Every now and then, just when you least expect it, miracles do happen. I don't know what to say... I can hardly stand on my feet...
One of Flanders biggest publishing companies (Houtekiet) just sent me an e-mail saying that they were thrilled with the manuscript of my book on autism and they would be delighted to publish it!!!
They invited me to come to their offices in Antwerp, next Tuesday, to discuss a couple of paragraphs they want me to elaborate a bit further. But apart from that, the lady wrote that she read the whole manuscript in one single breath. Coming from someone who has to read dozens of manuscripts a day, this is the biggest compliment I could ever imagine.
Now I have to sit back and take a couple of deep breaths, so if you'd please excuse me...
The title of this message doesn't sound very positive, I know. But Christine and I are seriously wondering if indeed anyone we're working with is willing to take up some responsibility. They're all so keen on covering their backs and pushing us to make additional expenses "just in case" so that they can rest assured nothing will ever go wrong. Even if these additional expenses are by far exaggerated.
The next case is our new geometer. He's a nice chap and we can't say anything wrong about him so far. But yesterday he nearly gave Christine a heart-attack, up to the extent that she considered jumping off a cliff. He came to visit the site for the second time yesterday. He was still very positive about the house and the surroundings. But suddenly he was having serious problems with the outside walls in natural stone. According to him they would let the warmth inside fly straight out and we'd never be able to sufficiently warm the place up during winter. He was even laughing with our choice for high-insulating windows and said that with these walls we could just as well place these windows in the middle of the field. A rather strange way of reasoning because the Italians have lived in houses of this natural stone for thousands of years. No, according to him we needed an additional wall with insulation on the inside of the house. This not only means an enormous extra expense, it would also make our rooms 30cm smaller.
On top of that, he said that floor heating was useless. "How do you expect water with a temperature of only 35° to heat up a house?" A young guy from the central heating company was present and obviously looked astonished by these words. But he didn't dare to interfere.
Christine was puzzled and called Cosetta, our Italian "mama". Her B&B actually has the size of a castle and is built completely in natural stone. Yes, it is true that heating up such a house takes a number of days if you, like Cosetta, don't live in it all year round. The walls tend to suck up some moisture and it takes a while before the central heating can heat the walls up again. But after that, the porous stone is in fact a very good insulator. And not only that, we have a fully insulated roof and energy-saving windows, unlike Cosetta. Also Cosetta's house is merely heated by a conventional heating system, not by floor heating which should give a more pleasant and equally-spread warmth.
So in the end, Christine told the geometer that she would not have these additional walls and that she was prepared to sign a statement that she'd take full responsibility. That shut him up... eventually.
Recently I told you about Danilo's "final bill" which ended something like:
16.000 to be paid within a delay of 15 days...
Christine waited with sending her reply until we'd have the official "go-ahead" from the commune to continue the works. She didn't want to take any chance that Danilo could perhaps stall the administration even further. But tomorrow, she'll go to the post office with a big smile on her face. In brief, she used Danilo's bill as a baseline and added her personal comments; something like:
Point 1. a. 11.000 for being "director of works"...
Since no official "go ahead" has been received from the commune, no works have actually been carried out. There has never been any "director of works" whose name was registered at the commune. Therefore I do not see why I should pay this amount.
(comment from my side: Indeed, legally Danilo never existed and all the works carried out so far were illegal. If he challenges Christine's reply, he will at the same time admit that he was personally responsible for works that were illegal, uninsured and without the proper administrative procedures. The Order of Geometers would not take this lightly!)
b. Submitting the seismic study...
This study was submitted on the 25th of February, 3 weeks after you had been fired through a registered letter.
Point 2. a. Driving to the village of Viano for signing the sollicitor's act for the sale of the house @ x km and x h of time...
The vendors wanted us to sign the act at their house in Viano because of the poor health of their mother. These expenses therefore fall under the responsibility of the vendors.
b. Driving to Castelnovo ne' Monti for the mortgage @ x km and x h of time...
This was done at the specific request of the bank manager who asked you to be there. Again, these expenses are not my responsibility.
c. Visit to the building site because of a leak in the water pipe @ x km and x h of time...
The water company addressed ME on the site because they had found a leak. I have never seen you there all day.
And so on to conclude (in the same manner as Danilo's letter)...
1.500 to be reimbursed within a delay of 15 days...
