Article 9

Holiday villa with private pool at Tuscan Paradise. An historic private 4 bedroom (all en-suite)18C farmhouse with private pool in Tuscany overlooking an amazing lake sleeping 8. Additional studio for a further 5 not let independently to ensure complete privacy.

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Some lovely days at the start of March had us all fooled into thinking spring had arrived, but we were soon brought back to our senses when snow followed. They were simply interludes of spring-like weather. The intermittent freezing mornings mean that the site alternates between rock hard ground, perfect for wheelbarrows, and pure mud slush, a builders worst nightmare.

The tiling of the four bathrooms makes a huge transformation and after months of what appears to be chaos we can finally start to see the building as a home. We are doing the decorating ourselves using a lime based paint. I have landed the job of edges top and bottom, while Robert paints the walls with a 6 inch brush and large sweeping movements, and to date claims to have lost 5 pounds with the exertion. He manages to get paint everywhere including in his ears, so it’s lucky I am more patient and neat when it comes to the laborious task of cutting in to the ends of the dozens of beams in the ceiling with a small brush. However, labour reaps it’s own rewards. This month also sees the return of all our windows which are either new, or renovated. They look wonderful and we only hope they are well fitting enough to keep the warmth in during the cold Tuscan winters, where the fuel bills can be exorbitant, as we have found to our cost relying on the aged boiler in our rental accommodation in Anghiari.

Whilst we plough on with the decorating, sharing the house with the plumber and electrician, our builders undertake some necessary excavation on the cantina in the main house which will someday be our kitchen. They have uncovered huge rocks which are an integral part of the foundations of the house. These will be dug out and cut back by hand as the space is too small to accommodate a digger, it is backbreaking work. At the same time some of the team have begun work on the music studio, re-laying the first floor timbers and cotto tiles.
Having paid the electric company Enel thousands of euros as the advance payment for works to get our supply connected to the house, with a promise to complete the job in 60 days, 5 months down the line they have arrived on the site to commence the work. A start is all we see at this stage as a few days of rain mean that the Enel team disappear. At the time of writing this we still have no new meter, therefore our electrician is unable to begin his work to make the lights in the house live. It would be a lot easier if we had lights to decorate by, not having to rely on mobile builders units.

Anticipating a wait of what may have been years, we applied to Telecom Italia and now have two spanking new phone lines, even before the phone itself has arrived and no-one even occupies the building. Unfortunately we have been allocated two ISDN lines and two telephone numbers instead of one, due to a breakdown in communication. How’s that for efficiency?

Having worked very hard these last few months producing nearly 100kg of pottery, my supply of gas stopped halfway through a firing signalling the unwelcome but necessary purchase of yet another 400 euros worth of gas. No sooner had I requested this than the gas supplier arrived at our site and promptly filled the vast tank to bursting point, leaving us a bill for nearly 2,500 euros. We mentioned to the gas supplier that we only requested 400 euros of gas and they generously suggested that we come in at regular intervals and pay 400 euros at a time.

We anticipate the speedy arrival of our swimming pool components which means we should be basking in the warm waters under the Tuscan sun before we know it.