Home Embellishments…
A teaser. We’re still under construction. Excuse out mess has been kept out of sight. We want it to be A Big Surprise.
None of this would be necessary, however, had it not been for a mighty re-think… To go or not to go on vacation. Last Saturday was Ferragosto, the sacrosanct Italian National Summer Holiday, which hits punctually every August 15th. Traditionally, you go on vacation after the 15th, if you can’t take the entire month off. COVID-19 came and put most everyone on an unexpected hiatus… no work, no money and, little of anything else, if
you weren’t a bit inventive or, resigned to wait for Better Times… many professed the absolute necessity to forego the vacation this Summer and KEEP WORKING!!! Must be either the African HEAT or, the HORDES of foreign & Italian holiday-makers galavanting around in campers and on motorcycles… the last an irresistible temptation for any male of the Italian species… causing a reconsideration of the noble declaration to KEEP WORKING!!! rather than hit the road for sun ‘n fun. Some habits or, addictions, are just too hard to avoid. Those construction professionals scheduled to do the work during the August holidays on our Home Improvements, only one completed his tasks…. Our Builder from il Poggiolo’s total reconstruction days lo’ those 11 years ago. All the others excused themselves of a week-long absence…. darn them.
I do not want to say much more on what You & I are up to at il Poggiolo. I can say though that it has been a Mt. Cavalry. Stations of the Cross. The cross was heavy to drag…
…what with the house topsy-turvy… furniture shoved out of the way and pyramids of stuff piled on top… plastic sheets wafting over all and to no avail in the battle against the infiltration of construction dust, workmen of every stripe trooping in & out where The Dog & I normally rest our weary bodies watching Netflix together on a single sofa/bed, afternoon temps slamming up against 100F degrees and accompanied by a commensurately high shot of humidity and, an inordinate quantity of WhatsApp messages & telephone calls from il Dottore You from his COVID-19 HQ Command Post… spikes are a happenin’ in Italy, folk… dictating this, ordering that, threatening an Over-my-dead-body or, two, on a couple of crucial points of design and, generally, insisting upon being apprised of any & all ongoing developments, WHICH ONLY SAPPED ME of the strength to think, to properly delegate, to maintain a will to live, all of the above. WHEW!!! My blood pressure sky-rocketed. Nose-bleeds galore. Grotesque headaches, disorientation, nausea too. WHAT FUN!!! I went to hospital with paper towelling sprouting out my nose and with the added FEAR!!! driving a beat-up SUV with wild heart palpitations. Staff administered a powerful & tranquillising medicine in drop form to smooth the waters of my distress, while another was given to bring down the high number of my blood pressure. Restored somewhat, I drove home… senza Scottex o carte igienica spuntando dal mio naso anglo-sassone… to continue the struggle up Mt. Cavalry.
I had only myself to blame. I had committed AN ENORMOUS FUCK-UP. Don’t ask. It’s just too, too embarrassing. As per the above, my plea is… I was not myself. The E.F.U. has since been happily resolved by Our Builder, who has a kind & understanding bed-side manner. No more nose bleeds either.
Putting aside any more shenanigans with Our Eventual Big Surprise, get a load of these…
…fragments of architectural ornament, embellishments in marble, stone and concrete, scavenged from a villa once belonging to You’s family on the Italian Riviera. You’s family sold the villa & gardens after WWII to pay the whopping taxes the Italian government demanded to help pull Italy out of the depths of destruction and civil war. The owners sold off all of the garden lands to developers anxious to construct holiday apartments for a coming post-war boom in international travel & vacation. They used the villa for a few years, until their grown-up children stopped coming. The children thought the villa old, ugly, draughty, not COOL. It was left to rot to the point that the local municipality forced the owners to bring on the wrecking ball. The place was about to collapse upon the neighbouring apartment buildings. You’s brother saw an announcement to come and get what you want. He did and what he got was promptly delivered to il Poggiolo with less than a 24 hour notice last Thursday and by a young husband & wife team… two blond, athletic, tanned!!! porno-divas sporting the latest in body-revealing fashions. They dumped the haul and left. Good riddance. I do not need, deserve, nor care to heed advice regarding any lack of direct vehicular access to my 800 year old farm-house and, especially by someone whose range of intelligence looks to centre upon manipulating a condom. But… ahhh, take pause to gander at the Joys of Placement. You’s favourite past-time here at il Poggiolo though he did manage to do some weeding before our Ferragosto party last Saturday night. Bless him.
Home sweet Home...
Archive post May 25, 2019…
Ten years now, You & I have inhabited il Poggiolo. We closed on the house in May of 2009 and here we are heading out of May 2019. In that time, we have survived the emptying of my bank accounts to re-build the place from top to bottom, dealt with the shenanigans of Our berserk-but-bravo Builder who, after encounters using many other local builders, ranks as The Best of the Bunch. No wasted memories on the earthquake back in 2014, a phenomenon I hope never to experience EVER AGAIN!!! And what a nagging pleasure it has been to see the tripling of our real-estate & trash taxes, not forgetting the pummeling we take monthly now at the hands of ENEL electricity, Beyfin gas and Gaia water companies. You avidly pursues accumulating stuff and at an amazing rate too, I might add, yet miraculously, he finds them good homes in our home. While I either let our garden’s plants grow unencumbered or, unwittingly kill them off, because I got knocked in the head by a branch. And finally, The Dogs have taken over… You would say wrecked… any comfortable furniture regardless of location or end-use. No truer mark of a Home.
