift up the hill.

I remember rushing out at 3am into an unforeseen rainstorm to improvise a covering for the pellet store to keep our year’s worth of fuel from being suddenly and completely ruined. That huge rat we stalked for months and finally killed. The acres of wall Tessa painted. The acres of floor I laid. The kitchen, the carpentry, the complete lack of free time. The struggle when it seemed impossible to get to know people and then happy realisation that somehow we’d acquired plenty of friends.

The house is almost finished now and it’s more beautiful than we’d imagined. But in the end we’ve decided to go.

There are a number of reasons but a decisive one is the challenge of having very young children here. Many new Italian mums in our area seem to withdraw into their families after giving birth. There’s little in way of services for mums who don’t have this inbuilt support – no swimming lessons or music classes or soft playgrounds. Or rather, these things exist, but they’re only open every third Sunday from 8 – 11:30pm. Tessa’s Marche Mums group has been fantastic but it’s not a good enough substitute for having your own mum nearby and living in a child-rearing culture that you understand and relate too.

The last year and a half has been a strain. As we’ve discovered, Italy has finished off plenty of young couples. Anecdotes abound and many of them end unhappily. Some people we know came here having survived tough conditions elsewhere in the world only to watch their relationship disintigrate in this place that was meant to be light at the end of the tunnel.  I suspect many foreigners underestimate just how hard Italy is to live in and it’s the juxtaposition of the sweet myth with the sharp reality that makes it so much harder. It catches you with your guard down. So no matter how good or bad the time here has been, we’re all leaving together which towers above all other considerations.

And we’ll keep the house – we can’t bear to sell it – so we’ll have a beautiful place to get away to. But a holiday house is very different from a home and inevitably our relationship to this place will change. We won’t hear about the little events in our neighbours’ and friends’ lives as they happen . Our lives will be in London and Marche will become a vacation destination, and maybe become a bit idealised in the process.

So this Italian chapter is about to end. Earlier tonight, looking at photos from four years ago when we were first planning the move to Italy, Tess asked me if I’d do it all over again. And I would. It was something we had to try.

A quick note to say that our house is available for rent over the summer. See details here.

When I told my friend Leo (ex-butcher) what we were up to, he was horrified. He grabbed my shirt and shouted: you’re a criminal! You can’t have the pista this late in the year, the meat will never cure! It will all go bad. You’ve been in Italy too long – you’ve become a criminal!

I’ve just spoken to Gian Paolo at Taverna and it looks like Leo may be right. GP is going to have to come up with creative solutions for all things we’ll make on Monday – things that should already have been hanging up in a cold cellar for the past two months.

I can think of worse crimes than making sausage out of season. Though judging by Leo’s reaction, some other people can’t.

We were clustered in a cozy room in the old stone farm house, around a wooden table with a thick top lacerated with cleaver marks. On one side of the room was a disproportionately large fireplace where Carletti’s mother sat in a tiny chair at the hearth, raking out coals and turning a wire rack loaded with bracciole steaks. Bracciole are usually thin steaks cut from almost anywhere on the pig, but in this case they were thick and came from the beautifully tender meat at the base of the back. 

All around us were buckets of meat, separated into the various grades and ready to be made into salami, ciauscolo, sausage, etc. and we had to step around them to get to the plate of still-smoking steaks in the middle of the table. Carletti’s aunt cut slices from a charred loaf of white bread with a knife that until that moment she’d been using to cut up raw pork. And we stood around making easy smalltalk and eating these steaks with lots of pepper, open-face on a slice of bread and washing it down with sharp white wine.

The meat was staggeringly good – it was perfect meat. And we ate it as you’re supposed to: finger-burningly hot, as Carletti’s uncle said.

It’s easy to find excellent meat around here – many of the butchers carry meat from local farmers. Local restaurants specialise in grilled meat and everyone is a connoisseur. But this bracciole steak left them all behind.

I met the pig. In fact, I went up Tuesday to watch the slaughter. She was an enormous animal – somewhere between 250 and 300 kilos – and Carletti had raised her on grain and kitchen scraps and, late in autumn, acorns. And now, two days later, the meat had had a chance to rest and conditions were perfect.

Tessa was at home, already working at the computer. She’s not mad about pork anyway. But the family insisted I take a plate of smoking steaks down to her. It was the fastest I’ve ever been allowed to leave a social gathering in Marche. Ordinarily there would have been long goodbyes and just-one-more’s and promises of future visits extracted. Only the exigencies of food trump social niceties. As soon as Carletti’s mother handed me the plate, she shooed me out of the room, flapping her apron and shouting “vai! vai! vai!“. And out I ran.

