Rubbish and other stories - another year has passed

 

Okay, yes, this is a photo of me looking ecstatically at a rubbish bin but can I say, this Friday was a milestone for us: Trullo Stella Mare has a garbage collection service!

Why is this exciting you ask? Well, it's the most visible symbol that we are legal some three years after the planning disaster was discovered. 

On March 18, serendipitously on Stevie, Rob's eldest son's birthday, all the necessary legal documents were checked by the lawyer and our pile of rocks (now morphed back to trullo) was registered with the Comune of Locorotondo, given a street number and now belongs to us without legal or planning encumbrance.  Last week, we picked up our folder from the notary and had two big, fat Gin Campari's to celebrate! To say this is a relief some four years after work began is an understatement. (So, rubbish day made me very, very happy. )

It's now mid May and we've spent more than a week in lovely sunshine preparing the place for our guests. We are booked from the third week of May until mid September when we will return to enjoy it ourselves and if all goes well, with Mum, who plans to return to Europe after the longest absence of her adult life. Below the view I showed Dad on a videocall when we could just see the coast of Albania/Croatia (Robert and I fight about this, nobody has yet to tell us definitively which it is).

We've planted 12 more flowering, bee friendly bushes, lengthened the drip watering (we don't have town water, it's trucked in so plants have to be drought tolerant) and the bottle brushes we planted last year are about to flower. (Here they are much loved and known by their Latin name Callistemon). Meanwhile Lorenzo the Magnificent, the stonemason who's adopted us and the trullo, has created a new terrace working on and off through the winter to give the trullo a beautifully finished/water resistant, cut stone roof on its flat areas. I've yet to find a way to hide the joins but that's on the list for our return.

We've put up the summer bamboo on the pergola and with creativity and flair (and zippo money) Lorenzo  and his blacksmith mate also helped us create a simple railing for the new terrazzo made with rope and soldered rings onto the left over iron rods used by the builders to stabilise foundations. 

The trullo has been freshly whitewashed, pool's sparkling and the olive and fruit trees are wearing their Spring green.

Bumble bees are flourishing as the wildflowers have been left to grow wherever they please although their beauty is ephemeral because we must, by law, mow the wild grasses by the end of May to reduce fire hazards. Still, we're happy that all but two of the 14 tree saplings we planted last year survived the winter and bitter February snow and frosts.

The rooster in the valley still wakes us with his post-dawn crow and our neighbour's rescue dogs come to visit punctually for a morning biscuit. It's a ritual I've grown to love and will miss - as will they I suspect.

Below a few pics of the various changes. This is a work in progress, one I suspect and hope will continue over many years. That's the plan anyway.

This year, we are overjoyed too that Trullo Stella Mare will welcome its first Aussie guests and we so hope they will enjoy the place as much as we do. It will be hard to say goodbye for a few months but the adventure continues...and in the meantime, I need to go stare at my shiny new recycling bins!