Easter visitors

 This year for the Easter holiday, Oskar and José decided to come for a visit.  Wonderful.  They told Yael Friedman they were coming and we had her and Nir join us as well.  Somewhere along the way Peter and Friedi Knoppers decided to join us for the weekend. We had a nice full house.  

Yael and Nir arrived first and we set them up in the apartment. We had a nice afternoon of chat and a good dinner.  Yael had been on the move for over a day as she came from California so we made an early night of it.  The next day we headed to Chiusi to buy food for the week.  They explored the stores while I did the shop.  I also bought a few flowers for the outside of the castle. 

We returned home, put the food away and Oskar and Josè arrived shortly after.  Peter and Freidi were there as well. And then the fun began.  Yael gifted us with a beautiful puzzle ring, Oskar gave us a print puzzle of Panicale, and Peter gave a unique tangram puzzle that we didn't have in the collection. 

We then took a tour of the grounds (estate, property? Which collective word should I use to describe this place?)  Believe it or not, it takes 4 hours of just touring and no puzzles are out.  I can't wait to see the length of a guided tour when we are fully unpacked. 

As silly as it sounds, I get a bit overwhelmed with so many people in the house. Nothing to do with the company we had, I just want everyone to enjoy themselves and "work" so that happens.  Most of my time was spent in the kitchen. 8 people is a lot to cook for :)  For me this is a great joy.  I love to cook and with just George and I, I don't do it as much as I'd like.  We eat simple meals so it's a treat when I get to go all out.

All the puzzlers set to work designing puzzles, while Josè and Freidi talked.  It was a weekend spent listening to Oskar, Yael, Peter, Nir and George discuss the new puzzles they were working on.  Running back and forth to the Palace to get the newest print, learning how to change filament colors....Really it was adults playing like children.  

We have a rainbow copy of Oskar's Castle maze now that has a slight shift in it when Josè tried to take a photo.  A dozen or so copies of a puzzle they were working on and quite a few botched rings that Yael designed.  The print head wasn't small enough I think.  

We had a lovely dinner at Simone's as is our usual.  

Peter and Friedi took a hike up the mountain one morning and the next day Oskar,  José, and George did the same.  George had sore muscles then next day and was a bit lazy after.  I spent that down time studying for my driving license.  

Most of the time was just spent designing puzzles. It was funny to watch Oskar jump up, grab the keys and take the hike to the 3d printer workshop on an almost hourly basis.  I have lost count of the number of prototypes that were produced.  He had great fun with the printer and I believe he may purchase his own in the future.  Yael produced a number of different puzzle rings that she had been working on, but sadly, none of them worked well.  I believe they said it was either the filament type or the nozzle size. 

Peter and Friedi left us on Saturday for a few days in Florence before returning home.  Yael and Nir headed off for Orvieto for the day, and the rest of us puzzled on. Poor José was stuck fending for herself much of the day as the guys prototyped and I continued to be a dull hostess.  I had work in the kitchen that couldn't wait.

Sunday was the highlight of the trip for me.  When Oskar and José visited us in Boca we had a Berrocal dinner for them and this trip would be no different.  It was Easter so why not celebrate! The meal was unimportant, but the company was.  I hadn't pulled these out in over 3 years.  They needed a good washing up.  Sadly, I discovered that one glass and around 8 utensil tops were missing. I am sure they will show up when we unpack the items that were stored in the bar in Boca, but it did cause a moment of anxiety for me.  How could I serve 6 with only a complete service for 4?  Then I remembered the wedding sets, headed out to the garage and brought them in. Crisis averted.  

Because it was Easter, we had to have a bit of chocolate, and every couple had a large egg on their plate that I felt represented them.  José got a cat, Yael got a Ferro Roche egg with a "jewelry" surprise inside, and George's had a monkey attached.  At the end of the meal Oskar decapitated the chicken and he and Yael had to wash and reassemble the coffinettas. It was interesting to me that Yael had spent time in the Berrocal Foundation as an artist in residence and had never assembled the puzzles.  Now was her chance. 

All in all, it was a good meal I think.  

Monday saw Yael and Nir off to Rome for an early flight the next morning. OJ and I took a walk into the town around 3 to see the cheese rolling festival (the whole reason they came really-don't let the friendship or the prototyping fool you).  Sadly the rain was so bad that it was cancelled. But we did
have a big bit of the chocolate egg and a nice cup of coffee.

On Tuesday OJ and we headed over to Castiglione del Lago for a pizza.  The first place was a bust. No pizza until evening, so we headed to a rather nice little caffe a bit further down.  No great view of the lake, but we did have amazing food and a nice view of the surrounding area.  

The next day they too headed off to Florence for a day in the city. George and I loved having our friends and can't wait to do it again.  

And did I forget to mention that all the while the work continued?  I spent as much time supervising the renovations on the Palace this week as I always do.  Thankfully there were no major problems. 

Another week, more progress

 Or not.  We have purchased most of the mirrors for the crystal puzzle room.  I also finally ordered the glass for the shelves.  Perhaps they will show up in a month if we are lucky.  

It's really been a slow week.  Hurry up and wait.  It's like being in the military. We are still waiting for our household goods to arrive, but while we do that we are not sitting on our haunches.  We are filling out the castle. We have decided to not install shelves, but rather buy more of the cabinets to hold the puzzles.  

