Yesterday was a damp misty Sunday. This day is generally observed in Italy as a day of rest; one that should be spent in a peaceful and quiet manner. This means one should avoid making loud noises (e.g. jackhammering a cement slab). Therefore, we spent a peaceful and quiet day inside with our backs to a wood fire.
Finally, a job that we have been avoiding for four years has been done. When we purchased the place in 2009, a number of old fireplaces came with it. At the time, we thought this was the greatest coup...six antique fireplaces thrown in! It didn't take us long to realise that each fireplace weighed as much as a small car...or seemed to. So, for the next four years we looked at them, tried to pick them up occasionally and told ourselves how lucky we were to have them. It has been only recently that we have cursed them. They will be too heavy for our new wooden floors and we needed to move them in order to proceed with our demolition. After several days, and a very slow process that had us thinking in terms of imperial measurement ("inch by inch"), they are no longer internal antique fireplaces but external incidental tables or pot plant holders! Here are some photos of the effort to move four of them, which took all morning!
Managing our renovation and demolition detritus has been a constant challenge for us. We have bricks, tiles, steel and plastics that we have to organise and limited space near the house to put it. In the past, we have spent many hours moving these piles around the place depending on our focus at the time. In summer, the vege garden was the priority and the bricks and tiles went at the end of the garden. Now, demolition is a priority so they need to be moved to a location that will allow their quantity to increase four fold. We keep our rubbish because we want to re-use it as much as possible in order to minimise our environmental footprint. The old bricks can be used in paths between rows of veges; old tiles may cover the odd floor or wall; old steel may come in handy as cement reinforcing. So we are now "hiding" our rubbish behind the fienile, which has yet to be renovated. Once the house is finished, and we are left with rubbish that can only be defined as "utterly unusable" we will engage a bobcat/truck to excavate and remove our entire collection. We live in hope that this will be the end of our rubbish management issues.
While we have been away, a constant drip from a badly placed downpipe has caused a patch of damp on one of the bedroom walls. This week, when I was scraping and sanding back the paint on this wall, I came across a hand painted decoration several layers down. For a few precious minutes I felt like i had discovered my own little Sistine Chapel...
It has been two days since we launched at our first renovation project since returning to Italy. We now have a new pile of bricks growing behind the fienile, a new pile of rubble growing in the downstairs room and a hole in the floor/ceiling depending on which room you're in. We are trying to fix an old renovation job that was done by previous owners. The problem is that the ceilings in both rooms are incredibly heavy: they are constructed of one layer of wood, one layer of bricks and 3 inches of cement. There is a layer of reinforcement steel in there too but, thankfully, this is badly placed (under the cement rather than in it) which means it will be easy for us to fracture the cement. Our geometra came to view the situation a few months ago and was shocked that such massive weight was resting on wooden beams. So we have started to remove it all and plan to replace it with heavy board, then put down wooden floors in both rooms. Stand by for further updates as the piles get bigger and the hole enlarges...
An "administration day" is always a good thing when we have spent the last two days digging in the garden and emptying the next two rooms to be renovated. Our bodies are incredibly tired to the point that we had trouble getting out of chairs today in the various government offices we visited! We needed to renew Stuart's residency, get the ball rolling on the renewal of my residency and progress the import of our shipping container. When we did anything administrative 2.5 years ago, it was a major trauma which exhausted us within minutes and had us escaping back up our valley for a bit of respite. This time, since we were already familiar with the offices, the people, the challenges and the waiting times, we could cope with it all much better. Also, my Italian seems to have improved (?) but I suspect that this may be because I have a different attitude. Last time, we were here temporarily; we always knew we would have to return to Australia to work. This time, we are here permanently, which gives me a greater impetus and confidence to "give it a go" in terms of verbal communication. It is definitely BAD Italian...but they do seem to know what I am saying! Tomorrow we have another "administrative day" which will see us commencing the changeover of our car registration from Switzerland to Italy. Once we do this and our residencies are finalised, we will have 12 months to get an Italian drivers licence...but thats a whole other story...
I spent all day in the herb garden removing wild spearmint which had taken over the garden to a point where I couldn't see my beautiful sage, rosemary and thyme. I took the opportunity to cut back the herbs at the same time, gathering the cuttings into bunches that now hang inside over the kitchen window to dry during winter. We have found a lot of mosquitoes in the valley this year, probably due to the very wet summer. However, there is a distinct absence of the little horrors around the pergola area, which we assume is because of the aromatic herb garden. During a break from the garden, I reorganised my kitchen. The room has very little bench space so I need to make it work for me to feel some level of efficiency when I am in it. The major improvement was the repositioning of my bread maker, which now sits in a permanent location on the window sill where it will always be ready for a loaf!
Tonights dinner was a salciccia piccante and a salad of rocket, beetroot, corn and sultanas dressed in olive oil and balsamic. A fittingly healthy end to an active day.
