Our builder has been trying to have Mr. You & me for dinner at his house for months now. I thought it was a very nice thing for him to do. You see, in a previous Life, he was a cook and had his own restaurant. I figured it would be a sure bet for a tasty meal. And, since he is also a hunter, he would serve-up a kind of meat I NEVER would consciously fix!!! 

The problem all through the summer, fall & part of the winter to-date was to catch all of us three in the same Time/Space Continuum of the Lunigiana. The culprit was Mr. You. Please, don't tell him I told you so. Anyway... over our from-New-Year's-to-Epiphany holiday week in Codiponte our builder caught us with an invitation, ready & willing & hungry!!!

Naturally, our builder lives in a complex... a main house for living, a club-house for barbecues & dinners for his clients, a fabu swimming pool, stone patios & stairs everywhere and tons of farm land which has to be mowed. As the birds fly, he is really only about 4 or 5 kilometers away. As the roads go, however... well, it was a harrowing drive. Way beyond through the woods and over the hills to Grandma's house, etc. While I drove, Mr. You talked on my cellphone with our builder, giving me the latest as to up, down, left, right, over, under & through the maize of country lanes threading our way through the suburban forested wilds to our builder's part of the Lunigiana.

We made it. 

And, I must say, the view from his club-house... next to the large car-port... was spectacular.... from the frozen locality of Zeri in the north to the Carpanelli Pass to the south... even in the sub-zero air. 

Then, we asked for a bathroom. It was a long drive. Now, we like our builder, don't get me wrong. But, he made a big boo-boo with his club-house. NO BATHROOM FACILITIES!!! We had to follow the stone stairs up to the main house... a hike. Our builder showed us the way, turned on the lights with a remote, pointed in the general direction of the nearest bathroom and left us to do what we were desperate to do. We were stopped DEAD in our tracks!!! A part of the lemon yellow sponged wall paint, there, in the Living Room with beeg screeen teeVee, were a herd of carved wooden horse's heads on an arresting array of very, very over-stuffed sofas & club-chairs just daring us to make a wrong move. Thankfully, none whinnied as we tip-toed to the hangar size Master Bathroom. I've never been in a bathroom with two toilettes!!! And none, God Blessed, whinnied as we slipped out the door for our meal of BAMBI!!! in all its various AND delicious incantations. Instead, the horse-heads stayed in our designer stomachs. Gads. 

   

Erase & re-do...

I have been designing. I thought I might since, very shortly, I will have to sign on the dotted line for the next phase of construction on Il Poggiolo and I ought to have how its-going-to-be down right.

The big deal to the revision of the previous & now discarded design is the re-organization of the Bathroom, the location for the fireplace... the ONLY heat in the apartment. May I say? The place is actually destined for use in the summer. On the rare occasions of Guest Overload at La Casetta in the cold months, I will go & sleep in this apartment. Anyway, it's My Kingdom until my True Kingdom is built-out. Naturally, all dependent upon where the damn Kitchen goes in the heart of La Casa Grande... and the Kitchen's counters. 

So... first, everyone present at the Big Plumbing Meeting last week was aghast at my idea of putting the shower in the niche of the window. What? There'll be shutters on the window. No one will see. And, I am NOT BUMPING my head on the arch of the niche in the Bathroom... thank you very much! They all just looked at me. Not even Mr. You, always ready to steer me clear of any possible horrors, remained mute... for probably the first instance in his entire Life!!! I got the non-verbal message. OK. I'll look at hit again, guys! And now, it is done. It turns our that the niche will be high enough for my 6'-2" height AND the shower head with the altered floor height of a new sub-floor & wood plank flooring. I had to chuck the bidet. No room. The recuperated stone sink goes on the opposing wall since, Mr. You HATES to see toilettes. I hope a certain someone realizes that I CAN compromise.

The fireplace was easy to re-position. I had centered it on the apartment's Front Door. Upon further inspection, I discovered the flue would pass in front of a small window near the crest of the roof. Fine. I shoved it over a bit. The niche to its right will be built to store logs, plugged on the other side. I will more than likely buy the same kind of fire-box as La Casetta has. However, we will have to face it with stone slabs. Tons of them stacked in the Garden. I did it myself. It is why I have a bad back! Stucco-ing the box structure constructed around the pre-fab fireplace would result in the stucco facing popping out when the fire-box gets hot. This is what is happening in La Casetta. Live & Learn.

