I already elaborated extensively on the problems Christine and I had with the banks, both in Belgium and in Italy. Finding a Belgian bridge loan and an Italian mortgage has given us quite a few difficulties, up to the point that we've now decided to do without a mortgage for the time being and see how far we can go. Since I will probably be entitled to a life-long pension (ref. my post on autism), we'll have a fixed income from the start so we don't need to hold on to some financial reserves for the first couple of years. Even though this income will undoubtedly be quite limited, it will certainly be sufficient to live, given that we won't have any financial obligations such as mortgages etc.
With that problem out of the way, I've started browsing the web in search for the Italian bank with the best conditions for a normal account. Unfortunately - again - I was up for a couple of surprises. And I hope that my Italian friends will forgive me my words, but the Italian banks seem to have a totally different philosophy than the banks in the rest of Europe. The main principle of banking in Europe is that you put your money on a bank account. This means that you in fact "lend" your money to the bank. The bank then invests this money or plays on the stock exchange with it and makes a considerable profit out of it. In return for your generosity, the bank will reward you with a meagre couple of percent's interest.
Not so in Italy, however. In Italy you have to pay the bank considerable money for the "privilege" of having an account with them. Yes, of course this is also the case for most of the bigger banks in the rest of Europe. But not only is the amount you pay much higher (the cheapest bank I found will cost us roughly 70-80 per year, just for having an account!), there isn't any interest either! So you do not only lend all of your money to the bank, which generates them billions of profit. No, you still have to pay them a yearly 80 on top of that! And no interest! You can only try to minimise the expenses by not using one of the counters in the bank office but use internet banking in stead. Or by only using your own bank's cash terminals. Or by not wanting any credit cards. Or by automatically forwarding your salaries to the bank. Etc. One could actually wonder why the Italians don't hide their money under their mattresses because this is absolutely proposterous.
Although it isn't all bad. The internet banks have also known a considerable growth in Italy and they offer considerably better conditions, comparable to the rest of Europe. Since we've since long mostly reverted to internet banking, I think that this might be the best option for us.
Again my apologies to the Italian readers. But you know that perfection doesn't exist, otherwise Italy would be a pretty boring country to live in. It's already paradise to us, so what else would we want? Asking for more would be greed!
I suppose that you're all thinking... "This Peter's got it all worked out well! Letting his wife do all the hard labour and letting her live in a cold "dump" during winter while he's living in luxury and just has to take care of the cats..."
Well. I'll show you now how wrong you are! In a next post I'll elaborate on all of my current activities. But in this particular one I'd like to present my first draft for the future website of our B&B. The name of our B&B will be "La Stella" ("The Star"). Christine thought that it goes well with our cosy little hamlet. It further indicates that our guests will receive a star-treatment and as a bonus it also refers to my passion for looking at the stars. So please note already the link I just purchased! It's not active yet because in order to register an ".it" domain you need to fill out a bit of paperwork with the Italian authorities. So I'm still waiting for the official "go" before I'm allowed access to my website management portal.
www.bb-lastella.it
Nevertheless I'd already like to present the Flash file that I've designed for the index page. There's still no clickable buttons or anything. I was until now absolutely not familiar with working in Flash so it took me some time to create all of this. I hope you like it, though. It's just the title page, including a small slideshow I made to show that this particular B&B truly lies in the middle of paradise! Your opinion would be highly appreciated. Christine also hasn't been able to review my work yet and obviously the special Christine's Evaluation and Approval Task Force (in short: the CEATF) will need to have its say. But I'm sure that she'll very much appreciate the Art-Nouveau background...
Oh... and please don't mind the poor quality of the text. This must be caused by this blog's website (perhaps trying to "stretch" the file into a full window). If possible, you should try to play it in Macromedia's Flash Player...
