To sell or not to sell
Prologue
I have been stewing about this blog post for weeks & weeks now. There’s much to recount. Feels though like ancient history. The winds have since altered direction. A bit. To call up the episodes & facts below of the last six months seems water well under the bridge. Codiponte’s bridge too. Silly notion of Time & Event. And yet, an appropriate notion since, Codiponte is dialect for At the head of the bridge. Meaning, and this was a WARNING way back in the Middle Ages, you had to pay the toll to cross the region’s only bridge to get to anywhere else. I paid not with coin but with stress.
In the Beginning
About the time someone had found the ON Button propelling us from a rather chilly May… fires lit to take the chill out of a cold salotto. The Dogs insisted… to a Hellish June of daily +90F degree heat and for the rest of the Summer and on into Fall, my head was filled with revolt. I can’t do this anymore.
A Small Voice interrupted… What can’t you do anymore?
I replied… Well, for starters, trying to book the gardener for February only to learn he can’t OR just won’t show up until maybe June to help me cut back the rampant growth of practically every leafy thing in Il Poggiolo’s garden. I’m just one person. I can’t do it alone. I need help.
Oh? queried the Small Voice.
Yes. Or, hey! How about… it took our kindly Handy Man six months to fit out La Vasca dei Pesci with a fountain spewing out of a wolf’s mouth… I know, creepy concept. However, not mine. And, by the way, the wullaf is made out of terracotta so, it’s not as threatening as it sounds, maybe. Possibly not… and to place thick stone ledges to cap the pool’s crumbling walls.
Let us all be kindly reminded t’was You’s dearest wish for a shit dump once needed to accumulate the fertilizing bio-donations from the now long gone cows held prisoner in the bowels of Il Poggiolo’s cantine should be simply transformed into a romantic Fish Pond. Not a bad idea, actually. Congenial, even. Today, 30+ golden buggers with fins currently swim for their daily bread, so to speak.
Upon completion of these latest works, the Handy Man’s AND the Marble Man’s bills were fiscally shocking. All done for the love of You. So you’ll know.
Meanwhile, the breaking straw was a Summer Time Party for 8 becoming one for 28… suddenly overnight. I would be grateful if a certain un-named person might abandon his preference to globally invite and delegate tasks, and instead, actually break his back with what all falls upon me to traditionally do for these enlarged do’s. The List:
cleaning… even with the help of our wonderfully cheery Cleaning Lady… arranging & re-arranging various sleeping accommodations on and off site, discussing menu options with a local caterer… I will naturally slave over a hot stove for at least 50% of the faire… and doing the multi-grocery-store trips to load up on what cannot or, will not be done by someone else. For starters, stocking adequate supplies of toilet paper to white & red wines and prosecco…. of course!!!… for the impending crowd. And, transporting what all from the other side of the bridge up the several ramps & stairs to La Casa Grande’s bug-attracting Yellowish Green Kitchen. You said the color would and he was correct. Amen.
Ugh. 28 is a convention, not a dinner party. Went into TILT. Mostly thinking about those ramps & stairs with heavy and way too numerous-to-count bags of groceries, wine, water, and stuff. No, I can’t do it. I don’t want to. In the weathered words of The Wiseman… I’ve had enuf.
I found mental refuge dreaming of living in a medium-sized single story 2 BR 2 & 1/2 Bath house, with an ample yet, not crazily overwhelmingly large garden… for my adored Weimaraner… and in or, within walking distance to some partially civilized community, say, Sarzana. Or, hey! Pietrasanta. Walk out the gate and ecco!!! people. Ones you might have something in common with.
I thought I would share this fantasy and how to get to it with You. Turned out to be a very brief conversation held on Il Poggiolo’s microscoptic Loggia. Here is the dialogue…
Me… I am thinking of selling Il Poggiolo.
You… No.
The End
A short conversation. Got cut off before I could share The Dream. I was rather hoping for a round-table discussion. Italian is a conversational language. I thought, we could, at least, weigh the pro’s & con’s… openly, like mature adults, for instance. Or, seek avenues of solution, etc. Hell! We were seated at a round table. Let the talk roll. Nope. Got an invocation instead.
