going vegan

   For a long time now, Alex has kept her ear to the rantings on the internet about the quality of our food. Before I knew her, she had tried dieting, fasting and purging to help improve her life with apparently satisfactory results since she was successful in attracting me as a mate. Now that she's succeeded, she's still not satisfied. Now, it seems, she wants to keep her mate in tip-top shape for ever and ever. That's very flattering, but the trouble is, I have to change my habits, which I fear may change what she saw in me in the first place. I'm worried because I might become a little grumpy and her grand plan could backfire.
   Today for lunch, I put a cover over my lentil salad saving it for later. At supper time, we were served garden snails to top our whole grain spaghetti. I'm not sure this is pure 'vegan,' but it may be an abstract contribution to the success of our vegetable garden which will one day contribute to our "vegetable-based, whole foods" diet. In a previous post I have already mentioned bird seed as an important contribution to our youthful complexions. Every morning we get a heap of ground up flax seed on top of our soy-milk muesli. One thing is certain: I remain a lean, mean, fighting machine.
    It's easy to say it all started with a movie called "Forks over Knives," but that's not really true. The movie is just the latest in a long string of reinforcements to the conclusion that what the grocery stores are selling isn't that good for us. Prior to watching the movie, Alex read a book called Fats That Heal, Fats that Kill. The book drags everyone through a first year study of biochemistry, before concluding that veggies are good and meat is bad. And flax seed meal is really good. Full of fresh omega-3s. Now we are moving on to the the writing of Colin Campbell, first his distillation of data in the China Study, and then on to Whole which I have a feeling will promise me an old age of worn out teeth.
    Parallel to this, I accidentally discovered the TED talk by an outrageous English thinker, Aubrey DeGray. His fast-paced argument proposes that my children may be faced with the prospect of immortality and that we need to get our "shit together." I've long wondered that the whole Darwinian thing of adaptation through natural selection is hopelessly old fashioned in the face of modern medicine, birth control, genetics technology, and wealth distribution. After all, we haven't been naturally selecting our food stocks for quite a while. George Bush and the Catholic Church may have interfered with embryonic stem cell research but the delay was brief. In Japan they have figured out you don't need embryonic cells, in fact, you don't need stem cells at all to clone to your heart's content. According to Nina Tandon, replacement body parts built from your own data is only 10 years away. It's nice to know that I no longer need to consider evolutionary improvements to myself, I feel pretty happy with myself as I am. Or do I?
    There is this other podcast (BBC's radio discussion 10 Billion) that's troubling me. Stephen Emmott writes that the global catastrophe is just around the corner. We don't have enough water and we have demonstrated that we have no intention of dealing with it. Apparently it takes four litres of water to produce one to drink, and 100 to produce one cup of coffee. With a growing population and shrinking ability to produce food, due to climate change, we're all going to die. But wait a minute, if we start living forever and stop having babies, maybe we can hold out till .... we're imortal!

permission granted

    26th August, 2013. I pinned to the wall, as required, our notification to the world that we are making

improvements to this little relic of history. It's been a long and costly grind, and is in fact our second permit it the ten years of working on this property.
   After 10 years you'd think there would be something to show off. That's a long time. But, sadly, there's not much to show. Most of it is under the building or hidden in the walls. But, time does allow evolutionary improvements through 'environmental selection.' A ten year record rainfall has demonstrated leaks in the basement and flooding in the garden, which we've been dealing with all summer. After years of observing the changing seasons, the prevailing winds, the path of sunlight, and traffic patterns around the house, we have made numerous changes in our approach to the final layout of land, rooms, doors and windows. The result improves with time.

