When Annie Hawes buys a hillside cottage in Italy for no more than the price of a dodgy second-hand car, a capable young Englishwoman becomes a surprisingly incapable Ligurian signorina...In the area by chance, Annie and her sister fall in love with the area. Their new neighbours are baffled - how have these Foreign Females survived? Don't they have any idea how to get their year's supply of olive oil from a couple of dozen olive trees, or good wine from bramble-choked vines?