Now for some nature

So far this year we haven’t been invaded by porcupine, badgers or wild boar digging up the garden. That may change during the drought of high summer when they search for water and easy digging for grubs and worms.

We’ve noticed during our first year without any cats at all that we have many more little lizards about and they all have their tails intact.  However last week I saw a fairly large snake in the front garden, later MrFF spotted two of them and next day they were both intertwined on the path outside the kitchen door.  I don’t know if they were fighting or mating, it wasn’t very romantic, but we haven't seen them since. I checked because we do have poisonous snakes about, a neighbours dog was bitten and died many years ago, but these seem to be harmless whip snakes. We have been told that having cats around keeps snakes away, let’s hope there isn’t a large family here when we come back in September.

Below is the nest of a solitary black bee, it’s on the terrace outside the lounge door at the junction of the floor tiles and the skirting.  The olives are in flower now so we welcome the pollinators and don’t use any chemicals in the garden for that reason.  The nest is staying.

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Then MrsB decided to build an extension. I consulted a biologist friend who tells me these are egg chambers and when I checked the first one has been sealed so the first eggs are laid. Now she is on her third property, we could end up with a whole terrace of these little chimneys.

For years we’ve had a few bats swooping over our balcony as it gets dark I love to see them.  On Saturday I was delighted to spot one hanging at front of the house, tucked in between the gutter and the fascia board.  Then I found another near the front door and I am sure I saw several little ones that quickly disappeared under the roof tiles.  This is great news.  We have no loft space or attic, the roof is directly above the bedrooms which makes them very hot in summer.  The bats can only get under the tiles, they do no harm and a lot of good.  I checked at dusk and they had moved, they were back next morning.  And the best news of all is that as in the UK bats in Italy are a protected species, it is illegal to disturb their roost which they return to each year.  So I assume the Comune will not be allowed to demolish our house if we don’t get the planning violation sorted. Maybe I need to let them know it’s a protected property, I might also declare our garden a nature reserve, see how they like that.

Days of dusty feet

We will start our drive back to Yorkshire in a weeks time.  Meanwhile the heat has arrived in Lazio, it’s 27 degrees today fortunately with a slight breeze.  No definite mosquito sightings yet, MrFF thought he was bitten once but I am hoping they will stay away till we go.

We have made much progress inside and out including cutting both sides of our large laurel hedge, that is at least 4 days of hard work.  Of course everything will run riot over the summer and we’ll do all the same jobs again in September.

I am rising early, opening the doors before the sun comes up to get some cool into the house, watering the pots and sweeping the terraces. A camisole, shorts and lashings of SPF50 are my dress of choice.  I am sticky, dusty and generally dishevelled until an outside shower amongst the wisteria and a change into more respectable clothes for our al fresco dinner.   I love these sweltering days when it gets too hot for serious work, we are alone on the mountainside with just the birds for company and the occasional hang glider drifting overhead. Summer has arrived.

Upcycling

 

Most of the furniture that we inherited when we bought the house, ie what was easier to leave for us than dispose of, was old, brown and poor quality.  I am not complaining, it meant we were set up more or less to move in without sourcing everything new and over the years we’ve upgraded and donated many pieces.  

I’ve never liked this dresser in the dining room, although it’s useful storage and shelf space I’d happily chop it up for the wood burner.  Last week I finally painted it with a blue grey chalk paint.  It wasn’t the mammoth task I expected given I am a very slapdash painter who used the excuse I might run out of paint to cover only the visible surfaces.  Two coats of paint and one of finishing wax, don’t look too closely there are drips, but I am delighted with the result.  The paint cost less than 20 euros, I had good advice from a friend back home well experienced in this process and I am so bloomin happy.  As my mentor said ugly to lovely.

Planning, what planning

Jean asked recently how our planning violation was progressing, though progressing  is optimistic. Here’s where we are two years after receiving notification that there is a violation, not saying what the violation is but that we owe more than 3,000 euros in overdue fees and interest for the last 40 years, we’ve owned the house for 20.

It seems that in 1976 a developer was granted a licence to build a semi detached property on what is now our and our neighbours’ plots.  However 2 large separate villas were built and the plot divided into 2, ours is the larger.   A few years later the first owner of our house added a large room with terrace over and in 1985 during a planning amnesty applied for permission for this.  He actually told a few fibs on his application, got so far with the process then stopped and later sold the house to our vendor.  When we bought we were told there were outstanding matters that would be resolved before we bought and we were told they had been before we signed the contract. We were lied to.

Our Comune have been useless mainly swerving our many questions by saying they have passed the matter to another government agency.  This agency has neither responded to nor even acknowledged our many emails which is galling as the interest continues to mount, I guess it’s an easy way for them to make money.  

