Trulli badly deeply ..

It has been nearly a year since I last posted - and 10 months since we returned by road to London, the hired white van emptied of treasures foraged in myriad markets to furnish our trullo.

This morning, here in Lamie di Olimpia, the sun has just risen behind the valley to the east, a breeze flecks the crests of the olive trees, stirring  leaves which shimmer both silver and gold in the light of the dawn. Sunshine breaches the trullo shutters throwing orange strips onto the floor and walls: a rooster crows, a wasp's buzz.

As I look around at the beauty that first brought us here, to this hillside high above the Selva di Fasano - one of the few, large remaining remnants of woodland here in the Upper Salento - I have no doubts at all about why we embarked on this crazy project we nicknamed our 'pile of stones'.
But when I look backward, over the last year, I have to work hard to remember and muster those sentiments, draw them to and around me like a safety blanket in childhood.

We were a month from finishing the project: four cones restored, one a tiny bedroom, another a little ante room in which we found a tiny hearth, made a writing niche and built a shower and loo in its belly. The bigger trullo was returned its cone, door and archway, the fourth cone now home to books and a small divan bed. A little corridor was created in its side and a lamia - a traditional square room with vaulted ceiling was built fashioning another bedroom, small bathroom and galley kitchen.

Most of our crumbling drystone walls were restored, a pool dug and space for a pergola created.
We went home elated, the build on budget and so happy that several friends had already booked holidays in our trullo in the Spring and Summer of 2019 - the reality of an additional income stream for two freelance writers suddenly on the horizon. I returned triumphant for a few days in mid September to show my mother our pride and joy and when I locked the door behind us, imagined we'd be back in October to cast an eye over the finished project.

A year on - and to cut a long and painful sleuthing story short - we now know that our surveyor,  appointed not by us but by the former owner who had commissioned the original architectural plans - turned out to be a charlatan, a con man with no more credentials to navigate his way through the notoriously complex Italian planning regulations than I did.  For months, I believed his assurances, his lies, his kindly 'don't worries it is all in hand'. For a time I even felt we had a type of friendship forged from a shared love of the simplicity of the local architectural vernacular.

This man, let's call him 'A' (for arsehole) was supposed to be in charge of the legalities of the worksite and was to lodge the paperwork, with the municipality, in stages: first the restoration, then the new build, then the pool and cisterns. He took his money, thousands over the months that we built the place to do this important work - and pretended to have done it. But he didn't do it. Our builder, Mimmo Colucci, who has been - and still is - a rock in the storm, first alerted us to this man's avoidance tactics and blagging but hesitated in making outright accusations.

When circumstances became clearly extenuating and no documentation and paperwork was forthcoming, we appointed a specialist, London-based, Italian lawyer who embarked on her own local investigations. The news couldn't really have been worse: the project had indeed been approved but the build itself was illegal.

In December, without the correct permissions to build, the Italian energy company that supplied the worksite with power turned it off. No alarm, no dehumidifiers, no light, no irrigation for the plants we had lovingly put in. Worse still, no way of staying in the place to maintain it while we worked to find solutions.

Ten months on (there is no need to describe the angst and sleepless night) and the worst is over - even if our pockets don't feel quite that way.
The good news is that our lawyer has forged a path through the legal quagmire and has helped us to take advantage of a system of amnesty -  what the Italians call 'sanatoria' - which has meant appointing a new surveyor who effectively declares what unfolded to the authorities and draws up and re-lodges the work permits based on the original, approved designs.

Thankfully too, because we followed the architectural project to the letter (with honest and loving attention to detail of materials, the way the building sits in the landscape, an extension which is both humble and unimposing) we have been told assured that permission to build will be granted in retrospect. And even though the queues and wait times are long and the amnesty requires us to pay some fines, at least in the meantime, we have legal right to finish up and can use the place at last. (Once this process is over, another story will need to be told...)

When we pulled up in the driveway last week, some 2,500km under our belt and our first visit since the disaster, we came to a place that had not been opened or aired for nearly a year - except for the security guy, Saverio, who rather wonderfully, made us a contraption with solar panel to ensure our alarm kept working and occasionally, out of kindness, sent the odd photo just to reassure us it was still standing.

The land all around was waist high in weeds, colonised by enormous, tough triffid-like things that needed a pick-axe along with a sea of sad, dried grass. We worked ten hour days for a week to air the old stone buildings and clear the mould that had crept over everything, from the bed bases to my much loved wooden bits and pieces. The weed pile is still growing and is currently as big as an American car. Robert now wields a pick axe and hoe like a pro....

Today however, sitting here at dawn with the dog beside me and Roberto still fast asleep, things look a little brighter. The surveyor and two young engineers visited last night for a final site visit and assured us that our project will be granted the correct paperwork even if wait times can be long.
Balls of steel part II - and a hefty dose of patience - will be needed but all should be well.

I'm so aware that this has been a difficult year for so many: we lost two friends way too young while others we know and love are facing down ill health with guts and sunny fortitude. It seemed pathetic to be whining about a holiday house, about misfortune that really is just material.

So, in a nutshell, that is the story of the past year or so and today, as Boris Johnson takes the keys to Number 10, people continue to starve and die violently, Trump wages war on women and children etc etc and geopolitically, the world seems a pretty crap place, we have re-claimed our little oasis.

Friends, we'd love you to come and road-test the place - it ain't finished quite yet but if you can handle beauty with a level of spartan comfort - and one of the best locations in the famous Valle d"Itria - we can offer mates rates at Trullo Mare e Stelle (for now) cos heavens knows, we need any additional moolah we can get!


Oh, here is last night's sunset. How could you resist?

And here is a vase full of caper runners, tiles from my grandparents Naples house and a bunch of kitchen tools that not only look wonderful (I adore them) but which have now been used to make several fab pastas! (yes Im trying to tempt you all....)