Otto Mese (8 months): Building site, bureaucracy, blisters, baskets, ball games, baritones, burning midnight oil, bizarre house guests, bloody cat...

Juliet writes:

Sono stanco! (I’m knackered)

I am typing this while sitting on newspaper, to protect the chair from the dust that has accumulated on my bottom. We spend each day on our dusty, rubble-filled building site. Officially, however, it isn’t a building site (shhh – don’t tell anyone), because at last we now have all our permissions. This means that, apart from ourselves, no-one is allowed on site that isn’t registered and contracted via the geometra. We were planning on hiding Jim in a cupboard when the authorities come round to check, but we don’t actually have a cupboard. And the implications if we are caught are pretty scary: Fines, imprisonment and worst still, closing down any works on site for an indefinite period. So, we are hanging tight and have asked Jim to take work home with him instead. Poor man – it’s harder than it looks trying to smuggle bits of banister and shutters into a car when no-one’s looking.

Anyway, hopefully this shady activity will only be transient - we are having a second meeting with a promising builder on Wednesday and it’s a toss-up between him (Guiseppe) and a pair of brothers (Stepan and Ivan). We should know for definite by Friday and then we can ask Christian to draw up the contracts and get the health and safety sorted, including the erecting of the obligatory signs and bright orange fencing all around Lecci. I am so excited about the prospect of official rubble and dust. I wonder if one can buy pretty hard hats on Ebay?

Well anyway, it all sounds simple doesn’t it? Just a few more forms, some contracts and at least 1,000 signatures stand between us and the beginnings of our dream home. Have I told you before just how much we love bureaucracy?

As we are relatively guest-free and builder-free now, we have been whiling away the days knocking the poor house apart, continuing to sort out the garden and sourcing baths, wood, marble, stoves, tiles etc for the time when it is civilised enough to fit them.

We now have the dining room flooring design sorted and the marble factory to make it up for us (we are even allowed to watch it being made, within metres of where the marble for Michangelo’s David was hewn)

We are also pretty damn near to getting a plumber. Only 8 months to source one aint bad. We should be getting the final quote this week (allegedly) and they can start at the beginning of next month. We are not sure if we can afford underfloor heating, but we would love this – especially in a country with no carpets – tiles can be pretty chilly at this time of year!

Just as we managed to scrub the grape stains off our hands and clothes (the wine will be ready in about a month – whoopee), we are now covered in blisters, scratches, splinters and twigs from the olive picking. It is a slow job (isn’t everything here?!), as each little extra-virgin olive is so precious, but we have been thoroughly enjoying our very first harvest. We only have 5 really fruitful trees out of 20, but it takes forever to shake, poke, pluck, prod, climb, fall off, swear and climb up again. Peter has taken great delight in making long poles to whack the branches with and persuade the stubborn little buggers to jump while I scrabble about on hands and knees with nets and baskets and climb the trees to handpick the most clingy stragglers. We have spent an entire day, done 2 big trees and 4 small ones and only filled one little wicker basket. Hrumppfh. Rain (yes, it does rain here!) has stopped play for the time being but we are hopeful that we will fill at least one more basket before skipping off to the cooperativo and persuading them to process our meager wares. While P can normally be found with heavy and noisy equipment in some dark corner of the house, I keep my distance with sandpaper and chisels in another corner, so it’s been lovely just spending time alone together in the peace and quiet of the garden, sharing the same job and having a laugh along the way.

We have managed to have a few ‘posh’ days recently (ie dust and twig-free). First up was the arrival of Charlie and Jen for 5 days. We all wanted to take it very easy, which involved lying in most days, fondling yet more strange-looking vegetables (see pics) and the consumption of a scary amount of wine and cheese. They were kind enough to insist that if we did anything at all, it should be in places we haven’t yet been to ourselves. So we had our first experience of Palma beyond the airport, taking in a very posh antiques exhibition (including an original Picasso, artifacts from the far east and some beautiful 3,000 year old Persian glassware), lunch in a great wine bar and a bit of window shopping. All very elegant and picturesque, although the heavens opened and Jen and I spent the trip back with our socks on the car heater vents! A couple of days later, we ventured into Forte di Marmi - 45 minutes from our house and the third most expensive seaside resort in Italy (after Capri and Portofino). Pretty tree-lined avenues with Georgian and Edwardian houses, piazzas with fountains edged by eateries and hideously expensive designer shops and a relaxing, if slightly snotty atmosphere. Again, not great weather, but we did manage to walk along the old pier right into the sea, visit a stove shop to source our oven, and spend some time in the marble factory mentioned above.

