BBC Channel interview Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-10 | This was the longer interview I did for the BBC on 30th October on the day of the big quake, when I got the opportunity to mention Dutchsinse a couple of times.
Leaks caused by earthquake damage from 2016...which now WONT be repaired! Janet Fullerlove 2023-06-14 | Despite the fact this earthquake damage officially qualifies for state funding for repair, we cannot get the repairs done. (Terremoto superbonus it is called.) We either have to be top bracket tax payers who pay for it ourselves then claim it back, or get a special mortgage with a bank who then get the state to pay it back (but the banks won't do this!) OR get a building company to bear the cost and get the state to pay it back... but no builders will touch this anymore as so many were NOT paid back by the state and have gone bust! So despite the fact we are eligible for repair we have got jack-shit chance of getting it done. Now we have wet-rot in some parts of the wood in the ceiling, because this has been leaking in for nearly 7 years. However, it has got a LOAD worse since all the massive storm flash floods in central Italy throughout May and June this year. Nightmare.
Thatchio repairs Janet Fullerlove 2022-03-17 | Master Thatcher Alan Jones repairs damage done to my Mum's thatched roof by some sort of critters!
From olive tree to olive oil Part 1 In the olive grove Janet Fullerlove 2021-11-06 | First of 2 short videos I made for young school children in Dubai who wanted to learn about olive oil production.As a skint performer in the arts (barely, during this tough time) I would truly appreciate it if you would be so kind as to subscribe and give me a 'thumbs up' so that I can try to grow my channel enough to generate a few quid to help feed my cats, dogs and husband. Thank you so much!
From olive tree to olive oil Part2 To the press Janet Fullerlove 2021-11-06 | Part 2 of a short video made to show how we get olive oil from tree to bottle, made for school children in Dubai.As a skint performer in the arts (barely, during this tough time) I would truly appreciate it if you would be so kind as to subscribe and give me a 'thumbs up' so that I can try to grow my channel enough to generate a few quid to help feed my cats, dogs and husband. Thank you so much!
Thank goodness we have Lady Muck, the digger, for a bit of lifting power! Janet Fullerlove 2021-10-05 | ...
Nearing the end of gutting our beloved home, Casa Merlini is on her last legs, firmly in reverse. Janet Fullerlove 2021-08-27 | Five years after the devastating earthquakes of 2016 in Italy we are nearing a date for the demolition of our home, saving as much as we can for reuse. Not long to go now, the windows are coming out and she looks more and more ragged (it tears at me more, undoing everything we have done)...looking more and more as she was when we first bought her 21 years ago, but the beauty of the bricks and beams and Nathan's beautiful pointing remain, somewhat poignantly. I feel bad that we are once again opening her to the ravages of the weather, though it means nothing now it still feels like a betrayal. We need to get past the parting demolition will bring before we can truly look forwards.
Back to being a building site Janet Fullerlove 2021-07-06 | More of Casa Merlini before the demolition..ripping stuff out, trying to save things like beautiful Welsh sheep's wool insulation. It all looks like a building site again.
Welsh sheeps wool insulation yes. Oak parquet, no. Janet Fullerlove 2021-07-06 | Salvaging lovely Welsh sheep's wool insulation from the walls of the White Room. Got to be worth it... got to be reuseable SOMEwhere.
The kestrels will be the last things to live in Casa Merlini Janet Fullerlove 2021-07-06 | The baby kestrels are getting their feathers! So nice something is living in Casa Merlini!
Nathan starts to remove the windows Janet Fullerlove 2021-07-02 | So strange to be turning our home back into a building site... removing the windows for reuse - fortunately we CAN reuse them - because we paid for really special units when we renovated the house - they are argon-gas filled super double glazed with two types of special Pilkington glass and meet the modern energy rating.
Packing up Casa Merlini before demolition Janet Fullerlove 2021-07-01 | Just a bit of footage as we were emptying the old place... we keep admiring her beauty, Casa Merlini, and grieving that she'll be gone soon. 5 years since the earthquake wrecked her.
Casting for Lucille Ball Janet Fullerlove 2020-12-11 | Please, if you feel so inclined and liked this video would you be so kind as to give me a thumbs-up and subscribe? This was a self-tape I made and sent in for a casting to play the part of Lucille Ball (one of my all-time favourite comediennes) in a TV series called 'Autopsy'. Happy to say it got me the part. I loved being Lucy. It has been a huge struggle to survive the last 2 years, through the pandemic frankly, in the arts and I am trying to now grow my channel so perhaps I can make a few quid to help feed my cats and my husband. We are skint. Thank you.
