"It is towards Girolamo Guerrisi that we should extend the finger of blame - or, indeed, the hand of congratulation - for inventing the fable that Marco Polo brought pasta to Italy from China." ("Delizia!" by John Dickie)

In this quote Dickie is referring to a short story printed in an American publication called "Macaroni Journal" of 15th October 1929.  The title of the story is "A Saga of Cathay" (written by the above Guerrisi) and its protagonist is none other than a fictional Venetian named Spaghetti.  I'm not altogether sure what relevance this has to my blog, other than I was reading the book whilst on holiday last week and was much amused.

We spent the week visiting the area around Recanati which is just south of Ancona.  It's a little inland from the much coveted holiday resort of The Conero Peninsula (National Park).  There are, undoubtedly, many wonderful things to see and do around here.  A tour of Leopardi's library in Recanati is a must.  Not so the watery cappuccino served in the Porto Recanati bars.

The folk of Recanati are justly proud of their town.  One elderly man stopped his car in the middle of a busy thoroughfare as we were walking along to ask (these obvious tourists!) where we were from, "Ooh, I love the English!"; to sing the praises of his town; and to give us directions, unwittingly,  to all the sights we'd just visited; all the while totally oblivious to the traffic snarling up behind him.

But there's none so proud as the policewoman (vigile urbano) in Filottrano;  super smart in her spotless white and blue starched hat and impenetrable Ray-Bans.  We stopped her in the street to ask directions to a small WWII museum we particularly wanted to visit in the town.  She was fairly sure it was closed on a Saturday morning, but was immediately on her service mobile to someone who might know more.  That 'phone was busy.  Undaunted, she marched us across town to the museum building.  It was closed, but the opening times on the door said it should have been open.  We would have given up, but not our new friend. She led us into the public library next door and demanded an explanation, to be told that the curator was away on holiday - "in America!" (with the key in his luggage?).  We thought we'd come to the end of the line and took leave of our new friend with effusive thank you's and goodbyes, as she went off to resume her civic duties.

We wandered back into the street.  Whereupon, stridently approaching us, was the very same uniformed lady. She'd had a brainwave and, as consolation for our disappointment, invited us back to her offices where she had maps and guides to the town.  Not wishing to disappoint her, in turn, we trooped again, single file through cobbled streets, into the marbled innards of the local police station with its enviable, antique cotto floors.  Here she unlocked cupboards and drawers, producing bounty-loads of tourist guides.  For this she had to take off her official police-woman's hat, but not, we noted, her "official" sunglasses. We now have many more reasons to return to Filottrano, other than the WWII museum.

Back "home" the rustico awaits the plumber ... (at least he's not in America as we see his van about town most days).   Paolo has taken on another hand to construct the low wall which will define the sloping pathway down to the front door.

Progress on the annexe is encouraging, it's almost ready for the roof to be put on, with its reclaimed (coppi) tiles.

Back to the plumber.  He promised to come last week;  then this week;  now he's promising to come next week.  From experience, I know that this trait in plumbers is not exclusively Italian.  Wherever it may have originated, it's gone global.

"But there's a full moon risin', Let's go dancing in the light, We know where the music's playin', Let's go out and feel the night." ("Harvest Moon" Neil Young)

Last week saw a full moon by night and much activity on our building site during the day.  A digger and bulldozer cleared swathes of land around the house and annexe.  In reality it's only a few acres. but, now bare, make thoughts of future landscaping and planting quite daunting.

A drive of sorts, has been gravelled.  It is on an incline rolling down the west-facing hillside.  Not a steep slope, but sufficient to instil some worries as we watched the conveyor lorry, job done, loaded with the huge 120 ton dozer, attempt to climb it; heaving its weight up to the road and failing on the first two attempts.  (We left after the second.  It wasn't there the next day.)

Whilst the house sits silently, still awaiting the plumber, the annexe is taking shape fast; the exterior walls already as high as the window sills.

During the day we too have been busying ourselves.  Finally we have bought a little terra cotta "fontanella" which will be placed on the wall adjacent to the front door.  So much more modest than our original designs on custom-made marble, but more in keeping with our humble rustic residence.   (And less than a third of the price.)

The carpenter making our windows and doors advised us to go to Fano (north along the Adriatic coast) to choose the "maniglie" (door and window handles and knobs).  Finding the shop was difficult.  It is a little, un-signposted shop, tucked away on a lost industrial estate on the less celebrated side of town.   Only known it seems, by "passa parola" - word of mouth.

