Having five children in three schools can make country life a paved existence.

If the seashore seems too "staged," head for a mountain lake, and the woman with a cigar.

Want a horse badly enough and uncanny Italy may well reward your dreaming.

Farms need forecasts, but thinking about the future of weather runs considerably deeper.

Farm life can bring on the blues, but better or worse, a sense of community endures.

Before turning to working the land, best to reap hit single royalties — or else.

Seeking quality of life can force you confront quality of education.

The Italy of the British media imagination is inevitably broken and corrupt.

You can get a pig sow to slaughter but will she board, and if not, what then?

When Mary mopes, smokes and panics, what's female baby Jesus to do?

Famed extra-virgin olive oil conjures up bucolic visions, but beware the cat.

Counteracting a bossy lady can call for several battalions of lemon curd.