I suppose that you're all curious how the house is progressing? Well, it's going terribly fast. Nesio, the contractor, and his team are doing an incredible job. They work very hard 7/7 from dawn till after dark. Where do you still find such an incredible service? Such a passion for a job? One could argue that the current crisis obliges builders to go the extra mile in order to stay in business. However, with Nesio I don't think this is the case. He's a bit of a shy character, but once you've earned his esteem he shows his true, warm nature. We've invited him and his assistant out for dinner in a very nice restaurant in the city of Castelnovo Ne' Monti. We wanted to show our utmost appreciation for all his excellent work and for his patience when his bills aren't always paid immediately due to the stupid Belgian banks. I'm actually feeling very much inclined to name and shame the bank in question in this blog because of all the trouble they've already caused us with their petty little rules and their arrogance towards us, their clients. Probably in a couple of weeks when we've paid the bridge loan back. Anyway... many many thanks, Nesio and your team!!!
So, here are a couple of pictures which show you progress until Wednesday, when I returned home. First a picture of Christine having a well-deserved picknick after a whole morning chopping off concrete plaster from the walls and excavating floor tiles. I'm so worried that her fraill little body will one day seriously crack. But she just keeps on going. What a wife...
The inside of the house after the old roof had been taken off...
The exterior. For the first time you can see the beautiful stone that appeared after the concrete plaster had been removed...
The structure for the new roof...
The roof waiting for the finishing touch... the tiles. You can also see the newer part of the house that was built in ordinary brick in stead of stone. Like I already mentioned, we're going to cover that part in a kind of beige-brownish coloured plaster. A natural colour that should go well with the Italian stone, the greyish window frames and the environment.
The house as seen from our driveway...
The situation just before I left. Do you like the old-Italian tiles? And what about the chimneys?
There's this story about the richest man in the world. He lived in a palace, so huge that noone could ever see the end of it. It's roof reached as high as the sky and it was supported by a countless amount of gigantic pillars. It's ceiling was enlightened by an ever-changing mosaic pattern which wowed the man every day again by the stupendous images it produced. And if that wasn't enough, every morning when the man woke up, the floor was covered in the most precious diamonds for as far as the eye could see. Even though the man lived in his palace alone, he was ever so grateful for the incredible wealth that he had been endowed with.
But it didn't take long before the rumour of his immense fortune had spread to the city afar. And all of the people in that city had become hungry for a part of this fortune. So one day they set out on a long journey to the man and his palace in order to claim their share. Many miles they walked and walked. Late in the evening, long after dark, they arrived. Thousands of them.
- "Welcome", the man said, "welcome to my palace. I'm so happy that I can finally share my fortune with all of you." - "Well then", someone from the crowd shouted, "where is it all? Where's the palace? Where's the ever-changing mosaic? Where are the diamonds?" - "Be patient, my friend", the man gently replied, "wait until next morning and I'll show you everything."
Reluctantly the people obeyed and made their camp, fully determined not to let their patience be put to the test any further after the break of dawn.
The next morning the sun climbed above the hills and the people from the city assembled again. They were yelling for the man and the night's waiting had made them even greedier. Where had the man gone off to? If he wasn't going to show up any minute soon, they'd hunt him down and forcibly take what they believed was theirs for the taking. At last, the man came down to them and greeted them kindly. Tears of joy were rolling from his eyes.
- "How lucky you all are", he said with tremor in his voice, "my palace has never been so beautiful as it is today." - "Your palace?", the people asked in surprise, "well, where is it then?" - "Look around you... just look..."
The man pointed at the magnificent forest with its endlessly tall trees, majestically waving their leaves in the wind.
- "But... those aren't pillars! This is not a palace! It's just stupid bloody trees!", the crowd angrily shouted back at him. "And where's this mosaic of yours?"
The man pointed high above him, to the beautiful clouds that constantly changed into the most stunning images imaginable.
- "But... that's not a mosaic! Those are just stupid bloody clouds!", the crowd shouted even more angrily. "And where are your diamonds? We want your diamonds!" - "Look...", the man said while spreading his arms and pointing to the endless meadows around them, "I've truly never seen so many diamonds like this morning!" - "But... those are no diamonds! It's just stupid bloody dew!"
The crowd had become furious by now. They'd travelled all this way for nothing. For a bloody fool! They couldn't contain their rage any longer. Thousands of hands grabbed the man and started beating him and beating him. Eventually, in the evening when they'd had enough, the crowd walked back to the city. And left the man's body hanging on a rope from one of the pillars of his castle.