The Kitchen counters will require a total re-think. There are two lateral stone braces for the now non-existent fireplace which, imaging how the counter might work would, in all probability, necessitate covering them both in rubber OR my head too. The sink CANNOT stay underneath one. Ditto for the cook-top for the other one. I will either have to pull the counter out into the open space for proper clearance... I can already hear Mr. You yelling his disappunto... squish them closer together or, all of the above. If the cook-top & sink are moved closer together, then, the free counters space will be to the outside of these two essential elements... water & fire. I haven't gotten to the redesign of the Kitchen yet.

Once the new floor plan & Kitchen are set, I will do the Electrical Plan. Then... POOF!!! Time to sign and spend money. Gads.

The True Plan...

What is the True Plan? Well, it is to finish fitting out the inside of the Upstairs Apartment... again, we will start doing that in March unless it rains. If so, it could be tomorrow. The two large & one Little Room of La Casa Grande... and I will decide where the Kitchen goes!!!...  and followed by the Guest House... or, if I loose the Battle of the Kitchen... My Bedroom of L'Esseccatoio... or, drying shed. What was once part of Mr. You-know-who's Grand Plan A to include an apartment in the animal stalls of the main house's basement is o-f-f... off the charts. We will need places for stuff and the place for stuff is the three rooms of the stalls. Someone is going to have to let any other ideas remain as ideas... thank you.

Then, I will spend the next many, many, many years... hopefully... tackling the Garden. It was a garbage dump/jungle for so long... 20 years of everything thrown in it but a Richard Ginori toilette... and, it will take a Force of Nature... or, in other words, my back muscles... to get it into acceptable shape. It is the True Plan... and Adventure... of Il Poggiolo. Did you think that? Gads.

Back to Plan B...

One of the ongoing controversies of Il Poggiolo is... where to put the Kitchen in La Casa Grande. I have bruises to show for it. Back when the main house was in the decrepit state shown in the photo below, the Kitchen, as dictated by Mr. You-know-who in his Grand Plan A, was to be built in the Little Room with the prison-like window between the Portico, out of view, and the main Entrance Door to the main house on its right. Preserving an ultra-short Entrance corridor leading to the upper most of the two large rooms of La Casa Grande, destined by Mr. You-know-who to be the Dining Room, we would thus have to punch through an ancient stone wall of not some puny thickness to connect this Kitchen to the Dining Room. The other large room of the house, off the Portico, would be the Salotto... or, Living Room. Decorum is preserved, to the pleasure of Mr. You. Va' beh.
 

Several circumstances lead to throwing Mr. You's Grand Plan A into the trash-bin. Here's the list...

1. The sub-flooring to the Portico was deamed by our geometra & builder to be pericolante... or, quaintly said... highly dangerous!!! It's reconstruction raised the level of the Portico's floor by several critical centimeters, transforming the doorway between the Little Room and the Portico into a thorough-fare suitable ONLY to any elves & dwarfs wishing to serve dinner out on the Portico AND NOT for a 6'-2" American, much less for a 5'-4" Mr. You. Oh... yes... certainly... we could jack that part of the house up, smash through a two foot thick wall at a delicate juncture for supporting the two stories of house above to have a decent doorway for a fantastic sum of Euros!!! No, Thank you. There are other more important uses for those Euro's in the Future Life of Il Poggiolo. And, yep. The Kitchen would have to find another spot.
2. I had become fed up with slaving-away in what I must say is quite a cute little sage-green Kitchen in La Casetta, whilst our Guests & Mr. You have a rollicking Good Ol' Time with their cocktails of Pro-secco, etc. upstairs in the Salotto in front of a fire. I decided I wanted to cook with Il Popolo about me. Enough of this being relegated to a Cut & Chop sort of Siberia. Naturally, Mr. You-know-who never fails to mention that my Hallmark Phrase whenever anyone dares to enter our Kitchen in Genoa is... OUT OF MY KITCHEN!!! Tut-tut, I said to him. No Little Room for My Kitchen.
3. In the meantime, I asked our builder... he's our plumber too... just where might a Kitchen go without entailing much cost & inconvenience to all concerned. He pointed to what was a corner... in the Grand Plan A of Mr. You... of the Salotto. Well, there it is, I said. 

