Hurray! We've got water in our walls!

To normal people, this would be a disastrous discovery. But to us, it is like a gift from heaven!

We've had quite a bit of rain during the 2 previous weekends. Probably, the water in the foundation of our house has already accumulated for months. But a week ago, it became apparent in all of the walls of our central corridor. At first we were afraid that our floor heating system would have a leak. But the pressure in the tubes hasn't gone down, even after we had closed off the circuit for days. So it has to come from outside. Probably from the drainage tube behind our house. Christine recalled that the men who constructed the wall behind the house had found this tube when they dug a trench for the foundation. And they had warned her that it had been put there in a way that violated all the rules of a decent drainage. The guys have tried to mend it for as much as they could. But obviously not enough.

So, why is this good news, you might ask? It's Danilo's first big mistake! He, who never bothered to show up at the construction site but nevertheless charged us €11.000,- just for being "director of works". He, and his buddy Nezio who did the actual work, will now have to answer for this major cock-up. We're very well aware that in the end we'll probably have to make a compromise with him regarding the lawsuit and the amount we still ought to pay him. After all, the works on our house have been completed, even if he is a big con who's brought us in so much trouble. But with this, we'll see how fast he'll be willing to settle...

Realistically, Danilo is far too arrogant and will probably not want to abandon the courtcase or settle for a reasonable amount. But now we're sure that he'll be digging his own grave in that case. Our new (and very good) sollicitor was very clear about that! She's going to send Danilo and Nezio a very juicy registered letter about the damage to our house. We can't wait for their reply!

Picture of the day

After rain comes sunshine. Proverbially and literally. The last couple of days were filled with rain and low clouds. But this evening the sky cleared up and revealed a magnificent landscape, with snow covering the hills in front of us. Autumn is such a beautiful season, isn't it?

Floating between hope and despair

It's truly amazing how my emotions can change from one minute to the other. From total exhilaration after the news about the mortgage to utter depression when the thought of the courtcase the Big Bad Wolf started against us took over again. Why can't I just be happy that our financial worries may be over and live one day to the next? Why must brain constantly process worst-case scenarios? It deprives me of a good night's sleep and keeps me on the brink of anxiety all day long. And for what? I was doing exactly the same thing when I was worrying about the loan and that turned out allright, didn't it? It just seems stronger than me and there's absolutely noone or nothing that can cheer me up. Hopefully our sollicitor can do so next Thursday, when we're having another appointment. She's very good at what she does and she gave us renewed hope that our arguments aren't as void as the "famous" sollicitor we previously consulted tried to make us believe. All of a sudden. It's quite unnerving that now also our new geometer seems to be making a 180° turn. Christine could barely convince him to join us for the appointment. The Big Bad Wolf is a very powerful man in this area and probably has a lot of influence everywhere. It feels like David against Goliath.

But in the end, David won, didn't he?

There is a light

I want to be very careful with this. But Christine called the bank this morning and... they said that our mortgage will be approved!!! We just can't believe it! It's the most wonderful news we've heard in a very long time, perhaps apart from my book. At last we will be able to start enjoying our Italian dream!!! :-D

But like I said, we're not jumping about in total euphoria yet. It was just a spoken promise and we still haven't seen anything on paper. But we have absolutely no reason to believe that the lady from the bank would be leading us on. She's always seemed very honest and never made us any false promises. Unlike most of the other bank managers we've encountered. She said that they'll still have to look into the precice details, such as the timeframe (20 or 25 years) and whether it will be an additional mortgage on top of the one we already received in June, or if the old one will be closed and we'll receive a new one for the total amount we've originally requested. And they're also going to send an expert to ouor house to value it. Well, he'll be more than welcome. Our house is worth at least three times than what we're asking for. So no worries there. The only problem we're still facing is having to tell all of the workers that they'll have to wait another month or so before they'll see their money. We're feeling very much ashamed about this because they've done such a wonderful job and under normal circumstances we would have paid them right away. Then again, at least they'll see their money in the end. And in these days of crisis this already means a lot, don't you agree?