I know... it's a rather sad story. But Christine and I feel so related to this man that I just had to tell you. I've just returned from my week's visit to our palace and I'm sure that you'd appreciate to see some pictures. These were all but one taken from our garden. The last picture was taken from the other side of the valley and the little red arrow points at our house. And just like in the story, Christine and I believe that we live in the most beautiful palace in the world... To us, this is what's life's all about...
You may remember that the moment I returned from Italy in September, leaving my beloved Christine all alone over there, that I immediatley booked tickets to go and visit her again. I planned to be there for her birthday, next Thursday. What kind of a husband would I be if I let her celebrate it all on her own? So Wednesday I'll take the first flight to Bologna, where Christine will come to pick me up for a week's stay. I'm sure that our cats and other animals should be able to survive that period without me and that our neighbours will well look after them. Oh... I just can't wait! Two more nights... And she doesn't yet know which presents I'll be carrying for her! I'm sure she'll be utterly surprised because this time I've really done my very best. Hush hush!...
This also means that this will be the last message on this blog until my return on the 25th. So please don't run away because... I'll be bàck!
At last Christine was able to send me some pictures of the works. These aren't the very latest ones and they only show progress during the beginning of the works. As I already said, in the mean time the roof's been taken off, the main walls lowered (below the level of those small attic windows) and the new roof structure's been built. Also all of the cement plaster has been taken off and a new, coloured cement layer has been put on the left part of the house, where the former garage was (future living room) and where the guest house will come on the first floor. That part of the house was added to the main structure at a later stage and the outside walls there aren't made of natural stone but just ordinary bricks. Therefore we very much liked the idea of the combination of old stone for the main part of the building and coloured plaster for the more recent part. Christine hasn't told me yet which colour she's chosen and frankly I don't want to know either. I just want to be wowed when I'll see the house finished for the first time. I'm sure though that it will be a lovely colour which perfectly matches the original, rural character of the house (ochre? warm yellow? light brown?... we'll see... )
Clearing the surroundings of the house from wild trees and plants...
Placing the scaffolding...
Supporting the ground floor ceiling...
Reinforcing the first floor with concrete (view of our future bedroom)...
Old roof structure before it was dismantled. You can see that most of the wood is still in a very good shape...
And finally another cake that Christine made to celebrate the birthday of one of Cosetta's neighbours...
One of my absolute passions is looking at the stars. Nothing's more relaxing to me than installing myself on a comfy camper bed under a thick blanket during a dark and starry night. When I was twelve I joined the national observatory of Hove, nearby Antwerp (www.urania.be) which became my second residence for about ten years. In stead of going to the disco I spent many nights in its tower in the company of two or three mates and the observatory's largest telescope. At dawn we watched the sun rise above the houses before driving home on our bicycles, knackered but totally happy. I also bought my own little telescope and used it on almost every evening when the rotten Flemish weather allowed it. In 2003, after having settled with Christine in the house we built, I bought a brand new telescope. Much bigger and more professional. But to my own surprise I quickly got tired of it because it didn't show me as much as I wanted. So two years later I bought a bigger one still. Which lasted about a year before I got tired of it as well. Eventually, I built my own telescope. And that one'll have to do for a long time to come, otherwise Christine promised me she'd pack her suitcases. Or rather make that my suitcases. In fact, it's so big it hardly passes through the door anyway.
Unfortunately, these are sad days for us, astronomers. The majority of people actually believe that the more lights you put at roads and around houses, the safer it will be at night. Wrong of course. The more lights you install, the more accidents will happen on the roads because people will become less concentrated behind the wheel, will start speeding more easily (false sense of security) and other cars let alone cyclists or pedestrians are less easily spotted. The following pictures show the difference between a dark street and an illuminated one. Which car will you spot earlier, you think? And what about that pedestrian wearing a reflective jacket?
Public lighting even makes life easy for burglars because they can do their job without the aid of a torch, and still hide in the shadows if someone's passing by. Can you imagine how much attention they'd draw upon themselves if they had to use torches in absolute darkness? Or how much more effective anti-burglar lights would be? When walking through total darkness a sudden halogen flash in your face will knock your night vision out for about 15 minutes!