So, I drew up My Grand Plan B. The lower ex-Salotto room of the main house would be a Kitchen, a Dining Room and a small sitting area in front of a fireplace. The ex-Dining Room would be a Salotto & Studio with a fireplace with ample room for skate-boarding. And, the Little Room would be just large enough for a single-bed Bedroom with Bath-with-shower. Ta-da!!! All was well with My World. Secure in the builder's confirmation as to just where best a Kitchen should be, I ably fended off the consistent assaults by Mr. You in resurrecting his Grand Plan B, regardless of who pointed where.

Then, the Winds of Construction changed. It happened during our 2 hour + meeting with our builder & geometra last week about the Big Plumbing Plan for our little borgo. The particular change of direction occurred when it was collectively decided to bury the septic tank under the pavement of the Cortile. Tubes connecting tubes connecting other tubes dictated that the Best Place for the Kitchen would be in the darn Little Room. My Bedroom would have to await the completion of the drying shed. It's anyone's guess when that will happen. I was too stunned to KILL any of the possible candidates.

I mourned the symmetry & society of My Grand Plan B. Mr. You already has his terra-cotta Bedroom & Bath off the Portico. I would have my Bedroom & Bath in geranium red off the main Entrance. A cozy room dedicated to the three True Italian Pursuits of Domestic Pleasure... cooking, eating & talking around a fire in ochre would be ideal in the lower of the two large rooms. And. Mr. You would have his Grand Salon of a Salotto & skate board track, if he so desired, in bordeaux, and where no-one would ever go because there is not cooking-eating-talking done there. Va' beh.

So now... the currents are favoring Mr. You's Grand Plan A. I do not want to surrender... damn it. Stay tune for further controversies. Gads. 

No! Not here?...

Why couldn't have God put Plumbing down on the list for His Seven Day Program and let all of us avoid a lot of inconvenience & money? Well, actually, it was six days plus that one for R & R which, for most of us, was the day one HAD to do homework. Anyway... how hard would it have been for Him to AUTOMATICALLY sink septic tanks, tubes for fresh water in & the dirty water out, not forgetting to have manufactured toilets which do not cost that of a new medium-sized FIAT!!! wherever there would be Human Habitation... hmmm? Probably, God felt we needed to learn some Important Lesson, and mine, apparently, is to await for the cost-estimate on the Phase Three for Il Poggiolo's Plumbing Plant Escapade. This is the result of buying a house in the country with a single spring for fresh water.... now, run d-r-i-e-d... and a single out-house on the Cortile... now o-b-l-i-t-e-r-a-t-e-d!!! When all is finished & PAID for, Il Poggiolo will have a plumbing system for the complex's 4 kitchens, 5 bathrooms & a laundry room to boot!!! Now, I understand why the hyper-decorated  house & ornamented garden was ALWAYS the one belonging to the Italian plumber. Gads.

By the way, before I sign off, the above photo is where our builder/plumber & our geometra deamed an appropriate spot for sinking a septic tank... below the Cortile!!! Gads-zooks.  

So wide yet, so thin...

A demonstration of what plant abuse looks like. Of course, this is said by someone who has broken The Cardinal Rule of Gardening in these parts and that is... DO NOT PLANT PLANTS IN THE WINTER!!! Pazienza. Here are three abandoned-in-a-dump examples, seemingly full & leafy, newly planted in Mother Earth & anxious to find a better home with us than with whomever. Oh! I certainly must tidy things about around the planting site. A low rock wall is tops on the list. Anyway...

change the perspective and they are as about as deep a tacky metal fence. Italians! Gads.

Winter dregs... winter surprises...

Pretty darn dreary... the grey sky... the grey stone of the neighbor's house... & the grey wintered plants. There's hope however!!! 