'photo-shopped' concept of east elevation

    For example, in our main sitting room on the ground floor, I discovered that the east windows described in our original plans wouldn't work. They made some sense on paper but when it came time to plan wall demolition and construction of reinforcing elements there just wasn't any room for all this. Further, one of the windows would be so close to the corner of the building it would threaten the integrity of the wall. Not only did it violate common sense, it violated the building code. Knowing the inspectors were only keen on external changes that improved symmetry, I began to imagine replacing the two windows with one 'door.' The room already has two exterior doors and another large window so the light appeared sufficient, especially considering the ratio of glazed area to floor space, however the openings were all on one wall. Illumination was coming from only one direction leaving dark shadows everywhere and giving every face a dark side. I made a couple of re-touched photographs to illustrate the idea to all the doubters (which included everybody) and eventually I convinced our 'geometra' (architect/inspector) Ettore to submit a new design incorporating the changes.
   We needed to submit an extension of the permit anyway (for more time) and we had decided to move the

project from our old geometra to Ettore's office where we felt much more comfortable. Ettore speaks english, is young and well educated and has a keen affection for old buildings. What we didn't expect is that to accomplish all these changes, we were better off submitting an entirely new project requiring a whole new set of drawings, a repayment of filing fees, a new design review, and subjected us to a new set of anti-seismic laws following the earthquake in Aquila.
    It's a great relief to be back on the job (digging in the foundations felt like a serious reversal of fortune), but the job has gotten even bigger with the requirement of steel reinforcements. We have contracted our steel framing and Giles and I are having fun making a great big hole in the wall.

borrowing the car

    Now, you may think our present car ill fated, what with the loss of £5k in an internet scam in trying to buy it, and the difficult discovery by Alex, Giles and the girls that it had no airconditioning during the maiden voyage across europe a few years ago. But, actually, it's been pretty good, getting 50 miles per gallon (really!) and seating seven on lots of occasions. It's been great to drive and very comfortable with tea trays, cubby holes, vanity mirrors, and courtesy lights all over the place. But, it's still a car. A machine. It's far more reliable than your average person, it even gives fair warning before a nervous breakdown; but this time was a combination of bad timing and bad luck.

    Alex lured her head-of-house from school days for an overnight visit through facebook. On the morning of their train departure, Thomasina ran in saying she couldn't open the boot. Dead battery. Two days before, we'd driven to the coast and back with a full load, then to Lake Trasimeno the previous day and now, suddenly, nothing. 

    My battery charger snapped its fuse as soon as I touched the terminals, and in disbelief, I snapped two more replacement fuses before I believed I had a problem. Hijacking a neighbors car, I took the battery to the mechanics down the hill. They received it, saying they'd check it and then went on vacation for a week. In the meantime, I found a circuit in the car that was also blowing it's fuses. Coincidentally, we also filled the house with four (yes) workaway volunteers all requiring food and trips to the train station.

   At last count, we've now used four different neighbors for transportation and shopping. 

   In the latest twist, our helpful mechanic, unable to find the faulty component, has taken it to another auto-electric specialist. There we are told the alternator is bad and a new one will cost £500 installed, a price the original mechanic can't stomach; so an intrigue is beginning where the estimate is rejected, we retrieve the car, and pay the original mechanic to find a used/reconditioned alternator. But, of course, it's summer and these mechanics need another week at the beach. It all began on the evening of the 13th.

Post Script:   On the 8th August the car was returned to us. Our favorite mechanics, who freely admit to being mechanics and not electricians, saved us $120. I was called upon one Saturday to help retrieve the car from the specialist elletrauto. Nico drove us in to Chiusi, he had a long chat with the specialist, paid $40, put me in the driver's seat and I followed him home, running on the battery with the alternator bits sitting on the passenger seat. A few days later Nico's father returned the car to us at supper time with a new alternator installed $120 cheaper than the specialist. That's how things work here. Sometimes.

-- 

My guitar show (posted by Thomasina and David)

   Rolling Stone magazine is seen as an authority when it comes to the 'Best of All Time.' They keep a list of the best guitarists of all time (Jimi Hendrix on top). The guitar is the reigning Queen of musical instruments. I tried to play one once, with mom. What a mistake. Perhaps the Petersen gene swaps musical talent for something else... or nothing else.
   Lately, though, the Petersen gene may be diluted enough to allow Thomasina the ability to play something. She's been seeing a guitar teacher every Saturday in Paciano for the past three years, seldom practicing (without serious force from Alex); but she actually can play. The guitar teacher, Paolo, is clearly fond of her and thinks she has natural talent. He must exist in a world of constant frustration, trying to get lazy kids to remember 10 notes in a row; or perhaps he really is the most patient man in the universe. Whatever the case, he lately managed to organize a concert featuring his pupils in a collection of tunes dedicated to two local school children killed in traffic accidents. One family took offense, but the other was gracious enough to get the ball rolling. Paolo took it upon himself to organize everything including a strong pitch for a local charity dedicated to child safety. He's a nice guy.