Well... I can go on about this subject for hours as you might have already guessed. Oh, did I already mention global warming and energy waste? Fact is that even in the Belgian countryside where I live, the nightly sky is more of a disgusting kind of orange than the beautiful, natural blue-black and it's hardly what you could call covered in stars either.
Italy to the rescue again!!! Before deciding on where exactly we should look for a new home, I carefully examined the Italian light pollution charts. And when Christine went on her first reconnaissance trip last March I gave her the important instruction to look for possible street or other lights in the vicinity. I'm now totally assured that where we're going to live the sky will still be magnificent. Perhaps not perfect, but then again I'm not too keen on moving to the middle of the Sahara desert...
So if anyone of you is planning a visit in the future, if you're interested, I'd be delighted to show you a couple of treats which the nightly sky has in store for us.
Shocking news! Danilo, our architect and friend, has been in a terrible car accident this weekend. According to what Christine's heard, he must have fallen asleep behind the wheel and driven off the road. The fire brigade had to cut his car to pieces in order to get him out. Rumour goes that "another 4 inches and he would have been paralised". He's been extremely fortunate and can leave the hospital tomorrow. Although he will have to wear a collar for another three months or so because two of the vertebrae in his neck have shifted.
Christine and I would like to wish him a speedy recovery and we are so happy that he's come out of it relatively unharmed.
In the mean time Danilo's son, who is also an architect and works in the same office, has taken over his father's duties. Christine also speaks very high of him and assured me that our house is in the best hands.
Christine finally managed to send me some pictures from her cake-baking activities so I can tell you about how things went during the local Chestnut Festival two weeks ago. As I said, all the ladies from the village bake a cake for that occasion. What I hadn't understood at the time, was that they indeed make them for free, but that they are then sold at the market and that the proceeds go to a project for the village. Let me just say - with a certain pride bordering arrogance - that Christine's cakes were already sold out in minutes! This is the main cake she made for the festival:
And here are couple of her cupcakes:
Ohhhh... How feel gutted that I wasn't there to taste them all...
The works are advancing quite well. The old roof has been taken off and also the ugly cement plaster has been removed completely. Christine has been giving the workers more than a hand with that last bit and is currently helping to clean up the joints between the stones. She reports that the natural stone is just lovely and that having it exposed brings so much more character to the place. The workers are now continuing with lowering the supporting walls. I already told you that we would like to get rid of the attic because it is too low to make anything useful out of it and restoring it would be a huge extra cost. By lowering the roof we will make a considerable saving and recuperate a great deal of the precious stone which we can use i.a. for the porch we've planned next to the house. Talking about the porch, we again had a little stroke of luck. It turned out that a large part of the wood that was supporting the old roof is still in excellent condition. So we can easily recycle that as well for the porch or anywhere else where it can be of use.
We have also decided on the windows. They will be in first-grade PVC and not in wood. Although we love natural materials, we are not looking forward to repainting the window frames again and again every five years. On top of that, and probably more important still, noone could ensure us that the wood they use comes from sustainable and environmentally friendly production. We would feel gutted if it were to come from the so threatened rainforests. And then there is the colour of course. It turned out that the Italian manufacturers of PVC windows are only using a limited set of standard colours. Much to our disappointment because plain white, petrol blue, pine green or scarlet red just don't belong on such an old, traditional house. Fortunately a Flemish company came to the rescue! They're quite renowned in our country and - by a strange coincidence - they just started to cast their eye on the Italian market! Christine met with their new, local representative and got a very good offer. She even negotiated to have the fly screens and upgraded doorhandles included in the price. And returning to the colour, there were two colours on their flyer which we liked a lot:
The representative had taken a few colour samples with him so Christine could evaluate which one looked best on the house. Obviously it can make quite a difference with just seeing the colour on a piece of paper. Eventually Christine decided to take the left one (RAL7023 - "concrete grey"). She said it goes so well with the natural stone and it's definitely not too flashy.
