A huge day of progress today. Six blokes in 2 vans have carted off loads of the unwanted old furniture and junk. They’ll be back tomorrow to continue the job. It’s been a bit like herding cats making sure they knew what to take – or more importantly what not to take. Most of the top floor has been cleared and the ground floor rooms too. Tomorrow it’s all the storage rooms.
The guys were all nice and fun. One of them was obviously a little too old and not really strong enough for the work, but he carried small stuff down. Nice to see a company with some humanity and loyalty to its people.
We also got our internet connection sorted!
20Mbps may not be super fast, but it’s perfectly adequate. WiFi coverage is a bit limited as the walls are thick and solid, but that can be addressed with extenders later.
It’s been a frustrating time trying to wring a connection out of TIM (the Italian equivalent of BT) for the last month or so. I have now gone with a local provider recommended by our neighbour Riccardo who works from home. So we’re getting our connection by radio transmitter from an antenna on the other side of the valley. Called them on Monday, up and running by Wednesday.
We also got some good news on resolving the issues with the purchase of Rowan’s flat.
We rounded the day off nicely with a trip to Castelvecchio to see the views bathed in the setting sun followed by a celebratory meal at La Cantina.
Rowan has arrived for a 3 week stay. She is our first visitor and must isolate for 5 days in the house. We are sad that Jesse can’t make it out before he goes to Australia, but excited to show Rowan what we’re up to.
Shortly after 8am, the doorbell went and Fenella went down to answer. It was Francesco bearing gifts of fruit and vegetables from his garden. Really touching and much appreciated.
At 11am Domenico arrived. He’s always very punctual. We asked his advice on the football incident and he explained that a while ago kids had gone up there to play when the house was empty and the neighbours had been pretty upset. Looks like we’ll have to let the boys down gently. We certainly don’t want to upset our new neighbours when things seem to be going well with them.
We also discussed the taps in the garden. Some are connected to the tank that gets filled from the stream at the edge of the garden. Others from the mains. It is generally frowned upon if you water your garden with the fresh water from the mains and it’s an absolute no no to use mains water to fill a swimming pool. Hence the tank and the taps it supplies. It also explains the popularity of the tap outside Francesco and Mariagrazia’s gate that we all water the front gardens from.
Apparently we need to discuss with Stefano where the pipes are that draw the water from the stream. Perhaps the same pipes feed the water supply to Stefano’s plot. In any case, that whole tank and irrigation system needs some investigation.
We told Domenico we wanted to get new shutters and windows so he drove me down to the carpenter to introduce us. The carpentry workshop is less than 5 minutes down the road, but Domenico insisted on driving me there and back.
He sweetly told us he was glad we had bought his family home and made it clear he’d like to visit again soon. He could become a friend.
In the afternoon we took delivery of a new bed and mattress from IKEA for Fenella’s room. Fenella’s current bed will go into the spare room ready for Rowan. It’s a slightly smaller double and the spare room is the smallest bedroom in the house.
Today we decided to do something about the shutters for the spare room. Opening them was not possible as one of the shutters was hanging off its hinge. This meant the room was rather dark and uninviting. With Rowan coming we wanted to make it more bright and airy.
We got the ladder out, propped it up against the side of the house from the ditch between us and our neighbours (Francesco and Mariagrazia) and I went up to take a look. Francesco popped out to see what we were up to and was soon getting involved in the proceedings. He told me I needed to oil the hinges and promptly went off to get some oil from his shed. When it became apparent that my screws weren’t up to the job of repairing the shutter he beetled off to get some better ones. He stayed and supervised my work till he was happy the shutter had been repaired properly. A delightful man and a lovely time bonding with a neighbour.
In the early evening the doorbell rang and I answered the door to three boys aged 10 or 11 on bikes. They knew we were English and had prepared a question with the help of Google translate. They had seen the marketing pictures for the house and knew there was a football pitch in the garden. They wanted to know if we would let them come and play football up there.