Tomorrow's the day

Tomorrow we'll know whether our request for a mortgage will be accepted or not. It's our final chance. Not really according to Christine though. She says that if we receive a "no" tomorrow, that she'll mail all of the people we still owe money to to explain the situation and to ask for a bit more patience. Where she gets the courage is beyond me. Last Friday she drove 400km to see the most renowned Italian professor specialising in the chronic fatigue syndrome. He told her that (at first sight) she only seemed a mild case. Well, what does he know? Christine collapsed yesterday when she was merely painting a cupboard. She had been feeling a strong dizziness for some days now. Today she couldn't leave her chair and she looked as pale as a sheet. But like I said, even in this condition she still finds the courage to continue fighting a seemingly hopeless fight. If tomorrow the answer is "no", I don't know what to do anymore. This morning the guy who laid the floor tiles came to visit us, asking why we hadn't paid him yet. I explained that we were still waiting for the reply from the bank. My answer was true, but must have sounded like a pretty lame excuse. He reminded me about all the favours he's done to us and that he had even sacrificed two days of his vacation because of us. I felt so terribly guilty. I wanted to explain all that had happened to us; about the Big Bad Wolf and all the rest. But that's not his problem, is it? He's got a family to feed too. And debts to pay. And he's not the only person we still owe money to. We're really wondering what we've got ourselves into. It's such a mess and so far away from the dream we were pursuing. Is it our fault? Certainly not. With the right people we would have made our dream come true. It's all "ifs"...

And that's not all. Yesterday I noticed that a couple of our (new) internal walls were moist at the bottom. First we were afraid that our floor heating was leaking, but we soon found out that it's not losing any pressure. The moisture comes from the outside, from behind our house.

And to round it off, this morning one of our bathroom windows exploded. Well, it didn't blast out of its frame. But it did make a big bang and now it has a crack from top to bottom on the inside. Probably a construction error...

Well, we're not too worried about these last two things. In fact, we're not too unhappy about our internal walls sucking up moisture. It proves (like was already pointed out to us by another worker) that the Nasty Little Man has made a mess of the necessary drainage pipes behind the house. And who's the person bearing all of the responsibility, you might think? Yes! It's the Big Bad Wolf himself! So if any sollicitor is still asking (with a smirk on his face) whether we're pleased with the house, we'll tell him: "definitely not"! Apart from abusing our trust, throwing the geometers' ethical code out of the window, ignoring nearly every building law in existence and forging Christine's signature, we now also have a big structural error to hold against him. And Christine just found the perfect sollicitor for it. A woman and... a real pitbull. Christine can't wait until January.

Personally I just hope that we'll survive tomorrow...

Thomas, the mountaineer

Cats have an adveturous nature. Sometimes a bit too adventurous. So Christine and I always call all of our cats inside in the evening so we can rest assured that they won't get into trouble in the middle of the night. Especially Flora and Thomas, our little ones. They're still too unexperienced to be left outdoors the entire night. Even if they wouldn't really mind themselves; on the contrary...

So a couple of nights back, I went outside to call our cats when it was time to go to bed. Flora, Canelle and Blu quickly responded to my call and happily entered our house in search of a late supper. Thomas, however, was nowhere to be found. I called and I called... and suddenly, I heard a faint "meow" coming from the northerly border of our field. I called again and once more I heard Thomas replying. His "meow" sounded a bit afraid. Oh no, what's he been up to this time? I took a torch and went into our field. It was utterly dark. But the "meow" got louder. Yes, it definitely came from the edge of our field, by those oak trees on the border. There's a well over there so maybe he went for a late-night swim? It wouldn't be the first time he came back in a wet suit. But what made me anxious was that he didn't seem to come any closer himself. As if he were trapped somewhere. Slowly I came nearer to the trees and his cries definitely came from over there. Cats... trees... I understood that he had climbed in one of them and didn't want to come down anymore. Thomas is a very good climber and I had already seen him go up and down trees before. His "meow" also sounded very close by so he couldn't be all that high. Or could he? I pointed my torch upwards, hoping to find the reflection in his eyes soon. He had to be right above my head somewhere. So why couldn't I see him?