Then there's the central heating. Christine said she met with a plummer who had some very good ideas to use the wood stove in the living room plus an additional stove in the kitchen as the main central heating and hot water providers. He would then add three solar panels and a small (last resort) gas heating element in the garage. So we'll be able to make maximum use of our wood and only have to revert to expensive gas in the middle of the night if we don't feel like ligting up the fireplace. And what would be cosier than sitting before a fire on a cold winter's evening with the knowledge that you're heating up your 600l hot water supply at the same time?
And finally... the mortgage. Christine didn't get a direct no, so that's already a start. Although she's afraid that they are going to wait until December, when we'll receive the money from our Belgian house. It's possible that they want to see how much money we'll actually transfer to our Italian account and whether this is in line with the project we presented. It's also probable that they'll demand that a large part of our savings will be blocked as a sort of guarantee. This would be very inconvenient because we need a large part of our savings to rebuild our lives in Italy. In fact, I'm slowly beginning to wonder what use a mortgage would be in that case. It's something we need to carefully assess. But let's wait for their answer first...
Last week the works have finally started for real. Christine is very happy about the contractor we've chosen. They're all hard workers and very friendly people too. They're advancing quite rapidly, but there have been a couple of the usual drawbacks as well. The main one of which is the first floor's structure. It's not as solid as we had expected and it needed to be strengthened with reinforced concrete. This meant that no further progress could be made because it needs to dry for a couple of days. The contractor had promised that he would make up for the lost time over the weekend, but then it started to rain. This made it impossible to tear down the roof. The weather should clear up by now so normally the works will proceed again as from tomorrow. Tomorrow they will also come to install the water supply which is yet another big step in riviving our new home. And to round up Christine's programme for tomorrow, she will return to our bank to discuss the mortgage again. We've made a big file containing i.a. the estimated cost of our new home and the works, our own financial input in the project and our planned financial situation once we've permanently moved. Christine will not take no for an answer this time!
Christine's internet connection has also been fixed in the mean time. But unfortunately - again - the battery from her laptop is running at its last legs. Since the WIFI and mobile phone coverage at her temporary residence is quite poor, we haven't even been able to establish a simple voice communication via Skype yet. And we're also still waiting for the electricity connection at our new home, where reception should be a lot better. We really hope that the electricity company will keep a move on! We've ordered a new battery, but it hasn't arrived yet. It's really a pity because I'm dying for some new pictures to see how things are progressing... You can rest assured that the minute I receive them, I'll put them on this blog!
This is probably going to be the most difficult piece of literature that I have ever produced in my entire life. It's something that has puzzled me ever since I was 4 years old and to which I have never found an answer. Until recently. I don't care what people may think. I don't care if from now on some will call me a "freak". Well, what's the difference anyway because that's how I've been referred to often in the past. So let's get it over with.
This week I've been diagnosed officially with autism. To be more precise, with Asperger's syndrome which is closely related. The needle of my overall score, after 4 difficult test sessions, went deep into the red zone. So that's it. Now you all know.
I still remember being 4 years old and standing in line with the other children in the long corridor before entering the kindergarten classroom. There were large windows and I was looking outside. And then I suddenly asked myself: "why am I me?". Those were the exact words (translated of course ). For all of these years I've wondered why I felt so different. Why I had problems at school. Why teachers and my parents told me I was lazy and stubborn. Why I was always dreaming in stead of paying attention. Why my essays always had a totally different subject than the one we had been asked to write about. Why I have problems with irony. Why I'm not assertive at all and why I was always at the centre of mockery. Why I'm having trouble remembering what I wanted to say when I'm in the middle of a sentence. Why I'm having difficulties reading working papers of over 2 pages because the words are starting to dance in front of my eyes. Why I was so lucky to have a colleague like Len who always managed to "digest" the different meeting subjects and papers for me. (Thanks a million for that, Len, even if you perhaps didn't always know why I asked you so many questions...) Why my summaries and reports were always "traditionally lengthy" and why I focus too much on detail. Why I sometimes drop silent when I'm in the middle of a group. Why I'm having difficulties following a conversation. Why I have such a high sense of "justice" and "morale" and why I can't bear the thought that a serpent of a big boss gets away with her foul play. And so on and so on...
