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

Why haven't we written anything?

We had internet problems the summer of 2016 and therefore have not been able to do the reporting on our three week stay there and then. We have not been there since, but are full of plans to get the job done! Watch this space...

A new facade

The big summer job that was postponed. Now it is done. We had the plastering expert give us an estimate while we were still in Italy and then one of the wonderful Bianco brothers had an eye on the works development and sent us updates via pictures and whatsapp. Modern communication has reached the remote italian village after all, at least the pioneers. It will be interesting to see for ourselves what it looks like up close. Another milestone reached.

the ugly facade

job starting

window detail

door frame

window frames

colour added

final result

still showing the old stones where possible

we got an entrance

The door was already put in last year, but it was not so very very convenient to get in  because the stairs were lacking. This year we got a bit of work done to hopefully keep a bit of humidity from the outside wall on the north side and as a bonus we got entrance stairs. We re-used the old stones that were there before, a bit rough at the edges and one is broken, but we decided it will be better looking than new stuff. It is very comfortable now to enter in the 'guest' section!

Our neighbour construction workers got so appaled by the behaviour of the guy who let us down with the facade, that one of them took action and got in touch with another contractor who is apparently very good and has time to do our facade in September. We will oversee the job via whatsapp and mail. Lets see how that chapter evolves!!

still wet cement, the end result will be light

Room with a (new) view

about three years into the project we noticed that we wanted a window in the kitchen, additional to the existing big door that we were converting into a glass door. We asked our project director to help us with the construction permit, but according to him the commune said no. Two years later we tried again, now with the help of a little networking (friends of friends of friends) and voila! the permit was not a problem. We don't know how hard the director tried of course..

So this was the summer of demolition man going at it again. With a big borrowed machine Niklas made the hole in one day, the remains filled the back of a little tractor, and we got all sentimental over the times when we filled all those containers with construction trash to be driven away and make room for new sand and cement to fill the void.

With a little help from our neighbour construction workers both door and window was put into place, and then Niklas spent a few days on a wingly scaffolding and now we have the result: a view but most importantly a lot more light in the kitchen. It will be so great when it is all done.. :-)

new glass door, the old metal door on the outside is kept

demolition starts

before the project

the full disaster

a full truckload of debris

hard working in the heat

working area outside

 

finished result!

Pergola saved

Yes the Pergola. We had a few attempts to save it, over the summer with Uta and Stefan and my Mom we made a start, we looked at it over the new year but left it as it was.


But this summer was the summer of the rescue of the Pergola, at least for now.. It is standing there in its glory and as I type, the grapes are getting some colour..

hopefully standing a while

looking good

new glory

the winter situation .. still collapsed

summer excitement

Ok, I will start with the complaining and then it is out of the system and I can report about all the good stuff that happened this summer.

One of our big projects for this summer was the north facade that we wanted to have fixed. We made an agreement with the two muratores last year, they had estimated it will take about two weeks and we agreed the job would be started when we come to Italy about mid July in 2015. 4 weeks before we left Sweden, we confirmed that we indeed will be arriving in mid July. So far so good.

When we called the muratore upon our arrival, he unfortunately had booked himself so much that he could not do the job!! What is wrong with this country...

so now I have complained.. next post is going to be positive again.

light therapy over xmas holidays

Since we had left Italy beginning of October, it felt as if the sun was making only very short appearances in Stockholm, and in November we got the statistical evidence: 5 hours of sunshine for the whole of the month of November. So we got super lucky when we arrived for the xmas and new years holidays and the sun was shining for the whole time except for one day! We spent the days making wood, pruning in the garden, cleaning a bit more of the vines in what is supposed to become the vineyard, harvesting the last vegetables for the year, cooking good food, buying and drinking good wine, visiting some new restaurants and revisiting some that we have been to before. We have also been painting in the bathroom and our future bedroom and been making plans for next summer renovation projects. The cats have been making a few expeditions outside, but were mostly content to lie in front of the fireplace. Travelling with them was easier than ever.

Niklas pruning the fig tree

hot air balloon festival in Mondovi

assessing the pruning needs

watching Niklas work

enjoying the sun

blue skies

lazy

sun therapy

paint job in the bedroom

fresh tomatoes from our own garden in January!