We're almost there ....

 

Well, we've been back in London six weeks and with four of them in lockdown, Puglia and our wonderful,nearly two month summer soujourn seems a life time ago. Still, we were so very lucky to be able to travel in this remarkably strange year and count our blessings pretty much every day. In that vein, before the proper update, I am very excited to share a picture our friend Gianni snapped while playing with his new drone a couple of weekends ago. It's a building site still as you can see but how beautiful is it looking - and how close is the finish line! Mimmo the Magician builder is back - yes, it has been a roller coaster and an adventure - but we are so close!

The trullo has now been three years in the making - two of them mothballed thanks to our hideous adventures with the geometra known only as 'A-h***' although the good news on that front is that the local Guardia di Finanza, the financial police, finally got him as he had gone on to fleece several other people, including some locals and even one of his family members. His assets (not enough to seek damages) have been seized and he is persona non grata in a very, very small community. Thank goodness for small mercies.

The lovely flip side is that the horrendous saga of the crooked geometra and the near loss of our heart project (not to mention that it's our pension/superannuation fund!) is nearly over and the light at the end of the tunnel ain't an oncoming train any more.)

Touch wood. Facciamo le corna as we Neapolitans say. (If you've just joined me here, this post sums up the bad bits, but do please read the silver linings posts too as there are many!)

Anyway, as I sit in wintry locked down London, I wanted to share a couple more stories of the amazing people who have crossed our path as we battled on to finish the rebuild of the lovely Trullo Stella Mare this summer. 

My main man this time is Lorenzo, introduced to me by the delightful Enza - Gianni's partner - who has a magnificent trullo of her own nearby.

Lorenzo is a local stonamason and came to the trullo to give us a quote to pave the area around the trullo, space which has, for three years, been a stony, weed infested wasteland. It was not part of the builder's original contract to pave it and while it as an extra we had originally budgeted for, the last two years of geometra disasters, extra expenses etc etc meant we were dreading to face this bit head-on.

To cut a long story short though, this lovely man who began to work with stone learning at a relative's side aged 12, encouraged me to change course and use stone pavers rather than cut stone (vastly better value for money) adding raw stone edging and offered several ideas for building a lovely pergola with tufa and wood at much less cost than the bespoke metal one we'd originally envisaged and which ended up being well outside our budget. The best part is that he said he'd start staight away.

Pavers at the ready 

Over the weeks we were living there, Lorenzo would arrive early in the morning and over a morning coffee and cornetto (Italian croissant) he told me a little about his life: he had worked all over Italy as well as in St Petersburg, in Holland and in Germany. He became a specialist in working marble and granite using techniques to make them look as if they were cut from just one slab. He calls himself a piastrellista (a tiler) but his skills are extraordinary, his attention to detail that of an artisan. He's been working since he was a very young child and had broken his back and been bed ridden for two years before rehabilitating himself. Now, in his late 50s he still works hard and does what he loves but insists he "needs" to keep working because if he doesn't move his body, "it hurts". He lugged wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of sand and pavers alone singing as he went. He is a perfectionist, in the way that some people I know who are on the spectrum are, is focused and completely driven when on a roll. He talks at speed, with enthusiasm but not a pause, ever, and as the days rolled on, I got more and more fond of our early morning chats (if you could call it that, to be honest, they were monologues). Since then, he has worked harder and longer than our quote, I believe, covered. He has built a traditional pergola (he sent us off to choose the rough cut logs with strict instructions) creating the two pillars out of a mix of new and old tufa stones and has rebuilt the main trullo hearth - which was a mess of dripped cement. He has "embroidered" an edge of old stone along the new paving to provide something that draws the eye to unify and "talk to the trullo" and created a safety edge on the other side to stop aperitivo laden guests falling over onto the terraced area. He made little niches in our pergola pillars for candles (he knows I love candlight) and he has a friend, Marco, who visits with him to take a gazillion photos as he works because he doesn't like phones that do things other than make calls. 

New hearth

Steps rebuilt

I realised that Lorenzo loves that we want to preserve the agricultural, architectural vernacular of the trullo, exalt and bring back its humble origins and what he calls 'il rustico' - which he's often asked to modernise or hide - is our aeshtetic too. Not that we talk in those terms, rather I know that he feels that I 'get' it and in return, I trust him totally because he is a master of his trade and so, can just do what he thinks is best.

Niche for my pergola candles

Steps and edging

I feel as if I want to keep him there forever, chipping away and making this all more beautiful as time passes. 

Paving under way pergola up

The cement mess hearth

More pedestrian but equally important is that the new big concrete water cistern, dug into the ground near the roadway two years ago to augment our water supplies (it's all rainwater and trucked-in water up on our hillside) is now connected to the ancient original stone water cistern which we also restored. Thanks to Andrea who did all our infrastrcuture). The new paving will collect water - again Lorenzo's idea to uncover the original ancient "entry" stone - but now we also have modern electronics inside the house to tell us when it's nearing empty.

Before the paving with the old cistern restored but unconnected

 

Until now, we have  lowered a string and a rock to see where we were water-wise but now the new one kicks in automatically, sending water from the road-side tank to refill it. This also means the water truck doesn't have to drive into the property. The bulldozers also came in to fill in all the canals and holes from the original electrics - Piero, a friend of Lorenzo's did that - and Mimmo's men have returned to finish sealing the flat parts of the roof and will soon come back to build the drystone perimeter walls. 

Okay, enough building updates! Fingers crossed this vaccination is rolled out soon cos we have work to do...and an enormous thank you to my mother and my father, who have been our supporters in every, single way throughout this rocky period.....