The evening is drawing in. We are just back from a long walk around our land, snipping here and there at olive twigs and seeding dandelion-family plants, picking up walnuts and movibg rocks from the developing pathways. My occasional caffeine extravaganza has exhausted itself, and I feel like I need a well-earned rest before another sewing job early in the morning. I sit under our largest walnut tree in front of our funny buildings, on the flattened grass that is fading into autumnal pale-dry perfection.
This evening ends another blessed day of love, deep conversations, studies and challenges. We are tired physically from our trip back to our Arthouse in Guardia Sanframondi (still for sale!), after hulking an incredibly heavy iron wood-burning stove plus waterheater up flights of steep marble steps, and then wrestling our wee Suzuki WagonR out of the medieval quarter... It's much more straightforward to get in there than out. We now have the perfect solution to the colder months here; it just needs to be pulled and pushed out of the car and into our homestead cottage.
Our process of dismantling the old house (and life!) and moving it here, has reached its peak. Now that the heaviest and most difficult to unplumb items have been brought here, we can start forming the new home around them. Until now, with this past week of plummeting temperatures, we haven't been able to focus on one simple priority at a time -bar stabilising the hayloft/ bedroom roof with tree trunks, but we're beginning to feel much more capable and focussed with the heart and hearth of our home tangibly forming.
But now there's a fabulous Prety stove on our property, we can start thinking through the re-instalation process. Tubes and calibrations, bolts and canapa sealing fibres, where the stove can best perform, how to break the ceiling open without creating a compromised roof, where to connect the hot pipes to... So many considerations - but now mostly there can be one step following the next, progressing methodically towards a functioning heating and hot water system.
We're excited about the great leap that this will furnish in our daily living; cold showers are our only current option, as the sun is not warm enough these autumn-oriented days to heat the water for us. It's good timing: we hope to have the system running in a week or so. Vincent is sawing wood in preparation, as we get our heads around this very first full year on the land. Last year we baulked at the snow and the winter storms, the mud and the crazy - and yet we fled back here after our torturous six week stay in the naff rental cottage. This year it should be relatively simple to go from tent vs animal house, to habitable cottage, before the really intense months ride over us. The prospect of being autonomous for heating with wood from our own forest... cannot wait.
We relish the challenges before us, and are slowly gaining muscles and stamina sufficient to fortify us for the cold. In Guardia we did a season's-worth of socialising in three days, and were told by multiple folks how 'brave' we are. Bravery is a muscle like any other, though - it's not an abstract, innate quality; it is a hard-earned, lived experience. Vincent helps reflect that to me (and I to him), as we keep trying until we are brave enough to do any one thing. We both recognise where the other is holding back, limiting their vision or passion.. and we coaxe each other to be just that tiny but braver-than-before. Every tweak seems impossible... until it is done. And then it is less impossible to make the next growth spurt.
It is now cooling again rapidly, and my aching muscles need to get up and shake off their stiffness. The aired mattresses need to be returned to the tent before dark, and the last of my energy for the day needs to be carefully focussed on the final tasks that will allow us (we hope!!) to sleep better than the previous night. Buonanotte tutti, e ci vediamo domani.
Clare.
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