Inside; a "tardis" of door and window fittings, from the ultra modern to convincing replicas of the antique.  The shopkeeper, indifferent to two strangers wandering in by chance (as if!) to his premises, until, that is, we mention the name of our carpenter, whereupon we are long lost family.  We come out with a precious, glossy brochure to browse through at our leisure, trusted to return it to the carpenter with our order, at our leisure.  Except there'll be no leisure here because, at this stage in the proceedings, every excuse for contact with the carpenter is called upon in order to spur him to complete his task.

The week ended with a visit to the  "Festa della Cipolla" (Onion Festival) in Castelleone di Suasa.   The very same one I mentioned at the beginning of the summer and which has been much anticipated.  Well here we are at what is, certainly weather-wise, the end of summer, and Castelleone is sizzling with the pungent smell  of frying onions.  There are three bands playing, mostly 70's rock and pop, and mostly ignored.  There are some tired stalls selling sundry wares and an ice-cream parlour is attracting some interest.  But, mostly, there are "osterias" (makeshift food- stalls), serving the multitude with multitudes of dishes - all of them containing onions. The onions being celebrated are small, red and sweet - typical of the region.

Every osteria is full, whilst hopeful, eager queues form to pre-pay for their meal.  The food is served tepid, on disposable plates with plastic cutlery and plastic cups for drinks, whether wine or water.  The plastic covered tables and bench seats are all placed, sardine style, in the narrow cobbled streets, under a clear, chill sky.      

There must be several thousand visitors all come to Castelleone to eat onions and... well, just to be here on this harvest night.

" 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; / All mimsy were the borogoves / And the mome raths outgabe." ("Jabberwocky" Lewis Carroll)

It is August.  In Italy August is holiday, but seriously.

The motorways and the beaches are crowded.  Every town, and then some, is having a Festa.  Music can be heard in the hills 'til the early hours.  It is hot.

Work on our main house has been suspended, though, to be fair, most of the building work has been completed and we await plumbers, electricians, bathroom and kitchen fitters and, one day, the decorators.

Earlier this month, Paolo and the crew turned their sights to the annexe building.  It should not be such a demanding undertaking as the main house.  The base has been laid with TWENTY EIGHT cubic metres of concrete.  That's a lot for a little building.  The depth was specified by our "seismic" engineer and the exact amount of concrete needed calculated by Paolo.  At the first sign of seismic activity the annexe is where you'll find me!

For now, we are in the depth of holiday season.  But, Ferragosto has come and gone.  Soon it will be September.  Life, as we have come to know it, will begin again...

Alex constructing the weld mesh foundations for the concrete base.  The igloos are in situ to reduce the amount of concrete required.  The base will lie on 15 5-metre re-enforced concrete posts drilled into the ground.

Paolo deep in thought in the site "office" calculating the amount of concrete mix to order.

Weldmesh sheets added over the base and levelling datum points set.  All the shuttering panels are in place and fingers crossed that they will not give way - a potential disaster!

Three huge concrete mixers were required to manoeuvre gingerly over unstable ground

Plenty of practised standing around watching Alex do all the work.

The finished base.  This is what 28 cubic metres of concrete looks like.  The weight is 750 quintals approx. of mix.

Shuttering removed

The view from what will one day be the Annexe portico.

"The defeat of the Spanish Armada changed the course of history. It induced a rush of patriotism in England ... it gave England the confidence and power to command the seas and build a global empire." ("Shakespeare" Bill Bryson)

Le Marche is enjoying the hottest June in over 200 years.  What is it with the weather this year?

Pete and I have been choosing bathroom fittings this week.  Three long, hot sessions of three hours each choosing loos and taps!  What is wrong with us!  Our saleslady, now friend and confidant, is patient and knowledgable.  She flicks through the glossy brochures with the hermetic zeal of an ancient archivist.  This is a family run business.   Her brother sits at a desk at the far end of the shop, seemingly busy, staring at his computer screen.  Every now and then she shouts across to ask further about some product.  Every now and then he shouts over, unprompted, with further information about yet another product.

There is no one else in the shop, though the telephone rings often and she breaks from us to have  a detailed discussion and archive ruffle for some other demanding customer.  At one point she takes a break to collect her two year old from nursery, at another to lead us through back-room labyrinths to look at some product that is actually in stock - this is rare.  Other frequent breaks to shoo away her ten year old who, with precious entrepreneurial skill is trying to sell us his own home made lemonade at 50 centesimi a plastic beakerful.

