P-p-progress...
A bright, brilliantly crip & cold morning in Codiponte last Wednesday. Come on, Dog, let’s hit the road. The Dog might have bashed down the door to la Casetta with his Weimaraner excitement had I not beaten him to such destruction by opening the way… to his Freedom. This semi-deranged canine, one of God’s adored creatures, shot out the open door and down the ramp to il Poggiolo, one of my shoes in his mouth. Have to say, the boy’s fast. Nipped it before I could nip him! Puppy did a dance asking by way of wiggling his Weimaraner butt if, yes, we were really heading to da riva’ and my dirty SUV parked close by. No… Darling Dog, the other way. And up the stone trail he blasted, shoe still gripped in his mouth. I followed with a ready roll of green bio-degradable Emergency Sacks. Unfortunately, the area outside the gate belonging to the neighbor of the ugly-yellow-house, a widening in the trail of stone & weeds leading up to the Borgo of Codiponte and its Castle, seems to have all the necessary ingredients for inspiring donations of bio-waste manufactured by My Dear Dog. I go and retrieve them. A civic duty. And, yes, there’s always more than one pile. Once collected… Scendeee, scendee! And The Croesus-person obeys the order by disappearing down the cut-through to the SUV. Good boy! Done without a leash too.
In my dirty SUV, I turned the corner from da’ riva’ to weave my way up & onwards to Freedom, but found Freedom blocked. The work-guys were unloading a TIR of stone pavers, a ditch-digger sat perched on the flat-bed of another truck with nowhere to go and several white vans were parked behind the flat-bed truck to reinforce the halt towards our eventual w-a-l-k. It was about 9:30AM. Construction Rush-hour. Any earlier though and it’s too darn cold for The Croesus-person to stay outside, even with a lined felted coat on or, allowed to run crazily around nude, so to speak, to generate some h-e-a-t. Oddly enough, the Dog was in idle on his fur on the back seat. I needed to let the ol’ SUV rumble a little longer to warm the engine, hoping it would stop screeching its mechanical aches & pains. So, I got out and walked up to see what was what with Codiponte’s ongoing infrastructure renewal project. What a mess.
One of the work-guys, a big burly & friendly fellow, and perhaps the foreman, came over to chat. He has a later model of my dirty SUV. His was a shiny silver one and clean too. Told me of his pride with a big smile. Having garnered his attention, I sought the latest news. First off, he was part of a new crew. The sixth!!! I feel badly for Crew Numero Cinque. Do not know though I do suspect the previous crew were sent elsewhere for their Big Ooops. Hard to fire folk in Italy. I would have fired the puff-jacketed jeans-cladded Culture-police fellows. They do not know how to manage, much less manage a construction project. Probably because it’s not on a computer screen in an office in grim Massa-Carrara, HQ for our Italian province. All they know how to do, and I have seen this first hand… I like to spy from il Poggiolo’s innumerable & elevated views… is to arrive, point a lot, and then leave. Pointing is not management. It’s only fingering.
My new found friend confirmed what I had heard from a neighbour days before about the problem of building a proper slope for water run-off but, and again explained with a smile of pride, the new crew faced the difficulty with the old water & drainage pipes not laid deep enough to allow the new paver’s height to clear the thresholds of the houses and ex-stores on Codiponte’s piazzetta. By the looks of the herd of trucks & vans, and the comings & goings of the other four work-guys, Progress was being made and with new techniques & construction methods. All the old cement dug up, new gravel cushion was spread and iron lattices placed on top to create a new concrete base to be poured followed by the new pavers. Somewhere underneath all that were new drainage & water tubes. Enough Progress to calm the agitated citizens of Codiponte. Yet, what with the nice weather, most are in their orti, vignetti e frutteti occupied with Spring pruning & clearance. Might be a good idea for me to start that assault.
Doesn’t the via Comunale look spiffy? And, yes, does seem to be a cloudy day outside but, the sun had not risen above the hills behind Codiponte at that hour of the morning.
Pavement progress...
The march of Progress runs unabated here in Codiponte. We’re on a proverbial roll for civic improvements. No sooner had Epiphany… La Befana to Italians… come & gone, putting a close to the tortuously long Italian Holiday Season, the latest work-crew… there have been five separate squads of work-guys from the start of our infrastructure renewal program begun with the Medieval Bridge last May of 2019… embarked upon the task to pull up the cement as prep for our village’s piazzetta and its brand new stone pavement. Will wonders never cease? Certainly not! Promptly at 8:00AM, five work-guys arrive, jackhammers at the ready, for their daily eight-hour stint, and they consistently do so from Monday until Friday, to render Codiponte’s as charming as possible for generations to come with brand new stone pavers.
Imagine… in the short span of a few Wintery weeks, your journey to Codiponte may begin by crossing the completely reconstructed Medieval Bridge, today revealed to be a roller-coaster of stone arches bouncing over the Torrente Aulella. The Medieval Bridge’s span ends adjacent to the once-upon-a-time Pay-the-toll window. A Gothic cornice is all which remains at the former Guard House, today, a complex of three apartments belonging to three sisters from Sweden. Their parents immigrated North where there was available work after WWII. At this point, via Comunale, sporting its new stone pavement… and with a nifty center-line of mini-pavers… curves underneath loggias and tunnels on its way to Codiponte’s piazzetta, the old hub of the village. The wide expanse of what will be a newly refurbished piazzetta will encompass the space from the low wall of the stream racing water to the Torrente Aulella… a former open sewer… the four sycamore trees, the quiet sentinels of the Monument to the Fallen in WWI and the eternal…. we hope… fontanella still trickling water despite numersous modifications done to the piazzetta’s plumbing & drainage. The marble tub is a convenient location to wash one’s hands after having pried a disgusting bone from the clamped jaws of a rather persistent & single-minded Weimaraner puppy. Plans will also include new benches and lighting. Hey! That’s Progress.
The piazzetta has notoriously served as a parking lot for a few fortunate citizens of Codiponte. A tacit arrangement for the privilege of convenience. I am not a member of the illustrious club though You & I are the owners of the largest property of houses & gardens in Codiponte. Ought to count for something, don’t you think? Nope. It is frowned upon when, on the rare occasion, I park my SUV on the piazzetta. To holler that there was a space available holds no weight. And, it is a hard topic to broach with any of my fellow citizens about NOT returning the piazzetta to its previous life as a micro-comunal parking lot. What with the new stone pavement, the weight of even a FIAT Panda might shatter or, break the newly laid stone pavers. My uncounted Vote is to enjoy the piazzetta as a civic space for all, and not spaces for the few. I can adapt and go elsewhere to park.
So, NO PARKING. But does anyone read here? A sign has been posted at an appropriate spot. Typically, people once in the habit of racing to their parking space on the piazzetta now run screeching into a temporary fence, baring their entry onto the present work-site. They were WARNED! Means they have to manoeuvre their vehicles back to the New Bridge only 100 meters down the same lane they just tore down. Or, as an Option B… which is not often offered in Italy… they can make the turn onto the ramp leading down to the river to park their FIATS next to the grotty trash recycling area. I’d take the exceptional occurrence of an Option C continue to the right and along the dirt track following the torrente There’s ample parking below the Swede’s houses and with cut-throughs to the via Comunale and home! Many have already taken over this track to park since, the Medieval Bridge became a Luna Park.