God... in his Generous Wisdom... invented a plant to help relieve all the grey. It's called Larus... in Italian. It has a large strong green & waxy leaf and its leaves stays just like that for 365 days out of the year!!! The plant grows like an unwanted weed & can do so to nearly tree height. Apparently, it loves everything... sun, shade, cold, warm, rain, blizzards, winds... you name and it will deal with it!!! Not bad, hey? UNFORTUNATELY, most Italians maniacally use this invention as a fence... to separate what's theirs from The World Beyond!!! The poor things are terrorized two or three times a year by a guy on a ladder wielding electric or gas-powered shears. Man dominating plant. It's so Italian. They can't seem to do anything with their politicians so, what do they do? They take it out on a plant. Passive-aggressive wimps. Not us.

Today, on a country walk with the Dog, You-know-who & I came upon 25 Larus surreptitiously unearthed & flung to their Fate in an un-official trash heap along the track leading to the local fresh-water spring, Paradiso. We took them!!! 5 trips in You-know-who's AUDI. Well, we couldn't pick up three largest of them. We can give them Good Homes!!! The spot in the photo above is one. All, however, had been cruelly abused into Life as Regimented Hedge. Conformity Italian Style!!! We will plant them tomorrow and, probably, the next too as barrier bushes too. HOWEVER, we will feed them, water them & let them reach for the sky or, in any direction but down or snipped!!! Gads.

Olives...

Nothing to do with aged-walnut trusses, bathroom fixtures or terra-cotta pavers...

We went on a walk this morning with some Codiponte friends to join others for pranzo... or, lunch... who live in another borgo... or, stone village... above Codiponte. The place, called Luscignano, is situated in a sella... or, saddle... high above the Aullela River as it winds past Codiponte on its way to meet the River Magra at the Big City of Aulla before spilling widely into the Mediterranean Sea near the port city of La Spezia.
We first stopped-off to say Happy New Year! to the folk who run the local oil press in our little town. They have been working steadily since November. Fulvio, one of the owners of the press said they have so much work, he & his sister will be busy until March. 7AM until sometimes Midnight! Apparently, it has been The Year for olives. Not so for wine. The heavy September rains ruined the vendemmia... or, wine pickin' & squeezin'. Maybe olives are impervious to being drenched 24/7. 

Over the holidays, everyone offered us their fresh-squeezed olive oil to drip over pieces of bread made from potatoes. The color is a earthy, rich green, has the unmistakable aroma of olives and a light, sweat taste. The combination is perfectly contrasted... the heavy bread and the easy oil... and is a great way to start a meal or, just as a pleasant snack in mid-afternoon. Chase it down with a red or white wine.

The side of the valley of the Aullela at Codiponte towards the arch of the passing sun are all olive groves. In September, folk spent their time cutting grass around their olive trees & burning it on-site. This is not work with a lawn-mover. No. The terrain is too rugged. Weed-wackers moan from early morning until late at night. Some old contadini... or, farmers... still use the local type of machete or an angled blade on a long wooden pole to cut the grass... sweeping back 'n forth in great swaths.

Once all is clipped & orderly, their next chore is to drape these long nets... the ones from China even look knitted!... underneath the trees to catch the fall-out of olives. They are anchored from short sticks to keep the nets off the wet ground. Then, the locals either hand pick the olives off the trees, one by one and there might be hundreds of trees!... or, they hit them with rakes or bamboo sticks. It is called bacchiare gli olivi... or, batting the olive trees. The olives are mostly mechanically stripped of any leaves before they are carted to the frantoio... or, oil press.
It's work. Tedious work. No helpers beyond the immediate family. And, you ONLY see old folk doing this. No-one under 35 in sight! One octogenarian we passed on our way to Luscignano was on his hands & knees picking up any olives found on the ground! His cotton bag in his lap was filled with the green, brown & black olives. He must have been 80 years old! 

It struck us all after our lazy after-New-Year's walk & lunch that we were... possibly... witnessing the last generation of locals to harvest the olives. We felt sad. And, to think that the richness of this odd & out-of-the-way corner of Tuscany called the Lunigiana was based on olive oil. It was the wealth, the currency, the life of this part of the world. No more.

Il Poggiolo on January 1, 2011...

