| Beautiful and
Abandoned Places Sambuco Part 4 Mike Eldridge |
The Roof
Seems ages since I wrote about Sambuco. Delay caused by stress. They say, don't they, that buying a house can be the most stressful thing in one's life. But there's a point beyond stress, and that's despair. Plus I've been sulking a bit too. Fact is, builders are not short of work in this part of Italy. The earthquake which damaged Assisi so badly a few years back sent a few ripples and wobbles this way too and there's a lot of Euro money available to fix cracked walls, shaky roofs. Everyone of course swears such damage wasn't there before it struck.
But yes the roof went on (and since has almost been blown off again in a hurricane. Don't ask!). It's constructed in segments, as is the house so it should wobble like a jelly should we get another quake. Sambuco has stood the test of time these past 600 years without collapsing so I'm optimistic. Have to be. The chimneys went up too. The guttering and drainpipes (copper, ouch$ ) went on. I went to America. The builders disappeared. The Uccelini Boys they call them (those who have suffered). But why would they not disappear? After all it was August. It's Italy. (Brains empty out along seaside esplanades). ........And of course they would come back in September.
Note new chimney, since half blown off
You ask why do we call them the Uccelini boys? This means 'little
birds' in Italian. In my case this title was very apt as whenever I would
complain about nothing getting done, they would suddenly arrive in large
numbers, scurry around for seed and disappear just as rapidly. (For
'seed' read 'money') They didn't come back in September, or October, or November. At the end of November I managed to get hold of a man with an earth
mover machine who leveled all the land around the house and put in the
drainage and tubing for outside the house (too shallowly as it has since
been discovered). What's more he splattered the garden with precious
building stones, which'll take me six months to gather together again into
their original pile. It was at this time that I realised my frequent absence from Italy, and
my living in Tuscany whilst in Italy anyway, were having a marked affect
on local attitudes to my desire to ever have the house finished. So I
rented a house locally and moved over here in November. Oh so now I was
serious! I really do want the house finished? Why hadn't I said? View from back garden The pictures are of the outside of the house after the pointing was
done. Now it looks twice the size! Looking at them gives me a sinking, daunting feeling like I've bought a
giant elephant I can't afford to feed. Next episode........Doors and windows, getting the inside finished.
Getting more hopeful!
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