Emanuele moved the meeting up a day so we met yesterday afternoon. I had my list but it wasn’t necessary. They have finished the door in the hall. The electrician was there working on all the wiring and I am sure he will be installing the lights everywhere. They have already replaced the mantle over the pellet stove. We looked in the attic. What a transformation! It is still crumbly concrete on the floor and he suggested industrial carpet to go on it which I was really happy about as I had thought we would do that ourselves. They removed all the unnecessary walls so it is one giant open space. They even painted the ceiling white. Still just an attic but good for storage. Pedini will be bringing the kitchen one day next week to be determined. We discussed the painting to be done and I said I was fine with it all white. He said it should be hot. What he meant was warm 🙂 as in a creamy white rather than cold white. He will paint swatches after the kitchen is in for me to choose from. So he says in 10 or 20 days we can move in. I can’t wait.

Today is market day and it’s in full swing down there even though it is very wet but I don’t think it’s raining right now. The loud man is in full form. Luther and I always buy some seafood and now that we know how to ask for the fish cleaned AND de-scaled we are good to go! I’ll see what other produce is out there as well. We will also probably have a cappuccino at Bar Mary and people watch. Always fun.

Tomorrow we are going to the furniture store as I mentioned. The name of it is
Luigi Filippo Bastianelli I took a look at the site. They do it all there (new custom built to look old, old, and restoring your own pieces) so perhaps I’ll find something but I kind of doubt it. It looks like a junk/antique place mostly.

Then we decided to go to Civitelli Ranieri tomorrow evening for the concert and presentation by Russell Platt. You may remember from a couple of months ago that this is a NYC based foundation for artists of all kinds and they have free presentations. We hadn’t been in a while because nothing interested us. It is nearly the end of their season which I believe runs until November. What a great thing to have so nearby.

Two things of recent note

First, I finally found some soft toilet paper! TMI? Not really. The T paper here is not very soft at all. Since we came I have tried many brands, probably 5 or 6, and finally found one that is nice and soft called Scottonelle.

Second, cat litter here in Italy is eons behind modern cat litter technology. Let’s go back a few decades. When I was growing up there was one kind of litter and the entire litter box had to be changed often or it smelled. When we moved to Germany we found that those canny Deutschers had moved way ahead in litter technology to invent the clumping litter. All the Americans I knew with cats were so happy to have found it. When we returned to the States happily the new litter had found its way there and we were happy there as well. The year is 2014. We moved to Italy with our two cats. For the first month or so I used the litter in the grocery store. After a time I finally realized it didn’t really clump. And it smelled. I said we HAD to find clumping litter. In the little town of Umbertide there are three pet shops. The word for clumping is agglomerante. Armed with that information we finally found one pet store (of the three) who had some! Happy days are here again. Yes small things make me happy!

Yesterday morning we went for a nice long walk. We drove over to the other side of the river to a very small, lightly traveled road which turned out to be the old Roman road to Perugia according to small signs we found. It was a pretty area. Strange to think we were walking on the road the old romans would have taken. It is definitely not on the beaten path now!

We started out at a really beautiful church complex called Mezzacorona. On one end was an olive oil and wine seller who are only open from four to seven on Saturdays. Next to it was a really old church and tower. And next to that was a defunct restaurant. I forgot my camera so didn’t take any pictures but need to go back to do that. We went through the church door which led into a basement lower church. Great old stone arches were lighted with discreet lights and candles which an unknown someone had lighted. Up above that was another, larger church. The walls had many paintings from the 1,500s. All this in a very out of the way place. Amazing.

Later yesterday we dropped by our apartment to see if there was any more progress. They look to have finished the wiring work and have been working on covering up what Manuele calls the “tubes”. These we would call pipes. They are the pipes on the terrace. One large black one was already there. Probably takes waste water away. The other was the smaller one that goes from the kitchen sink and out. These had been discussed and we had decided not to make the covers into seating. They will, however have built in lights that point up onto the walls to make a muted light. I am looking forward to seeing how that will turn out. I took some pictures but it is hard to really see how it looks because I can’t get back far enough.

The pile of stone to the right of this picture appeared today. I think it will be laid on top of the tube covering but am not sure.

After we went to see the apartment we had an appointment at Bar Mary to meet Lynda who had rented her apartment to us last January when we were house hunting. She has moved here for the forseeable future as she said. She is very nice and I look forward to seeing her around Umbertide.

We had lunch with Susan and Gary today to catch up after our visitors left. They are off to Rome to meet up with THEIR visitors who are here for three weeks! They will be traveling with them all around from Lecce in the far south to Venice in the far north. It was good to see them.

I waited another two days to go take a look at the apartment. They finished the hall ceiling, patching the hole and cleaning the iron beam. Looks nicer for sure. The entire kitchen floor is covered with that mud the put down under tiles so I couldn’t go in there as it was wet. From the bedroom window I looked at the finished patio. So nice! Here are four pictures, two of the patio and two of the mud!

First, we ran into Manuele yesterday and he told us things were moving along and they were 60% finished. He said it should be done in 2 or 3 weeks. He also talked to Pedini about the kitchen and they will deliver between October 20 and 22. Then we can move in! And BUY stuff!

So today we are having our first guests. Kaye and Jeff from Woolongong Australia. We have stocked the frig and I am going out to the Saturday market in a minute to grab a few last things. Then I am going to attempt to make an apple cake! This will be my first try at baking anything here. Gathering the ingredients was not easy. Baking powder was a challenge but I found some. Also vanilla which I found in imitation powder form (ugh). Vanilla is something they just don’t have here. I need to find vanilla beans (which I read they DO have) and make my own extract. I think I may have some in my shipment but I don’t want to uncover the door to the living room (where it is all stowed now) with all the mess over there.

I’ll take a picture of the cake and post it later whether it comes out — or not. After that my posts may be a bit sporadic. I’ll post some pictures of us touring with Kaye and Jeff.