Brave or barmy?

Okay, best not beat around the bush. These pictures you see above and below?  Yep, that's the trullo.

It dates back to the 1790s or early 1800s - the height of the remaining cones and size of windows tells us that - and once upon a time, they were simple homes and shelters for workers tending local vines.

We bought our trullo in October last year. With our retirement savings.

Photogenic? Oh yes! 

Romantic ... without doubt. 

Habitable?  Um, no. 

Watertight? Ah. That would be a 'no' again. 

We figured we're too young to put our feet up and that money wouldn't buy a broom closet in Sydney where we spent most of our lives - nor London where we live now.

It makes total sense right? Buy a pretty pile of stones, embark on a new project that will keep us interested and excited, help restore a teensy bit of my mother country's heritage and end up with a holiday house at the end of it, one that we can enjoy with our children - and rent out too to pay the bills.

So, that's the plan.

Optimists at heart, we've never been averse to risk as our friends and family know (and occasionally despair). We chucked in senior journalism jobs in Australia to migrate permanently to the UK, pretty much on a similar attack of love for London and carpe-the-fuck-diem.

But it is true too that we have some experience, restoring four old houses in our 20 years together, two deemed such wrecks they were passed in at auction. In the long run, we had fun, the kids had room to move and we did okay when we sold them and moved on. (Admittedly the others had proper walls. And roofs. And we lived in them. And they were in the same country in which we were resident.)

Now, before the eyeballs really start rolling, let me just give you a little taste of why we fell in love with this trullo. It may be a wreck but it does sit on the prettiest block of land, a kind of crazy trapezium shape that tumbles down hill over seven oh-so-lovely terraces.

Nestled up against the edge of a tiny little village, high on a hill, you can see the sea, a deep blue arc on the horizon where the sun rises. And you can see the Selva di Fasano, a beautiful old forest down below.

In summer, the air smelled of ripening figs and hummed with bees and cicadas. There are silvery olive trees, a couple of pomegranates, almond and cherry trees and at the entrance, a stately old oak.

A winter visit revealed that the driest of red earth had succumbed to a surprising carpet of baby-hair soft grassland. 

Dry stone walls mark out the 'terrazzini' and according to documents from our local municipality of Locorotondo, this plot was once part of a larger vineyard. Our nearest neighbour at right is another abandoned old trullo while all that remains of the structure on the other side is the rectangular footprint left by an old stone floor.

The second time we saw our trullo in real life - I found it on the internet but that's another story - a huge rainbow stretched from the clouds as two young dogs, seemingly ownerless, bounded up and led us into what has clearly been their playground/shelter.

Our welcoming party: rainbows and dogs.

This was meant to be in every way.

Obviously.