I took them up into the garden to show them just how high the grass was, but told them maybe in the future. They headed back out to the road and I closed the gates. When I got out to the street, there was a right old kerfuffle going on with our neighbour Stefano giving the boys a really hard time. It was not entirely clear to me whether he thought they had been cheeky to ask or whether he was unhappy with the idea of (these) local kids playing up there. Francesco’s wife Mariagrazia kept telling us to just say no.
It was all rather protracted and heated. When Lino rocked up to fill his watering cans at the standpipe the situation was explained to him and he quickly got very angry. I find it hard to understand what he’s saying, but there was definitely a “Porco Madonna” in there. He looked in danger of a stroke or heart attack. Anyway, I told them all that Domenico was coming the next day and we’d discuss it with him. This seemed to satisfy most. I told the kids to come back next week and I’d tell them what we had decided.
It was interesting that the neighbours told the boys that, whatever I’d said to them, it was for the Signora (Fenella) to decide.
We decided the living room downstairs is just about perfect for a pool table and we know Rowan and Jesse would love that. So we searched on Google and found a place about 30km away that we thought looked worth a visit so we could see and cost some options.
When we got there it was a very closed looking unit on a rather shabby industrial estate. Still, there were a couple of cars outside so we rang the bell. A woman popped her head out of a window and, when we told her what we were interested in, she opened up the gates and ushered us in. She took us into a large workshop where we could see a couple of tables at different stages of their construction. One was a table for playing Russian Pyramid and had a slate base 5cm thick.
It was pretty clear that this wasn’t the place we might buy a reasonably priced pool table, but we showed them a table on their website that we liked the look of and asked how much an 8 foot pool table would cost in that style. We agreed the measurements with the main man in the workshop. He showed us different woods and we chose ash. The two of them took us through all the details including the colour of the baize and pockets, the different sizes of cue, style of cue rack etc. For some of this they drove us to a second unit where we also saw the machines they use to cut and level the slate. The quote for our table came in at €15,000 which they then proceeded to whittle down to €10,000 providing we did not require an invoice.
They clearly make high quality billiards, snooker and pool tables for wealthy people round the world. They told us they were making 3 tables for President Macron (one for each of his houses) and showed us a crate for the Isle of Man that has been stuck there since Christmas due to BREXIT complications.
Obviously there’s no chance we’ll be buying from them, but they were delighted to show us round and we were fascinated to be shown.
Monday 26 July came around and we headed in to Lucca to complete the house purchase at the offices of the notary. So different from how things are done in the UK. Present were: the vendors (Domenico and Katerina Mei), the buyers (us), the estate agent (Martin Tschiderer), the geometra (Claudio Fulgeri), the notary (Ada Morelli), the notary’s husband (Pierandrea Losito – present because he was the notary at the compromesso) and the translator (Federica Vezzani). The contract was read out loud in both Italian and English and changes were made to it then and there. We then waited while they updated the contract in both languages and printed out the final version which most of those present then had to sign. A couple of witnesses popped in at the last minute and added their signatures (having witnessed nothing really). The whole thing took about an hour and 45 minutes.
After the rogito we went out in Lucca for a drink, a short walk and a meal with a bottle of fizz to celebrate.
It has been brilliant to have this time in the house before completing the purchase. We’ve had a chance to really get a feel for the place, problems that need addressing, what works and what doesn’t, what furniture to keep and of course start making plans about what changes to make.
Working out what we want to change and improve is the exciting part and we’re having all sorts of grand ideas. It’s also the expensive part, but reality, budgets, prioritisation and the like can wait for a bit. For now it’s about finding and agreeing our picture of how we’d like it to be.
We’ve been in touch with two potential building companies and already met one of them. The company we have not yet met asked us if we could send any plans we have, some photos and an outline of the work we want to do. I spent a lot of time compiling this into a document that I have stuck in the cloud and shared with both builders. It has been an invaluable exercise to document what we currently have and to get down on paper all the jobs and projects we have identified. We can now update it as we think of things and our ideas change.
