Casal dei Fichi - Progress - June 06

Luxurious holiday apartments in Italy's stunning Marche.

It has been a busy few months at the Casal dei Fichi and updating the web site has taken a low priority. Progressive unfinished drafts have counted down from 13, then 6 days to the arrival of our first guests, it was 2 days since they left, now it is 2 weeks and Bob's family are coming to the end of their week here as well. Although we had been trying to be totally finished by the end of May in the end we were glad it was good friends and not paying customers who came to stay. Needless to say the week or so before our friends' arrival was chaos with Roger fitting the bathroom the morning while John and Maureen were in the air, the previous afternoon the tilers finished grouting it. As the other 6 arrived over the next 2 days it was a constant dash to ensure they had bathrooms, the just delivered furniture conveyed to their respective rooms and nobody minded being asked to make their own bed - we even supplied screwdrivers. Most of the time we planned to eat out and the Marchegiani restaurants did us proud but on the last day as we began preparations to cook at the house we were interrupted, in true Channel 4 style, by the men from the water board who had come to disconnect us! It transpired that, despite several reminders from us, our architect had forgotten to give us the water bill he had received, fortunately we were able to explain the situation though it did mean an unplanned panic journey to the offices to settle the account - and naturally change the billing address!

The brickwork is finished, the crane and scaffolding gone, structurally the house is complete.	Neighbour Vicenzo with the stone carving of a fig tree he has made as a gift for us.	The final piece of scaffolding with the national flags.

The dash to completion began with 3 hectic weeks when Pepe the plasterer took over, Rosario arranged for him to visit and he said yes - he could do the job and he would start tomorrow - now "let's go and buy the materials!" We managed to delay him till the following Monday which gave us 4 days to ensure that he had some walls to point his nozzle at while we made a concerted effort to stay between half a day and and half hour ahead of the 66 year old. Our work included covering up the ceilings and beams to ensure they stayed clean, finishing the first phase of wiring (conduits) which go through the walls under the plaster and, in some instances, building the walls themselves ready for plastering. Every morning at 7-30 precisely Pepe and his son Niccolino would arrive and at 7-32 the machine would be spraying plaster - ready or not! With military precision, at 9-30 they broke for breakfast - a ham roll, before resuming their relentless onslaught on the house. Pepe is a man of few vices, he hasn't smoked for years and just has a glass of wine on a Sunday, he fears any more would lower his blood pressure and interfere with his conjugal enjoyment of  marital life.

Pepe's visit marked the turning point of the project, a house with bare unplastered walls is a ruin but after his visit we felt as if we were now in the stage of finishing off a house. Although there were still many challenges to resolve: Another saga which has been running for over a year is the provision of mains electricity to the house. We thought we were finally getting close when we agreed with our neighbour that we could have pylons on their land and all the bureaucracy was resolved. ENEL - the electricity company finally arrived and soon the first pole was erected by the road. It soon transpired that their prevarication in coming due to the land being too wet had some substance (or lack thereof!) when they attempted to transport the second pole to the middle of the field and found their specialist all wheel drive off-road truck up to its axles in heavy clay, neither Rosario's digger nor the fire brigade were able to resolve the problem and after lunch a huge truck which wouldn't have looked out of place in Thunderbirds arrived to winch the stranded vehicle out. Finally, about a month later they managed to put the poles in place and we now luxuriate in mains electricity, although it is still temporarily distributed through extension leads.

Much of Rosario's work over the last few months has been to 'beautify' the house, first replacing damaged brickwork, then sandblasting the building - an awful job - repointing the house, for which, of course, Rosario has a specialist machine, then acid cleaning and water-proofing the walls. The transformation is fantastic, our architect Michele thinks it is 'too good,' but we are delighted.

We have had to make sacrifices in this critical period and we have moved out of apartment 'Raffello' to allow the tilers access. It has been a curious six months, a cold winter without heating or mains electricity; hot water dependant on Rosario's generator which meant infrequent showers and a very basic kitchen. One of Ian's proudest achievements was the cardboard doors dividing the rooms, intended to last for the 2 months or so we planned to spend there they actually they survived the whole six and showed no signs of giving in! It has been gratifying to be at the house and see the daily progress and ensure that things were done as we wanted and worth the hardships endured.

A frog basks in the spring sun on a piece of polystyrene.	After the pool has been drained a giant toad moves in.	Now the pool has been cleaned and this is the view from this desk. The decking goes down soon.

Currently, as this version is written we have hot running water with a 500 litre tank (don't ask about the gas bills), fitted kitchens with the granite arriving on Monday, 2 septic tanks and all the trenches dug for the garden irrigation system and the gardener hard at work. The swimming pool has been drained, cleaned and refilled and is sparkling and clear like it never was last year, the hot weather has also ensured that it has warmed up nicely. The floors and bathrooms are tiled and all the doors fitted. Outstanding bits and pieces include finishing off the bathrooms and internal doors before we finally move on to fitting out our luxury attic apartment.

The only victims of the few months of progress have been the cats who don't approve of the constant changes, Aglio who never normally spends a night outside disappeared and we had given up on him when suddenly he came home in the middle of the night after 10 days exploring the countryside. Now we still see them occasionally when they are happy to be fed cat food but they spend more and more time outdoors - presumably feasting on mice and lizards? Balzo the dog remains gentle and timid most of the time although his handsome features belie an unpredictable temper, now that we have a little more time more time training him has moved up the agenda.

The carboard bedroom door. Balzo Knows to come no further than the cat flap.	Now the granite splashbacks are on as well to complement the oak units.	Hours until our friends arrive, the plumbers just manage to ensure we have hot water.	This one's for Louise (in fact there are 6).

We try to find time for a social life, this year we spent our second Easter Sunday with Rosario and his family and visits to Madre Tierra are still frequent, in fact in the recent kitchenless phase we were very frequent customers. Next time we update this website we hope that it will say that we are fully open for business. Also we are planning a new 'professional' look to the website as we promote ourselves to real customers. We know we will never be finished as we still have plans for restoring the outbuildings, rebuilding the bread oven, planting an orchard and vineyard, building the tennis court, etc... but we really hope that the first phase at least will be finished. The surrounding fields have been planted with sunflowers so we will also have stunning shots of the house in a sea of sunflowers.