Busy busy busy...

Oh... I'm so sorry that I neglected my blog for a while. The thing is that Christine and I are so busy for the time being. Much of this has to do with the strict deadline that Christine set for the opening of her B&B. She wants to be completely ready by April and there are still so many things to be done. Moreover, we'll receive her sister's family for a break early March, so already by then most of the work should already be finished. It's going to be tight!

To make things even more hectic, Christine and I've started to grow our own ideas about what "being ready" implies. When we were having such fine weather last week, I felt I had to start building my own observatory. Yes, you read it correctly. With all of the original floortiles of our house, which have been laying about in our field for more than a year now, I've started making a foundation of 4 by 7 metres. This should be big enough for a shed in which to store my precious telescope, king-size binoculars and other astronomy stuff, plus allow for a sizeable terrace, or rather, observatory platform. But more about that later.

Christine on the other hand, thought it would be absolutely necessary to make a special box in which our hens would be able to lay their eggs in comfort. I already finished the henhouse in September (see picture below) but according to Christine chickens prefer a more "confined" space to brood...

So she made a covered box out of scrap wood. Yes, Christine admitted that it does look a bit "antique" as she put it, but the hens definitely seemed to love it, as you can see...

In fact, from thereon they always lay their little eggs in the box! :-)

Christine was also preoccupied with our kitchen. For the moment we only had the "structure" of the cupboards made because we don't have any money for proper doors. Christine thought that as a temporary solution she could make a couple of curtains instead. But now that she's finished them, we are inclined to make that "temporary" solution a lot more permanent. What do you think?...

Please don't mind the drawer on the left because I still have to finish a front for that...

Now as I was saying, the weather last week was pretty much like an early summer. But two days later we had... HALF A METRE of snow!!! It's just amazing! In two days time from over 20° (in the sun) to 0°! Which meant that I had to abandon my observatory project temporarily. Which also led Christine to remind me of something much more "important" (what does she know... :-) ) I still had to do: making the website of her B&B. I already showed you a couple of trials I had made some time ago, none of them really satisfactory. So I started over from scratch and this time Christine is extremely pleased with my work. She absolutely wanted a flying bird on it, so she got a flying bird - which I didn't copy from the web but honestly created myself. The attached AVI file is giving you a glimpse of the title page, without the buttons or pictures. Its quality isn't near as good as the original Flash file (which "Blogger" refused to accept) but I hope you like it.

Who says we'll be cold???

"You'll always be cold in that house! You just wait and see! You'll never be able to heat it up properly!", a certain idiot once told us. Not coincidentally the same idiot who was responsible back then for making the house habitable and who had assured us at the time of purchase that we had found "a rare jewel" which would become a real "dreamhome".

So when winter came, we were anxiously waiting for the cold to kick in, carefully wrapped up under a pile of blankets. But one after the other we had to throw these blankets away because it felt we were living in a sauna, rather than an igloo. The materials we used during the restoration obviously had something to do with that, as did the state-of-the-art floor heating system. But since this week, we won't have to burn any expensive propane anymore either. Yes... Dopey Dwarf returned! Since he received his money last month, he's one and all flattering and kindness! How's that for a change?

After two days' work, our brand new wood stove is connected to the central heating and hot water system, which means that we are now virtually independent! With the enormous supply of wood that we've collected from our grounds, we are good for at least a couple of years to come. The chimney still has to be finished with plasterboard, but what do you think of our stove? :-)

What do you think we did this morning???

We've had... (NO, YOU PERVERTS, NOT THAT! :-D )... breakfast outdoors! This morning when we stuck our sleepy heads outside, we thought that we were still dreaming because it felt like early summer. Yes, you read it correctly, summer and not spring. So we had our first breakfast on our terrace of 2011! With locally made ham, and delicious honey and marmelade from one of our friends.

What do you think of that? I even had to take off my sweater because it was too warm! Christine immediately took her mobile and rang Cosetta, asking her the same question about what we were doing. When she heard, she almost went ape! She's spending the winters in the valley, just like most Italians, and only comes up here in the mountains when she opens her B&B in April. But down there it is cold and there's an unpleasant, thick fog! Unbelievable, isn't it? Well, she was very happy for us anyway.

Also Christine couldn't resist making a photographic composition...

The meeting with our sollicitor

Since things are going so well with us lately, one would almost forget that we're still involved in two courtcases. Last week we met with our (very good!) sollicitor in order to find out how things are going on the legal front.

As far as the case is concerned that the seller of our little Flora started against us, a first hearing was held last month at the court near the vendor's residence. The judge heard the two sides of the story and scheduled a second hearing, where we should be present as well, on the 31st of January. In the mean time we've received the response from the vendor's sollicitor to our defence. It's in one word: shameful. Our sollicitor said that this guy really doesn't show any respect and that is obvious when you read his letter. He says i.a. that I "only wanted to make a good impression on my wife, if that is really what she is, giving her a kitten without having to pay a single € for it" and "if the kitten truly was not the one I wanted and if it really was in such a bad way, why did we keep it?" I'm not sure about you but this is so respectless. Well, I suppose that's just what certain sollicitors do. I won't lose a night's sleep over it.