In Italy you need permission for nearly everything you do to a house and you need a geometra to help you do that. They also help plan and oversee the work. They’re a bit of a cross between a surveyor and a junior architect. They know the rules of the local commune and how to get the required permissions. Obviously we want to find a good one that we can communicate with and the geometra we used for the purchase doesn’t fit the bill. The builder we have met came along with a local geometra they have worked with in the past. That may be the way to go but we’d need to be sure there was not too much of a cosy relationship there. He should be working for us and keeping the builder honest.
We have been advised that rather than doing a succession of smaller projects and getting permission for each, it is better to plan out everything you want to do, get the permissions and then execute in phases. Coming up with a master plan is a challenging thing to do. Back home, we’re more used to just deciding on what jobs we’ll do in the coming year. Still, we’ve made a start on a plan and we’ll need to get a better handle on how flexible things can be once we embark on the work.
One interesting thing we got from the geometra who visited is that there are currently a bunch of building bonus schemes funded by the government to kick start the building trade as Italy emerges from the pandemic. They are a kind of tax credit paid out over a 10 year period. For some, you don’t need to be a resident or even pay tax in Italy. The credit can be against someone else’s tax e.g. the builder. You can even sell the credit to a bank – they take a cut but you get the rest immediately. These schemes are generous (50%, 90% or 110% of the applicable costs), but time limited so they may influence the order in which we do work on the house.
Domenico came to visit again on Wednesday 7 July. He lent us his electric chainsaw and hedge trimmers (so kind) and we toured the garden recording what he knew of the trees and shrubs in it. I now have a little hand drawn and annotated map of the garden which I need to find a way to record better. As far as fruit trees go, we have apricot, kaki (persimmon), olive, pear, fig (may be dying), cherry and nocciola (hazel nut). Hopefully we will get some ripe fruit before we leave.
Domenico reiterated the issue with the hedge and our neighbour, so next day I attempted to tackle the situation using his chain saw. Nightmare. I didn’t feel particularly safe or in control wielding a chain saw above my head in order to reduce the hedge to 2m. Not only that, but the chain soon came off the saw. Time to retreat and make a better plan.
The next day I started on the hedge with secateurs and a pair of loppers that we had brought from the UK. This was harder work physically, but I felt more in control. Had a chat with Lino the neighbour who was delighted that I was making a start. It soon became apparent that I couldn’t reach all the branches with the loppers we had brought and it wasn’t long before we headed off to the brico to buy long loppers along with other household and garden tools. We also priced up petrol strimmers and mowers.
Once I had the long loppers I set to on the hedge again. When I say hedge, it had been so long since it was trimmed that it stood about 4 or 5 meters tall in places and the thickest branches were more than an inch in diameter.
The hedge in question – laurel
Then disaster struck. On the evening of 12 July while removing larger branches with my long loppers I realised I had disturbed a birds nest with chicks in. I found it surprising that birds were still nesting in July – shows how much I know. I backed off, determined to leave the hedge for now and desperately hoped the parents would return and the chicks survive. I fear that was not the case.
While I was doing battle with the laurel hedge, Fenella tackled the area outside the back door. She removed a rather unimpressive hedge growing along the wall outside the kitchen, pruned two camellias and removed an ugly wire fence. A big improvement, but we’ll have to do something about the wall which is not at all attractive – all in good time.
Also on 12 July we headed down to the agricultural suppliers looking for a strimmer and a mower. They only had one option and it was a battery operated system with the various tools sharing the same battery. My experience at the allotment had been that battery power tools were underpowered and that the battery ran out quickly. The size of the battery (a whopping 82V) and the shop owners assurance that recharging was only 20 minutes reassured me somewhat. Wanting to spend money locally we took a punt and bought the highest power battery on offer, a charger, a strimmer and a mower. I have to say, they are really good and of course we have access to power for recharging (unlike at my allotment). May well go back for a hedge trimmer, but I think it will be a while before I risk a chainsaw again.