I know what you're probably going to say. You're going to say that it's not true, or at least that it's not all that bad. Then I'm going to reply that I did a pretty good job at hiding it. Another aspect of Asperger's syndrome is that it includes a high degree of intelligence. Now I don't want to brag about that at all, on the contrary. It's just because of my ability that I manage to create a smokescreen around my person. How ever difficult it is for me to follow even an ordinary conversation, I try to puzzle together the few words and sentences that I capture. That's how I establish an idea of what has been said. I also try to anticipate and I have to say that after 40 years I've become increasingly good at it. I try to guess from someone's face whether what I say makes any sense at all and react accordingly. I constantly prepare "standard sentences" in my head, which I can use at random in a situation and which I know "won't hurt" and confirm that I'm still "part of the game". Or during a meeting, I write down what I want to say in order to make sure that I don't forget anything. As a matter of fact, during a meeting I can be totally different because I sense that "that's how I'm expected to be" and there I'm speaking "on behalf of an organisation". The context is completely different than when I have to be assertive for myself. And then there is e-mail. It's soooo much easier when you can think for half an hour before you write something and when you don't have to face the person you're writing it to. And even then I sometimes lose it because my emotions take control over my actions. Again my apologies to the good people at Austrocontrol who were once confronted with a big backfire because I was having a bad day in combination with an overload of personal problems.
Most people believe that autism is like in the movie Rain Man (with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise). But that is a very extreme case. Most people with autism succeed very well in blending into society. - There you have it again... I wanted to write something but have forgotten it already... Ahhh I remember again fortunately... - In a few words, people with autism are oversensitive for all the information they receive. We hear, see, feel, smell and taste so much at the same time that it totally confuses us. We focus so much on every detail that we lose track. We're stuck in a swamp of sensations and information. And that is - apart from the known problems at work and at home - the main reason why in the end I became so awfully tired. I can try to pretend to be "normal", but this consumes so much energy that it eventually wore me out completely. Up to the point that I can only consider myself fortunate that Christine and I will completely change our lives. I don't know whether I'd still be able to cope with a "normal" life otherwise. Every day is a survival trip. Every day sudden, unplanned "changes" lure around the corner waiting to mess up my careful planning. And still I try to keep my calm towards the outside world. I hope you understand what an ordeal that is for me.
Also I thought that Rain Man was a good reference for people with autism. Until some years ago when I incidentally watched a documentary about a family, all the members of which had autism. And these people seemed to lead "normal" lives, within their restrained framework. This was an eye-opener for me because I felt so related to those people. Since then I've visited a psychologist on a regular basis, who eventually referred me to a specialised centre in the city of Ghent for an official diagnosis. And there you go. I'm part of the club.
I consider you all as very close friends and I know that noone of you will laugh at me or even think badly of me now. I also don't want you to feel sorry for me in any way. I hope that you'll continue to act as friendly and caring as you've always been in the past and that nothing changes in any respect . I just thought you had to know, so you'll understand whenever the "smokescreen" drops for a moment...
The past week Christine has started the work to transform our new house into a true home. All on her own she's begun to break out the floor tiles, hoping that we'd be able to recuperate enough to re-use them for the ground floor. It was a dirty sort of work and not with all good results either. Some of the tiles were thicker than others and here and there chips broke off. So she's unsure whether there will be enough usable tiles left. Perhaps we'll have to buy new ones after all? It's too early to tell yet.
Together with Giulio, the older man who's living in the same house as where Christine is staying, she dispersed all of the rubble and waste over our entrance lane, in order to make it accessible to common vehicles and trucks. Giulio's driven over it a couple of times with his car to make sure that it's solid enough. It'll not be the ideal foundation, but it will do just the same. Later on we can still add some of the natural stone which we're not going to use for the house.
We've also decided on the builders we're going to hire for the main structural works on the walls and the roof. Danilo asked three of the builder companies he usually works with to make an offer and Christine chose the cheapest one. But not before having asked a couple of references of course and they all turned out very positive. So making a choice was a no-brainer. The contract is signed and next Monday they'll start! Today Christine has returned with Giulio to clean up around the house. There are lots of bushes and trees which need to be removed in order to allow the builders to put their scaffolding. Christine will also cut down a couple of trees by the house which were already terminally ill. What's done is done.