Cheeseys monster mouse crunch dinner Janet Fullerlove 2020-05-14 | DON'T WATCH IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH! I couldn't resist getting Cheese crunching this mouse he'd brought in. So often they're alive and he lets them go inside... nightmare. But this one was gone in a few seconds. The back feet and tail were gone in almost one swallow at the end - couldn't believe it! The crunching is very audible, be warned. I found it fascinating.
Good news on the veggie run Janet Fullerlove 2020-04-02 | Heard good news when in the veg shop on only my 3rd trip there in as many weeks... this was just on the way home.
Coronavirus lockdown in our village Janet Fullerlove 2020-03-16 | 16th March 2020This is what lockdown in an Italian village looks like during the Coronavirus. I went to get veg - I had my regulation form in my handbag in case I got stopped for being out - they check and without valid reasons one gets fined. On the way back from the veg shop - having seen our local 'vigile' (bobby) Michele, twice, doing a circuit in his car, wearing gloves and mask, checking on who was out and about, I shot this just to show how empty it is when normally there'd be about 20 or so people at the bar/cafe/on the street having aperitivo before pranzo (lunch - a wonderful religion here!) and there'd be folks walking up and down the high street, in and out of the butchers, bank, hardware shop, haberdashery, veg shop, deli, chemists...Primary school kids and their parents heading in all directions home, the school bus would be dropping the kids off for lunch... there'd be folks on balconies talking to folks in the street... the piazza where the other bar is would be buzzing, people going into and out of the Commune, the post office... people on bicycles, scooters, motorbikes, in cars, delivery vans and lorries, Commune vehicles with Commune workers... but today... empty. Just the local police car in the distance pulling around the corner to the Commune in the piazza at the end of the high street. And one chap getting some wood from out in his garden who I glimpsed on the way home. Other than that it was just me and the dogs. I wonder, how long will this go on for? Today the updated figures say there are 1,133 people infected in our province of Le Marche and 46 deaths. No confirmed recoveries. I managed to ask after the three people we know (and love) who are infected and/or possibly infected from our village (Marco, GianPiero and Tonino) and hope they recover soon.
Bloody COLD!!!! Janet Fullerlove 2020-02-22 | My ridiculous nighttime routine and a bit of wittering on about the cold...and plans for today.
Goooo on buffalo! Janet Fullerlove 2020-02-22 | I had a day off the bike and went round in a 4 x 4 around the real rural areas surrounding Bac Ha - no tourists but lots of amazing countryside and look at the true rural life. I was fascinated by this little scene playing out in the distance... a man and his buffalo and the plough... and a big bit of land needing ploughing. The soil is clay - so VERY tough to cultivate. You can SEE the buffalo really straining to pull the plough. Amazing creatures.
LOST IN COC PAI! Janet Fullerlove 2020-02-21 | I spent about 30 minutes trying to find my way OUT of this town called Coc Pai (pronounced Cock Pie) and frankly by the time I got shot of it I thought it was a pie of cock - or that google maps was. Half the trouble I later discovered is that the road I finally ended up on (you don't even see me get to it in this vid) is new and ONLY just open. I ended up doing 8km more than I should have to get to my destination today and I reckon most of that was me trying desperately to LEAVE COC PAI! You know when you get to the point of just NOT believing google maps? Yep, I went there too. Having chatted to the chap who owns the homestay I am now in and who KNOWS the roads, I probably DID take the best route out of Coc Pai. I cannot say it enough, it was a load of Coc Pai. Boy I was so cross at wasting so much f-ing time. Air turns blue in this, be warned!
The mountain to myself. Janet Fullerlove 2020-02-20 | At Hoang Su Phi Eco Lodge - see round the lovely cabin, the view. And I was told I will be the only person up here for the night as Hiep, the girl in charge, was off home for the night and there are no other guests - it is winter after all. Well worth the steep ride up. Talk about peaceful...hoangsuphilodge.com/en
Finding Hoang Su Phi Eco Lodge Challenge! (and managing some very steep bits of track!) (part I) Janet Fullerlove 2020-02-20 | My brother and his wife and 2 girls stumbled across this place by chance last year and WHAT a find it is. It is SO remote, at the top of a mountain up a small track which seemed to go on forever and with some really steep gradients on some of those chicane turns where 'feathering' the clutch was necessary but BOY oh boy what a road and what a PLACE. It was WELL worth the climb...sometimes I think the GoPro doesn't really show how steep the climb is - must be to do with the angles but for sure there are a couple of spots where it is far steeper than 1 in 10. More like 1 in 5.
