Life amid the rubble...

No, I’m not dead – well, not yet.

My extensive pause in writing has been due to a serious lack of time, what with our long-dragged-out renovation process, plus the fact that I’ve been in France alone since dropping Francesco off in Italy way back in January.

I’m our project supervisor and resident jack-of-all-trades, and it has been a wearying affair. I’ve been down on my hands and knees for hours refinishing floors, up on scaffolding painting beams, endlessly cleaning up the mess left by carpenters, plumbers, electricians, masons, plasterers, etc.

Life these days is just like being inside a giant vacuum cleaner bag.

I never know which workmen might show up each day (a fun guessing game) and I have to be good at adapting to excuses and delays. Handy that I was a high school teacher once, and thus am familiar with all those ‘the-dog-ate-my-homework’ type tales.

Then there are the wonderful days when everyone shows up at the same time – unannounced, of course. Two weeks ago I ended up with fourteen men in the house – the gas people, water meter folks, electric company workers, telephone and internet installers (all of whom we’d been begging to come for nearly a year) arrived on the same morning. Naturally they all commenced trying to work in about the same spot.

If you enjoy chaos, this is your place.

On the positive side, there might finally be light at the end of the tunnel. Friends who saw the apartments a few days ago, after an absence of many months, assured me they detect progress. Moreover, they say, the house is looking ‘fab’ and will be the talk of the town. I suspect it will when news gets around that I’ve leapt from our balcony – that lovely medieval terrace with the missing stone corbel that we’ve been waiting a mere five months for permission to replace.