And then... finally, I saw the reflection. My mouth fell open wide. As I said, I've seen him climb a tree before. A couple of metres and back. But what I saw then filled me with horror. He was somewhere near the top of that tree! Christine had also arrived in the mean time and while she kept calling Thomas, hoping that he would still come down on his own, I went back to the house to get our ladder. Although I wasn't very optimistic. Our ladder consists of three parts and reaches about 5,5-6m high. My impression was that Thomas had climbed a whole lot higher than that.

It wasn't all that easy to install the ladder against the tree with all of those branches in the way. But I managed to put it more or less stable against the main trunk. And up I went. Higher and higher in the direction of the twinkling eyes and the desperate cries. Obviously the ladder wasn't big enough. Trembling of fear, I climbed so high that my feet were standing on the penultimate spoke and my left arm was holding the trunk very tightly. Fortunately there wasn't a lot of wind because the slightest breeze made the trunk swing. Way too much to my liking. But there I was. And Thomas... was still about 2m above my head. I kept calling him and eventually he carefully tried to come down. He extended his paws towards me. He twisted and turned his body around the branch he was sitting on. Finally he managed to turn himself in such a way that he could climb down with his bottom first. Until he arrived at the branches right above me, but still too far away for me to be able to grab him. And when he saw my arms reaching out at him, he fled further and further away from me again, onto those branches which were not very thick at all. Nothing seemed to work anymore and I climbed down in despair, hoping that Thomas would follow my example.

Fortunately there was still Christine. She had gone back to the house to get some tuna. Thomas is a very good eater - to say the least - and a bit of tuna would certainly attract his attention. So I went back up, with some tuna in my hand. And indeed, it didn't take long to get his interest. I put the tuna on a fork right above me on a place where I hoped to be able to grab him. And after some hesitation, Thomas moved back towards the safety of the trunk. Finally I managed to grab him, albeit only just and not without danger of falling myself. Thomas clenched the branches with every claw he had so I had to use considerable force to drag him off and hold him close to my chest. But at last I had him. I climbed down again very carefully and under protest from Thomas who tried to grab every branch within his reach. But eventually, after having tried for about an hour, we were both back on the ground, safe and sound.

In the house, Thomas received a very nice treat under the form of a big plate of tuna. And afterwards he came to thank me with a lot of purrs and friendly gestures. We hope that he's learnt his lesson because when I went back the following day to look at that tree, to see where exactly Thomas and I had been... no... please... not again... :-)

The return of Dopey Dwarf

At last!!! Our central heating system has arrived!!! After a 3-month wait, Dopey Dwarf finally knocked on our door with our new boiler and state of the art gas heater. He's done everything in his power to stall delivery as much as possible. Probably hoping that in the mean time we'd be freezing cold in our house.

- "Oh, you want that boiler?"

or

- "Sorry, but I'll be away on holiday then."

or

- "I've just called the factory, but they can't deliver until October." (this he said in September, meaning that he failed to order it in July)

Tough luck for him, but we're already feeling the benefits of the materials we've chosen for the restoration right now, such as a sub-floor in terracotta. Even at night the house still seems to keep a pleasant temperature. These materials were much more expensive than ordinary plaster or concrete. But we're already certain that we'll win this investment back in no time.

But then Dopey suddenly said:

- "But... you are living here?"

As if he didn't know that. Or perhaps it was his twin brother who installed the temporary gas heater about a month ago.

- "Yes, of course. Why do you ask?"

- "You realise that you'll be without hot water for at least three days, don't you?"

I was shocked by this announcement but didn't twitch the smallest of my facial muscles. I didn't want to give him the satisfaction. I replied:

- "Well, that's allright. We're already used to camping here anyway."

And I left him to it. His assistant later assured me that we'd have hot water again by Friday afternoon. Certainly before the weekend. So that's ok by us. If Dopey believes that he can lower our spirit with such childish trivialities, he's sadly mistaking. We'll see who'll be the last to laugh. When he'll have to wait a couple of months for his money, or something.

