bonus work in the cantina

The room under our living room, the cantina, has been a stable. We have done nothing to it, nothing to its earth floor, but to put in the water pipe for the waste water and to fill the room up with all kinds of stuff that we wanted to get out of the way. Doors that are too nice to be thrown away, all the old big beams from the terrace, a few big beams that were left over from the roof construction, broken tiles that we did not know where else to store.

Now we got unexpected visitors this summer, a gang of three youngsters from Västervik. They stayed a bit less than a week and managed to clean out the whole room and dig out the earth floor. We made a little calculation that they moved about 7 cubic meters of material. Good training for them, a bonus work done for us.

Now .. anyone wants to come and help with carrying 2 tons of gravel stones as next step? Delivery will be to the street and from there it is a job to carry with the wheelbarrow.. Takers anyone?

digging in the cantina

sweatshop

hard work

old and new beams, for firemaking and construction

7 cubic meters of earth now waiting to be put to new use

waiting waiting waiting

Internet is an ongoing issue. I had tried to get our ADSL connection back, but did not manage online because I have no official italian ID nor an italian phone number. Felt a bit like buying a pair of scissors that was packaged so that one needs scissors to open it. We then decided to go for the faster wifi solution, which gave us 'free streaming', only to find out that not all streaming programs were included. The package is 30Gb plus 30 'night Giga - midnight to 8am'. Half an h Video conference eats a giga, so after a week we were back in the shop to buy another one, and then we needed to fill both extra.

Since that is a bit costly, we made another attempt to get the ADSL back. With a little help we got us a contract. Only to get a mail the day after that the contract had been cancelled due to the absence of an italian phone number (again!).

I used all my italian knowledge in a phone conversation with a service operator who was very helpful. After 5 operators hung up on me when they heard me stammer in my broken italian.  She booked or the technician to come a week after, wednesday between 8 and 10. Niklas was waiting in vain I can say and when he called the number of the technician, no answer. Now we tried again the service number, turns out there is no technician available for our area (assume the other one quit before he could do the job on our house, that would explain him not answering the phone).

The only option I have is to call again and hope that in a week or so they will have employed a new technician. crazy.

Another waiting session has occured on the question of our floor. We found a great shop that would send samples for free, but in the end we had to have them sent to my brother, who forwarded them to us. Now we have ordered and await delivery. But it has taken 6 weeks to get there.

extreme weather

In November last year, the river Tanaro flooded the little town of Garessio and surroundings after extreme rain. Even down in Priola the our road to the main road was cut off.

Ever since then, it has not rained much here, and our neighbours are telling me it has not rained at all since May. At all needs to be taken with a grain of salt, as we had rain three times since we arrived end of June, but that rain never penetrated the ground more than 3 cm. And now with the heatwave from 'Lucifer', the trees really suffer.

The whole of Italy is going through a water crisis, some of it homemade by bad management of the infrastructure, and the rest created by extreme weather linked to climate change.

https://youtu.be/2vlmlhyu76g here you can see a video from the flooding in November.

and this is what the river looks like today. Almost empty.

Yet another milestone achieved

We had visitors from Germany, my very lovely niece Alexandra came by with her family, unfortunately their car broke down on the way  so the plans we had to got together to the market etc did not work out, but they got all their car stuff fixed in the end and got to the eastern side of Italy for a weeks holiday.

Meanwhile Niklas did not waste much time and has been quite busy on his holidays. First he hired Dennis to help with some work in the kitchen that was difficult to do alone - and then he paid a visit to Carla in Garessio, she who sells all the magic material for construction. The end result is a beautiful new roof in the kitchen prepared for some magic light system, beam under the bathroom so we will be safe in the bathtub, and even a start of tiling in the bathroom.

So where are we now in our plans:

• paint the living room with transparent color - check
• put in a beam to support the floor of the bathroom - check
• new ceiling in the kitchen - check
• fix the walls in the kitchen - check
• paint the bathroom the final layer - check

professional equípment

 

niklas at work from morning to eve

 

the new ceiling in the kitchen

 

niklas applying proper fix

 

this is just a teaser .. it will be great!

 

 

We also had a longish procedure about moving our electric meter. I thought this was going to be easy, call ENEL, ask them to move the meter from the kitchen to the cellar. Ha, was I wrong! They don't like the meters inhouse anymore, had I known that we may not have bothered and just set a little white box to hide the meter in the kitchen. Now we have to make another hole outside in the wall to fix the very ugly box that we had to buy for 60 plus Euro and then the technician will come and move the cable three meters for another 250 Euros. The company representative said we could not have the meter in the cellar because it was too damp. Of course it is much dryer outside (not). But their word is law, so only to nod, pay and think 'wish I had not mentioned this'. 400 euros later..

poor electric meter does not know yet it will have to move out
 

Ah and we went to the beach, as we do once in July. It was great, the water was magical.





hot hot hot - some finishing touches and helpers in the house

Caronte is an african anticyclone that has Southern Europe in its grip, most of all Spain and Portugal with 40+ degrees, but even we are feeling the heat. 11 am can have more than 31 degrees and the temperature post down in the valley showed 35 at lunchtime this last week! So gardening is happening .. not so much.. But we water the plants and harvest the apricots and stay indoors from 11 to 5. Made some great apricot icecream and filled up the stack of jam with another batch of Apricot jam.