January 1, 2011... Part II

Il Poggiolo on the first day of 2011...

a hint of sun knocking against the open wooden gate to Il Poggiolo & the Front Door to La Casetta...

sun brightening the Portico, the stones of the Cortile and those too of L'Esseccatoio lately washed by the rains driven in from the Mediterranean Sea on the other side of those mountains in the far distance...

the sunny path up to the Upstairs Apartment's Front Door, the facade above the Cortile seemingly missing its eyes... windows & shutters... due to be installed sometime in February...

an edge of sky reflected in the fish swimming pool... here the sun barely arrives in the short days of winter...

the Upstairs Apartment and the heart of La Casa Grande below it... illuminated in the late afternoon light, smoke from the many chimneys of Codiponte creating a haze wafting across the valley of the Aullela River out of view below Il Poggiolo...

Seeing the house with sunshine in these photographs makes me feel happy & amazed too at how much has been accomplished in the last year... listing the key elements of note... La Casetta finally finished, furniture & furnishings moved in & continually lived in since last May, all the other roofs & structures recently re-built & solidified and the terraces of the garden re-constructed, ready for the real work of gardening to last me for some time to come. 

Now, we can look forward to fitting-out the Upstairs Apartment in the new year, followed by doing the same with the heart of La Casa Grande... the two large main rooms, one accessed from the Portico, which will hold a kitchen & dining & sitting areas in front of a large fireplace, the other of nearly equal size & accessed from a stone staircase off the Cortile will have a Living Room & Studio divided by, again, a large fireplace, and the third room smaller room, which will be a modest bedroom with bath. Another bedroom with bath, off the Portico & painted in a strong terra-cotta red... it rests under the roof of La Casetta and so, was built-out along with La Casetta... is already used by You-know-who. Gads.

January 1, 2011... Part I

Look what we got on the first day of the new year?

Yep... blue skies above Il Poggiolo, Codiponte, Lunigiana, Tuscany, Italy, Europe, World!!! Gads.

New Year's Eve at Il Poggiolo...

Kind of a dreary looking day for New Year's Eve... cloudy, very grey, humid & cold. Here's the rest of how Il Poggiolo appears today... on the last day of 2010...

the Cortile and L'Esseccatoio... or, drying shed... and its perfectly working forno... or, oven. The pre-Christmas cold has killed some plants. Oh, well...

walking up the path from the Cortile to the Upstairs Apartment. The tree... I think it is called a persimmon in English... makes me think of a Christmas tree with gigantic bulbs dangling on its naked branches. Most of the fruit has since fallen to the ground. Newton's Law has squished them into a weird sort of ground-based jam... unfortunately, a very messy finish... 

La Casa Grande, the new retaining wall with its fish swimming pool and some of the 150 lavender I planted so the re-built terraces wouldn't wash away in all the rain that has fallen since September...

more lavender, the Upstairs Apartment and its large square window & the Castle borgo... or, stone village... above us.

I am hoping the New Year will be us some much needed sunshine, drying out the place. And, that I can post some pretty photos with blue skies as a welcomed back-ground. Gads.

Upstairs apartment...

The Upstairs Apartment... the Front Door is under the house's eaves... the two top floor windows are for the Bathroom on the right and the Bedroom on the left... with just a tip of the eventual terrace seen on the far left...

a good winter shot of the Front Door and the persimmon tree. A pergola will be built to the left of the entrance...

another view from the upper most garden terrace...

It all looks so quaint. I never thought. Gads.

Plans...

Ah... the fun of floor plans, materials & colors!!! The Upstairs Apartment's program begins to take form & shape...

That hunk of wood is an example of the walnut planking & finish we want to put down as flooring throughout the apartment. The terrace, however... on the far left of the pencil-drawn floor plan in the photo... will have the same terra-cotta tiles we have used in La Casetta, naturally, weather-proofed to withstand freezing temperatures and tons of rain-water.

You can barely see the four areas which make up the Upstairs Apartment in the Floor Plan... the Terrace on the far left, followed by the Bedroom, the Bathroom is sectioned off by the new-construction walls... the walls are darkened in the drawing... with the rest of the apartment an open space main room of a Kitchen... upper right corner of the large room... Dining & Living Room. The Front Door is on the right in the large main room. The pergola will be outside the future Bathroom's right-hand wall.

