Work has started

Work has started on the house. The windows ,doors and blinds have been removed and some walls. I will try and go down and take some pictures to post on the site to update everyone on the progress!

No turning back now

Sun setting over Castelnuovomagra yesterday evening. The photo was taken just before we went to dinner at our local restuarant – Rizieri.
The buidlers are going in on Monday… there is no turning back now!

Very hot and very dry

We arrived at the house this afternoon. It is very hot and very dry. The last time we were here it had rained a few days before. The okd well is dry. Just as well we have our reserve tanks for our last week end here before work starts. They will have to get the new bore hoel working if they want water for the building work.

 

A major face lift…

Tomorrow we will spend our last weekend at the house beofre building work commences. We will remove all remaining furniture, which is not much. A couple of fold up beds , a small fridge and a hot plate. We have been spending every other week end there since we bought it 2 years ago. Such luxury in two years you can see how the house has deteriorated without any maintenance. Now it will undergo a major face lift…

 

The Melangrano suite

One of our guest rooms is to be called the Melangrano Suite. We have a tree in the garden which we will unfortunately loose once the building work begins. But we will replant another. The accent colour of the room will be a pink/orange. We will have printed on cnavas some photos of Melangrano and I have some Melangrano sculpted from Cararra marble which i will use in this room.

 

Beautiful sunset

I have spent the last 2 days at the house. The first day I cleared the grounds around the house, so that the builders when they start will be able to see where they are at more easily. There is a lot of wild fennel thyme and sage. The smell was very evocative. There were some figs ready for eating though the main crop is still not ready. Early the second morning I cleared some of the regrowth in the olive grove. There is no hot water so I have been showering in a makeshift shower outside, hopefully my neighbours were not watching! The weather has been perfect. The sunsets beautiful can wait to be there…

 

Few days before work starts

I am going for the weekend to our house to enjoy a few days before work starts. I will cut some of the grass in the Olive grove with a strimmer and take some photos of the existing road to the house. My neighbours want me to put the road back into the condition it is in now if the lorrys do any damage. They will of course and I will too. But better to have a record of how it is now to avoid arguments.

Back to the olive grove. This year there will not be many olives as we did a big cut back this spring and they are looking a little sad. But the wild flowers amongst the trees are lovely. I hope to bring back some figs. We have 3 trees all settembrini and we have already had a lot from the initial june crop hopefully we will not loose them with the building work. Two will definately have to be cut back the third we may loose but hopefuly not.

Pomegranate

We have just got back from a weekend at our home in Castelnuovo Magra. The weather was great and we spent 2 days at the beach. We also signed the contract with the Construction company for the building work and they will start 1st September….at last. I took the picture of the Melangrano (Pomegranate) in the garden at 6 in the morning. You can see Castenuovo Magra in the background.

We also in the evening went into Sarzana for cocktails and dinner. Here during august they have every evening an antiques fair from 6 until midnight. The town is buzzing.

 

Good news

We have just received some good news – my bank has accepted me for a mortgage last week which meant that finally we could go ahead and sign the contract with the builders so that they can start as soon as the holidays finish here . Hooray… we opened a bottle of frizzantino from our local winery in Castelnuovo magra (Lunae)to celebrate!!!

 

Our web site

Giacomo has designed our website for us and has this weekend linked our website to our blog. Thank you Giacomo!

 

Cannot wait to be there permanently

We have had some friends to stay for a couple of days Marco and Kerstin and they left today. It was great to catch up with Marco and meet h is friend. We had a great time. I hope to be able to invite them to our new home soon!!!!! Carmelo and I will be going to La spezia for the weekend. It is very basic as there is no gas so only cold water and no kitchen so we cook on a single electric hob or on the BBQ and basically camp there. But it is fantastic cannot wait to be there permanently.