During one session another customer walks in, sits behind us.  After an hour or so Pete turns to her to apologise for keeping her waiting.  "No problem" she replies genially, "I've spent weeks choosing a tap for my kitchen sink and I'm no closer."  If she'd told us that last week we wouldn't have believed her.

By 7pm Friday evening we are satisfied (as far as one can be) that we've chosen almost everything to fit out two bathrooms, but we have been known to change our minds.  We make an appointment to come back next Tuesday.

Outside, entrepreneurial son has set up  a lemonade stall in the car park.  There isn't another soul about. I feel for the lad and stop to buy, "One lemonade please, but 50 cents is too much, I think".
"OK, 25..."
"A deal!"  I can't decide whether the boy's not such an shark after all, or whether I should have bargained harder.  The tepid water with a squeeze of lemon and a sachet of sugar with the local bar's logo on it tasted quite good really - I tell him so.  His smile is inscrutable.

I am writing this as Italy is playing England in the quarter finals of the World Cup.  When you read this you will know the result.  Pete has gone for a boys' night at Paolo's agriturismo to watch the game on a big-screen TV.  He'll be the sole Brit there.  I felt a bit like Sir Walter Raleigh (playing ... bowls was it?), when the approaching Armada was sighted.  Goodness me, look what happened when England won on that occasion, but that was Spain, wasn't it?

In the garden here, one lone flower on the prickly pear has bloomed.  It blooms for one day and then it dies.  But what a day!

"A child said, What is grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know any more than he." (from "Song of Myself" Walt Whitman)>

Summer has finally arrived in Le Marche.  The balers are making hay and creating fever pitched frustration amongst the drivers on the narrow roads.  Vineyards are being weeded, sprayed (for bugs?), and prayed over.  One way or another the countryside is a-buzz.

And then there are the odd, few fields where, it seems, time has stood still.  Here men drive their womenfolk in the early morning and leave them to their day's work, harvesting the crop.  The women wear long, flowered dresses, with dark scarves tied over their heads and as they work they chat to each other loudly and unceasingly.  The crop (for what it is I do not know) is gathered into little stacks around a wigwam-like,wooden frame.  When the frame has been covered with the dried grassy/hay-like crop, a little canvas "sail" or "hat" is tied on top and each corner fastened with string which is staked to the ground.  These little stacks have something medieval (almost primeval) about them.  Something one of the Breughels might have painted.  We have gleaned that the stacks are called "cavalli" (horses) because of those little hats tied on top like saddles (?).  The idea is, apparently, that from the stack, seeds, or perhaps beans? (or perhaps magic beans?) will fall - this is the harvest.  It looks as though this method of harvesting has not changed for centuries.  I don't really want to know what the crop is;  that would break the spell.

At sunset the "luciole" (fireflies) work their own magic as they ignite, flicker and frolic in their unchoreographed dance across the parched lawns.  The chemistry which makes them glow is the stuff of science - thank goodness no one's told them that.

Yesterday we went inland to Acqualagnia, the land of the "marmisti" (literally - marble-mason). We finally found an artisan who will make my little wall mounted fountain to my own design.  It's not an essential part of the house , we shouldn't really be bothering with it right now, given all the other things that have to be sourced and chosen, but right now this is my little bit of magic and mystery.


Today, at il Gelso there were two groundbreaking events. 


Firstly, the kitchen walls have been finished, the wooden beams have been fitted and this morning the "pianelle" (the ceiling tiles) are being put in place.  They are old tiles, I don't know from where they were sourced, but they are the last set of ceiling tiles to go in the house and they are the most beautiful; all shades of rust and ochre.  The kitchen is beginning to look like a habitable room at last. 


Secondly, this morning, Paolo became a grandfather!  A girl!  More magic and mystery.  He'll be in a good mood for a while; I must make some of the important, impending choices on the house before the euphoria wears off.  Suspect there's no rush though.

   

But humans had fought a long battle with nature. In London victory was almost complete. Acres of bricks and concrete and steel with only the tamest sprouts of green. In London a man could really feel he was master of all creation." ("Grace" Maggie Gee)

Our "house in the making" has been progressing apace.  The "ripostiglio" (utility room) has walls and a roof.  The walls of the kitchen are going up: new walls all around, including a double wall around the original building, necessary to hold up the roof and to establish the kitchen as a separate entity should the earth move.  This wall between the living room and kitchen will be over half a metre deep, almost a corridor!  On the side of the master bedroom there will be a "loggia": a little gallery or walkway.  The cement for its floor has been laid and already a cat, perhaps wild, or perhaps a fox, has left its prints.  Our neighbour had four of his sheep killed by a wolf the previous night.  Our paw prints may be those of a wolf, he suggests.  I think he was joking.