Christine claims that she's still been very kind. If she wanted she could ask a lot more money back because Danilo's really made a mess of things and hardly did any work. But for the time being she said that she was willing to leave it at that and keep some additional leverage just in case Danilo would still dare to challenge us. The nice thing is that every word that Christine wrote is true and can be demonstrated. So if Danilo dares to try us even further or even wants to go to court... he'll be finished.
She already showed her letter to Cosetta, our Italian "mama" and a couple of her local friends and all were impressed beyond words. They just couldn't believe that such a frail lady could turn out to have such big claws. Danilo's been very stupid. Christine indeed "appears" to be a frail and ignorant foreign lady who can be easily intimidated. Look how kind she looks on this picture with her mother...
WRONG!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!! Bad move!!!
Eh... before I get any comments... Christine IS a very nice lady. In fact, she's the most gentle person I've ever come across. But DON'T try to fool with her!!!
This weekend the term for the authorities to reject the seismic evaluation of our project comes to an end. The procedure is that if no comments are received one month after the project is officially submitted, you automatically get the "go ahead" from the local commune. Christine has already notified the electrician, the plumber and everybody else that they have to be at the site first thing on Monday. And then let us hope that the delay we suffered because of Danilo's incompetence and arrogance can be made up for somewhat. We have until the end of May at the latest before the agreement with the new owners of our Belgian house comes to a close and we (or rather I) have to move out.
In the mean time, I'm delighted to post a few pictures of the inside of our house. This will be our bedroom:
And this will be the bathroom:
This will be the bedroom for our guests:
Imagine that you're a guest at our house, you wake up in the morning, open the curtains and see this... (without the scaffolding of course... ):
This picture was taken from the entrance hall, through the dining room and into the living room. You can see the nice arch that Nezio made for the door between the dining room and the living room. We're not going to put an actual door there. Not only because it looks nice this way, but also because the wood stove will generate so much heat that we'd much prefer to leave the door open anyway...
You remember that I had ordered a new kitten for Christine in order to ease her pain for the loss of our beloved little Chloé. Well, after two weeks, on the day before my mother in law and I would arrive, it would be delivered. So I was impatiently waiting by the phone for a call from Christine. For her it was a total surprise. I had made her believe that an Italian friend of mine, whom I had got to know via the Astronomy Forum and who was also an architect, would drop by. You can obviously imagine how I was looking forward to hearing her reaction.
The phone rang indeed, but it was not Christine. It was the bloke who was coming to deliver the kitten. He claimed that there was so much snowfall that he couldn't drive any further. His car was slipping away all the time and he said he was stuck. This I found rather hard to believe. The same morning Christine had driven a lorry down and up the mountain. And the guy was still in the valley, on the main road. But he was less than half an hour away from Christine's place so I called Christine and told her that my "friend" was stuck. She immediately jumped into her car - to the rescue. With her little Citroën, she didn't have any problem at all driving down the mountain.
When she arrived, to her utter surprise, a man came towards her, shoved a bag containing the little kitten into her hands and drove off. Eventually she called me to tell me what a cheeky bastard I had been. But when I asked her how the kitten was doing, to my horror, she replied not good at all. The kitten was thin (meagre was far inadequate to describe her condition), her fur was totally neglected and she shivered all over. The poor little thing had obviously been seriously mistreated. It was an even greater shock to hear that the kitten had come with a Hungarian passport. So much for the "controlled and high-quality breeders" that were advertised on the website. She had probably been through a bulk transport in a lorry. I felt so incredibly sorry. All I wanted to do was to give Christine something to make her forget all her pain and worries. And now she had received a bag full of new and urgent worries. Immediately she drove to the vet and to the pet shop to buy special high vitamine and mineral food for ill kittens and a special brush to undo most of the knots in the kitten's fur.
But that was not all. When I mentioned the cute little red mark on the kitten's forehead, Christine apparently already had to frown a bit. And when my mother in law and I finally arrived at Christine's house I could see why. This was definitely not the kitten that I had ordered and of which I had posted pictures on this blog. This is the kitten she had received:
Well, fortunately it is a real Maine Coon. Imagine that I had paid so much money for a street cat! And under Christine's motherly care, the kitten has already recovered very well. She decided to call her "Flora". She's a playful little thing who likes to be caressed on the tummy and who just doesn't stop showing her affection. Although she's still easily scared and often hides under the bed. Not surprising after all that she's been through. The vet told Christine to look at it from the bright side. At least this little kitten was saved from ruthless animal traders and can now look forward to a dreamlife.