And I made it home with the steaks still steaming and presented them to Tessa. She looked at them sceptically (partly, I imagine, because it was half past eight in the morning) while I overflowed with enthusiasm about what a great time I’d just had. So she tasted one just to be polite. And now I’m at the computer and she’s still in the kitchen with juice running down her chin, working her way through the entire plate. You can’t argue with meat this good.

Snow arrived yesterday (the two photos are the same view 24 hours apart). Carletti, with his farmer’s ESP for weather, had been making noise about the snow for at least a week before it arrived. He kept coming down to the house to inspect my tile laying on the terrace (he used to lay floor tiles as his profession) and as he left he’d say smugly, you better hurry up or the snow is going to put a stop to your tiling.

He was right about the snow. And looking out at the terrace now under its unbroken white blanket I’m asking myself what the hell I was busting my ass for in the first place. When our families arrive on Friday I could have just told them there was a beautiful terracotta tiled terrace under there, they’d never have known.

In addition to covering up my tiling, the snow has pointed a blinding spotlight on the empty place where all our winter preparations are meant to be.

Firewood? Nope. Sure we’ve got a little, but with everything else going on we never got round to cutting up the rest of the fallen walnut trees near the olive grove. We also didn’t order in firewood from outside as intended.

Pellets for the boiler? Nope. After weeks of procrastination, I’d finally arranged a delivery of two tonnes of pellets for Saturday (yesterday) but the truck would never make it down our hill in this snow.

Snow tires? Chains? Nope. In fact, when the snow was just starting we left the house and went looking for a Christmas tree. By the time we got back a few hours later we were unable to make it down the drive – the 4 x 4 slid off the road and into a shallow ditch. We had to abandon it there. Tessa and Henry walked the last few hundred yards to the house while I went back up the hill to ask the neighbours for a ride down to the service station to buy chains.

But we weren’t the only ones. Our friends Karen and Douglas were so excited yesterday by the snow arriving at their house in the remote countryside that they drove into town to stock up on essential supplies and came home without eggs, milk, pasta, tinned food, or bread but with plenty of brandy, Baileys, and nibbles. Doesn’t look like such a good idea this morning with a raging hangover, empty cupboard, and two feet off snow on the ground.

Lulled by last year’s Indian summer that lasted until, well, until this summer, we weren’t taking the weather seriously. Not a good idea with a toddler and a pregnant woman in the house. Because suddenly the things you take for granted become much more challenging, like buying food, or keeping warm, or being able to leave your house.

But luckily we have fantastic neighbours. With our car in the ditch, Santi drove me around for an hour and a half looking for chains that would fit our tires. Incidentally, it’s good to know that Italians have to go to at least three different shops to find what they want, just like the rest of us.

This morning we got an invitation from the Rossi’s to bring Henry up and play in the snow. The perpetual surprise about the Rossi’s is that there are so many of them – even when you think you’ve got used to the idea of how many Rossi’s there are, when you see all the children marauding through the snow fields you can’t help thinking bloody hell there’s a lot of Rossi’s.

So after breakfast with the wheels chained up, we slipped and wiggled and ploughed our way up the hill towards the Rossi house. Half way there we saw Lino, who’d left his car at the top and walked down to feed the animals. Gianna wasn’t with him. She’d left this morning at 3am on a bus for Rome where she’s on a pilgrimage. Due back tonight some time before midnight. In this weather, it’s insanity. So why did she go? Because she’s catholic and she’s hard as nails.

We spent the morning marauding with the Rossi children (oldest 19, youngest 6 months), ending up at Carletti’s where Henry persuaded Stella to open up the barn where the tractors are kept so he could get his fix. Carletti himself arrived before too long, though despite Henry’s best efforts, he wouldn’t give up the keys to the big blue tractor.

In the afternoon we went back to the Rossi’s where they’d roasted a chicken and cooked up a huge bowl of steaming pasta. Henry and Santi (2 and 75 respectively) played with diggers in front of the fire while the rest of us warmed up from the inside out.

So it looks like the grasshoppers have got away with it for now. The weather may break in the next couple of days, giving us a chance to take care of our previously neglected necessities: wood, pellets, food, etc. And just in time, as we’ve got both our families arriving at the end of the week.

But the problem isn’t isolated within government. The old system permeates every level of society, down to individual cittadini. Most young people still aspire to a job in the hulking and ineffectual public sector where the hours are often comically short, few results are required, the benefits are large, and it’s very difficult to be fired.

Many people want to take part in the system because life is easier on the inside. Consider the long queues at the police station or government office – which side of the window would you rather be on? The side of the civil servant or the side of the queuing masses?