But the most impressive piece of construction, a tribute to Paolo's strategic planning, took place last Friday.  At present the annexe is a rectangular stretch of land with four little poles marking out the four corners of its area.  The main house is far from ready, but Paolo is thinking ahead.  The foundations of the annexe have to be prepared well in advance.  Early Friday morning a digger with a hydraulic boring screw arrives and begins to dig out the first of fifteen holes - each more than 5 metres deep.  Every strata of the clay soil comes out darker and heavier the deeper the bore goes.  The final layer is almost black.  It looks heavy, but it is deceptive, it is light and and slightly moist and crumbles as you clench your fist around it. (It has not the slightest smell petroleum.)

A host of rusty, tubular weld mesh wire cages have been lying around on the site, weeds have twined themselves around them.  I hadn't really noticed them, thinking them part of the flotsam of a building site.  Once the holes are drilled, Paolo and his helpers carefully lower the cages into them.  This manoeuvre requires strength and precision, it is feat of... heroic proportion (?)

As if by magic a cement lorry, its revolving drum turning like a barber shop sign, arrives as the last cage is in place.  The cement is carefully channeled into the holes..  The cement lorry, with the ability to turn on a penny (like a London taxi), positions itself precisely before pouring its load.  Not a drop spills.  That is, not until the job is done , when the driver tips out the remains of his load on a bare patch of ground nearby.  Paolo studies this dollop of cement incredulously, he hasn't yet worked out his strategy for disposing of it.  He's got a month 'til it hardens completely.  He's knows this, it is why he has filled the holes well in advance.  The buried cement pillars will form the foundations of the annexe.

There were two earthquakes in neighbouring regions of Italy over the weekend.  Major quakes - quite devastating in their effect.  Thinking of them brings home the fact, like nothing else so far, that I am truly in a foreign land.

Drilling the 5 metre holes for the concrete posts

Carrying the wire rod for the concrete posts

Heroically raising the reinforcing rods

Filling the post holes with concrete

"Breathe out the sense of place, the sense of humour, and the sense of despair that fill the air...". (Donna Leon commenting on the work of Camillieri)

We are currently living on one side of a valley and our new house lies on the other.  The ridges on either side are divided by the river Cesano, which lazily flows into the Adriatic, about thirty kilometres  away.  Few bridges cross the Cesano along this end of its journey.  One such bridge has recently fallen down;  reportedly by a flash flood.  It was a historic bridge with what must have been beautiful stone arches.  Now it is a crumpled heap of masonry scattered across the seemingly benign waters of a mild Spring.

Being one of the few, this was an important bridge for transport across the valley.  On all the approach roads the Commune has now erected unmissable and unmistakable "No Through Road" signs ("Strada Interrotta") in wild orange and black.  For none is this more inconvenient than for the cement company whose quarry blots the landscape to the north of the river.  But theirs is the stuff that constructs and their multi-ton lorries need to get through, and they know that the Commune is not going to rebuild the bridge in a hurry - not in a year, not in a decade perhaps.

So, the cement company has built their own bridge.  It seems kinda logical, doesn't it.  It's a low bridge, a bit boring maybe, maybe prone to flooding, but it's functional and it must be sturdy enough to bear the weight of those lorries, for now.

The Commune maintains its rigid signs - "No Through Road".  They know nothing of the new bridge ;-)

The local community knows better and traffic flows regularly and smoothly over this stretch of the Cesano.  An occasional car stops, hesitates, sees the next car plough happily through, starts up again and, lemming-like, wagons ahead.  Long may it last.

One wonders what will come first - the reconstruction of the centuries old bridge, or the collapse of the new under the weight of those cement lorries.  Then again one wonders why the cement company doesn't construct a new bridge in the likeness of the old.

As in a glass house, we travel south across the valley to view the latest developments on our new construction.  The wooden frames where the doors and windows will go have been put in place.  We are here to decide which walls the bed heads will rest against so that those walls can be straightened.  Our choice is limited to those which are already relatively straighter, i.e. the one in each room.

Our bed will face south, I don't know if that's good feng shui, but it leads to Rome and so perhaps feng shui is a bit irrelevant here.