We love to compost. The compost bin we used when we lived here 2.5 years ago is now too small for the compost potential that our new permanent and dedicated life gives us. We also plan to mow one paddock a week and want to compost the grass cuttings from these paddocks. Hence, today we drove 30km in search of two perfect compost bins (we need two because one will be "active" while the other is "resting"). We wanted something that had a large top loading hole, was wider at the bottom than the top and would rest directly on the earth to enable maximum interaction with worms and other useful composting bugs. We also wanted something that we could simply lift off to leave a pile of composted matter behind. We didn't want to have to shovel out our compost as this is too tedious. We visited 3 hardware and gardening shops and found lots of rubbish bins that were too narrow and proper compost bins that were too flimsy and expensive. Just as he had given up, we drove past a pile of 300 litre containers at a strange little shop that handles farming equipment. These containers are used in the production of wine and were just perfect for our purposes. We purchased them, squeezed them into our car and drove home. Then we cut a large hole in the bottom of them, turned them upside down and put a piece of tin on one and wood on the other (as lids) before emptying our first load of kitchen scraps into one of them. Let the composting begin!
Our water traumas have not yet left us. When we lived here 2.5 years ago, we had constant problems with water supply into the house. It seemed that we had two choices: either we had cold water running out of both taps or we had hot water running out of both taps. The expectation that cold water would come out of the cold tap and hot water would come out of the hot tap was simply unreasonable. We ended up using the shower in the rustico where the taps did what they were supposed to do. I remember a very cold winter which saw two people in their dressing gowns leaving footprints in the snow as they moved between the house and the rustico for their daily ablutions. Now that we are living here permanently we simply must get this water problem corrected and it is at the top of our list of priorities. This week, I called our wonderful plumber, Lilo, who spent 2 hours during his siesta trying to figure it out but left saying that he would "study it" (!?). I hope he returns, as the problem has already confounded two other plumbers who fled down the driveway in terror. Meanwhile, as Autumn progresses and Winter threatens, two dressing gowns are again making the pilgrimage...
We found this nougat in our cupboard... It is now partly eaten but we can get more shortly as this is a special Christmas food in Italy!
As Autumn continues and temperatures drop, it is comforting to know that we now have the potential to heat our home. It took quite considerable coordination by a number of our friends to make this happen for us and yesterday it all came together nicely. One friend, who owns a B&B and a vineyard with an incredible view, purchased the pellets for us and provided his little vineyard tractor to enable them to be taken from the large delivery truck up the valley to our house. Three other friends brought a sense of humour and a luxurious lemon curd cake for afternoon tea, Five pallets containing 370 bags of pellets (approximately 7 tonne) were delivered by a heavy duty truck which parked itself on the main road at the end of our 1.5km driveway and offloaded the pallets one by one onto the verge. Before the truck driver left, he was able to put two of these pallets directly onto the vineyard tractor which meant we didn't have to on-load this quantity by hand. The tractor then travelled up our track where four men were waiting to offload it, then it drove back down with two men in our car following it to load the next lot of bags by hand. Thankfully, we only had to do this once because a neighbour on the main road (who we have never met before!) offered to load the remaining two pallets with his forklift! After the stacking was completed, we all sat under the wisteria-laden pergola with two bottles of local Spumante and that lovely lemon cake...
You know those sweet little bees that I told you about yesterday morning and that caused me to have a guilt wracked day? Well, a have part two of that story... I was washing in the bathroom, an event which can only occur in a stark naked manner since we have no hot water to the showers. This is clearly a whole separate story so suffice to say that for 7 days we have been washing out of our bathroom sinks using wash cloths which generally causes a lot of splashing. Anyway, I was standing before the sink covered only in my skin when I heard a screech from the bedroom. I delayed my reaction thinking I would throw something on first. Another more panicked screech found me running into the bedroom in a nude state to find Stuart holding my yoga mat up to the ceiling of the window cavity with one hand and spraying insect poison all over the general surrounds. "Get something! The bees are coming in!" He yelled at me. I launched towards my dressing gown, desperate to be covered before I went downstairs. But the panicked look on Stuarts face caused me to forget all semblance of decency. "Get some cardboard!" I tore into the spare bedroom and brought a large removalists box back with me. I ripped the top flap off it and gave it to Stuart. "Get something to wedge it up to the ceiling!" I flew down the stairs, breasts swinging wildly from one wall to the other. I crouched at the front french door to check that no Italian pervert happened to have his face attached to the window, before streaking across to the kichen, then the laundry. I grasped a small coffee table, a plastic bucket of bread making flour and a number of sheet sets still in their packaging. I flew back up the stairs, all the while wondering what my arse looked like from behind. When Stuart saw my collection of things, I could see he was not impressed. But I took control, placing the coffee table on the window sill such that the yoga mat could sit on it and provide enough pressure to hold the cardboard flap up to the ceiling. This would free up Stuarts hands and give us time to think. What about the sheets, you ask? Well, sometimes panic causes us to do strange things. A few minutes later, Stuart had cut a piece of foam to replace the cardboard flap and a couple of pieces of wood to replace the yoga mat. Here is our interim solution to keep the bees out until we can find a bee keeper who can help us...