The paint color I like... and it will call for a trial panel, or two, before yelling, This is it!... is a medium blue with just a tiny touch of green paint example... 58B-50. I think it goes rather well with the flooring finish. However, I can just hear someone say... Ohhh! Eeets tooo darrrkk!!! Gads.

Plans & Color

Open space...

Open space... yes, the Italians love to say "open space" because they can say it without mangling the English into another dimension of incomprehension. If they were to use our standard word "loft" it would come out as... lauwffffttt! So, here is our open space referred to as the Upstairs Apartment which, will be fitted-out next...

The Front Door to the apartment is on the left. From that ceiling cross-beam nearest that far window... it overlooks the Cortile below... will be a wall to enclose a bathroom. A sleeping lauwffffttt will be above it & reach-out to the cross-beam nearest the Front Door. The niche in the corner on the left will be where an old stone sink will be mounted. The toilette & bidet will be on the wall between the sink and the window. The shower... for lack of space... will be placed in front of the window. Poor window. A sliding door will close off & give some privacy between the bathroom and the bedroom, whose doorway is out of sight in this photo. On the right-hand & opposite the Front Door will be a fireplace with large metal tubes to furnish warm air throughout the apartment. 

Now, the Front Door... barely visible... is on the right in this photo. The new Kitchen will be housed as a built-in bank on the right & close to the niche on the right of that window. It overlooks The Garden. There's an old stone sink in that niche which will go to the Bathroom. The fireplace will be on the left-hand wall right about where there is a little indentation in the wall. The rest of this open space will be unobstructed up to the new ceiling... these photos were taken before the new roof was put on... and used as Kitchen, Dining & Living Rooms. Those far cross-beams will be removed & used for a pergola outside the Front Door covering a lovely area for long summer lunches under the shade.

This is a shot of the Bedroom and the doorway out to the terrace. Its ceiling will be visible, just like in the open space of the living area. There is another window overlooking the Cortile below and the olive strewn hills in the distance. All the walls will be freshly stucco-ed & painted a medium blue. And, imagine hardwood planking flooring through-out the apartment.

The work is to start in January after Epiphany on the 6th. I have to sign another contract. However, before I scribble my "John Hancock", I want resolved The Big Question of how soon the builder thinks he can finish the work what with all the humidity from the rains of late & predicted to last for some time into Spring. Gads.

The difference a year can make...

Here is the state of Il Poggiolo one year ago. Besides all that crap strewn about The Garden... and, I must say, after days of rain before this shot was taken, The Mess does look less menacing. It has all gone to mud... please note the Key Item... No! Not the orange ruspa... or, bulldozer... but, the old roofs right about to collapse, so sodden are they!!! Inside a couple of the larger rooms of La Casa Grande... the lower roof behind the orange ruspa... there was more than a foot of water. No kidding. An indoor swimming pool.

And now, nearly upon this year's New Year's Eve, here is Il Poggiolo a year later. Again, this shot was taken after a long spell of heavy rains. In fact, the locals all tell me they have never seen so much acqua... or, water... in all their lives. Some of them are over 90 years old!!! There was a lull long enough for me to traipse out with my knee-high Wellies to take pictures. Soon afterwards, the wall of water returned. Thank God, Marcello... The Ruspa Jockey Par Excellence... and his mighty work of rebuilding the garden still holds against the watery onslaught.

What's up? Well, I have PAID everyone off, so to speak. The second contract of rebuilding the roofs & consolidating the structures of La Casa Grande & l'Esseccatoio... or, drying shed... is finished. We are in discussion with our builder & geometra about how to properly fit-out the Upstairs Apartment. It is the part of the house in the left of the photo... we love the large window above the new-built reinforced concrete & stone wall of the ramp down to the grassy Spianata... or, "scenic" overlook... on the right in the photo. This apartment was the living quarters of the family who had rented Il Poggiolo for more than four generations. The last generation abandoned the Upstairs Apartment and its lack of conveniences... like an inside toilette!!!... for the modern renovations of La Casetta back in the 70's. Then, there is the ongoing adventure of The Garden. But that is not until February... or, whenever The Rains stop. Gads.

Starting to look like a House AND Garden...

The Garden raked, seeded & watered...

Codiponte Beach...

Every summer, someone with a bulldozer comes along and bulldozers a dam to create a kind of swimming pool in the Aullela River.