A Tuscan View - from Umbria

Mad dogs and Englishmen

I’ve been so reluctant to write about the finishing of the building project, the start of the art courses and the beginning of the next part – settling in to a very different routine.

Perhaps I have metaphorically been holding my breath all this time and just praying everything will go well, or perhaps I’ve been too busy to write, but there’s no excuse really.
But however it all has gone (and it seems to have gone very well so far) there is still a need to write it down, and that’s what I will try to do to make up for all the missing posts…starting here.

The hot mid-afternoon, seen from the studio.

Summer has been here for a long while already and the girl’s everlasting holidays are drifting along in the heat, neither of them able to do much homework during these long hot afternoons. In fact they’re not able to do much at all until the cooler evenings gradually re-energise them.

I wish we could teach ourselves to get in to that ‘siesta’ mode, but it seems impossible to recalibrate our body clocks to take advantage of a ‘cheeky sleep’ in the middle of the day. So I find myself out there, with my mad dog, doing precious little in the sun.

The girls have gone all 'euro-cool' these Summer days!

However, we feel like we’re at the end of the hard, ugly bit, so my thoughts turn to our still-toiling neighbours, getting up each day to face the cement mixer. They started before we did, and they’re not finished yet, but there’s a good reason for that – they’re doing it all themselves.

And you’ve got to respect that.

Exhale...

After a frantic week of lugging furniture around, painting, panicking and waxing and panicking again we can finally exhale. 
The back apartment is finished and furnished, our first guests have come and gone and here are the 'after' photographs we promised.  Sorry to have kept you waiting for a week but, to be fair, we have been waiting for nearly 2 years!

The sitting room and kitchen

The small bedroom

The big bedroom

The details

Of course we can't afford to slow down yet as there is still the front apartment and the studio to finish but they are oh-so-nearly there. 
I'll post the results as soon as they are ready with maybe a little break for carnevale inbetween. 
Have faith, we'll get there in the end...

The best thing I ate today:
You must be joking! No time for cooking, eating or sleeping!

...take a deep breath...

Just before showing you the results of all our labours (which is what I wanted the 100^th post to be about), I suddenly realised that it would be wiser to pause, take a deep breath, and remember what has been our daily reality for the last 18 months; building work, dust, plumbing, electrics, drains, mud, sweat, blood and tears.

Sounds a little dramatic, I know, but it's perhaps all to easy to move on now that it's pretty much done, and forget the stresses and strains it has put us all under. Proud as we are of the final result, I am much prouder of the struggle it has been and these photographs show a little of what we have been up against.

It's certainly not an opportunity for self-congratulation or gloating, because we have made countless mistakes (some we don't even know yet) and we've had a lot of help along the way, but I must admit to never expecting it to have been quite this hard, or to last this long.

Anyway, I promise that in a few days I'll get together some 'after' photos but, for now, you'll have to make do with the 'befores'

 

 

 

Flora and fauna

I must admit to being a little worn down by the building process at the moment, even though I know we're nearing the end of it.

I feel like my wheelbarrow. I used to be slightly embarassed of its green, shiny newness amongst all the battle-hardened others. It's now had two new wheels, needs rewelding, has been repaired countless times with wire and steel rods, and it still doesn't work very well. (It's actually a better analogy than I was expecting, now I write it down.)

Self portrait

Another sign that the building work has become so all consuming was when my youngest daughter gazed up at the sky on a cloudless night and said, "Look daddy, the moon looks just like concrete" - and, to be fair, it did.

So I’ve decided to do two things; firstly look the other way, and start to appreciate the changing landscape whenever I take the dog for a walk (while we pretend to look for truffles), and secondly get back to painting. It's a good thing too, as I'm running a Botanical Illustration course next Spring.

Last year I was able to visit a group of experts in this field and, to my surprise, some of the most interesting work seemed to focus on plants in the process of turning from green to brown as they dried and decayed. There was something mesmeric about watching these painters so focused and concentrated on their subjects, sometimes working through magnifying glasses, and often using lamps fitted with special daylight bulbs to allow them to continue working through into the night. I knew immediately that this was an area I would be foolish to ignore, especially living here, literally tripping over so much flora and fauna.

Some botanical illustrators work in a true, scientific way, documenting and recording the exactitude of the species and giving notes and measurements on the page very precisely. Others, like this particular group, have also developed this type of illustration into a true art form and the images are stunning, plants so real you can almost touch and smell them. You can see their work at www.amicusbotanicus.com

During my Art degree we never spent much time on this area of study but, as I’ve become older, I’ve started to appreciate more the subtlety of this exacting discipline and, living here, you've got no choice. You have to love nature.

Anyway, here’s my early offering of the season, it’s called ‘Parthenocissus quinquefolia’ (or Virginia Creeper to you and me).