We have a bee hive in the cavity above the window in our bedroom. Sadly, we sprayed them today. Their presence means that we cannot open the window and their activity has created a damp spot in the plaster at the top of the window alcove which we suspect is honey. It physically hurt me to see them sprayed, knowing how precious bees are to our world. So I have decided to purchase a few hives and place them in the bottom paddock. While I know nothing about bees at the moment, I do know that hives need a queen bee to start. If a queen bee found its way into our window cavity, then I am sure one will find my hives sooner or later. And when it takes up residence, I will investigate what I then need to do to make amends for what we did today...
At noon today, we enjoyed our first long slow Piedmontese lunch since returning to Italy. We have ranted long and hard to anyone who would listen about the joy of long Italian lunches. Todays effort took 3 hours. Bread, entree and main with wine and coffee. Just perfect. And all for EUR 10 per person. There must be no better way to wile away a few hours with some precious family or friends...
We were returning home from a visit to a hardware shop when we came across a car parked just off the little track which is our driveway. The car had a temporary sign in its window which said "attenzione battuta al cinghiale in corso". This meant that a professional wild boar hunt was underway. A little further ahead of the car, we could see a man in a hi-vis orange vest on the track. He was carrying a double barrelled shotgun and seemed to be extremely alert, listening and turning quickly in a nervous way. We turned off the engine and waited. By the mans agitated behaviour, it seemed that a beast was certainly barrelling down the track towards us. Suddenly the man spun around, and pointed his gun up the road. Seconds later, a cyclist sheepishly creeped around us. I wondered if he knew how close he came to being one of the 600 people who are shot by cinghiale hunters every year in Italy. The man visibly relaxed with this interruption and walked towards us. I explained to him that our house was up the valley and we were on our way home. He told us to proceed. Just around the first bend, we came across another car, again displaying the hunter notice in its window, and a hi-vis man poised with a gun. Still further along, we found a third marked car and two hi-vis men with guns. Suddenly, one of these men jerked his head in the direction of the forest and ran up the track, knees bent and upper body leaning forward poised for an attack. We turned off the engine again and waited. Nothing. The man returned and told us to proceed. As the car passed him, we heard him on his two-way saying that a car belonging to a local had interrupted the hunt. They had obviously been so close and the timing of our approach had ruined it for them. Our activity outside the house was slightly thwarted for the rest of the day, as we fully expected a boar to come charging towards us at any moment.
The work that awaits us here is phenomenal. Today, we conducted a walk around to identify a place to start which turned out to be no small task. We have lived a life of movement in which we have not stayed in one place for long. We calculated the other day that we have been together for almost 20 years and have moved 20 times in that period. Most of these moves were for work, which moved us within Australia as well as overseas to Singapore and Switzerland. Some have been our own doing within Australia and Italy. This lifestyle has meant that we sometimes had to put our possessions in storage while at other times we purchased another "set" of everything for various reasons (which seemed well thought out at the time)! On top of this, we have the possessions that came with the house in Italy which made it already a full house. On top of all this, we have been advised that our sea container is currently being cleared in Livorno which means that even more possessions will arrive shortly! Thus, i guess it is no surprise that we woke at 4am this morning...
I can confidently report that Italy is as good as its ever been. The area around our home is as always incredibly friendly and seems largely untouched by the European and Italian financial woes. We have been endowed with food treasues since we arrived. Yesterday, our friends in Acqui Terme gave us a chocolate hazelnut gateau that contained a dose of alcohol and today our neighbours dropped in to give us a plate of exquisite delicacies from the local pasticerria. For those of you who won't get to enjoy these gifts, here are a few photos...
I have waited 3 years to see the progress of our 2 wisteria vines and this is what awaited me yesterday when I arrived "home". The one on the front of the house is 100 years old. Before we left in 2010, we built a pergola in the hope that one day the wisteria would stretch across it and the entire front of the house. The other one is on the fienile. When we planted this rather costly 7 year old specimen we hoped that it would also cover the front of its building. As you can see, both of these beauties have more than met our hopes and expectations...
After being woken by Stuart announcing that it was 6.30am, we quickly showered and dressed for breakfast at 7.00am. After we had got ready, Stuart (wondering why it was still so dark) checked his watch and sheepishly told me that it was only 4.30am. I was not a happy chappie. However, we talked ourselves into going down to the bar to see if we could send a few emails using the free wifi here. After half an hour there and several "head-nods", we decided to go back to bed. Take 2. We slept for another hour and woke at 6.30am. After a breakfast during which I ate far too many rice noodles and managed to cause a disturbance related to my need to understand table construction (well, I am a carpenter's daughter after all....), we met Luca at reception for a wild day on the streets and the water. Here are a few photos of the island of Cheung Chau, which is approximately 40 minutes from Hong Kong and has no high rise buildings or motorised vehicles...a real treat!
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