A month ago, I had a guitar concert.

To most of you, that might think that sounds normal and you are probably thinking:

"I've seen lots of concerts and shows, whats the big deal?

But what if I tell you that you're wrong? Going on stage is a HUGE deal! 

Let me ask you something: Have you ever been on stage, in front of hundreds of people and double the amount of eyes looking at you almost willing you to make a mistake?

Well I have, and I tell you that it's no piece of cake.

   The hall was small, but purpose built. Stage, seats, speakers, lights, curtains, the whole deal. It was a two night affair. The students had to learn a couple of pieces each, and the selections were varied between generes with Paulo often sitting in, in fact often leading, and in some cases singing. Mean spirited members of the audience might have called it a venue to demonstrate Paolo's command of the art, but the audience was entirely parents or friends of parents forced to be there, so nobody really complained. There they were. Our kids demonstrating talent. Remarkable.

I've been doing guitar for almost three years and last month we finally had our first concert (if you could call it that). I do admit that I have done close to no practice for all these years but I still enjoy it.

I started working really hard a week or two before the concert and did at least half and hour of practice a night. I should probably have done more because my performance wasn't exactly outstanding, but that's not the point. 

   The only people likely to read this post besides Thomasina and myself (Alex won't go near my blog) is John and Grazia so I'll say right now that a boy named Luca stole the show. He dazzled us with riffs as delicate and inspired as anything the instrument has ever produced. We all sat goggle-eyed while he stole our hearts with his improvisations. Paolo was stunned. Luca, rumor has it, has been signed by four recoding companies who are now locked in litigation over copywrite. The recording in my portable camera has been confiscated.

So the big night came and I was sitting in a tiny room, backstage, sweating and trembling with fear together with all the other kids who were doing the show.

I had to do two guitar pieces and sing a song with my friend Lisa.

Now this is when I ask my self: How in the world do all these people like Obama, Michelle, Pop singers, Doctors, Teachers...get up on stage and talk, lecture and sing without breaking into a sweat and run screaming from stage "Mommy!!"?

I mean seriously, I know I haven't had any stage practice or anything, but you are under so much pressure when your in that spotlight and all eyes are on you.

   On the first night, Thomasina performed a solo classical number and sang a duet with her friend Lisa.  There she was. Up there. In the lights. A nervous wreck. I couldn't have done it. But she did and we were thrilled.

Anyway, the first piece was a solo and it went ok,

   On the second night, she played rhythm in a trio featuring Alessio and Paolo. Remarkable. Of course by the time we watched her on stage we had the music memorized, and memorized, and memorized; and we were confident because she had the sheet music with her on stage.

but the second bit was a complete disaster!

To be continued.... possibly.

underpinning

    Underpinning. I think it means shoring up from below. Foundation work. That's what we're up to foundations?! Talk about an upside down project.
right now. Foundation work. It's been what? eight years? And we're finally getting around to the
    But, yes, foundations. Or lack of them.
    It all started with a damp spot. A damp spot that spoiled the nice new plaster that was to be our kitchen wall. The kitchen that would set us free from so much crowded, time consuming inefficiencies that have plagued us for the past eight years. 'We are experts in temporary kitchens,' I heard myself say to our latest volunteer. We have known nothing but temporary kitchens for as long as our children can remember. And a pantry? We've got plenty of food in storage but do we have a pantry? If we need a roll of loo paper, we hunt around upstairs in the dusty corridor (which is the last place left in this building site for storage) among anonymous cylindrical formations of brick dust until we find something squeezable. Hopefully it's not last years zucchini.
     The damp spot grew. Another one appeared. Then standing water. Standing water cannot be explained away by global warming. Standing water in one's future pantry is... not allowed. So we tried to melt tar paper against the wall. And we tried to will the season to return to normal. Both strategies proved futile. Then, pouring water. Water began to pour into our new stairwell. It poured in from the surface of the wall at about waist high. Just poured in. It ran down the stairs into our wine cellar where we had to siphon out lots of it every day. We were visited by an expert: waterproofing the foundation from the outside was our only choice. We dug and we dug deeply and we finished the surface and we

