Juliet writes:
I have been delaying this blog entry in the hope of having something interesting and newsworthy to write, but I have now given up. Apologies in advance for the tedium.
Well, we’ve been in bella Italia for about the same length of time as the average pregnancy and we still don’t have a habitable house or even a functioning loo. Slow aren’t we?!
Oh, how we long for the faint whiff of cement, the harmonious sounds of hammer and angle grinder, or the sight of the hideous yet obligatory orange fencing, but alas, not a sausage. Our lovely builders, electrician and carpenter (don’t mention the plumber) are itching to start. We have our permissions. We have even purchased some hobnail boots. However, our little team has been told by our geometra that they cannot use so much as toothpick on our premises until they provide him with more documents than the High Court archives. The law changed in July, apparently. We are baffled as to why their school teacher’s certificate, mother’s maiden name or waist size would actually help to rebuild our beloved dustpit, but we wait patiently as we are law abiding citizens (or at least not quite stupid enough not to mention any of our minor indiscretions on the web).
So, here we are… forced indoors as the rain and wind swirl about outside (yes, British weather has finally come to Tuscany!) while we wait for the go-ahead. There is no denying the fact that the last few weeks have been tough. Obviously not on the same scale of difficulties being experienced by victims of the economic collapse, civil war or famine, but do you know how tricky it is to keep yourself entertained with only 32 books, a pack of cards with the 4 of spades missing and a demented kitten for amusement? Ok, we do have the computer as well, but our internet connection is, well, unconnected, most days so communication with friends and family is often sporadic. However we Staveleys are not quitters, so in typical Blitz spirit (*cue music from The Dambusters*) we are putting smiles on our faces, dusting off our aprons and making the best of what we’ve got… I am now proficient in the ancient art of origami (27 swans today!) and Peter is about to enter the Lunigianese Whittling Competition 2009. I am so pleased that our rotten window frames have come in handy.
As you can see, imagination tends to run a bit haywire when you’re house-bound due to weather and bureaucracy :o)
On a genuine note, we have invented a game called “Furry or Flappy”, which involves nature spotting in the 35 acres surrounding the nunnery and getting the other one to guess what it is by description. So far, we have seen 15 different birds, none of which we can identify, three cats, two dogs and, most excitingly, 15 red squirrels. To be honest, it might have been the same squirrel each time but it’s hard to establish distinguishing marks in torrential rain from 50 feet away.
Despite the incessant wet weather, I believe that Cerignano sits in some sort of bizarre microclimate and is protected from the worst. People say that you can get really bad weather in Lunigiana – for example our dear friends up in Pontremoli (30 mins north of here) have been snowed in several times and there has been flooding in our local valley on such a scale that it made the national press. As you can see by the pics above, Peter recently braved our local ski resort Cerreto (also just 30 mins away), to find cars and phone boxes completed buried by the white stuff, yet we haven’t even had a sprinkle here.
However, it is getting rather nippy. At least our stufa has been fixed, so we do have less ice on the inside of the nunnery now. Despite the cost of the pellets it gets through, it is a good thing overall because I have dark red griddle burns on my legs (really, I do) due to 4 weeks of sitting too close to the paraffin heater every evening.
Now we are warm again, it’s easier to focus the mind a bit. So we have been scouring the internet for wastepipes and toilets (as one does on a Saturday night). On Monday we visited the biggest bathroom shop in Aulla and spotted a nice high-level loo for our cloakroom. I think I have mentioned before that the Italians don’t do anything simple like price tags, so we asked for a quote and sat down to marvel over just how many pieces of paper, staff and calculators it takes. I have never seen the colour in P’s face drain quite so quickly… E2,500 – just for a bog! So our challenge for the week was to source our entire sanitaryware needs for less than the cost of this pricey privy. Much as we want to support the local trade, we just do not have the budget and thus have had to turn to trusty Blighty. So far, so good, thanks to my beloved Ebay (for 1920s cisterns and bargain basins) and P’s probing around the BathStore sale for slightly more modern conveniences. The only snag? Well of course it involves a little story…
Mercifully, P has decided that it’s just too dangerous to drive a right-hand car with no snow chains, reliable steering, MOT, tax or anti-mad-Italian-driver safety devises on these roads, so our comfortable yet erratic Jaguar is coming back to its spiritual home in March to be flogged in an auction. In its place, thanks to our dear friend Dave, we are inheriting his old left-hand-drive VW Golf for less than the cost of a BA flight to Pisa. Maths problem for the week: how do you fit 4 toilets, a 1400mm shower door, a shower riser, 3 basins, 2 pedestals, 2 shower valves and heads, 7 tap sets, all bathroom accessories and associated plumbing kits in the back of a 15 year old German hatchback? Answers on a postcode by the end of February please. Prize: an original, signed photograph of Peter pushing the bogmobile through France.
Talking of stories, I have taken up another hobby to pass the time. Due to my current increased need for painkillers to tackle my tum, this is, alas, nothing practical like door-striping or pruning olive trees. I am doing what many of my friends with misplaced belief and alcohol have urged me to do over the years… I am writing a book. Fundamentally it is a children’s book comprising a collection of short stories within a larger story. On the lines of Kitt Williams Masquerade, it is also to have a treasure hunt built in. I’m having such fun thinking of cryptic clues and short stories (especially fun when on morphine!) that I have almost forgotten my frustration at our lack of plumbers. If that doesn’t work or if I can’t persuade Tiffany’s to give me a huge diamond ring that I can bury somewhere, then I might just serialise this blog… or more precisely ‘blob’, as our landlord endearing calls it and we have readily adopted.
For now though, it is 3am and, as visions of giant rabbits and Bletchley Park codes dance through my mind, I really think I should crawl to bed. Thanks Morpheus, but I don’t think my dreams could be any more vivid than my imagination…
Ciao per ora, carissimi amici.
Medicine – Weed’s version
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That’s it. I’m packing my favourite toy mouse and tin of crunchies and I’m
leaving. As if the introduction of the LBR, the lack of silver service,
inadequa...
15 years ago