I found a place to get a new table for the castle kitchen.  I chose a workshop bench complete with a built in wooden vice.  After hunting for a long time, I found one 4 hours north of us and George and I headed out to purchase it.  We brought it home and discovered it's the 8th shade of brown in the kitchen.  Later we started talking about Pinocchio and discovered that this is the same type of workbench shown in the Disney cartoon.  I now have my Pinocchio bench.  

I am writing this from a hotel room in Geneva, Switzerland.  We are on our way to MPP.  I'm driving so we can purchase puzzles along the way.  

On a much more interesting note, we were recently interviewed by David Peterkofsky for his podcast For Keeps.  You can listen to it here: https://forkeepspodcast.com/95-puzzles-in-a-castle-with-roxanne-and-george-miller.  It is a very nice peak into what we do.  I hope you enjoy the listen.  

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.

More of life in Italy-and a few puzzles too.

This has been a week much like the last one.  We have been going back and forth making appointments to make appointments to finally make an appointment to get an appointment.  I've come to realize that you must know someone here to get anything done.  Our Elena is a wiz at working the system.  She knows people in all of the right places.  Last post was about getting our Permesso di Soggiorno.  Well, we didn't. What we got after all of that run around was a small hope that we can get in early.  Elena knows some one who knows someone and she made some calls and they made some calls, and now our paperwork is going to head to the local questers office where she knows someone who will try to push our paperwork to the head of the queue.  To say thank you, we had to take them to dinner.  That in itself was a comedy of errors.  We tried 4 different places, all closed.  So we ended up in Citta di Pieva (30km from here) and had a great pizza!

We did have some good things happen though.  We bought a car.  Well, we didn't.  Our friend did and he's letting us 'borrow' it until we get our permesso and can buy our own. Then I had to get insurance on it.  Now I have the insurance but don't own the car.  So strange.  This in turn allowed us to return the rental car 2 days early which gave us a €72 refund, but because I didn't fill the tank back up to 100%, I have to pay for the gas, but because I prepaid for the gas, I didn't have to fill the tank, but €72 isn't that much money so the man said he would just keep it.  (My eyes are rolling.)

Our car is a 2001 Ford Mondeo diesel.  Wow.  Oh, and a stick shift.  And a station wagon no less.  It will be ideal for going to puzzle parties and picking up packages that we have waiting for us somewhere in Europe.  Lots of room for boxes.  

George got a new table saw so he has no excuses to not get his exchange puzzle finished.  

We bought some furniture for the castle. A rather large table and chairs/benches set that reminds me of something that belongs in a German brewery.  I got some great chairs for the library and a few others to sprinkle around the castle.  I also found an amazing bar that I just couldn't pass up. This one is from the early 1700's.  I'm still in need of a few more pieces, but for the most part I'm done.  

The kitchen in the castle is as complete as it's going to be.  I'm just waiting on a credenza and a new table.  We ordered 8 sofas and 4 lamps.  4 of the sofas have come in and the lamps?  Who knows where they are. The company couldn't give them to us on the spot, but they also couldn't deliver them.  I guess I'm out another €480.  I'm really not sure why companies think they can just keep the money here.  I also bought 4 bed sheet sets.  I was send duvet covers instead.  Now the seller said I could return them, but he's not sure if he will refund me.  What a racket this is. 

Amazon in the states is great.  Here, not so much. first, a fifty cent pencil case is €19.99 here.  No way.  I guess I'll pass or start to use aliexpress more.  There is no such thing as overnight delivery.  We have to wait for everything.  The fastest I can get something is 2 days.  One really has to plan ahead or learn patience.  Our most ferquently heard phrase is piano piano.  It means slowly.  Everything here is piano piano. I just ordered some lip balm for my poor chapped lips. It will arrive between the 7th and the 14th of July!  My poor lips.  No relief in sight anytime soon.  

We were able to lean out the window of the castle and watch the ascension processional.  It's fun living here, you never know what you will see. 

Oskar sent us a fantastic gift. George had a good time solving it.   I've not laughed so hard in a long time. When I first got it I asked José if it was a pink dildo.  

Oh, and even more good news!  We have had another collection come in.  We purchased Jean Carle's collection and it arrived just fine this past week. The hotel is slowly filling with puzzles.  If only I had shelves to put them on.

We even put a piece on the wall in the living room.  I've had a few Berrocals come in and they are on the mantle until the hotel is finished. 

I have kept a wallet full of currency from all of the countries I've visited over the years.  Usually I return and spend it.  This time I got caught.  I didn't get back to Italy soon enough to spend the Lire we had left so now it makes great bathroom art.  The value is still dropping.

Ah!  And now, a sneak peak at the crystal puzzle room.  It will be filled with antique mirrors.  I've been running around the area to all the used markets and flea markets buying them up. The floor is ugly so I'll need to purchase some nice carpets for there.  The tape represents shelves that will eventually be glued on to them. 

We were invited to a neighbors for a drink and George and Laus ended up assembling a swing for an upcoming 80th birthday party. 

When I was in the Loggia looking at the view, I discovered a second fresco that is on the outside of the building. I can't help wonder how many more are under the paint that has been put up.  I wish there were a way to find out and uncover them.  

We had a lovely little picnic after returning the car.  The aqueducts in the south are amazing.  It's a truly beautiful place we have chosen to live in. It's been a great week.  

Fino alla prossima settimana, arrivaderci e continua a rompicapo. Il lavoro continua.  Piano Piano.