waterproofed and we protected the waterproofing and we... we came to a point along the wall where the foundation stopped. Oh mio Dio! Now we were not just waterproofing, we were underpinning. Serious structural stuff. The oldest part of the house had a very shallow foundation which we exposed as a rustic wall when we leveled the ground floor rooms and the outdoor terrace way back in the very first summer. Now, looking for a solution to some creeping damp, we've found a very good reason for some creeping damp but saddled ourselves with a much more serious solution.
    Ironically, at the same time, we've been applying for a new building permit and waiting for a new set of permissions along with an engineer's report before we can legally begin work. The last thing we needed was the engineer to find out that part of the house had no foundation. Especially that part where I had already, without official permission, enlarged both the window and door openings (which weakens any wall). By pure dumb luck we had excavated only newer walls when he looked around, but now we must hurry up and get some cement in, waterproof and push the dirt back before anyone notices.
    All this excitement began when we had Charlie and Richie here to push on with the heavy lifting. They could make short work of the heaviest projects (have a look at the photo of a beam replacement on the third floor. They are lifting that thing with a rope, by hand). But now they're gone and in their place are workaway volunteers. Poor things. Down in the ditch with bucket and trowel. It's been a month and a half since Charlie and Richie left. The rain has stopped, spring flowers have finished, school is over for the summer, everyone heads for the swimming pool after supper, the vegetable garden is off to a new start along with the irrigation system, the damp spots are fading, the lawnmower and strimmer are wheezing, but the waterproofing job is still not finished. We are still surrounded by a (dry) moat and the piles of mud have hardened into mountains of pottery clay. With tall weeds growing out of them. And this project is still waiting for its underpinning.

 

irons in the fire

    We've now got ourselves a fine list of jobs. The rough landscaping that had developed over the last 9 years has been uprooted to make way for our waterproofing project. The trenching and finishing touches will require the design and construction of a new outdoor stairway connecting our terraces. The stairway will require a strong retaining wall to keep the upper terrace where it belongs. The bottom of the stair will require a final plan for the old rainwater cistern which sits right where the stair will land. On the north corner we are rebuilding our drains and footing a low retaining wall to outline our little corner patio. And finally, all that soil will have to find a final resting place somewhere, before we can claim our downstairs, main patio back.

    You'd think we'd be eager to get all this over with before the busy spring season begins, but actually we've taken a pause from working outdoors (european weather is horrible this season) and decided to begin constructing two new bathrooms, one on top of the other in the stairwell. This, of course, leads to a final design decision on our underfloor heating of the top floor which requires tearing up the old floors up there to make way for the pipe runs. The trouble is these rooms have been lived in for the last 9 years and have accumulated a LOT of stuff. All that stuff has to be moved either out to the garbage bins or up into the attic and that's what we've been doing.
    It's been a busy couple of weeks. (months? years?)

Isolde's opinion of cleaning the playroom

this post is unfinished and still being edited.

My thanks to Thomasina.
    I would never help my sister clean out her future room, even if half of the stuff in it was mine.
   Well, I might take out my stuff, but not clean out two shelves of books (I think it was about 18 books in all) just before going on a school trip. I mean, I would be packing or looking up places on the internet so I could impress my friends with stuff about all the places that we'd be going to. But Tommy worked all day and would not let anyone help her. When she got back from her trip, she went straight to work. I admire the way she makes everything fun. I'd be putting away books and she would plug her MP3 player into the jambox and we would throw books at each other and sing along to the songs that would be playing and do a few dance moves to them as well. Those 4 days were a mixture of hatred for books and board games, and triumph at the end of the day when we had put all the books in the attic or had managed to drag a heavy bookshelf downstairs. At the end of each day I think we all heaved a sigh of relief and and smiled at our success.
     Our first step was to clean out the bookshelf and we did that in the first two days (we have a lot of books!). We put them all in the attic and put all our toys and games either in the attic or downstairs in our current bedroom, and that took up the second day. On the third, we cleaned the whole room except the huge wardrobe that now lay face down on the floor.
     We swept the floor and at the end of the day all traces that two kids once occupied that room were gone. We had played in that room for practically our whole lives. 9 years.  During that time we had learned how to read, write, draw, paint....

