Mid-life home crisis...
It’s a question.
It is not what you think…
11 years at il Poggiolo. And, in the last 5 months, You & I have built-in 2 fireboxes in la Casa Grande and painted the Salotto and the Sala da Pranzo in Our Signature Blue-blue-blue paint colour. Also, we’ve tag-team-ed to re-waxe every blooming terracotta paver from down at la Casetta to the farthest reaches of la Casa Grande. Farthest reaches? I am referring to the Laundry cum Bathroom. The mould build-up, which does need to be addressed but, not until after Covid-19 takes a hike and departs… forever… does lend a mild air of Black Hole of Calcutta. Often, party guests ask if there’s a more normal bathroom to use… somewhere else. Bet it’s the slatted double-doors. They scare everyone… including the Dog. Their procedure is not clearly evident to My Adored Canine. Nor do we have anything similar around. People these days hate any infringement upon their privacy. I’m really just joking. The black mould is only around the base of the shower platform. I occasionally take an old toothbrush to scour it out. And no, I will not post a photo to prove it. Just trust me.
What else?
I have single-handedly spiffed up the pergola… a major enterprise with il Poggiolo’s decorative infrastructure and done with the same amount of toil & trouble committed to our garden & loggia furniture. Killed some wood-worms too. The beasties were housed in a few of the wood slats of our favoured Loggia chairs.. Died a stinging Death with the anti-rust treatments and paint. The big wood-worm job will be to do the 220 year old tini… wine vats… suffering from the on-going onslaught of our bros, more of the local wood-worms. They are not particularly clever creatures. They leave identifiable piles of their masticated bio-waste on the concrete floor below the tini in the passageway between the great outdoors on the aia and the Laundry cum Bathroom inside. Might be the piles which discourages guests to risk the trip to use the toilet, do you suppose?
What’ really going on?
I think the above chores are actually a decennial re-evaluation of il Poggiolo. Ongoing. And year late too. Well, maybe not. Last year I spent a whopping amount of Euros having new windows and doors made for l’Appartamento Azzurro and la cucina in la Casa Grande. So whopping because, the firm, which was entrusted to do the work, told me after the done-deed about some extra and very necessary items not included in the original estimate. Really? How much? That much? BOING!!! I had to scurry to a Higher Authority… Our Esteemed Geomatra… to mediate. You was livid. Nearly choked on a pasta spitting out his indignation of the newly requested Additional Funds.. Per fortuna… Our Esteemed Geometra negotiated a more acceptable arrangement.
I do think Covid-19 might be to blame for this year’s re-evaluation and subsequent changes to il Poggiolo’s decorative infrastructure. I have spent so much time at il Poggiolo, it has become Our True Home. This, mentioned in a previous blog post. Work as a concierge/travel planner or house hunter has dried up. The new Lockdown Lite keeps me nailed to Codiponte…. obviously. So, My Only Job is to keep after il Poggiolo… garden & house together. Apparently, this crisis, so to speak, is catching. You’s caught the fever. Showed up at our Loggia with gifts from his 10 day R&R in Sardinia canvasing flea-markets, fairs and antiques shops, when not sunbathing on a beach… in late-October!!! Those Sardinians can sure can liquidate the stuff. Silk & wool area rug for Euro 130. Others smaller for Euro 5 or 10. Richard Ginori porcelain services for Euro 50… or, for less!!! He spent last weekend… our last weekend together before the Italian Government’s new Lockdown Hard sent one of us back to his respective corner in Genoa and his work in hospital in Savona, a den of Covid-19, on Sunday… finding spots, locations, places for all of it. I sat wearing my wooly slippers in a poltrona sipping a chilly white wine and admiring the fire in Our Home. Cin-cin to crises.
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.
Spring improvements...