Typically with us, what was an argument to me was not to You. A tempest to one, a passing squall to another? Possibly. We moved on. Well, one did. The other stewed. Guess who?
Meanwhile, the gardener showed up… finally… on the 4th of June. He graciously proposed to work three, three-hour afternoons. Read… if an afternoon starts at 6PM in the evening. Too darn hot in June at any other time of the day. It would have been different back in February. But, why quibble? Water under the bridge, etc. In between his appearances were days to recuperate his strength… and his work-in-the-heat spirits. What about mine? I sweated too with his afternoon efforts of cutting & pruning. He chopped, I lugged. During the gardener’s R&R’s, I hauled, re-positioned, and compacted what was cut into 9 enormous piles of debris distributed about our 25,000 sq. ft. garden. Burned them all before the ban on fires took effect. And just in time. I labored before 9AM and after 6PM. Ditto for burning. Again, impossibly hot otherwise. Yet , it was hot even during the off-hours. The gardener and I had to chuck most of what was on my February To-do List. We kept to the Priorita’ Numero Uno of lowering the garden’s green privacy wall from the astounding height of… give or take… 6 meters = 20 feet!!! down to a less massive 3 meters = 10 feet of STILL NO PEERING EYES. However, it’s not that You sunbathes in the nude.
Some sketches
These stunning sketches were done on my iPhone with an index finger. Are we not impressed? Please also note: we did not summarily bush-whack the green barrier. We left certain flowering plants to grow without subscribing them to the 3 meter height limit: alloro, corbezzolo, olio fragrance, etc. Everyone should know the first name.
And, down at the ol’ Fish Pond, the Handy Man diligently worked away on our other infrastructure project. He was just the man to employ. Thoughtful and precise and detail oriented. I am none of those. Broad strokes, for me, man. He has proven himself consistently in recent years with several odd-jobs at Il Poggiolo AND, more importantly, he has shown himself to be super adept at solving IT issues. Can’t get away from those. What a boon. I only know how to turn the things ON or OFF. An addition to his many, he brought assistants. A logistical coup. He and his wife participate with a pan-European scheme of taking in folk willing to work in exchange for a bed & meals. The first crew were an under twenty-five couple from Dresden, Germany, traveling Italy with semi-truck sized backpacks. Poor things. Their one-day-only stint toiling at Il Poggiolo was to lug materials & equipment up all our ramps & stairs in the morning heat. They turned bright red from the exertion. They managed to maintain their Teutonically glistening smiles. Later on in the Summer, the Handy Man brought a strapping fellow from Perth, Australia. He too stopped by our parts while traveling the Italian peninsula. Thought it adventurous of him to be doing so alone. Asked and got his story: he was laid-off by the mines in Western Australia so, he rented-out his house and caught Qantas to Rome for a three-month tour eventually to meet up with his ex-wife. How nice. Our Summer is Australia’s Winter. I would have stayed put in Perth for a spell. Despite the company of assistants, the Handy Man was often absent. Bites of time, when he was obligated to be elsewhere with prior engagements, commitments, etc. or, like the gardener, simply exhausted by working in the extreme heat. He was lucky to have had some shade, the cool of the pool of water too. The gardener had a full complement of afternoon sun.
Some photos
To avoid Heat & humidity, The Dogs and I at mid-day would barricaded inside La Casa Grande watching Netflix, , reading, napping and worrying about should I or should I not sell il Poggiolo. The Dogs slept or pestered me for treats.
Then, in the midst of my reverberating hours of discontent, my sister sent me an urgent Whatsapp message… Come… now!!! This, was not twelve hours after she had previously informed me of our Mother’s sudden transferal from home, and in a dire state, to a local multiplex hospital in North Carolina USA. Within twenty-four hours I sat in a upgraded-to-Business-Class seat in an Airbus belonging to the latest iteration of Italy’s national flag carrier, ALITALIA, now called ITA. The government had knocked off a few capital letters to shorten the name? In the hope of improving the airline’s performance? No, idea. Oh! And, the new name is not pronounced… Eye-Tee-Aye but… Eeee-Tahhh. Just so you will know and avoid embarrassment. Anyway, the topic of selling Il Poggiolo was given a two week hiatus. Sort of. The notion still hung around despite my temporary relocation.