In the mean time I'm not only in the process of asking my money back, but I'm fully determined to let the people behind this "quality" website pay dearly for what they're doing. Naturally they've vanished from the bottom of the Earth. Even though they still dared to send me an e-mail with a kind of evaluation form in which I'm invited to tell how "pleased" I am with their service. But I've already contested the transaction with VISA. Given that we have the testimony of a vet on our side regarding her mistreatment and that the kitten was not the one I paid for, I think I stand a good chance. I'll certainly let you know about the progress.
Oh, before I forget, because of Christine's love and care the kitten has already grown from barely 2kg (almost 1kg too few for a Maine Coon of her age) to 2,5kg in just a week's time!
The following morning a tractor managed to pull Christine's car out of its parking spot and onto the main road. So she finally could come to pick us up at the airport hotel. Even all of the locals agreed that they had never witnessed such terrible snowfall ever, or at least not for a very long time. And certainly not in March when the Italian spring should already have begun. When we drove back to Christine's temporary residence, the good men from the local communes were still working very hard to clear all the roads with their tractors. They eventually didn't know what to do anymore with all of that snow...
But on Fridaymorning, the sun was shining brightly again. This is something that is so very different from Flanders or the rest of Western Europe. It can be freezing cold with very bad weather one day. But the next it's like spring has returned at full power. The Italian sun is also so much more pleasant than the wishy-washy yellow disc we get up north. It's so inviting to just grab a chair, close your eyes and let the sun caress your face.
Armed with a snow shovel, we drove to our future house. The driveway was obviously also covered by a thick snow carpet. But in the presence of two ladies I was more than happy to dig out a trail for them. I have to say, never in my life have 100m ever seemed so long...
The reward was worth it. I was totally exhausted when I finally arrived at our house. But there it was, majestically standing tall against the deepest blue sky you could ever imagine. The pictures below can never live up to the "real thing" of actually standing there. But they give an idea about what's it like to stand on our future terrace...
Isn't it just a dream? Christine and I feel like we're the most fortunate couple in the world. We still have a few very long and hard months ahead of us. But after that we shall be the happiest people on Earth. It does show, doesn't it?
On Wednesday the 10th my mother in law and I happily went to Charleroi (to the so-called "Brussels South") airport to take a Ryanair flight to Bologna where Christine would pick us up. What we weren't aware of at the time of booking, was that the clever Ryanair marketing division had once again come up with one of their all-time favourite jokes. You'll probably remember that when they launched their flights to Santiago (de Compostela), many people believed that the destination was in fact Santiago (de Chile). To their surprise they disembarked at the famous Spanish pilgrimage city and not in the capital of Chile, South America.
My mother in law and I were just as astonished to learn when we landed that Bologna also happens to be the name of the airport of Norway's Spitsbergen islands. No... this couldn't be true... I must be dreaming...
Christine also couldn't believe her eyes that same Wednesday morning when she opened her front door. More than one full metre of snow had fallen the previous night! It came almost up to her shoulders! So she had to dig her way out.
And not only that. Her car had totally disappeared from sight. That's how bad the situation was. She tried everything she could to dig herself a trench to her car, removed as much snow as possible from the car and the path behind it and tried to drive out of her parking spot. In vain of course. To make things worse, one of the (very efficient by the way) snow removal tractors had broken down and the roads in Christine's village could not be cleared in time. As a last resort Christine asked if she could borrow a big 4x4 from one of the locals, but the guy didn't fancy a trip all the way to Bologna.
So also my mother in law and I were stuck. With the slight difference that we spent the following night in the Sheraton airport hotel. Christine in a freezing old house...
Since it is now certain that we're not going to move before the end of April, I decided to buy a couple of cheap tickets and pay Christine another visit. We're missing eachother so very much that another two month's wait seems like eternity. And this time I'm bringing Christine's mum along as well. She had already promised to come for a visit often. But the poor lady is probably a bit anxious about such an "adventure" all on her own. So now that I decided to go, she happily accepted my offer to join me. Next Wednesday we'll be off and we'll return exactly one week later. I can't leave our animals behind for a longer period, even though I'm sure that our neighbours will take very good care of them. They just need so much attention...