Next up was the ruggers match between England and South Africa last weekend. We were kindly invited around to Matt and Sue’s palatial priory with Simon and Sarah to watch it on Sky. It was heaven to sit on heated cotto in a beautiful clean house, eating Sue’s delicious home-made samosas, sipping vino and trying not to laugh at all the swearing and yelling from the men.

We also got the chance to admire their tiny little chapel, which they have now renovated sympathetically. You can see the original murals and Sue has put candles and flowers in it. I may just use it to pray for salvation when Lecci becomes an even worse dust pit!

And finally, yesterday when we went to Lucca for the brilliant once-a-month antique fair that winds through the narrow cobbled streets. We were hoping that we might be able to pick up a reasonable old sink for the kitchen and fireplace for the dining room. But alas, the streets were completely empty. (Typically Italian – we found out from a waiter that the stallholders just fancied a different day, so they just went ahead and changed it without notice to the weekend before). But our journey wasn’t remotely wasted. We had a lovely liquid lunch outside in the sunshine (not something you can usually do in Blighty at the end of November) and then wandered into the fantastic medieval Arts School where a local fair was taking place. In the vaulted, muralled rooms were furniture, jewellery, paintings, sculptures, wines, cheeses, meats and other local produce and crafts all for sale. But the most exciting event was a free 2-hour concert in the Great Hall with a super baritone, pianist and a choir. We closed our eyes and heard everything from Mozart arias to African lullabys. A great strategy by Peter to stop his wife spending money on strange cheeses and expensive portraits of Puccini.

Cats are fine - much more settled although still hissing at each other on a daily basis. Kitten is fast asleep and sprawled out across my hand/the keyboard as I write, so my blog is probably full of typos! Weed has obviously now developed a healthy wanderlust. Last week, Peter had to utilize ladder and bravado when she got stuck up a high pine tree for hours and then on Saturday, after we returned from the ruggers, we heard a distant meowing and located it to behind the shed door. We had to call our landlord to conduct another rescue mission, this time on a high beam in the shed. P shrugged his shoulders in defeat and got the ladder out again. We hope that she stays ground-based for a few weeks.

Which brings me to a Nature Update. We are the proud owners of Italy’s biggest mushroom (see pics above, taken in the garden just by our house). We are too scared to eat it in case our hair falls out, we grow extra limbs and our blogs make less sense than normal. But it is a wonderful sight to behold.

Also, today we spotted some strange activity in our bedroom at Lecci (steady on, all lewd readers!). Marked in the dust is a labyrinth of tiny tracks. Three different types in fact. It looks like a worm in a miniature tank, a baby bird on drugs and a caterpillar with a feather duster had a drunken race on the floor overnight. I have never seen anything like it in my life. If anyone knows any tribal trackers, please do send them on to Cerignano.

Only other things of note: P set fire to himself while cooking for some friends, proving two things: Firstly, my husband should never cook and drink at the same time, and secondly my pet name for him of 'hot stud' is now more appropriate than ever! If that wasn't enough he also managed to fudge the Shaguar security code (His excuse? “I was bored waiting for a shop to open and thought I might get lucky and put in the right code.” Only 1 million combinations – what was he thinking of?!) so his car was disabled in a car park 5 miles away overnight and his wife slapped him a couple of times as a result. Meanwhile, because the convent isn’t warm enough with just the pellet fire and I am often up late because of my tum, he is cursing me for burning enough paraffin each week to heat up Helsinki in order to stop myself from shivering. Slaps and curses…we are so romantic aren’t we?!

Ciao per ora tutti. And congratulations to Rob and Gina for starting the ball-rolling on your own Mediterranean dream home – we can’t wait to read your building blog!

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