But now comes the good part. The vendor made the big mistake of not removing my e-mail address from her contacts. That's why I received a rather stunning e-mail from her, addressed to all of her clients, the day after this hearing. It said that the website will be closed with immediate effect and that she had opened a new one, under a different name, where the esteemed clients would receive an even better service and blablabla. I checked and it's true. The day after the hearing the website shut down, without even leaving a link to the new one (where she also upped the prices BTW)! If that isn't a sign that she's getting the impression that things are going pear-shaped for her... :-D Oh... I'm not going to mention the new website here. It's not worthy of your click.

And then there is the case the Big Bad Wolf started. The first hearing for this one was scheduled last Friday, also probably just to hear the two sides of the story and to determine a date for further proceedings. Two noteworthy items to mention, though:

1. The Big Bad Wolf is all of a sudden willing to settle. His sollicitor proposed LESS THAN HALF of what they originally claimed as settlement. Which we haven't accepted yet. We believe that we'll be able to settle for a whole lot less still.

2. The Big Bad Wolf, nor the Nasty Little Man have yet responded to our sollicitor's letter regarding the water in our walls. The NLM did send Christine a text message, asking about his money. To which Christine replied: "I will be able to tell you when you'll get your money when you tell me what you're going to do about this water problem". To which he replied: "The water is coming in through the gas tube (???) so deal with it yourself". Obviously both gentlemen are in a bit of trouble about what to put on paper regarding this water issue. Whathever they reply, they'll either incriminate themselves or demonstrate their total incompetence.

So that's it. And today I went for a nice evening walk in the vicinity of our house. The weather is exceptionally mild, whereas two days ago the temperatures were still around 0 and the roads were covered in ice. Today you could almost walk about in a T-shirt! The following picture and panorama were taken from a spot about 1km from our front door. Oh... I'm feeling so happy... :-)

The eclipse

This morning there was a solar ecplise! Unfortunately not a total one; for that treat you had to go to Poland, Hungary or the Ukraine. But nevertheless, here in northern Italy the sun would be eclipsed for about 75% so well-worth getting up early. Around 8:30 that is... ;-) I grabbed the camera and went out, immediately followed by Blu, Thomas and Flora. Whenever Christine or I go out, so do they because they just love playing outside and even more so when we're around. It was a pity that there were a lot of high clouds. But here and there some blue appeared so I was having high hopes to get at least a glance of the eclipse. In the mean time, when I was waiting in the freezing cold, I already took a picture of another interesting phenomenon. I'm not sure what kind of strange turbulences caused these bird-like clouds but they were truly fascinating! Pity the picture doesn't really show these clouds in 3D because they were absolutely stunning. Also note the vail of cloudiness covering the summit of Mount Cusna!

Just when my toes wanted to tell me that they were reaching critical temperature, the sunrays broke through the cloud cover and I managed to take this picture of the eclipse being more or less near its maximum. It's a bit hazy but clear enough.

And then quickly back inside for a mug of hot tea!

Bingo!

The day before yesterday, a local friend of ours invited us to the yearly Sologno bingo night. Sologno being the village, or better the metropole, where Danilo and his clan are in charge and where Christine and I stayed during our first months in Italy. Every Italian town worthy of this name has a so-called "pro loco", a committee which organises just about every social get together. Such as this bingo night. The Sologno pro loco people think, let's just say, a bit high of themselves because they're such good friends or even family with the Apenninian mob boss. But Christine thought it would be fun to go there nonetheless; even if it's just to participate in the Italian social life and to be together with our many friends over here, who were also going to the event. I, on the other hand, was quite reluctant to go because I've never been good at social venues and certainly now I wouldn't be able to cope very well. It's all become a bit too much for me and the thought of all these many people cramped together in a reasonably small hall frightened me a lot. So I asked Christine if she wouldn't mind going there by herself. Of course I didn't want to force her to stay at home with me. She's a very sociable lady and I realise that she needs to get out from time to time. It's something that I wouldn't want to take away from her because having to live together with an autistic man must already be more than demanding enough.

- "Bring back the big prize!", I told her, just before she went.

- "You can rest assured of that", she replied with a big smile.

And off she went, into the lion's den.

A couple of hours later she returned home with an even bigger smile. I immediately sussed that she hadn't just been enjoying the evening out. Oh no! There was this twinkling sparkle in her eyes that told me that she hadn't come home empty-handed. Suddenly, she brought her right hand from behind her back and showed me this...

Can you actually believe that she had won one of the main prizes??? :-D The leading ladies of the pro loco apparently went green of frustration and jealousy! It can't be... Not that bloody Christine again!!! Hehehe... Can you also believe that Christine used to be a keen and, dare I say, very good tennis player when she was younger? Perhaps it's a hint that she should take it up again? ;-)

Once more this confirms that fortune has finally taken a turn for the better. Christine holds the strong belief that her late grandfather is watching over us closely. And who am I to disagree? After all the pain we've been through, the sun is finally shining. Today it actually shone so warmly through the veil of high clouds and Christine and I really enjoyed an afternoon walk... our first walk through our new home in 2011.

A very happy New Year to all of you!!!