No shortage of things to do inside, some small fixing, but also preparations for the final sprint this autumn when we want to get the lower level done and 'move down'. In the living room we have decided not to paint the walls but only to put primer on it and keep the walls 'rough'. So this took a bit of getting up and down the ladders, and some parts Niklas had to do because of my fear of heights. Niklas has also installed the light in the living room and fixed all the outlets. Now the only thing that is missing in that room is the window sills and the floor. Have been in contact with a couple of parket options to see where we best get the materials.

Some 'safety fixes' like a hand rail for the upper terrace where the drop is 6 meters. My only fear is that the cats may jump up and use it as even better vantage point.

This week we have Dennis in the house to help with some of the tougher work and also finish some small fix that the workers never got done. Niklas already prepared by making a hole for the spot where we will place a huge metal beam to support the floor beneath our bathroom, so that we won't end up breaking down to the cellar if and when we sit together in the bathtub in front of the open fire place - when that day comes and we are finished with the bathroom.

 

 

week one to three - weed never sleeps

We had with us 24 baby tomatoes and 4 chili plants, one gooseberry plant, a chive and a hibiscus. First days we filled the trays with pumpkin, corn, parsley, more parsley, beans and much more good stuff. The first week we also cleaned the upper garden where we have planting boxes. Everything was totally overgrown and the only thing that survived was the raspberries,  rosemary, the sage, and the thyme barely. All the rest - history. Strawberries, mint, parsley, and my prize artichoke - all gone and buried under one and a half meters of grass that was dry now AND was already spreading gazillions of seeds. So it was clear that this year we won't win the fight against it, as soon as we start to water those billions of grass seeds will erupt.

We bought sallad for the upper level and set basil and parsley and more parsley and a bit of ruccola. We have dug about 20 sqm of land up in the lower part - to prepare for the tomatoes. We got a huge heap of manure from the neighbour delivered - that is going to last for three years (unless I get my will through to make deep beds, but that needs a bit more negotiation from my end).

Have to remind ourselves that we are on holiday, and that while we want to do some work on the house and in the garden, it should not feel overwhelming. Heat helps, it is so warm in the daytime that working outside from 11 to 7 pm is really hard. So we plan to do a bit of work in the garden in the morning and then do some project in the house in the afternoon after siesta.

Our apricot tree has full fruit for the first time this year. Last year it was still a very young tree and it had 12! apricots on it, half of them fell off before they were ripe, half of the rest rotted on the tree and the remaining ones were not really so wonderful to taste. But we gave the tree a good trimming and this year it is brimming with fruit and we had our very first jam from that tree. Not so much other fruit as a late frost seems to have killed quite a bit of the fruit this season.

And  we had the 15 year anniversary pass unnoticed.

2017 - here we go again!

So we arrived after a long travel from Stockholm. The first part through Sweden with the (biogas)car went well, but we were happy that we had margins as there were a few stop and go situations and we used up most of the extra 2 h we thought we had to arrive to the ferry.

Blondie checking out the view on the ferry from Sweden to Germany

Day 2 was waiting for the train in Hamburg, which was exciting as there had been a terrible storm the night before where lots of people got stranded and no trains left Hamburg whatsoever. But our car-on-train company assured us they were planning to leave as planned so we stacked up on provisions and got ourselves into position to check in. As people started to arrive we got entertained by the ensuing chaos but in the end all go onto the train and we were on our way - or so we thought. Because 200m from the station the train came to a screeching halt. And did not leave until late at night and with firebrigades involved. Turned out that two of the car carrier trains had defects on the brakes and two of them had to be left behind, including the passengers, which got woken up at 2am in order to get off the train. That was not us. Luckily, or so we thought, but this was not the end of trouble for this train ride. To make a long story short, in the end and after spending the whole day on the train we did not arrive in Verona but got driven to Villach in Austria.

Yes it was a long day on the train but the coolest cats found good sleeping places

We had to drive quite a long way on day 4 after a night in a Hotel in Austria, first through torrential rains which made it dark at 10am and then through blistering heat, but the amazing travel cats did not complain and when we finally arrived in Casario, they recognised all immediately.

once arrived the inspection immediately begins

and the view is still stunning
 

And so did we - sort of. The house looked just like we left it and there was no visible signs after the terrible floods last November which apparently also had our wine cellar flooded. The garden and the land totally overgrown with 2 meter high grass. Everything  very very dry. Just to get hands onto the tools to clean both indoors and outdoors and then we can start!. And after the first week we seem to have fixed stable Internet.

weed never sleeps