The stupidest thing I did today;

This is perhaps the stupidest thing I’ve done all year and I can hardly bring myself to write it down, so all I’ll say is that it involves seeing a poor abandoned kitten one morning outside a bar …

The rule of threes

20th April 2008

I know things don’t happen in threes, no more than they happen in twos or fours, but people keep mentioning my two recent building site incidents and mentioning this ‘three’ thing, and I am starting to wonder. So this morning I was extra careful, hoping the third thing might happen to someone else.

Me, being extra careful.

The second thing was a nasty cut to the head, requiring stitches.
My friend interrupted his holiday with us to take me to the hospital in Citta della Pieve, careful not to get my blood on his car seat. Once there I may have made a mistake. I assumed that because someone works at a hospital and wears a uniform, he or she must be a doctor.
Two men in bright orange uniforms quickly gave me a combination of; head-shave, local anaesthetic and stitches.

It was only later, when I was leaving the hospital after the obligatory cranial x-ray, that I noticed two similarly dressed men putting up a wobbly wooden fence around the town walls. Then I saw them again, on the motorway, painting white lines, quite badly.
Now I look at my stitches in a different light. They are the sort you draw onto a face when you’re 6 years old, or the sort you would do if you had absolutely no medical training and were having a bit of a laugh while the doctor was at lunch.
I will spare you the photos.

Spring, in our garden, seems to have sprung - by the way

The stupidest thing I did today;
Watched ‘Cloverfield’ – where do I go to claim those 84 minutes of my life back?

Tufa

18th March 2008

I made a rather foolish decision a few days ago. The job was to smash down a small building attached to the house to make way for a large terrace. At my disposal was a very nice, orange digger (see picture) which is designed to knock down small buildings in a matter of minutes, or, alternatively I could choose to spend the rest of my life taking it down by hand to save the bricks for later.

Me and my digger

That was the first bad decision. Then, yesterday, when deciding where the drains and septic tanks need to go, it was decided that the perfect spot would be where I had just spent 3 days piling up those 562 big, water-heavy bricks (trust me, I did count them)
So now I have to move them to the other side of the garden, by hand, which gives me another chance to count them, I suppose.

Tufa - beautiful, but heavy when wet.

Who would have thought that the main topic of conversation at my 6 year olds parents’ evening would be the fact that of all the children in her class, only Lorenzo eats his vegetables and absolutely no-one eats the minestrone. Those parents who weren’t busy chatting on their mobile phones looked most upset except, of course, for Lorenzo’s mother who almost felt the need to stand up in her moment of pride. This was, fortunately, the only moment when individuals were singled out. Most of the parents were cowering in fear of the public humiliation at the hands of a teacher who was literally foaming at the mouth as she explained her exasperation at coping with such an ‘unruly’ lot.
However I managed to escape unscathed from both sets of teachers, now I just have to work out how our two children manage to transform themselves into little angels between 8.30am and 4.30pm.

The stupidest thing I did today;
See above...

Bones and stones

9th March 2008

Real life seems to be taking over from blogging here at the moment as, finally, the building work seems to be moving on a pace, which is good, as our first painting course starts in September and the apartments and studio need to ready for the summer.
Hard work, however, doesn’t come cheap and this is a point in the project when we seem to haemorrhaging cash.
The house is changing and evolving almost daily and it seems to me that sometimes it ‘talks’. By that I mean it makes it’s spirit felt. When you take a building back to it’s origins and strip away the layers of man made rubbish we like to surround ourselves with; the polyurethane, vinyl, plasterboard and pebbledash to reveal the beautiful bones and stones and brick and wood you set it’s spirit free.

The spirit of this house soared free yesterday morning when marito and Vlad began to chisel off the sombre render on the front of the house and revealed this.

Best thing I ate:

Here, for my friends Maryann, Finding La Dolce Vita and Marie, Proud Italian Cook, is my contribution to Festa Italia

Pasta al forno con pomodoro e mozzarella

This is one of my favourite Italian pasta dishes. I love the way a few humble ingredients like cheese, tomatoes and pasta can be made into something rich and sustaining.
When I take this out of the oven, fragrant and bubbling, it always makes me feel like a sexy Italian ‘mamma’. You will find versions of it in almost every Italian cookery book and it is a regular feature at celebrations all over Italy.
Marito and the girls would gladly eat this everyday of the week given half a chance. It is straightforward to make in large quantities so perfect for a festa. The fact that Italians choose to celebrate with such a simple dish and then to lavish so much care over its preparation is for me what makes Italian food truly great.

It feeds four greedy people;

2 large cloves garlic squashed
1 peperoncino crumbled
Extra virgin olive oil
3x 400g tins of good quality plum tomatoes
2 bay leaves
Sea salt, black pepper
Big bunch of Basil leaves
2 or 3 balls of good quality mozzarella cheese
Lots of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Nutmeg
400g Penne pasta

Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees and put a large pan of water on to boil for the pasta.
In a large deep frying pan heat a good glug of olive oil and sauté the garlic and peperoncino for a few minutes but do not colour. Add the tomatoes and chop them roughly, then add the bay leaves and simmer it all for about 20 minutes until it’s thick and reduced. Mash in the garlic, which should now be soft, and remove the bay. Check the flavour and season with as much salt and pepper as you like.