On Wednesday 14 July we met with Andrea who is the gardener and family friend of Domenico. He brought along his daughter Alessia to act as interpreter. She’s a bright cookie and her English is pretty good. We talked about the garden and how Andrea might help us get it under control and keep it that way. He was happy we had bought the house and told us the locals were also pleased. He had helped Domenico’s parents look after the garden when they were alive and said it had been beautiful. He’d been frustrated that after their death he’d only been allowed to visit twice a year for minimal maintenance. We told him we wanted to get the garden looking good again and wanted him to visit and care for it in the periods we were away from the house with which he seemed pleased. We booked him for three days in early August to tackle some specific things: remove the magnolia from the front of the house, get the laurel hedge bordering Lino’s house and garden back under control, remove the hedge from around the pool. We’ll see how that goes, but we warmed to them both and are hopeful he will work out in the longer term.
In this period, we also visited a garden centre and bought plants to fill some of the pots in front of the house. Makes it look cared for and creates an opportunity to chat with the neighbours during evening watering. Using the water supply to the house for watering the garden is a real no no, but there is a standpipe outside our neighbour’s house that is fed from the gora (stream) that runs across the back of our garden. In the early evening, there is a steady stream of people filling bottles and watering cans from the standpipe. Watering our pots presents an opportunity to meet and chat with the people who live close by.
One of the garden delights is looking up from the house in the early evening at the sun streaming down the path.
On Monday we went out in search of a pharmacy to conduct lateral flow tests in order to conclude our quarantine. The chap from the health authority had told us we could just go to any pharmacy and get a test. The two local pharmacies, however, did not have any such facility and both suggested the Farmacia Comunale in Lucca.
We headed over to Lucca only to be told by the pharmacist that we would need an appointment and that the first available was 16:00 on Wednesday. We took the appointment and decided we would start doing normal things in spite of the lack of a test as we had anyway done our own lateral flow tests brought with us from the UK.
We parked in our usual spot, walked round the walls and went for lunch in the Piazza dell’Anfiteatro. Felt like freedom.
When we returned for our tests on Wednesday, the pharmacy manager told us he could not do the tests as the computer system was down for the whole of Tuscany and had been since the day before. We asked him to do the tests and issue us with paper results, but he was not willing to do that. We then told him we would need to contact the health authority to let them know our situation and asked for his name. That seemed to galvanise him and he made a bunch of phone calls. In the end he took us off into the room where they conduct the tests and issued us with negative certificates WITHOUT ACTUALLY CONDUCTING THE TESTS.
We knew we were fine and had done the best we could so decided we were now OK and would wait for the health authority to contact us regarding the test results. THEY NEVER DID. No better than the UK then.
We spent the remainder of our quarantine cleaning, airing the house, taking junk down to the stable, writing long lists of things to buy and making a start on the garden (mostly chopping stuff down).
I ordered an Italian SIM from Iliad which is a kind of Italian Giffgaff (fixed monthly cost, lots of data). We need an Italian phone number for a bunch of things and also sensibly priced data until we can arrange proper broadband.
Domenico turned up on Friday with the man from the agricultural supplies shop and two large gas canisters so we could cook during quarantine. He also brought the key to the stable so we could put the junk we were clearing somewhere. Of course it was pretty full of junk already. He helped us locate the rubbish collection calendar online (complex) and told us where the local recycling centre is. We made a date for him to return once we were out of quarantine so he could take us round the garden and help us identify the shrubs and trees.
Our neighbour lost no time telling us he wanted us to trim our hedge adjoining his garden and house. He had also complained to Domenico who offered to lend us his chainsaw and hedge trimmer.
We stuck to the house and garden and just got on with jobs of which there are plenty.
Removing the ivy and creeping fig that were attacking the house
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