Sei Mese (6 months): Convents, cold, carpenters, charred body parts and collecting grapes

Juliet writes:

Cara amici,

Newsflash: We have moved. In one piece. With cats. And wine rack. Hoorah!

A big thank you to Simon McBride – international photographer to the rich, famous and alcoholic, and a dear friend of ours – who helped us valiantly and uncomplainingly with our move. We will give you our return unpacking services when you come to bella Lunigiana for good next month…

So here we are at the old Convento di Carmine in Cerignano, only a 5 minute walk to our wonderful Lecci. While we currently have only one kerosene heater to keep us warm, leaky taps and a fridge which hums loudly, the nunnery more than makes up for it with an abundance of squirrels (my first sighting of both a red and black!), birds, wild flowers, fruit trees, stunning views and sheer peace. Gone are the days of having to listen to Italian game shows at 10 million decibels from next door. No more are the long journeys home through steep, sharp bends. Away with the dodgy twin beds and naff kitchen. We now live in luxurious, spacious surroundings with only the distant eeyoring of a donkey to disturb the sanctuary.

We wake up every day in our beautiful carved mahogany bed, look up at the arched ceiling and peer out of the window at 17th century murals and a 16th century well in the cloisters below. Then we walk the two miles to the kitchen for a proper cup of coffee in a proper cafetiere on a proper hob.

Each day we go for a walk around the grounds (17 hectares) with Weed and Tumble. There is the lower route – winding fairly steeply through fields of wild flowers, bracken and pine trees to the river, waterfall and woodland dell below. Or we take the path around the nunnery walls, pass the church and crumbling ancient stone outbuildings and climb up to the top, where I wish we could bottle the view of Fivizzano, church spires and mountains beyond and post it to you all.

Many a noble Italian family clamours to have their daughter’s wedding reception here: they are already booked up for next summer. And for us it’s only £100 per week and we have it all to ourselves!

While the sun shines every day, the nights are now quite frosty. Thankfully our delightful new landlord/lady will install a stufo (traditional Italian wood or pellet stove/heater) next week, so the icicles on our noses should melt.

The cats absolutely love it here – so much space to explore, so many lizards to taunt –and there has been almost no hissing at each other. Yesterday they even ate in the same area at the same time with only one token growl from Weed. And on our walk yesterday they touched noses. We nearly fainted! Tumble has had a few accidents: one poo in the bidet (how convenient!) and a couple of wees in unsavoury places, but I think she is finally getting the hang of this garden toilet lark. The Marigolds are on standby just in case…

We feel so privileged to be here and I really hope you can come and visit the convent before we move – hopefully for the last time – to our own meagre surroundings. Dirty habits are optional :o)

All else is well. Hopefully we will collect our plucked and polished Jaguar tomorrow, so no more billows of smoke from the engine - hoorah. We both have our Carte d’Identita now. So it’s official: we are Italian residents (but British citizens for the moment). I think the admin chap at the Comune is a bit short-sighted – he has described Peter’s hair as white (not yet!) and mine as black.

At Lecci, we have arranged for the convent’s carpenter to restore and double-glaze our windows. We are meeting with the gas people this week. The electrician is in the wings waiting for the builder/plumber who is in talks with our geometra, also this week. Based on past record, please don’t hold your breath, but I hope that in a couple of weeks’ time, we will have permissions, so really can start knocking down walls and doing the big stuff before the onset of winter. Hmmmm, have you heard that before?

The Irish-English contingency are doing a sterling job of pretty much everything else. Jim has dug out a ditch for drain water, tweaked some windows so they shut, removed the old bathroom (at last we have a big kitchen!) and knocked out the floor of the little loo on the landing (at last we have a big hall!).