When your water is boiling add some salt and cook the Penne until just ‘al dente’ then drain, reserving a small cup of the pasta water. Toss the pasta with half of the sauce and use the water to thin down the remaining tomato mixture.

In a large baking dish layer the pasta followed by the tomato sauce and 1 torn up mozzarella ball, some basil leaves and a good grating of Parmesan. Repeat these layers until you have used everything up. Ending with a layer of mozzarella and Parmesan and topping the whole glorious thing off with a grating of nutmeg, don’t hold back.

Bake in a hot oven for about 15 mins until crusty and golden.

This is a perfect sop for large quantities of good red wine. Buona Festa!

Sounds simple enough...

2nd February 2008

When we bought the house, one of the main attractions for us was the fact that much of it had remained untouched for many years. The rust, the peeling paint and the beauty of its decay are bound up with its unique character. We are now making decisions which will affect the way the house will look for at least the next few decades and we don’t want to spoil those things that made us love it in the first place.
Sounds simple enough, but it’s not.

One good example is the doors and windows. They were made of metal. Old rusty metal and, according to most, must now be changed into ‘traditional’ hardwood with double glazing and a protective polyurethane seal to prevent wear and tear. We are suggesting to our builder that we quite like wear and tear and would ideally like rusty metal windows and doors, just like they used to be.

The floors. Many years and countless euros have been wasted trying to make ceramic tiles look like traditional handmade cotto ones. The argument is; pay more, lay them easily, and you never have to touch them again, they will stay like that forever. Aaaagh! We are suggesting to our builder that we would like to see them change over time with successive, deepening layers of wax, just like they used to.

Now it looks as though we are going to be ‘on our own’ for the floor, and that means choosing, buying, laying and treating it all myself.
Sounds simple enough, but that won't be either.

The stupidest thing I did today;

I'm not sure, but I think I may have killed my new best friend

Makita - my new best friend (possibly deceased)

New Year

12th January 2008

New Year and a time to reorganise, revitalise and prioritise. First of all (and most importantly), new boots - steel toe-caps, acid-proof, burn-proof, water-proof and rubbery. Next I have to start thinking about the year ahead. This is the big one and, if our project is going to work, we'll probably know by this time next year, so we have to get ourselves sorted. My job has now been split into two halves; morning and afternoons building (with new boots), and evenings trying to figure out how to use Dreamweaver and Flash to get our websites going (probably still in new boots). Not sure which is the hardest but, on balance, the frustrations of technology seem to outweigh those of a sledgehammer. My brain is being stretched and it doesn't like it.
Of course the antidote to all this is only about an hour away from us and is one of the reasons we are here. Florence.

Piazza della Signoria, Florence, at night.

We had to go over the Christmas period just to see what was going on and we weren't disappointed. The lights and the lighting proved to be as captivating and magical as we could have imagined, and even the children stayed the course with barely a murmur of discontent.
I haven't yet become used to, or complacent about, the fact that we are lucky enough to get onto the motorway a few miles from our house, and our choice of destinations, according to the big green signs, is as below. How could anyone grumble about that?

The stupidest thing I did today;
A new year and, so far, completely stupid-free.

The fog (part 1)

3rd December 2007

The fogs have begun.

I used to watch football from Italy on Channel 4 in the 90's in England, and I was struck by how often you couldn't see one side of the pitch from the other, and also by how often players wore gloves and earmuffs. Now I am beginning to understand why, though I'm still a little perplexed by those earmuffs.

The view of Chiusi from the house as the fog begins to clear

The fogs bring with them a number of changes. The cold is the most obvious change, but it is so much colder than I had ever imagined. We fight over who does the washing up, because the sensation of plunging your hands into hot, soapy water is about as good as it gets here during the Winter. We have tried to increase the amount of heat we produce in the house but, as I now realise, it's not how much heat you produce, it's how much heat you lose that counts. We lose a lot, with our high, uninsulated ceilings making the sky above the house quite warm, but leaving us stone cold.

The back of the house in the fog, (photo taken by our friend George)

The days have a different rhythm now; starting with how to get warm in the morning, then the wood run begins, sometimes just schlepping it from one place to another, often chopping it into smaller sizes, always hoping it's the good stuff; not too young, not too wet, not too dry and, preferably oak. In the evenings it's all about keeping the fires going and, finally at bedtime, it's about retaining as much heat as possible until the next morning.

The wise heads around here use inside/outside thermometers to check whether or not you should have the doors and windows open as it's often warmer outside than inside in these big, draughty houses. However, wherever you go and whoever you spaek with, the conversation inevitably turns to heat, or cold, or heating, or insulation. Underfloor, solar, back boilers, wood burners, open fires, geo-thermal, the cost of having the roof done in euros, the cost of not having it done in degrees and unhappiness. It becomes the sole topic of conversation after olives and before Christmas.

The stupidest thing I did today;
Well, this was actually many years ago, but only really affected me today. I was reminded that I had once said that I would never wear thermal underwear...