All change

27th October 2024

If the post-holiday week provided slim pickings, then the post-post-holiday week has left us scratching around in the dirt, so, as I think I might have said before, don’t take your coat off, you won’t be stopping long.

Of the two things hanging over from last week, one moved on and the other not so much. That one, unsurprisingly, was the problem of the remote control. Stephen found when he checked their website on Monday morning, that, most unreasonably, at €10 IKEA didn’t consider it a high enough value item to warrant home delivery, leaving us with a couple of quandaries to ponder.

The first thing, the one in stasis, was regarding the fitting of the light (see last week). We decided that we might as well contact the electrician about putting it up because, despite saying he would be “back next week” to fix the light switch that he forgot the bits and pieces for on his previous visit, there has been no sign of him. If we contact him now, we could have a chance of him reappearing before Christmas. By that time we might, just might, have a remote as Stephen is due sometime in the near future to visit a factory up that way, and if/when that happens, he can make a slight detour to the store and wander its aisles.

The second thing, being the house, moved forward also on Monday morning when Stephen, not having heard anything from her at the end of last week, phoned Irene. An appointment was made to see her and her father at 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning, and we duly parked up outside their office, on the road to Rapagnano at the other side of MSP, shortly before that time.  It was all very jolly though there was not anything particularly new other than Irene saying that her visit to the Comune turned up no information about the house, because they don’t have any records in their archives. I’ll just let that one sit with you.

As for the other things, Irene said she had the names of some other geologists to contact following the sad passing of the previous one, and we said to go ahead with that. As for the interim work on the house, we confirmed that we were still happy for that to go ahead, though a more precise estimate would be welcome. As to when Loris will be free to start is a moot point, especially as we saw him in the centre the previous morning seeming to be involved in some serious work involving a very large crane and the fencing off of part of the square. Irene’s dad said that it wasn’t actually that serious of a job, the wall needing attention was just difficult to get to down the narrow side streets.

Interestingly, following Stephen’s charm offensive in the morning we didn’t have long to wait to get feedback on the geologist front as Irene messaged in the afternoon to give Stephen a name, Fabrizio, and it was arranged that that he would come to have a look at the house next Monday, 28th, at 11.30.

With the sun making a reappearance yesterday after a pretty uninspiring week, and with the clocks going back (and Harry did very well this morning, not getting restless till 6.15, which for him would have been an hour later) it was time for the twice-yearly wardrobe changeover. That though may now be a thing of the past.

Stephen brought up the winter shirts and the jumpers yesterday with some other bits and pieces today and I spent a happy hour or two before and after lunch going through everything, rearranging things and dispensing of other things that have seen better days. The very good news is that with all the extra space, we have, as we’d hoped, been able to accommodate everything, both summer and winter, in the new wardrobes. Next time, instead of lugging big plastic boxes from and to the lumber room downstairs, we can just do a spot of reconfiguring.

While the things I decided I could live without was somewhat modest, Stephen has carried out a serious cull of clothing that didn’t even make it upstairs for consideration. There are now several black plastic bags (15, he says) bulging with our cast offs waiting to be taken to the clothes blank up the road, though it will require more than one trip. We just need to remember that clearing out old clothes is to rationalise the space, not so you can fill it again.