It's a bit cynical that a few hours after I bought the tickets, our beloved Chloé had to die. Then again, I'm glad that soon I can be with Christine to comfort her. And by then... my little surprise should have arrived. It took some delay because the local vet had to approve of the kitten being delivered. But the last info I received is that delivery will be either today or tomorrow. I just can't wait to see her face...
Please don't be alarmed if you don't see any new posts on my blog until the end of next week!
I didn't plan any new posts until after my return from Italy, but the story Christine just told me is just too ludicrous and I have to share it with all of you.
Danilo's just sent his final bill to our new geometer. Guess what the amount is...???
16.000,-!!!
And it's highly detailed too:
- xxx for accompanying Christine to the bank (you remember... Danilo's "friend" who was certainly going to give us the mortgage...) @ xxx km and xxx h of his precious time - xxx for helping Christine to find a temporary home (at his uncle's place...) @ xxx km and xxx h
and so on...
Even our new geometer is totally astonished. He told Christine that if he were walking in Danilo's shoes, he'd be as quiet as a mouse. Danilo's mistakes are so terrible that he could even face a closure of his business. But apparently good old Danilo's gone round the twist. Christine's going to reply that we won't pay his bill and that we believe that what we've paid him so far is already far more than adequate to cover the work he's actually done for us. Danilo's taking a very dangerous road and Christine believes that he's gone too far now. She wants to wait until after the move and then raise an official complaint against him. I'm still a bit in doubt because Danilo knows a lot of people and starting an open war could perhaps turn some of the local people against us. On the other hand, it's Danilo who's just started the war and if he's officially punished by the geometer's association it will be clear to all that he's been up to no good. It's a difficult balance. But I agree that if Danilo tries one more little trick we'll go for the kill.
That being said, we've also just learnt that Danilo's mistake with the "forgotten" seismic evaluation will stall progress until the end of March. That is the timeframe that the authorities have to make any objections to our project. Even the beginning of May is starting to look unfeasible for our move now...
I already elaborated on our intentions to render our house as environmentally friendly as possible. For this reason we've e.g. chosen to install solar panels for central heating and hot water. If the mortgage comes round, we may even have enough money to order photovoltaic panels for electricity as well.
We also want to make as much use as possible of rainwater. The Italian summers can be exceptionally dry. Last year for instance it hasn't rained a single drop in our village in three months. Therefore we had already decided that we wanted a big (10.000l) rainwater tank. Given the fair amount of rain and especially snow during winter, we'd surely have enough water to completely fill two or even three such tanks. How improbable this may seem however, it is quite impossible to find rainwater tanks in Italy. Well, you do find them. But don't expect to pay less than 10.000,- for it. Another option which is much more common in Italy, is to have a tank made out of brick. But this option wouldn't be any cheaper either.
So we contacted the company which had delivered the tank for our Belgian house and asked them whether they could also deliver in Italy. Which they can. Last Wednesday the lorry with the large concrete tank arrived at our contractor's depot. It has a special filtering system which hardly requires any maintenance and a "floating" tube so that the pump will only suck out water and not the dirt from the bottom. Talking about a pump, Christine asked the company at the very last minute to include a pump as well, since the price for an equivalent pump in Italy was... 4 times as high!
And last but not least, we had also ordered the biostation for our waste water. You'll remember that Danilo had told us that, given the absence of a sewer, we should just let our waste water flow into the woods. No way were we going to do that! So now we'll have a state of the art sewage filtering system to protect our environment. The cost for all of this, transport to Italy included? Only almost a third of the price we would have paid in Italy.
It's not as if Italy is really lagging behind in the environmental debate. The country is going at great lengths to e.g. promote solar power. Yet, it's astonishing that a Mediterranean country with such long and dry summers doesn't invest more in rainwater recycling. Apart from this, it has to be stressed that Italy is not as cheap a country as some may think. Don't expect to pay less than in any Northern country. Although on the other hand, there are some exceptions like (local) food and wine. You can go to an excellent "trattoria" and eat all you can have for under 20,-. And there are lots of excellent outlet stores where you can buy high-end products at a very large discount. But for the rest, before you decide to move to Italy as well, you need to know that your money will not get you any further in Italy than it will in your own country. Or indeed perhaps not even nearly as far.