A flowery hotel... Janet Fullerlove 2020-02-18 | Totally different to the homestays I've been in, this 'flowery' hotel was one I booked into at the last minute... this shows you a little bit about it. It's an 'eco' resort. Check the swans on the lake and the flowery trees...
Inside the unique Hmong house that is Auberge de Meo Vac. (For Dany with love) Janet Fullerlove 2020-02-17 | My pal Dany asked me to take photos of the inside of the Auberge at Meo Vac - I took a short vid so here it is. Love you Dan! x
Old Bird on a Bike - Sky Journey to Pride and Happiness (part 1) Janet Fullerlove 2020-02-16 | This section of road is what the Vietnamese call the 'Sky Journey to Pride and Happiness' - this is just the beginning part of that route, from just beyond Meo Vac heading north, towards the Lung Cu Flag pole. This is a STUNNING road with drops of kilometres off the sides at times. How did I get here????!!!!! With the help of so many good people. Road to Pride and Happiness? Well I am PROUD to have come so far (this is my 10th day ever on geared bikes and my 5th on a dirt bike - I took my full big bike test on January 2nd after a 5-day intensive course at Fast Trak EDT Shrewsbury) and I am very HAPPY to be doing this trip, to prove that if I can do it, at 62, then ANYONE can. As my mum says, '...and the little dog put one foot in front of the other.' Go for it!
Old Bird On a Bike (stuck in the mud!) Janet Fullerlove 2020-02-13 | Ha Giang Province N.Vietnam. February 13th 2020. Am doing a wee adventure in N. Vietnam on a Honda XR 150cc dirt bike and I faced some challenges today after an immense downpour last night - this was when I came across 2 huge HGV lorries which had both got stuck in the mud on what was essentially a muddy track big enough for 2 cars to pass each other....presumably when trying to avoid hitting each other - and they were COMPLETELY blocking the road. There was a narrow, deep muddy track for a bike wheel to sit in and I had to try to walk the bike along it, in first gear, with panniers to try to get past. In the midst of this a big digger started to try to pull one lorry out of the mud and I could see it was likely to just come and squish the bike! Two angel Vietnamese men stepped up and got the bike out for me. Not easy even for them! No way could I have done that on my own - they were young men too. Boy was I relieved to get out of there! And I still had over 150km to do - and the end of that wasn't easy either... the most hairy mountain road switch back and then more mud tracks and the battery going on my phone with the satnav just before I found my lodge for the night... but that's for another day. I feel immensely proud to have managed to overcome all the obstacles today. And tomorrow is another day.
Meet Terribly-British-Bridget - here she is making cement for her swimming pool. Janet Fullerlove 2017-04-28 | Bridget is a 'character' of mine who I do, normally just privately for a few friends or just to amuse myself. I got Nath to vid this episode of her mixing cement ... and you can't really hear much of what she is saying because of the noise of the bloomin' cement mixer! pah! However, I am posting it anyway, because I hope it'll cheer up my pal Copper. Much love Cops... here's to a good laugh and hope you get the gist of it. Next time I'll do some Bridget WITHOUT the cement mixer going! xxxx
Hang the EQ damage, well get on with the pool! Janet Fullerlove 2017-04-28 | After many months not being able to do anything on the house since the EQ we have finally got our mojo back for building work and are back to doing the pool. Digging hole for the pump housing.
Chickens and scorpions Janet Fullerlove 2017-04-28 | I never knew how much chickens LOVE to eat scorpions.
Four foot deep hole for the pump housing - getting a lift out of it! Janet Fullerlove 2017-04-28 | After doing a bit of digging by hand in the corners where the digger can't quite get to, Nath gives me a lift out of the hole, on the bucket.
Where would we be without the Ape? Janet Fullerlove 2017-04-28 | I drive the Ape (one-handed) up the road and across the field to tip the spoils from the dig for the pump housing - whilst trying to film it!
