Time flies....

When you are having fun right? Well, I am finding this to be true.  It turns out that I haven't posted in 2 weeks again!  So much for trying to be consistent in my updates on progress.

It has been a busy two weeks or I would have posted sooner.  First, we now have the utilities in our name. That was an ordeal!  The gas and electric company that was previously used was closed or they moved or something so we went with a different company.  Now while it may take only a few minutes to hook up these utilities in the States over the phone, it took us all morning.  Why?  Only one person working in the shop.  There was a line when we arrived, but it didn't take too long to deal with those.  My problem was drawing up 4 contracts.  One for gas and three for electric in the castle. The girl doing the work very loudly told people she was drawing up 4 contracts and everyone in the shop left.  I guess they are used to this sort of thing.  I'm not kidding now, 4 hours later we left.  Thank goodness we had a coffee and croissant a bit earlier. 

The same day, I had the GPS emergency button installed in the car.  It looks like a nipple on the dash and I've been told to not touch it unless I have real problems.  Warning taken.  This is one button I cannot push. I guess it's like AAA in the States.  Push the button and someone comes.  Hopefully I'll never need it, but for only €250 with the start of the insurance, it's worth it.  

We also got the water hooked up for the hotel and got it put into our name for the castle.  This was another 3 contracts.  The first 2 were signed with great confusion and consternation on the part of the Acque Umbra lady.  She insisted that it was only one hookup in the castle and that was that.  Thank god for Antonio! I'd have never been able to explain that to her in a million years. People seem to be unable to grasp the concept of living in a castle.  I wonder what they would do if we lived in a really big one.  We'd never have utilities.

Anyway, there was another lady in the office who happened to know exactly where we live because the previous owner had an excessive water bill for a few months.  As it turned out, when we became owners we told Antonio to fix broken things.  The first thing he fixed was the water valve on the water softener.  Excessive usage problem solved. Anyway, we were unable to get the third contract signed by the first lady because we only made two appointments.  The second lady was very nice and helped us start the contract but we had to finish it later in the week when we made 3 more appointments.

Now the next three appointments were interesting.  These were held via a teleprompter. We waited until the light turned green and were buzzed into a room.  Every 15 minutes I had to open the door and close it again to indicate we were still in the appointment even though there was no one there but us. The teleprompter was not loud and Antonio cannot hear very well.  To solve this problem, I called her on the phone and put it on the loudest speaker volume possible.  The feedback every now and again was worth getting the water sorted.  But was it. Just as she was about to hit the contract button, the power went out and she lost all the data.  Thankfully she had it written down and would have to reenter it all.  Oh, did I forget to mention that we had one mother of a storm going on? Anyway, we returned home and I managed to sign the documents in the afternoon when the storm ended.  

And now I understand why there was an armed guard at the first water company.  I can imagine that people would go postal on the workers. 

This storm was another of those river situations.  When it rains here, it really rains.  The roads were rivers, the sides of the olive groves were washing away, and many a dirt driveway is now down the hill.  I'm glad I wasn't driving.  I would have sat in the cafe at the bottom of the mountain and waited it out.  

We had a glass toped table delivered to the library and the work goes on deworming the biblioteca (library case) that I purchased a few weeks ago.  Until that is done, it lives in the stables.  It's funny how wormwood puzzles fetch a high price and here we want all of the worms gone.  Each piece has to be fumigated, then each hole filled and then the entire piece restained. It is a long process.

It was Antonio's saints day last week and they treated us to a lovely meal in Chiusi.  We went to an Etruscan place that was simply amazing! I had the best rabbit I've ever eaten.  George opted for a salad and I bet he'll not do that again.  Although I was a good wife and shared with him.  Elena and I ordered a nut desert and nuts we got.  We both took a look into the meal and fell into some childish laughter over the plating.  It was a very pleasant evening for all.  And again, these are the best Italian lessons.  Those taken with friends. 

I managed to find snails at the grocery in town. Delicious.  I'm in snail heaven this week.  

In other news, we had guests this past week. Richard and Liz came out from the UK. It was a nice visit.  I'm so sorry that there were not more puzzles out, but I'm loath to unbox until we have storage space put up.  We had a nice dinner at our favorite restaurant (food photos for Bill) and I made a gargantuan meal that no one could finish.  We spent a lot of time just chatting and Rich did get to put together a few burrs that we had laying around.  They were here for 2 nights only as they had a early morning flight on Sunday. I do hope they weren't so disappointed in the lack of puzzles to not come back. 

I visited with the architect so we can get the work started on the passageway and the elevator.  Another major expense.  but it will be worth it in the end. I found the warehouse to pick up the last of the hall lights, hung a number of prints up (boring I know), managed to set up a deal with our favorite restaurant to purchase George's bread each week (freshly baked on Monday's), and finished up the IPP puzzles.  I helped pull the wood through the machine and only after we finished did I realize that we forgot to hook up the vacuum. 

The owner of Gallo gave us a welcome to Panicale gift of flowers.  It is such a lovely gesture.  We had to place it in the main room. It is so nice to feel welcomed here.

Finally, the cabinets we bought two weeks back were delivered yesterday.  5 cabinets, 2 tables, 6 chairs all for €1200, including delivery and assembly!  I couldn't even buy chairs for that price back in Boca.  To say we are thrilled is an understatement.  But it leaves us with a problem and a solution at the same time.  The castle is a cultural and historic building. It is registered with the antiquities department (tax break I think). If we want to make any changes we need permission.  That includes installing shelves.  George loves the vetrini (display cabinets) and the credenza e mobile (sideboard cabinet) idea so much that we have decided to not use the shelving in the castle, thus saving us the requirement to get permission to install the shelves, and use antique furniture instead.  It will be a real hodgepodge of furniture. All beautiful though.  Now to clean them up and start to place some puzzles.  This is where the fun begins.

Al prossimo post, arrivederci e continuate a scervellarvi.  I'm off to shop for more vetrini.