Today started out bright and early for me - or rather, it started out dark and early. With the seasons marching on towards the end of the year, we aren't seeing proper daylight until around 7.15am at the moment, so when I got up at 6.45am, it was in darkness. Thankfully, Stuart has rigged up a light in the woodshed as well as an outdoor 'exercise light' in my exercise area(/the bike repair area) for the winter months, so I was able to find my way out through the woodshed without tripping over anything or falling flat on my face. While the light is enormously helpful in the not-falling-over and not-walking-into-anything respect, one respect in which it is less helpful (for me, at least) is that it illuminates and highlights the enormous cobwebs (and their inhabitants) in the woodshed. Shudder.
Anyway, once I had negotiated the cobwebs and set my kit up, I pedalled away on the turbo trainer, watching my surroundings gradually appear from out of the darkness, and by the time I'd finished 45 minutes later, it was broad daylight.
After a shower and change, I settled down to my computer to get a couple of hours of work done. Sue was due to come for coffee and a catch-up mid-morning, so I put in a solid couple of hours until then. Stuart, meanwhile, was in the apartment by 9.15am - with guests arriving on Wednesday, he planned to do a big tidy and clean up in there today, leaving us just the finishing touches and a final once-over to do on Wednesday morning. With the apartment not having been occupied since early August, a number of beasties had moved in and made it their home - as is the way with buildings of this age in the countryside (particularly those that until recently had very poorly fitting doors) - and a fair bit of dust had accumulated (not least the sawdust from the fitting of the new doors). So, Stuart went in armed with a Henry vacuum, a box of cleaning products, sponges and cloths.
Come 11.10am I heard voices, signalling Sue's arrival and the time for me to down tools for a social break. It has been over two weeks since we last saw the Phillipses (before our trip to Seattle), so there was a lot of catching up to do. We left Stuart to his cleaning in the apartment (he was merrily whistling along to 1980s tunes on the CD player, and seemed happy enough, especially when I took him a cup of tea), while Sue and I sat on the patio with a pot of coffee and had a good old chat. It was lovely to catch up with Sue - after coming back from our week the States I'd felt a bit disorientated and not quite in the groove with life here, and while that feeling gradually dissipated over the last week (I think a lot of it was due to tiredness and jet lag), it was really good to see Sue, hear that she had had similar experiences, and more importantly, just feel a lot more in tune with things simply by chatting about every day life (chickens, geese, olives, vegetables, wood cutting, language struggles... etc.).
By the time Sue left, I felt suitably re-aligned with Italian rural life. What's more, very excitingly (if a little scarily), Sue has managed to persuade an Italian friend of hers to give me/her Italian lessons. Gulp! Sue has suggested that she and I have lessons together, which is a wonderful plan, but I think I will also need some on my own, just to get my confidence up and to attempt to reach anything even vaguely approaching Sue's level. It all sounds great fun and completely terrifying all at the same time, but I am SO grateful, and if it means I am eventually able to communicate a little better and feel a little more relaxed and less ignorant (rather than constantly feeling on edge in case someone tries to talk to me/I need to talk to someone), it will be a massive weight off my shoulders.
It was time for lunch after Sue had gone, so Stuart and I ate our lunch on the patio in the beautiful sunshine - it was another lovely day today, starting off with a distinctly autumnal nip in the air, but warming up to a summery mid-20s with a gentle breeze for most of the day.
After lunch it was back to the computer for a short while for me, while Stuart strimmed the edges of the lawn (after I'd done the mowing yesterday) and the terraces in Goose Island.
We had an appointment with Andrea, the geometra, at 6.30pm this evening and a few errands to run, so at 5.30pm we headed for town.
Our first stop was the gas shop where we took our two empty gas bottles to exchange for two full ones. Next, we parked up in the main piazza and walked to the shop that sells a comprehensive array of electronic items - from alarm clocks and toasters to iPods, gaming devices, hair straighteners, bread makers, ice cream makers and mobile phones. In cleaning the apartment this morning, Stuart had discovered that the toaster down there did not actually work, so we needed to buy a new toaster, and... finally, after five months of going without one, an alarm clock for Stuart.
Electronic items duly purchased, it was still only 6pm, so we headed for one of the cafés in the square for a cup of coffee to fill the time. We each had a caffè ginseng - an espresso shot flavoured with 'ginseng', I've no idea what the 'ginseng' flavouring actually consists of, other than something very sweet and delicious tasting. Anyway, since we each had downed our tiny thimblefuls of coffee within approximately 3 minutes, we decided to have another round. We thought we ought to stop at two though, as it was already gone 6pm and after last week's disturbed sleep patterns we weren't prepared to risk the potential effects of strong coffee any later into the evening. Besides which, it was by now time to head across town to Andrea's office.
Andrea greeted us as warmly as ever, and we sat down to hear what he had to report from his meetings with the comune regarding permission to cut down our fir trees and our plans for an extension. First, he let us know that there is no problem with us cutting down bog standard fir trees. While cypress trees and Italian stone pine trees are protected (along with chestnut trees and olive trees), bog standard firs are fair game. This was good news - although things are not quite as straightforward as that as we will need to find a professional tree cutter to come and take them down for us, not only because of their very large size but also because of their close proximity to the house and to the electricity cable that supplies the house. Still, Andrea told us that if we couldn't find anyone, he would be able to make some calls and put us in touch with someone who would be able to do it.
Next, he told us what he had found out about the extension. His main finding was regarding the size by which we would be allowed to extend the house. Taking into account the footprint of the old lean-to/storage building that used to stand at the end of the house, he had worked out that we would be able to add an extra 40 square metres to the house, over two floors. This would be enough for a compact, but comfortable holiday apartment. This threw us into something of a quandary as, imagining that the amount floor space we would be able to add would be tighter than this, we had pretty much decided between us that we would revise our plans and instead build an agricultural building for use as storage and as a workshop - which would both be of greater use to us at the moment and less expensive to construct without the added cost of fixtures and fittings. What we asked Andrea in the end (which is something else we had talked about between us) was whether we could build the extension for use as an agricultural building now, but with the possibility of converting it to a habitable dwelling (holiday let) at some point in the future. Andrea told us that as far as the comune is concerned, they aren't bothered about what the building is used for, so that would be fine. However, we do need to get some plans put together and submitted to the comune pretty quickly in case the special regional provision which allows us to extend our property by 20% of its total square meterage is not renewed at the end of the year.
Plans have to be approved by the comune, and by a regional office in Florence, and have to be signed off by some form of geological/seismological experts in Pistoia. Once all the plans have been approved (assuming they are, of course), we would then have three years in which to complete the construction.
The meeting with Andrea was over within the space of about 20 minutes, but with the whole thing being conducted in Italian, it felt pretty exhausting. Andrea does speak very slowly and clearly for us, which is great, but we both thought that he had speeded up by the end of the meeting and our flagging brains struggled to keep up. Anyway, the next step is for Andrea to take some more detailed measurements and draw up a set of plans that he can submit to the comune.
After the meeting, we came straight home in the quickly fading light and set straight about our evening chores: washing up, blogging, preparing dinner, test-driving the new toaster, showering and finally a bit of TV to wind down with.
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