When we took apart our shelves and cleaned out our drawers, we found all the things we had made and done while we were growing up, we remembered playing with the toys that now were doing no more than collecting dust.

It was a time to remember...

a reminder of how much we had changed...

But the room itself had changed too....
Before 


After

Gita, posted by Thomasina Cadell

      It was 4 o'clock in the morning. Somehow, Freddie woke up and actually got herself ready. We had to catch the bus to Puglia, leaving our school at 5:30.
     Weighed down by our suitcases, backpacks, bags and money we climbed in the car and drove to Paciano. In the black of the early morning that was quite thrilling and exiting, there was a huge crowd: mothers, fathers and kids all waiting for the bus. When it finally came, there was a big rush to get our bags into the bottom and get the best seats.
    Seven long hours later we finally came to the first stop. It was a castle. We looked around for half an hour or so and piled back into the bus. The hotel was lovely:  big, posh, three star...one problem...it was falling to bits. The pole that opened the shutters flew off in every single room. The drawers wouldn't come out of their sockets, the lights flickered; and you could hardly fit your leg into the bathroom. But the elevators were great. We were whizzing up and down in them all the time we were there!

      On the second day we went to Alberobello to see the "trulli." They are the cutest little houses with slated roofs and white walls. Our guide took us in one of them. He also owned a food and souvenir shop so he took us there and got a lot of money from us!
    All the driving around in the bus was beginning to get we down. The air conditioning didn't work so the silly driver put on the air heating instead. We drove around for hours in a sauna. I knew that the south of Italy was going to be warm but I wasn't prepared for this! Also, there was no free, fresh water I could get between meals so by the time dinner came I was as dry as a bone.
The same day we went to Lecce and got guided around the town. I bought some souvenirs and only spent five euros fifty. The minimum amount of money that other kids spent was 30 euros, some even managed to spend 160! Mostly the money was spent on candy, potato chips, games and souvenirs, so considering everything, I'm quite proud I only spent 5 euros.

Last day in Puglia: We went to Trani. Here there were lovely gardens with lots of flowers and trees. We were right next to the sea so we could look down and see the waves crashing up the pebbly beach.
Here we saw the cathedral of Trani and a palace. The cathedral was beautiful! It was old and not very decorated. Inside was lovely too. It had huge pillars all down it, an alter at the back and next to it there was a HUGE organ with giant pipes and pedals. It was fascinating!
We ended our three day trip with a big lunch in a fancy restaurant and a spoon of nutella.
And then waiting for us was the dreaded bus to take us home.

trenching

   When Matt and I were growing up, Dad used to take us camping for a holiday. I was going to say 'Mom and Dad,' but I think if it were up to Mom, we would have spent our holidays reading a book or seeing a film rather than feeding a family on a makeshift gasoline stove outdoors in the rain somewhere.
   Dad taught us to pitch the tents and build the camp cots and organize the campsite: all good fun. Once the tents were up they had to be trenched. The trenches were intended to take rainwater away from the sides of the tent before it had a chance to seep underneath the canvas floor and flood our sleeping bags. This was normally done as a precaution, but I can remember trenching and re-trenching in the rain, after dark; and waiting for the pools to form in order to get the flow right.

    Now, 50 years later, I'm back to trenching. Rainwater is finding it's way into our nice new cellar and stairwell. This winter has been particularly gloomy and wet, coinciding with the closing stages of our downstairs conversion. Numerous wet spots and floods have dampened the joy of the occasion, but maybe it's a good thing. We've been forced to take on the mammoth task of trenching the house before we actually got our 'sleeping bags' wet. We delayed our hire of a digger until we got a couple of clear days and it's been a big rush to get the job done before the next rain.
   Two days later and rain will begin this evening. Stay tuned for more photos of me reliving the experience of trenching the tent in the rain, getting the flow right.