Here’s a paragraph from Paul Ginsborg’s Italy and Its Discontents that sums up the relationship between citizen and state:

… practice of the bureaucracy depended to a notable extent upon the exercise of the discretionary power on the part of the functionary. The key term ‘discretion’ did not in this case signify the necessary and desirable autonomy of action of the individual civil servant within a general framework of impartiality, but rather the performance of favours in response to particularistic pressure. The speed and efficiency, indeed the very realization, of a bureaucratic act became dependent upon this sort of discretionary act, and the task of the citizen (if she or he could be called such in these circumstances) was to find the right levers to trigger that action. Naturally enough, not all citizens were equal or could exert equal pressure. Inducements to action varied from the use of friends and relatives to the pulling of rank, to outright corruption. As a result there came into being a profoundly deformed relationship between citizen and state. (p. 216)

Operating in this way for so long has tainted people on both sides of the window: the civil servant with the discretionary power and the lines of ordinary people looking to any possible way to jump the queue.

So how will Italy bring about the transformation (at every level) that will be required if it’s to survive as part of Europe?

But lean year or not, it was worth a trip to the olive press in Massa Fermana today to take some videos of how they do it. Where last year the press was in operation 24-hours a day (Lino had to settle for a 3am slot and he’s a respected man down there) this year they told us we could come anytime this afternoon. Last year the boys at the press looked hag-ridden and irritable, a parade of vans steadily disgorged a stream of crates into the warehouse, and people hurried in all directions. This year was slightly different:

But at least the lull allowed me to get good shots of the process. And the boys at the machinery didn’t seem to mind the intrusion – they seemed almost grateful for a break in the tedium. Last year I reckon I’d have been run down by a wheelbarrow. I had the chance to ask them a few questions, some of which they answered. When I asked about what makes oil virgin or extra virgin they looked at me blankly. Just press your olives like the rest of the punters and take your oil home, they seemed to say.

Here’s the first step: shaking the leaves out of the olives and dropping the olives under the millstones. The boys skip the shaking part for those who are unwise enough to miss their appointed time, which makes for twigs and leaves in the ground paste and much poorer flavour in the resulting oil.

Here’s a closer look at the olives under the millstones. Amazing how fast they do their job.

Once the olives have been crushed (stones and all) the paste drops into a mixing trough where it’s warmed before being extruded onto rattan disks for pressing. These disks slide onto special wheel barrows, which when stacked high with disks and paste are wheeled into large hydraulic presses. A robotic arm does the loading and unloading of the barrows:

And here are the barrows on the presses. Over the course of an hour, the pressure steadily builds to about 500kg/cm² (7000 lbs/inch²) and most of the oil and water runs down the stack and into a trough. From here, the mix enters a centrifuge where the water is spun off and the bright green oil pours into whatever receptacle you’ve brought with you.

The fresh oil is bitter but interesting. Gian Paolo served it to us on crostini a few weeks back and I enjoyed it, though you wouldn’t want it everyday. It’ll be another few months before the oil is mature enough to use normally.

Finally the remnants that are left on the disk after pressing are dumped in a pile outside the pressing room. This material is used to make a cheap cooking oil and the by-products of making this cheap oil are then pressed into logs for wood-burning stoves.

Following tip-offs from Kiwis Peter B and Gareth, please see clip below. And if you’d like some more, there are links to some other brilliant Conchords songs below the video.

Business time, If you’re into it, The humans are dead

I told Marco about recent chaos at work that might require me to spend more time in the UK. He was puzzled when I explained that I disliked the idea of being pulled away from Marche to spend more time in London – especially at pista time. I told him if I had to choose between career and the pista, I think I’d probably pick the pista.

And he told me about work on his building sites recently grinding to a halt.

Most of my workers are out sick, he said.

I found this odd as Marco probably has fifteen or twenty guys working for him. What’s going on? How come they’re all out sick?

It’s the rain. As soon as it starts they fall ill.

In my head, I saw the Sicilian brickies and Albanian plasterers pulling their duvets over their heads and snuggling down further into their beds, unwilling to face the freshening weather. They can’t all be sick – they must be skiving.

No it’s true, he said. As soon as the weather changes, all their backs go out.

Collectively?

Yes, all their backs go out and they can’t work. It’s the sudden change in weather. It’s very bad for their backs.

I eyed him suspiciously for a moment and when it was clear he was being earnest I started laughing into my glass. Marco gazed steadily back, smiling blankly. I had to put my wine down so I could make proper wild gestures. That’s ridiculous. I hope you’re not paying them.

Oh yeah, I’m paying them sick pay. It happens every year. I felt my back start to go as soon as the rain started but as the boss I had to carry on.

You’re all a bunch of hypochondriacs. I can’t believe you believe this stuff.

It’s true. Doesn’t your back give you trouble when the weather changes? No? Maybe it’s because you’re still young.

No it’s because I’m not Italian.

And I thought to myself, there’s another good reason for sticking around – so you can watch the men go into spasms and fall over as soon as the rain starts in autumn. Truffles, chestnuts, and men toppled over in the leaves clutching their lower backs. Ah, Italy.