Back in early September I had a meeting with our builder, Antonio or Tonio as he will now be called. His father, Giovanni, our current landlord, also attends. They are worried about our optimism of moving in, in November. \u201cIf it is an issue about money and not being able to pay the rent\u201d, says Giovanni, through their friend who has come along to act as translator, \u201cthen you don\u2019t have to pay for the final months.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very generous of you\u201d I said,\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cbut it is because I want to move my parents to Italy as soon as possible so I can look after them here.\u201d As soon as the translator has said what I say both Giovanni and his son have their head in their hands, \u201cOhhh the Mama e Papa!\u201d They are both talking quickly to each other. Giovanni met my parents when they were over last year and treated them with care and attention like he would his own. He brought my mum little gifts and always asks after them. \u2018Bring them to live in the other apartment beside you, no additional rent.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAgain that is very generous of you but my mam can\u2019t walk up stairs. There are no steps downstairs in our new house so it would be perfect for them. I need to get the ground floor finished. \u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf only we had known this we could have waited to do the roof until next year.\u201d says Tonio. Now he tells me, I\u2019m gutted. \u201cWe could have waited?\u201d<\/p>\n In hindsight I am glad we are doing the roof now and didn\u2019t wait, the dirt and disruption after settling in to the house would have been a nightmare.<\/p>\n \u201cI will put an extra two men on the job to speed it up,\u201d announced Tonio.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s exactly what he did. All the scary stories I had previously heard about builders disappearing for weeks and work being delayed has been the complete opposite of what I have experienced so far \u2013 long may it last. There are a gang of workers on site every week day.<\/p>\n However, I think the last six weeks must have been the wettest start to autumn in Italian weather history. Or maybe I am just more conscious of every drop that falls from the sky because we have lacked a roof during the whole time. The bad weather does not seem to have affected the work on the roof that much but it has soaked the inside walls.<\/p>\n We brought Lucia up to have a peak at the destruction progress this week. It\u2019s looking awful. It\u2019s like watching someone you love have open heart surgery. Black plastic pipes are sticking out from every orifice like unattended aortas, the walls look like they have been slashed open by a fake surgeon who forgot his glasses and possibly doesn\u2019t know anything about anatomy so just keeps cutting deep until he hits the right spot. \u201cThe house feels so sad,\u201d I say to Ronan and Lucia, \u201cI can feel the house groaning and asking \u2018What have you done to me? I thought you were here to help?\u2019 But she\u2019s saying it in Italian so I don\u2019t quite know if I am getting the translation right.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe house has been sedated for the surgery, she\u2019s sleeping through it,\u201d says Ronan, trying to ease my gutted feeling of the house being gutted.<\/p>\n Lucia isn\u2019t thinking of life saving surgery instead she is thinking it as cosmetic, and exclaims in an animated way, \u201cShe is going to wake up and go \u2018wow look at my new boobs, look at my new waistline, ohh I have cheekbones again and my wrinkles are gone, I look so young,\u2019 she will be so happy, don\u2019t worry.\u201d<\/p>\n Thinking of it this way does make me feel better, until Lucia says, \u201cBut you have moles in your walls.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Moles in my walls? What the hell, is that a thing in Italy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes they come because of the rain, look I show you.\u201d She leads me up the stairs and points at the damp stain on the wall that has strangely formed into the shape of Ireland.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are there?\u201d I\u2019m thinking that\u2019s an ironic place for them to take up residence as we don\u2019t have moles in Ireland.<\/p>\n \u201cI think when the heat is working the moles on the wall will go,\u201d says Lucia matter of factly.<\/p>\n \u201cOhhh you mean mould.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m not letting mould or moles stop our plans we still intend to be in the house\u00a0 <\/span>for Christmas. Watch this space!<\/p>\n La Talpa \u2013 Mole<\/em><\/p>\n La Muffa – Mould<\/em><\/p>\n il miei genitori – My parents (who are not moles or mouldy)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Back in early September I had a meeting with our builder, Antonio or Tonio as he will now be called. His father, Giovanni, our current landlord, also attends. They are worried about our optimism of moving in, in November. \u201cIf it is an issue about money and not being able to pay the rent\u201d, says Giovanni, through their friend who has come along to act as translator, \u201cthen you don\u2019t have to pay for the final months.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-house-in-italy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2473"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2477,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2473\/revisions\/2477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rosiemeleady.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}