It was just a little too easy. Replacing Danilo and continuing the work with a new team. Danilo's left us a couple of very nasty surprises. Normally, any new construction or restoration has to be preceded by a seismic evaluation before any building permit can be delivered by the local administration. In our case, no seismic evaluation has been carried out at all. Well, it appears there is one in fact. The one that Danilo submitted to the commune last week. This means that all the works that have been carried out so far were illegal. Fortunately for us, we discovered Danilo's fraud just in time. Imagine that we had nicely paid all of his bills and that suddenly there was an accident. Or indeed an earthquake. You can easily imagine that the insurance companies would immediately take their hands off. Remember that I told you how angry Danilo was that we only paid 3.300,- (+ tax) of his 7.500,- bill? We're beginning to wonder how much work Danilo's effectively done for us. Drawing up a quick plan with his computer, with wrong measurements (two hours of work perhaps?). And making a totally wrong estimate of the cost (15.000,- lower than the lowest offer we received from the various contractors and forgetting a couple of crucial items such as sewages etc.). In the light of all this, we're feeling a bit gutted that we eventually still paid Danilo about 4.000,-.
Then again, there is also some good news. Danilo can shout anything he wants. Or send us as many bills as he wants, like the one we're now expecting form his engineer for the (late) seismic evaluation. We won't have to pay them at all. First of all, Danilo can't hire anyone, not even an engineer for a seismic study, without our consent. More importantly, we fired Danilo weeks ago already through a registered letter. But better still, since no official go-ahead was ever given by the commune's administration, the works on our house have never taken place on paper. And Danilo never was our geometer. Technically speaking, he never existed. Danilo now obviously realises that he's made a terrible mistake with these two little Flemings (well, with Christine in the first place ). He tried to scare us off and threatened us with legal action and so on. Well, I'd love to see him go to court. He could just as well close his business because if his fraud becomes public there'll be some very nasty people wanting some answers from him. After the L'Aquila disaster, earthquakes have become a very sensitive issue in Italy. It's so obvious that he still clumsily tried to cover his backside by depositing the evaluation in a hurry last week.
Another positive side to all of this is that everybody's being very nice to us again. Especially Nezio, our contractor, had become very difficult and accused Christine of "having changed a lot for the worse". But now that he realises that Danilo has also put his business at risk by having him carry out illegal works, he doesn't say any unfriendly word about us anymore. And it has also inspired our new geometer to give the full 100% and to be totally on our side, without any "fraternal courtesies" towards a fellow-geometer.
Alas, the only negative consequence is that we'll once more run into a delay. We're totally in the dark about how much it will be, but it could possibly be weeks. The seismic evaluation needs to be sent to an administrative body that was specifically created for this purpose. And when they give their go-ahead, the file returns to the commune which then has to issue the official permit to start the works. Our new geometer told Christine that he knows a couple of people here and there and that he was going to do his utmost to speed up things. We'll see. But one thing is now for certain: it will take half a miracle if we still want to move before the beginning of May...
Yesterday, Christine went with our new geometer to the local commune administration to sort out a thing or two. We were a bit anxious because we didn't know what a mess Danilo would've left behind. You'll probably remember that I told you that since the tragic earthquake in L'Aquila all renovations must be done according to certain seismic standards. There has to be a report from an architect or an engineer confirming that all of the works have been carried out according to these standards. We were suspecting Danilo not only from having spiced up the bill for his own work, but more importantly also from never having ordered such a seismic evaluation. And that he charged us nonetheless an exhuberant amount for it. If no such report existed, we could be in a lot of administrative trouble.
But to our great relief, everything appeared to be in order. There was indeed a seismic report included in our file at the administration. It was dated... the 25th of February 2010! Therefore it appears that our suspicion was indeed correct. Danilo never had an engineer examine the place and wanted to charge us anyway. He must have panicked and arranged a report at the very last minute. After all, we would probably only suffer a couple of administrative difficulties. But as our geometer he would've been into it up to his neck. Probably even deeper. We'll now probably receive a bill from Danilo's engineer shortly. But it will never be 4.000,-
The new geometer said that it would be a pleasure to take over the work and he was absolutely astonished when he saw our future house. We will also hire his contractor because Nezio is also being difficult. We understand that he's under a lot of pressure from Danilo, but we expect him to at least finish what he was doing. Christine gave him an angry phonecall yesterday and by matter of speaking put the knife on his throat. Hopefully he's got the message.
):
I have to say, never in my life have 100m ever seemed so long... 
of snow had fallen the previous night! It came almost up to her shoulders! So she had to dig her way out. 
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