Livin’ la dolce vita

Canada and Oz are popular with emigrants right now, but what about a new life on the continent? Kerry Waldron made the leap and, after a slow start, has made a happy life in Italy

WHEN I moved to Italy 10 years ago my whole life was turned upside down. I had been living and working in Dublin where my only experience of wildlife was witnessing the odd naked ‘stag’ chained to a lamppost on a Saturday night.

Beguiled by my English boyfriend, Guy, himself an Italophile, I swapped my life of city-centre living to move to Umbria, in central Italy. I ended up living in the middle of fields, hills and woods with only the odd passing wild boar for company. Looking back I can see how completely naive I was, with no clue to what was in store for me.