- "Oh, you want that money?"

or

- "Sorry, but we were away on holiday so didn't make it to the bank."

or

- "We've just called our Belgian bank in order to transfer the funds to Italy. But they won't be able to do it until next year." :-)

Heartache

Hello!!! Welcome to my new blog! :-) For those of you who're still visiting me on my personal website (whyamime.com), I'd like to advise you to visit me on

http://understandautism.blogspot.com/

because whyamime.com will be closed soon.

Anyway... I know that I have been neglecting my blog a bit over the past weeks. The reason is that things aren't going all that well. Even though we're now living in our own house and we're slowly constructing our new lives here. It feels as if the sword of Damocles his hanging right above our heads and that the last little threads that are still holding it are breaking off. The tension is rising. Debts are growing. Lawsuits are becoming bigger uncertainties. And both of us are feeling tired. Very tired indeed. Last week I started wondering whether it would not be better to just sell everything and try to find a smaller and less expensive house. I just can't cope with this financial pressure anymore. And all that because of one man: Danilo. Yes, I know, I also lost a great deal of money by taking too many risks on the stock market. But if Danilo hadn't put us in this dire position in the first place, I would never have tried to find alternative ways to make a lot of money in a very short timeframe. When we were going through our documents in order to prepare the courtcase, we were shocked to find that the price we eventually had to pay for just the structural works was 67% (!) higher than Danilo's original estimate. The estimate which seemed pretty complete at the time and through which he lured us into this adventure because otherwise we would have looked for another house. Probably one with less work to be done and hence less money for him to be made. The things he "forgot" to mention... The wrong estimates he made... It's just incredible. And then they say: "But technically speaking everything's fine with your house, isn't it?" Yes. Technically speaking our house hasn't collapsed yet. And we won't know whether it is technically ok until it collapses. But what about "a person of trust"? "Transparency"? "Honesty"? These are all words which can be found throughout the official Code of Conduct for geometers. Don't they mean anything then?

So back to last week. Christine and I had a frank conversation about giving up and selling everything again. Some time ago I wrote about having reached the point where some of the people who share the same dream would give up and where we were still full of courage to continue. At that time I thought things couldn't get much worse. But they can. And now we are on the brink of giving up. Christine had to shed a few tears, mostly because of everything she has left behind. Her garden for starters. Although I'm sure that she exaggerates the good bits. Yes, our old house was lovely and the garden was just about to grow into its full splendour. But there were also a lot of bad times. And we've never really felt "at home" there. When things get bad, you tend to idealise the things you don't have anymore.

But the last couple of days, Christine changed. She said that suddenly she had received the firm conviction that things will get better from now on. Yes, she said that suddenly she was dead-certain of it and that she could feel it strongly within. And with her, also I started to get a grip on my feelings again. We're entitled to a bit of good news. Let's say that my book was already a start. Last week, our cooker finally arrived (be it with a small and nasty surprise, but nothing so serious that it would make us lose spirit). From now on, we should receive more good news. I'm so terribly convinced that we deserve it after all that we've been through, and especially Christine. If I don't deserve it, then at least she does. That our mortgage request is being accepted, for example. That would truly fill us with joy. Christine's worked her socks of at making a business plan for our B&B. Truly a great piece of work which must make the bank very impressed. We keep on fighting then. We must keep the faith...

Sorry... Moving to yet another website... :-o - 03 Oct 2010

Yes... my book is going to be published in May next year by one of the biggest and most renowned publishers in Flanders: www.houtekiet.com Unfortunately, this means that I will have to close down my website. The contract firmly states that I have to hand over all the rights to my work - something which is only logical. Rights which also include the English translation and the Italian version which two of my dear Italian friends are working on.

But for you, loyal readers of my blog, there's absolutely nothing to be worried about. From now on you can follow my adventures on the original site:

http://understandautism.blogspot.com/

I preferred to have everything on my personal website so that I could earn a bit of extra cash through the advertisments. But there it is. I hope to see you all on the other side. And the good thing is... Blogspot is in English so no more problems for English speakers if they want to leave a comment... :-)