Chickens Eat Pasta, Escape to Umbria

Sometimes, we do some pretty crazy and weird things. And they look all the more crazy and weird because we do them during an otherwise mundane, fairly ordinary kind of time.

The case of jornalist and author Clare Pedrick is a perfect example of this type of phenomena.

One rainy, Sunday morning, bearing in mind that she was just 26-years-old, Clare was reading a Sunday newspaper and she happened to espy an advert of a beautiful, but ruinous, home in the Italian area called Umbria.

So, as you do, or rather, as Clare did, the decision was taken to purchase the house.

Clare employs her book as a series of artist's canvases, each depicting a different but interlocking part of the story. The warmth and the vibrant colours of Italy, the obvious difference between British and Italian culture, but the just as real differences between the different regions of Italy.

She also describes the kaleidoscope of different characters who she met on her travels and in the village where she settled down.

She fell in love with the house, faults and all and she also fell in love with a local man, who she married and with whom she has three children.

Her husband and the children all now love the house. Which is no longer ruinous, but rather restored to its former splendid glory. 

Chickens Eat Pasta, Escape to Umbria, is published by Matador at the end of next month and at £9.99 will make an excellent present for someone you love, or even for yourself.

As with all books its available via the That's Books and Entertainment bookshop at the right hand side of the site.