Meanwhile, P has been diamond grinding the walls. It took him a day to do just one and a half walls – only another 16 to go, plus 5 ceilings. Maybe the man at the Comune saw him do this because his hair (in fact his entire body) was white with plaster dust. He has also managed to severely bruise a finger carrying old stones around the garden and burnt his hair and one and a half eyebrows off while starting a bonfire (we don’t learn do we?!), so he looks really handsome at the moment :o)

I have had a bit of a break away from it all, trying to unpack again, catch up on admin and settle the cats in. Which is good because I tried weeding the veggie patch yesterday when I wasn’t feeling A1 and ended up slumped back at the nunnery on morphine. Oops. I guess there will be less heavy-duty stuff to do over winter, plus less guests, so I should recover.

However, next Saturday will be a hive of activity: it is Grape Day for our borgo, so we will not only be picking ours but also helping to pick our friends Leo and Elena’s in return for their winemaking skills. They have just become grandparents for the first time – a beautiful boy called Andrea, so they will need all the help (and wine) they can get.

Then, the very next day we have my mum and aunt arriving for 5 days. It’s mum’s first time in Italy, despite a life-time love affair with it (she hates flying), so that’s terribly exciting.

A day after they leave, we have the Gang of Four coming: Peter H and Penny Cooper who we met in Sri Lanka, and Sue and El Reado, from P’s debauched days as a tennis-playing, gin drinking batchelor. They are all bonkers and great company so it should be a hoot.

Then of course, it will be olive picking time. We only have about 25 trees, but it’s a time comsuming task as each olive needs to be de-leafed, de-stalked, cleaned and left to dry out for a few days.

Did I say that we would rest over winter? Oh good.

Ciao per ora, carissimo amici. Hope you are all keeping warm and well and surviving the economic storm. Miss you all dearly. XXXX

Ventiquattro settimani (24 weeks): Permissions, potions, pallets, progress, pets, packing and pretending to be asleep

Juliet writes:

Cara amici,

Where to begin?

Perhaps I should start with an apology for not having the time to keep you up-to-date until now…
It’s been getting very busy here, in between drinking and sleeping.

First and foremost, Peter received his citizen ID card today (whoop, whoop!) and I pick mine up tomorrow. The significance of this is more enormous than a pregnant hippopotamus… it means that we can now submit our second lot of permissions to the Mountain Comune (we are in the Garfagnana – a protected national parkland – so their approval is needed for all works).

It also means that we can register for national health insurance and thus sign up with doctors and dentists. Which is quite a relief because in the last week alone, P had an allergic reaction to a wasp sting and ended up with a hand like a blown up marigold glove for 4 days and I had food poisoning! We had to rely on ‘China’ – an ancient and very popular remedy that was first concocted/patented by the Fivizzano pharmacist in 1884 and is still going strong as a cure-all for absolutely everything. I think that you can even clean ovens with it and possibly use in nuclear power stations. Or at least you should be able to judging by the taste. Anyway, we are now fully-fit again, at least while I write this :o)

We also had our first house delivery… well, almost. There was no tail-lift on the vehicle, despite been promised such, and the young driver was rather unhelpful – much shoulder shrugging, head shaking, cries of ‘Madonna!’ and futile calls on mobile. So P, Jim and I were forced by hand to lift, lug and carefully place in our house 400 slate floor tiles (they are heavier than you think), an entire flat-pack kitchen and all the oak planks for the lounge and library. We only blocked the road for 20 minutes though (apparently you are allowed to block any minor road for up to 30 minutes without permission) because our wonderful electrician - who we had also blocked from his return home – leapt to action and kindly helped us with the lugging.

The most expensive kitchen unit (could it be any other?) is badly chipped, all the pelmets and kickboards are missing and several slate tiles are chipped. Apart from this, tutto bene! At least we have several weeks before anything is close to being installed/fitted, so this gives us ample time to shout at people on the phone. And it is exciting to have cardboard boxes in the house as we are a bit weary of dust, cement and general muck.

After this minor fiasco, the lovely electrician (Stefano), who bears an uncanny resemblance to Peter’s nephew Robin, gave us a very reasonable quote for the works. So at last we have one official employee – hoorah!