terremoto

    Leslie came around before lunch to take Alex to the post office and mentioned that there were some cracks in our road. She lives and works in London and they have cracks in the roads there but nothing like the potholes and gaps we can generate during a wet winter. We didn't really take her seriously, but when Alex returned she was so impressed she phoned the LeCoste office. They must have thought an Englishwoman has no experience with Umbrian country roads. They didn't take Alex seriously. At around 5, Charlie and I set off in the van and returned with a heavy load of wet sand. We had to bump down about four inches and 30 meters later bump back up again. To me the crack was something I had anticipated for years. The land was obviously slipping down the hill but it was still passable. I didn't take it too seriously, either.
   At suppertime the Italian neighbors called in panic. Dido, returning home, was afraid to drive his Land Rover over the crack. Alex calmed him down and I think we all felt that the Italians were overreacting. Why didn't they have the gusto to take a chance? They have a four-wheel drive car so what could be the problem? After getting little sympathy from us, Dido called the office and somehow convinced Enrico to go take a look.

   Within minutes, Enrico decided to close the road. When I rode up on my bicycle in the eerie dark of my little headlamp, I first saw the ribbon and then, well, a gap in the road; and I knew in a minute that we were trapped. Two cars and two vans and six people. We had waited too long, favoring a nice hot meal over evasive action. I had completely misjudged the speed at which the ground was moving, and standing there in the dark I could hear the slab of earth beneath me creaking and cracking. I returned with the news which encouraged Richie to go for a walk. Despite all his bravery, he too conceded defeat.

    We all slept fitfully. It's difficult to describe the feeling but when the terra becomes not so ferma, it can make one quite nervous. We take for granted that the ground is solid, but it ain't so. Next morning Richie and I walked the girls to the school rendezvous and found Enrico and three others surveying the scene. A rough plan was developed and, after breakfast, an excavator was already at work. No instrument surveys, no environmental impact reports, no permissions from the city, no building permits, no fussing around. Just plow a new road through, but this time higher up the hill.
    Unfortunately, our stacked firewood piles, which we incorrectly placed on the wrong side of our boundary, had to be moved out of the way of the excavator: a hell of a way to employ builders. The combination of poor judgement, bad planning, inaction, stranded cars and wobbly ground contributed to a humiliating sense of "what's the use?" Meanwhile, clever ol' Dido managed to keep both of his cars on the other side of the chasm.

la drama della frana

    Ten days later, the landslip continues to creep downhill. It is a curved bite out of the hillside taking 40 meters of road and three olive trees on the terrace above along with it. The vertical displacement is now three to four meters and a ladder is required to descend onto the old road surface. Remarkably, our phone line, which is buried alongside the road, has not snapped. Slack coiled at either end could be paying out as the landmass moves.
    A new by-pass has been hastily built up slope. We are all impressed by the speed and dedication of a family of two brothers and a father who have a small earthmoving company. They worked Saturday and Sunday and we were able to drive out Sunday evening.
    A meeting was held Monday evening where we were told that the four houses of the Borgo would be handed the bill for the repair. It comes as something of a surprise since these are legally designated Strade Viciniale by the local authorities. We've been told that the 'comune' is responsible but there is no money so they're not going to pay. LeCoste is washing their hands of the affair saying that they have donated the land and that's the extent of their contribution. The condominium will likely debate the matter for months and in the meantime the poor earthmovers go unrewarded.
    The house below us in the borgo has been occupied by occasional vacation renters for the past two years since Sue and Bob returned to Great Britain. Now, a Roman doctor has bought it and we are looking forward to new neighbors, however, there's nothing like a little landslide to make a new buyer get the shakes. The deed didn't manage to change hands before the road disaster so Sue and Bob find themselves in a touchy bargaining position. Enzo, our new neighborhood doctor, has been doing some homework and he's informed me that according to the law, Strade Vicinale that serve single homes or a group of homes are indeed the responsibility of the homeowners. We, along with Lorenza and Dido, the fourth neighbor Marta and Marcello, and poor Sue and Bob are going to share the expense. Sue and Bob have returned from Britain to move some furniture but we've all avoided them, fearing an angry eruption. They've done a lovely job renovating their house, but they've spent a lot of money and the market has turned against them. We've suffered some bad luck with the landslide but for them it's a nasty parting shot.

milestone

      My simple life sometimes seems stalemated by doubt and delay. I can get bogged down in the most ridiculous worry over things that shouldn't bother anyone.
      Alex, on the other hand, worries about proper stuff. She worries about the kid's grades. She worries about our money. She's concerned about our nutrition. She thinks about her mother. She thinks about my mother. She even worries about me. And she usually does something about it.