There IS this nagging thought though that we did not get a few things right with il Poggiolo. It’s a periodic musing. And, blessedly, I don’t have to take tranquilizers to numb the regrets. Nope. I am brave. Fearless, Reflective. Learn from Our Lessons…
April & May’s cold temperatures have reminded me… we did not successfully tackle heating. Cannot calculate the number of discussions You & I had with Our Geometra on how to warm il Poggiolo from November to… this year… June. Our General Reconstruction Concept or, GRC, devised shortly after purchasing Our dilapidated Tuscan Farm-house, was to have a Winter HQ in La Casetta… the Medici-style house below the bulk of il Poggiolo… installing radiators and a gorgeous enclosed fireplace in its Second Floor salotto. The former meant connecting the water heater to a whoppingly expensive gas line. Hard to be conservative with the thermostat when a nameless person is ALWAYS cold, if the outside temps aren’t 90F. The rest of il Poggiolo would be Our heating-less Summer HQ. Who cares about it then? Reflection and the current weather has conjured this meditation… There should be heating throughout.
Che era non sara’…
Our discussions on heating alternatives at what was then the current technology, and now ten years old, lead us to confirm and reinforce Our General Reconstruction Concept. Budget and time issues, mostly. There were always problems with the alternatives and pitted against a heavy gas bill for five to six months each year seemed an acceptable way to beat the odds. Here’s a run-down…
The orientation of il Poggiolo’s roofs did not lend itself to solar panels, Thank God. Ugly things. Expensive too. Even just a couple to heat water turned out to be a No Go. Cost versus productivity thing.
Putting in a huge gas water-heater connected to twenty+ radiators throughout the complex was beyond The Budget. Besides upping the building costs… we were Boys on a Budget… to add the luxury of steam heat, the monthly gas bollette would have been prohibitively expensive, nearing the territory of…Yikes!!!
Back in ‘09, the oncoming fashion to heat was pellets… think crushed wood chips… and their special furnaces. A boom ensued. Back at Our Ranch, You invoked… Over my dead body. I agreed, which forestalled You’s drastic resort.
Our geometra discouraged us from putting in a central furnace with the option of using firewood or pellets to heat water for showers to dish-washing and to make radiators warm throughout. He ruined this alternative for two firm inconveniences… no three. 1) Would require a tone of firewood and how to get it to where you want to put it was iffy at Our House. Il Poggiolo is not easily accessible to tractors though they can arrive at Our Back Door. 2) The wood has to be stacked near to the furnace. Fine. But, Our Geometra said wood and furnaces are a messy lot. Not fine. 3) The darn thing has to be stuffed and primed with firewood or pellets at night when the furnace kicks on to heat as temps dip. Neither You nor I thought we would be up to negotiating 4) all of the above.
So, we are paying the Beyfin gas bollette. You is happy to have 72F degrees. And, we are waiting for Destiny to intercede with Our Geometra and yet another builder to put in two fireplaces in La Casa Grande. A home is not a home without a hearth. We will have four, eventually for Our Home Sweet Home.
Missing il Poggiolo...
Archive post December 6, 2018…
For two weeks this past November, I was 4,701 miles from il Poggiolo standing amongst the lofty pines of North Carolina. That’s a small lie. Actually, I was mostly inside nursing a severe cold sipping chicken noodle soup and watching Netflix. I hardly gave il Poggiolo a conscious thought. My subconscious could not let it go. This a long held tradition or, an annoying habit. Cannot decide. But consistently repeated twice a year: Thanksgiving and Easter. Smacks of separation anxiety. Only to a point…
Darn subconscious. And when a guy is already down to take advantage of my weary state: sleep patterns thrown to the winds by the annihilating whiz-bang-stop of modern air travel and beyond the reach of the latest tech in somniferous medicines. And, let us not forget the added boon of the 6 hour time differential. Fertile territory for nightmares to infiltrate my dreamworld, menacing my vulnerability with all which could befall my beloved Tuscan farm-house, il Poggiolo. The epitome of completing my misery: floods, fires, torrential rains, unwanted guests, unwanted anyone else, taxes upped, gas burners blazing away 24/7, every light left on to dispel the abandoned darkness 24/7 too… and much like the photos, long since DELETED, taken by a polite yet over-zealous AirBnB photographer sent by The Company to eradicate any unruly shadows or nooks of shade, thus rendering il Poggiolo ridiculously devoid of any charm or hey! Colorfulness. FLASHED to Death!!!… to Escher-esque follies of perpetually climbing up & down the house’s many ramps emulating the Myth of Sisyphus… talk about sweating while trying to sleep. Then, they stopped. Just like that. Not that the new dreams were all blue skies and birds tweeting. No, something better:
Future Poggiolo Projects…
new glass-enclosed fireplaces faced in flea-market marble veneers for La Casa Grande’s LR & DR. I can tell you right now the Dogs are going to love this innovation: beds & blankets fireside. Weimaraners love nothing more than to be WARM!!! Double French-doors in the DR too with a balcony and stairs outside to gracefully descend down to the garden for a Summer’s evening aperitivo or, to say Hello! to Dott. Bacchus standing watch over the wisteria vines and hydrangeas. Imagine hands sliding along the wrought iron railings to store firewood easily below. And, stone stairs to the top-most grassy terraces ample enough to deck them with large terracotta vases full of bromeliads and lavender, ooo-wee! Woke myself up with glee and did so until I reversed course for Italy to come back home… to il Poggiolo. And that is the Moral of the Story!