We are meeting with Christian (our geometra – strange Italian thing - cross between an architect and surveyor) this week to discuss the finer details of plumbing systems and septic tanks. What fun. Once this is submitted and approved, we can finally get quotes from the plumber/builder and hopefully start work.

That February moving in date is looking a bit far-fetched :o)

Weed continues to disown us, only coming home for food and hissing. We are very upset but hope that time (or at least another move) will bring her round again. Tumble has become much more affectionate and even more bonkers – leaping at absolutely anything, even things that don’t actually exist.

We are moving in two weeks’ time to our posher rental place – that nunnery around the corner from Lecci. We are very excited about it, although after 6 months here, we have accumulated so many possessions we may need another removal lorry. (Advanced warning: we have no idea about internet there yet so may be silent again for a while).

As I think I said before, September has been the busiest month for guests. We have enjoyed the distraction from floor digging and angle-grinding immensely. First up was the Royal Visit from The Broshes. Far too short a time (3 days) but we managed to cram in lots of things, including the Tango festival (we only saw one show with 7 Argentinian pairings, but it was absolutely breathtaking). Ella and Maia have really grown and it was wonderful being able to spend time with them and heaven catching up with Clare and Asi. We miss them desperately.

Second gang was Simon and Sarah – our soon-to-be Italian neighbours who are building a house 30 mins from us in Bagnone and wanted a place to stay while they prodded the building team. It was great fun seeing them, talking about Italian life, getting some tips from a couple who have lived here before, plotting work (Simon is a photographer who I have worked with before) and generally having a good giggle over pizza and several limoncelli. We really look forward to them renting here in November.

Third – and possibly most eventful – was a flying visit from my London-based Kiwi friend and ex-partner-in-crime at Transport for London, Allan Ramsay, plus his missus Heather. Walking them round the garden at Lecci was inspiring as Al is used to lots of land back home and reassured us that it was all manageable. (Thanks Rambo!) Sadly, they only stayed one night en route to seeing his sister/bro-in-law who were holidaying in the posh resort of Santa Margherita in Liguria (quieter version of Portofino). We joined them there for a fantastic evening of revelry. Unfortunately, our beloved Shaguar – which has been overheating for weeks – decided to do a pretty good impression of Ol’ Faithful and spit masses of steam out of the engine, so we ditched it at La Spezia en route and got the train. No problems so far. Lovely train journey, great company, delicious meal. However, little did we realise that there was an Italian train strike so the times were all up the spout. We only figured this out at 1am when we were en route back and the train stopped about 6 stations short. It was the last train until 7am the next day, the taxis had abandoned the station and it had started to rain (yes, it does rain here too!). Anyway, to cut a long story short, after unsuccessfully pleading with various hoteliers, police and random passers-by, we had to spend the night in the railway station. We got about 20 mins sleep because we were so cold and so unused to sleeping rough. But we managed to amuse ourselves with games of “Count the flies on the wall” and “Last one to shiver gets an imaginary cigar”.

Our old neighbour Kaz and her friend Alex left us this weekend after a 4-day stay. Peter was in heaven with two new ladies, as were the cats (Weed came back to sleep in their room and Tumble got lots of playtime). They were super guests – generous, fun, alcoholic and the best washer-uppers this side of the Apuane Alps.

Chloe arrives tomorrow (hoorah!). More excuses to drink, walk gently around our house (instead of trying to knock it down) and talk non-stop for hours as we haven’t seen her properly for ages.

And last but not least, we have Simon back again at the end of the month as his rental place has fallen through and he needs to find another one asap. Hope he doesn’t mind sleeping amongst packing boxes!

October will be quieter, which is just as well because we really ought to focus on… the…er… the…h… um….what… oh, yes, that house-type thing with no working loo.

Anyway, we love and miss you all and hope you are faring the teetering economy and bad weather that we read about online every day. We do worry about you! Please don’t forget us and send us your comments here, or drop us an email or, better still, call us on Skype.

Ciao per ora
XXX