Just made it! Janet Fullerlove 2017-03-24 | It took all day but Nath JUST managed to get to the end of our road (about 1km from our house up to public road) before running out of fuel - which would have been very difficult because then we'd have been digging by hand, around the digger, to get the car out - because there was no turning around or going backwards - the road was too bad. But Lady Muck made it through to the cleared road! Phew! (March '17 - just realised I never published this although I uploaded it in February so might as well put it out there anyway)
Parsnips! Youve gotta love em... Janet Fullerlove 2017-03-24 | A lovely pal of mine in the UK who was upset with what has happened to our house, wanted to do something nice for us - and she did - she very kindly sent me some fabulous parsnip seeds from Thompson and Morgan seed catalogue - along with leeks and sprouts. So come November, now they're in, let's hope for roast 'snips! Yum! Aren't I a lucky girl?!
Spring has sprung Janet Fullerlove 2017-03-22 | Outdoors at least we can make some progress even if we still can't do anything to repair our earthquake-damaged house, and spring is lifting our spirits, along with some good horsh!
More propping up! Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-18 | Nathan got some help and he and Antonio propped up the side section of the wall of the house by the terrace - it has moved out considerably during the quakes. This, we hope will help keep us upright!
Savage winds! plus persimmons and anchor beam.... Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-07 | Savage winds! (what the locals call earthquake weather)... unseasonably WARM. Shows how we have fixed the anchor beams down into the ground with lengths of rebar hammered in over a metre deep. The persimmon lost ALL it's leaves in this wind in one night.
Bit more on the shoring up of the house front. Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-06 | You can see here Nathan and Roberto up on the scaff doing part of the shoring up. Also about how we have to finish it with the same sort of arrangement with another beam which needs to be staked into the ground with rebar 'pegs' hammered in a metre deep like the other one, to be as stable as we can make it.
Shored up. Salute! Thanks Roberto! Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-05 | Roberto very kindly gave us some old beams and helped us to get the front of the house much more secure.
Our home from a distance; a wreck Colmuramo with crane in action. Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-04 | A more distant shot of our house, our neighbouring house which was wrecked by the earthquake and the village in the distance with a huge crane doing repair work on the church bell tower.
Ciolmurano Clock tower shored up Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-04 | The old clock tower (permanently on 10 past 10 since beyond when I first came here in 1998) having been strapped up like something for a supermarket. It'll work though, I hope. It's been there since the 1600's.
BBC World TV interview (@3mins) M6.6 earthquake in Italy - Dutchsinse Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-04 | From 3 minutes in - interview re earthquake and about forecaster Dutchsinse being spot on and saving lives.
How many Italians does it take to change a lightbulb? Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-04 | Things going on to make buildings safe in the villlage...
The Palazetto Sport where the evacuees and those in need of care, now live. Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-04 | Quick look inside the Palazetto Sport - big gymnasium/sports hall in our village where all the people who have been evacuated from their houses in the 'centro storico' (historic centre) and others whose houses have been made 'inagibile' (uninhabitable) are now living. The Commune have a sign on the door saying they will not turn ANYONE away who wishes to sleep there if they don't feel safe sleeping in their own homes. There are older people here too who normally have carers but because of the earthquakes most have gone back home to Albania, Poland, wherever, so these folks are here too.
House damage after the M6.6 (1) Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-03 | Did a quick vid from top to bottom of the house after the big M6.6 (in three parts)
Casa Merlini - How much more can it take? Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-02 | After the 6.6 I filmed damage and since THEN, after yesterday morning's 4.9 I didn't go and look again but have now realised that the whole front of the house must have moved out almost another inch. I do not know, really, how much more it can take. I just want it to stop so we can repair the house and keep it upright. It has taken us 16 years to do it up from a semi-derelict. I don't want to lose it. It's our home!
Casa Merlini damage update after the 6.6 (part 2) Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-01 | Just showing where new cracks have appeared, more plaster down, other cracks from previous quakes now open even more.
Casa Merlini damage update after the 6.6 (part 1) Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-01 | Just showing where new cracks have appeared, more plaster down, other cracks from previous quakes now open even more and what we have done - feels so little - to try to protect the wall which seems to be coming away from the rest of the house :-(
House update after the M6.6 quake Janet Fullerlove 2016-11-01 | Shows the new build bit where we sleep safely. Also shows how we are trying to prop up the front of our house using the digger.