      I worry about how to connect two pieces of plumbing pipe. This is something people have done for centuries. The answer is a phone call away, or a trip to the shop. But then I worry about what to say. I worry about how I'm going to look to the shop keeper. It's crazy.

     Fully a year and four months ago, we wrestled a massively heavy steel woodstove off a moving van. The idea was to connect it to the hot water tank and provide us with central heating. The thing has sat in our way ever since and I have fretted and suffered over how to make the connections. I've lost track of how many times Alex has lost her patience. First I had one design, then I got the nerve to call the manufacturer for verification and he sent me another idea. I couldn't believe his idea would work so I fretted some more. I designed a natural heat convection circuit and a blow off valve in case the electricity failed and the circulation pump quit. I purchased enough big diameter copper tubing to break the bank. I still haven't decided on a pump. I called the local plumber and he miraculously lent me his hydraulic press for joining the pipes. Finally we managed a visit from the solar panel supplier to put in his two cents, and I changed my design again.

     In the meantime, all this back and fourth has been holding up progress on the underfloor heating installation. With Richie and Charlie on the full time payroll, progress is not something that can be held up for long. I managed to stall them with the impossible task of plastering the entire ceiling. They finished in far less time than I needed to worry about my pipe connections, so I gave them the stairwell to plaster (can you imagine the scaffolding?).

    Finally, with all the materials mustered to assembled the underfloor heating pipes, and all the sand and cement dumped on the driveway to cover whole thing, I couldn't delay my pipe connection any longer. Counting all my delays and testing and worrying, it took about 15 minutes.
    The pipes are down. The manifold is in. Richie and Charlie, with the help of a Youtube video, mastered the cementing process with a remarkably dry mix that lent itself to troweling. Now the cement is leveled and we've just passed a major milestone. Thanks to Richie and Charlie and Alex. Now I can continue to worry about my stove hook-ups while progress continues on the rest of the project.

break

    Winter here is not that great. I thought winter in Davis (central California) was pretty bad and I thought moving to central Italy would help brighten up my winter months. The winter darkens Davis in a dark, damp ground fog that protects the city from the warming sunshine and keeps it at a constant two or three degrees (centigrade) above freezing. In addition it helps keep the town moist so that any hint of warmth is eliminated by soaking everything, including your clothing and firewood with a moisture more profound than the most rampant downpour. An afternoon glimpse of blue sky overhead heightens the effect with the realization that anyone living 100 meters up is clothed in bathing suits and suntan oil. It's a tough act to follow.
    But central Italy gives it a good try. Needless to say, I got it wrong. For some reason, not only did I spend, of my own free will, some 30 years of my precious life suffering Davis winters, swearing I'd never do it again; but I've somehow managed to spend 10 more suffering central Italian winters in the same condition. And I love to ski. I love snow. Hard to believe. Anyway, when winter comes I like to pretend I don't live here. It's cold inside and out.
    This fall the lovely November sunshine failed to sustain itself. We didn't even bother to harvest the measly olive crop. Sure we had our warm days, but on the whole it was pretty wet. Early on, we received an invitation to visit southern Portugal for Christmas from Alex's aunt Janet and uncle Martin. They were trying to entice my parents into a visit and I have a feeling they might have been using us as a bargaining chip. We had spent Christmas there once before and I remember it as being absolutely marvelous. Warm. Plenty of free time. Lots of good food. Good wine. Good talk. And Sun. OH! Sunshine! In winter. Bliss. Airfare is steep for four of us, but when I heard two families of cousins were also invited, I insisted we go.
     Twelve days of mooching, eating, christmas shopping, trekking, sunbathing, eating, wine drinking, beach combing, meal planing, wine buying, reading, eating, orange squeezing, sleeping in, hill walking, cooking, christmas celebrating, gift giving, more eating, .... how good can it get? It was that good. Here's an indication. Normally our girls love getting back to school after they have been away on vacation. In the past, we have taken them to London and London, and London, and London. They've been everywhere. Once we took them to America but I wasn't there. When we returned from Janet and Martin's this Christmas, they looked like an ad for Prozac. When it was time to go back to school, they were quiet and depressed and unable to face their homework. They had had the best time with their second cousins. They had found children they could talk to and play with who behaved decently and were educated and well spoken. They didn't have to watch TV to communicate but they were allowed to watch several movies together. They played on the beach, they swam in the sea, they played with the dogs, they minded their manners, they ate with their knives and forks, they said goodnight properly, and they thanked everybody properly, just like they watched their cousins do.
      Now it's been a few days since we've been back in the old routine. The kids and I get up in the dark every morning and shuffle about getting ready for school. I'm not sure how much they miss the sunshine. While we were in Portugal, they were able to get into their swimming trunks, but now they don't seem to mind their puffy winter jackets. But I do. I hate the damned things. I also hate the dank air and the lack of hot water and the frozen hands in the dishwater. I hate the damp clothing every morning. I hate the stiff plastic and rubber. I hate the fire that won't light and the tea that cools too soon. And I hate facing the work with the wet cement and ice-cold tools.
     But the winter break doesn't end until Alex's birthday on 13th Jan. I'm going to get her something special. Like a ruined shack in the south of Portugal.