Archive post April 19, 2019…
Our Spring Home Improvements campaign continues apace…
Our painter, a diminutive & congenial fellow, came and tackled a peeling wall from humidity and/or water infiltration, filled in several cracks never repaired after the earthquake of 2014 in the Salotto of La Casa Grande and one nasty issue of…? Issue of…? An issue of an unhinged paint-job up in the MBR of the Appartamento Azzurro. The first and last are the most annoying:
we have a mystery humidity issue on the wall at the corner of the stairs in La Casetta. I thought water was a trickle down effect. Ronald was wrong and so was I. Apparently not always. The hypothesis of Our Painter for the flaking paint and rippled plaster & paint is caused by a sub-terranean drain pipe, and one not part of il Poggiolo’s drain infrastructure, which passes along and well below the wall of the stairs from our neighbor’s aia… or, courtyard, to the sewers below us all on this side of Codiponte.
I remember, way back in aught-9, while the Builder Guys were re-building Our Collapsed Great Wall at the entrance ramp to il Poggiolo and digging the trench-to-China to isolated the complex from the muggy soil around it, of discovering a vast and layered network of water pipes running below what would eventually become Our Terraced Garden… filled with olive and flowering fruit trees. Sorry. Sounds like an advertisement. It is. The weaving course of pipes looked more complicated than the LA interstates lacing through that city. The painter sanded, chipped, and dug out the disturbed area of wall, administered a sealant, plastered three layers of nylon netting and stucco, followed with You’s adore Sage Green paint color as the finishing touch, once the plaster had set & dried. The next day, a stain of humidity. Better but not best. We are now obligated to watch for further signs before re-addressing this issue. The Official Speak.
The latter is the sad & confirmed result of doing things on the cheap, gainfully aggravated by a collective ignorance and time worries from both myself and an available handyman commissioned to… do… The… Job. What’s the ol’ adage? Beer before wine, you’ll be fine but, wine before beer, and you’re sick for a year? Well, for paint, the admonition is… nothing catchy comes to mind… Don’t EVER mix paint types. The walls were originally covered in a lime-base paint… calce. A near perfect & natural substance which allows i Spiriti e l’Anima delle parete to breath. A fact I did not retain. It was many years ago. In came the handy-man to re-paint the Apt. Azzurro, post-earthquake, with Our Gorgeous Antique Blue in an acrylic-based paint and what happened? The calce rebelled. Like the walls are busting out underneath from suffocation. One entire wall’s paint-job of acrylic is lifting up AND off, for cryin’ out loud. Cannot tell you the embarrassment when I showed Our Painter the situation. Another adage and entertainingly explained by Cher’s pumber father in Moonstruck… You have to spend money to save money. Got that lesson down now. The painter and I have postponed this last Paint & Paste Project until the new windows of the Azzurro Apt. are installed.
Il Poggiolo is missing it eyes! Blue, they are and will be once again. A couple of windows & doors of La Casa Grande and Azzurro Apt., in all directions but, most evident from the aia, are now boarded up with plywood panels awaiting the restoration of their original structures. Two operai came last Monday and carried off the near-death array of windows & doors away… from the effects of wind, rain, cold and searing heat off the aia’s stone in our Summer heat-waves. Il Poggiolo now looks like it’s been in bad fight. The house will have to stay that way until after Easter. It will not be at its best for the On-the-aia Pasquetta Picnic on the Monday after Pasqua. The good news is we will be set up for that Commie Holiday, May 1st. At least that!
Unexpected project...
Archive post February 21, 2019…
Like out of the blue!
Tending to the many Tasks-at-hand, and here’s an Updated List:
Dog Fence is in. And it has successfully prohibited any canine escape to sniff & plunder the precincts near about to Il Poggiolo. Nina-beena can no longer trot off to a plot of grass at the end of a neighbor’s courtyard above us and conveniently accessed through a two-way iron gate once a short flight of slate steps have been navigated. Nina-beena is becoming old & infirm. And, in particular, having bowed and unsteady hind parts makes stairs a daunting gymnastic. These denizens of the Borgo Castello toss their pranzo & cena left-overs for the cats. One fears that a chicken bone or two might be included in what was chucked. Meanwhile, The Croesus-person is denied his high-tails in a lateral direction to sniff the lower sectors near another neighbor’s house, tragically painted in a near day-glo ochre color, which will NEVER fade over Time, and where the cats seem to take what was gotten from above to dine upon hidden in Quite & Peace.