And for those of you who are wondering why I let my wife do all the heavy work; I'm sitting here with our little cat Chloé on my lap and she needs a lot of attention. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it!
Upon reflection I realised that I had totally forgotten to inform you about someting very important: Christine will be on the Italian television!!!
The regional branch of the Italian state television in Bologna were doing a survey on foreigners who were buying properties in the Emilia region. They wanted to know what attracted them so much to that particular area, what they thought about living in Italy etc. They ended up with Cosetta. Since she has a well-established B&B in the heart of the area, they inquired if she knew any foreigners... You can guess that she immediately thought of us! So last Friday a team from the RAI went to visit Christine at our new house and did an interview. I'm not certain when it will be broadcast but Christine would keep me informed. We'll receive a DVD of the interview anyway so I'll put it on our blog asap.
Christine was in fact quite nervous and normally she hates being "in the spotlight". But Cosetta and I pushed her to go for it, even if it's just for a bit of publicity. And I'm sure she did a brilliant job.
We've also already made a local newspaper who was doing an article on the same subject - again through Cosetta. They reported that after four visits we had decided to buy a new house and to move over there. A slight exaggeration. It was actually only after two visits.
It won't take long before we'll be Italian celebrities... hehehe...
The works on our new house haven't started yet. In fact, so far we haven't seen any price offer from any of the workers. Danilo, our architect, says that we should relax and that if necessary he can stipulate in the contract that the works have to be finished in six months time. But that is not the point. In the first place the works need to be done properly. And it just takes time to do things in a decent way. Christine is slowly starting to lose her temper and will call Danilo every day until things are moving. We were prepared for expensive words like "the works can start immediately after the act's been signed". But the Italians should also be prepared for the fact that we're "northeners" to be reckoned with! Who do they think we are? Amateurs?
Next weekend will be the annual Chestnut Festival in the village where is Christine is staying for the moment. It's a major event over there and everyone who means anything in the Emilian Apennines will be going - chestnuts are omnipresent in the region and the festivities celebrate the harvest and the end of summer. Traditionally all the ladies from the village will bake a pie or cake and offer them to the visitors for free. It's something you'd hardly want to miss! Now it so happens that Christine also likes to do a bit of pastry on the side (see some of the previous posts) and hence she couldn't resist participating in the cake frenzy for obvious reasons. She's already been busy all week with making some "trials" and these were met with astonishment by the local community. For the end result she's planning on making an autumn-coloured icing with leaves, chestnuts and other autumn stuff in sugarwork. I'm sure that it will be absolutely drop-dead gorgeous and wish that I could be there too. For Christine, that is. Not so much for the cakes...
Christine is now living amidst the Italians, all on her own. Needless to say that she's the star of the village where she resides for the time being. The house where she's renting a couple of rooms is what one could call a typical Italian countryside home. This means that it is owned by the (grand)parents of the family and that over time the children and their respective spouses receive parts of the house to live in. So in fact Christine is surrounded by an entire family. And since she's "strange" all of the family members want to visit Christine, invite her for an afternoon's knitting (with tea and biscuits) or have her as a guest for dinner. At times she feels a bit suffocated by all this attention, but then again she also gets an enormous amount of warmth and friendship from her neighbours. They try to help her with everything and in return Christine helps them out when they go out to pick plums for making brandy or to harvest the grapes from the vineyard. This has earned her a lot of respect. We want to go and live there as "Italians" amongst the Italians, not as "foreigners" who stick to their own community or who just stay there during the holidays. And this attitude pays off well. In no time Christine has been able to make contact with local masons and other craftsmen who want to give us a hand with our new house. Soon she will go there with a couple of guys to attack the ugly cement plaster that covers the beautiful natural stone the walls are made of. It will certainly already change the view spectacularly. Giulio, the family oldest, is carefully watching that Christine is not being ripped off and assures that she always gets the best price.
Christine has also met with a representative of a second window-making company. We already have a very good offer for having all of our window frames and doors made in solid local wood. This second company will make an offer for the same in PVC. We'd actually prefer the second option because it's so much easier in maintenance. But all depends on the price. And PVC just doesn't bring that all natural feel that real wood does. Well, we'll see.