shed-plex

   Alex has been tolerant for many years. She's let me keep a workshop in the unfinished cantina all this time. I've had to move all the tools and scrap and shelving and workbenches around the floor several times to make way for progress, but I've always had a roof over my head. Until now. I should have made way for progress some years ago. The downstairs was supposed to be a modern kitchen, dining room and living room, unlike the rail-car life we've become accustomed to. Ask anyone who's visited and they will tell you stories of armchairs facing each other. The leg room between which lies a sleeping dog and two children trying to get their jammies on. Not to mention the red-hot iron woodstove. But never mind. If you ever felt the need for fresh air you simply turned around and faced the frozen window behind you. It's remarkable what house guests can get used to. They can get used to anything if it's only one or two nights. Alex has been cooking on a portable gas stove for what? ten years?
   But some of us here are running out of patience. There's only so many times one can fall headlong into the woodpile, tripping over the mound of unfinished homework before something cracks. Don't get me wrong. No plates have been thrown, but I'm keenly aware of when it's time to head off any trouble and bow out gracefully. That time has come and gone and my stuff is out in the rain.

    To my rescue arrived Charlie and Richie, two English dudes. Richie came to us some years ago as a workaway volunteer and has returned with a degree in architecture along with his assistant, Charlie. They convinced Alex that my building skills needed some "support," and after several agonizing seconds, she relented. Richie is keen on learning about preserving old buildings and I agreed to let him help, allowing me more time to ponder possibilities.
     Our first project was the construction of an open-air workshop incorporating two prefab, cardboard toolsheds we'd imported from Britain. I had constructed these sheds myself, but the wind kept blowing them down; so a plan was proposed to enclose the two under an oak-framed shelter where I might feel comfortable with all my scrap iron and bits of string. It began with the enslavement of two innocent workaway volunteers, John and Sinead, who were given the task of building the foundation without any guidance. Our lumber supply is the same pile we burn for warmth in the winter. You might find photos of Bob Henry at work on this wood in a previous blog post. With little more than a box of screws and a glue pot, Richie and Charlie constructed a series of roof trusses, stood them up on oak posts, covered the thing with decking and roofing paper, and clad the whole with bark-cuts. It looks like a quasi log cabin and is just about as waterproof. Under this now sits about $1000 worth of bicycles, two lawnmowers, Matt's chainsaw, countless rolls of scrap tubing, electrical cable, old paint cans, workbenches, and another $2000 or so in hand tools. The whole thing is probably illegal but at least we can get a clear shot at the floor and walls in the cantina, even if the tools we need are a mountain bike ride away.
    With me out of the way, there appears some possibility that our cantina may someday be transformed into a new living area for the house. And in the meantime, I can fiddle about to my heart's content in my new workshop.