Called in our intrepid electrician… 10 years in our employ and n’er the word, No, from his lips… and indeed is a congenial Italian elf-of-a-man given to expressing opinions on pretty much everything, including topics outside his professional competence. Good that his suppositions are often of a sound & practical value… to revamp some light connections, mount a new one, where Darkness & Gloom reigned thick, and add exterior & interior light switches with heavy-duty outlets too. He is still searching for a replacement plastic door to our main electrical box. I had to assault it to Total Destruction with an IKEA screw-driver, when the key snapped off in the door’s lock. All in a nervous attempt to restore ASAP our electricity after it had mysteriously gone off. I am more than content on the improvements.
No word from our Cowboy Builder about coming to construct and install the two fireboxes for the LR & DR of La Casa Grande. The dude is currently working on a house project in some remote place not covered by any telephone network. Only if I am so lucky to remember to try him during the Pausa Pranzo, when he descends into a more accessible area of civilisation or, before he switches off his late 1990’s mobile as he strides into the OK-Corral, where he bunks with his latest girlfriend.
And, I am experiencing the latest chapter… Chapter 29… in a continuing saga to have repaired and/or restored many of Il Poggiolo’s wood painted windows & doors, so sadly ruined by rain, wind, heat and cold in our part of the Lunigiana. I had an appointment scheduled just this morning at 8:30AM. CANCELLED at 8:11AM. No replies to any of my whatsapps expressing availability until 2PM this afternoon. As Scarlet once remarked… Tomorrow is another day!
But onwards with the story…
…You mentioned… No! Wrong verb… INSISTED!!!… on the telephone a few days ago an ardent wish of His that someone come and re-do-nearly-everything about the Grassy Terrace right above the Apt. Azzurro. It’s the one with Mr. Hercules at the far end. News to me. Before I could ask even A Questions like… Are you ready to have a bull-dozer enter the garden and wrought its havoc upon our terrain?… I was compelled to listen to what sounded like one of You’s pre-meditated and extensive programs of rendering our humble home more gentile rather than leave it a farm-house, as it has been for the last 800 less 10 years of its Life. Again, I thought… Are you ready to have a bull-dozer enter the garden and wrought its havoc upon our terrain? Adding… just so you can adjust a slope?
The provocation brought back memories. We had to ask Our Builder… a trans-located Sardinian, who, though bravo in resolving issues of construction, was also a genius for creating new & nerve racking ones of his own making and to our suffering… because the garden actually had become an inclined garbage dump. Builders and staff are ALWAYS & NOTORIOUSLY a messy folk. The Builder’s nephew, a fierce-some kid of 20 decorated with piercings every-which-way and capped by a bush-whacked punk hair-cut, arrived with a mini-bull-dozer capable of swivelling 360 degrees…. in either sense. He joyously careened from one trash-strewn mound to another, levelling, grading, excavating, moving Ol’ Mother Earth in all her Local Majesty to give us terraces for which we might possibly plant grass. The machine, in his adroit hands, was like a joy-stick of movement & glee. In two days, the kid had altered a dump into a gentile cascade of dirt terraces, ready for semination. Done, he drove off into the sunset with his mini-bull-dozer only to be met occasionally again in nearby pizzerias.
Enough of my reverie… You was avid to arrest what to Him appeared to be an unmistakable slant to the slope off the row of fruit trees and assorted clumps of lavender down to the boxwood hedges below. Fine, I said, it goes at the bottom of The List. What? Well, of course, without a doubt, most assuredly but, I don’t want you to forget about it! I had to reply… Bull-dozer, You, repeat after me, bull-dozer. It would be an aid to Our Mutual Progress & Tranquility of us participants, if You would communicate these Desires with a more casual air. I get a Panzer Division. Rest assured, the Grassy Terrace Repair is now on The List, once I had figured out what The Real Truth was: the slight slope of the Grassy Terrace disturbed the distant point of focus of Mr. Hercules, bought at auction at catawiki.it. (Delivery cost more than the statue.) Makes sense, I can see that, quite right, You. If he had only said so at the beginning, I might have saved on tranquillisers. Italians! So un-transparent and hyper-.