Finally, Christine met an English family who live in the area already for quite some time. They're very friendly people and the good news for me is that teaching English really is a goldmine over there. They didn't do it themselves because according to their saying they don't have enough patience. But they've already been asked numerous times. So it looks like my future is assured!
It's two weeks now that I'm sitting all alone in our old house. Well, "alone" is a bit exaggerated because our four cats give me plenty of distraction from the fact that I'm missing Christine so much. We haven't been that much in contact with eachother as I would have liked because Christine's internet connection isn't working properly yet. I believe that her laptop is using - by default - the internal wireless modem in stead of the special wireless key that we received from her Italian internet provider. The Italian countryside is in fact so dispersed that most of the internet connections have to pass via a wireless system. Unfortunately her version of Windows is in Flemish and not a lot of people in Italy master this language. Therefore it makes finding a helping hand a bit more complicated, even though Christine goes at great lengths to try to translate everything into Italian. I know a bit about computers, but not that much that I manage to tell Christine what to do over the phone. These phonecalls are very expensive and I'm terrified about the bill that is due to come any time soon. Fortunately I can use Skype to ring Christine on her Italian mobile. It's certainly not for free either, but at least it will keep the bill at a reasonable level.
In the mean time I decided that it was also time for me to upgrade my home PC. The poor thing was over six years old and in computering that means it dated from the age of the dinosaurs. It took me about five days to sort everything out (apparently a one-year old 1GB RAM card was no longer up to today's standards...) but now everything's working properly. Yeehaaa!
Finally I can bring you the good news that last Friday Christine signed the sollicitor's act with all of the former owners. She told me over the phone that it was quite a story, but due to reasons explained above I don't know all of the details yet. But I'm sure they'll be juicy and please check my blog regularly in case you'd like to find out what they are. I'm also curious enough as it is...
Ladies and Gentlemen... THE HOUSE IN ITALY IS OFFICIALLY OURS!!! (this announcement should be accompanied by the sound of popping champagne corks...)
Yes... yes... stop laughing you all. I've written a book. Actually, I've already been writing on it for years, even before I started working for Sobelair... euhhhh... cough cough... IACA that is. I don't expect it will be a big success, but hey... it was just great fun writing it. The book is called "the Five" and it is mainly targeted at an adolescent audience, although it may appeal to all ages. It's a weird mixture of wild comedy and slapstick, adrenaline-pumping action, drama and romance. So a bit for every taste. I've attached it to this message so if you really have too much spare time on your hands and you really don't know what to do...
In a next post I'll elaborate on all of my current activities. But in this particular one I'd like to present my first draft for the future website of our B&B. The name of our B&B will be "La Stella" ("The Star"). Christine thought that it goes well with our cosy little hamlet. It further indicates that our guests will receive a star-treatment and as a bonus it also refers to my passion for looking at the stars. So please note already the link I just purchased! It's not active yet because in order to register an ".it" domain you need to fill out a bit of paperwork with the Italian authorities. So I'm still waiting for the official "go" before I'm allowed access to my website management portal. 
from dawn till after dark. Where do you still find such an incredible service? Such a passion for a job? One could argue that the current crisis obliges builders to go the extra mile in order to stay in business. However, with Nesio I don't think this is the case. He's a bit of a shy character, but once you've earned his esteem he shows his true, warm nature. We've invited him and his assistant out for dinner in a very nice restaurant in the city of Castelnovo Ne' Monti. We wanted to show our utmost appreciation for all his excellent work and for his patience when his bills aren't always paid immediately due to the stupid Belgian banks. I'm actually feeling very much inclined to name and shame the bank in question in this blog because of all the trouble they've already caused us with their petty little rules and their arrogance towards us, their clients. Probably in a couple of weeks when we've paid the bridge loan back. Anyway... many many thanks, Nesio and your team!!!
and that our neighbours will well look after them. Oh... I just can't wait! Two more nights... And she doesn't yet know which presents I'll be carrying for her! I'm sure she'll be utterly surprised because this time I've really done my very best. Hush hush!...
And returning to the colour, there were two colours on their flyer which we liked a lot:
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