Friday 25 January 2013

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.

Wednesday 16 January 2013

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.






Tuesday 8 January 2013

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.