November ’23. After a few days in Florence (I wonder whether I will ever be able to land on Florence’s Peretola Airport and not visit the city…), David joined me for a visit to Cortona.
This time, we had a lovely sunny Autumn weekend.
Luckily the so dramatically described events of my last post appeared not to be so dramatic after all. (Good for those who already started to get worried…) The remaining grass had been mowed, the abandoned stuff had been removed together with the first debris from the house, and last but not least : there WAS a well! No one has been able to fully clarify this “well– no well – well” story yet , but there seems to be enough water and for now the adage is “nessuna nuova, buona nuova” (No news is good news).
(This phrase we learned the same weekend, by the way, after the architect expected to get green light from the Municipality of Tuoro regarding our permits, but didn’t. “Nessuna nuova, buona nuova”…) he said. ; )
But back to the liquids. Because it’s November! And in November, life is Tuscany and Umbria is about olive oil. When buying the house and its 220 olive trees in April, we had bragged that we would arrange enough friends to take care of the harvesting, but that, of course, was a little optimistic (Where would one sleep… and more over: what did we know about it?) So for now, we were kindly helped by the former owners and our new neighbours, for which we are really really grateful.
Thanks to them, we were able to meet on Friday night in the Fantoio and together taste our first olive oil!!! It was a truly memorable event, where we could witness the whole pressing process with our own eyes. On our way back to the Netherlands, we brought 10 liters, joking we were sure we could detect a trace of golden liquid behind our airplane. Would have been fun.
As far as the house is concerned: is was as clean as the olive trees. A lot of floors and tiles had been removed, creating a lot of extra space under the low farmhouse ceilings! For further and more serious construction work, we have to await the said permits. But we did visit a carpenter for the doors and window frames, immersed ourselves in piles and piles of old ‘cotto’, and even selected some light switches. (Are we at that level already!?! Or is it because we can’t do anything else, until we have the permit …)
Either way, things a definitely happening!
P.S. We had travelled from Fi to Cortona by train this time. A rather slow 1 our and 20 min to Camunica, which is nearby. IF you would know how to open the bloody traindoor that is! We didn´t. (Who would pull a red handle when a red light flashes?) Luckily the next stop wasn’t Rome or Napoli, but just Tarontolo, 10 min further down the track. Sooo much to learn.