We have tried to get the local geometra (surveyor) to act for us. He knows the house and our comune well and has been involved in the last 2 sales. He has done nothing except procrastinate, firstly stalling on giving us a price for his work then after a meeting where we said he should proceed anyway saying he cannot get a meeting at the regional office to look at our file.  MrFF checked on line and appointments were available the next day, that was a year ago. 

Towards the end of last year we appointed a firm of Italian solicitors with offices in Rome and Puglia, English speaking staff and property experience, not cheap as you can imagine.  Firstly for 1,220 euros they contacted our village surveyor for a report on the current problems and a plan of action.  For that price they would also write to the geometra we employed when we bought the house who was supposed to check everything was legal and also our vendor who signed the contract stating that it was, they are both in default.  However the solicitor advised us that the local geometra’s report, which he produced surprisingly quickly, was not adequate and we should employ a trusted geometra that they knew for a more comprehensive report, this would cost 2,420 euros.  

So we went ahead with a second report, this geometra looked at the property, possibly visited our Comune and produced a report that didn’t tell us anything more than we already know except to give an estimate of the work to regularise our situation of approximately 30,000 euros plus 22% tax and local authority submission fees not quantified.  This was shocking, a huge amount of money to invest in a property that has now lost much of its appeal. 

We wrote back to the solicitor because geometra 2 had not addressed some points that were listed in our contract with him and had failed to identify other important facts that Mr FF subsequently brought to light. For that reason we only paid half his fee. The default radio silence ensured and we have not had any response for several weeks.

Meantime MrFF did a lot of research himself spending hours online searching and translating.  We were still not convinced our property has any sort of planning approval at all.  However the authorities have up to date plans and we pay Comune charges and taxes on what exists, they have always been aware of what was actually built and taken no action for over 40 years.

Apart from providing plans for the original approved property and for the current house, we need to submit structural, hydrogeological and landscape reports. We also have to apply to have the rural grazing rights removed from our land.  I don’t mind that animals can enter our orchard, we have had horses, cows and sheep in the past, they cannot get into the ornamental areas, do no harm and I enjoy seeing them.   It’s a requirement of the Comune that this is removed, if they are so keen why don’t they do it themselves, oh yes because they can get us to do all the work and pay the submissions fees.

MrFF managed to find Alberto the (so far) nice geologist who was here a couple of weeks ago. His report including penetration and seismic tests is almost done and he will submit this on our behalf.  He also recommended a geometra he works with who we have now appointed to prepare and submit two further reports. 

This seems slightly more positive though we have no idea if we will receive approval. We are both 77 this year, we don’t know how much longer we will want or be able to keep maintaining such a large house and garden, we cannot sell it without putting things in order though we probably cannot sell it anyway in a village that has so many empty houses. 

We definitely feel we have been singled out because we are not Italian.  MrFF spoke to several local people, most of whom have had similar if more minor problems, many not that clear exactly what their problems were. No one else was passed to the agency that never responds and locals have been able to negotiate with the Comune to get sorted, I am not saying deals were done but I am thinking that. It’s a horrible mess not of our making..   Of course the Comune have the right to demolish our property and charge us for doing so if things don’t get regularised but given the speed they work at we won’t be around to see that.  We might just change our wills to pass this headache to someone who really deserves it.

Our daily bread

There was I worrying about getting a set that would keep my marmalade on my toast.  As ever I was foiled by Italy, above is a slice our latest loaf.  MrFF was so cross I had to bake a couple of whole (as opposed to hole) meal loaves to calm him.   I may be available to run a series of masterclasses in Lazio. 

The earth moves

Last Wednesday we had a very nice young geologist Alberto at the house to carry out testing which will enable him to prepare the hydrogeological report that is required as part of our planning violation.  Our whole area is seismic, there must be plenty of available information about this but of course our Comune requires a special report for each property.   Alberto said that in the years since our house was built there had been 4 notable earthquakes, apart from a little shaking of pots in the kitchen they did not affect us at all. The house has stood steady for almost 50 years.

He arrived with a wonderful little machine that gave MrFF boys’ toys envy.  This hammered a steel rod into the ground and he took various readings about the strata.  Afterwards he took a coffee and a couple UK ginger biscuits on the terrace.  Mr FF had selected Alberto because he likes walking, cycling and cats, so far he has been very helpful.   We chatted about the Giro due to start on Saturday and our favourite cyclists, his the late great Marco Pantani. I sent him off with a jar of marmalade.

Next morning I read on our local news that there had been a minor overnight earthquake down in the valley, the epicentre about 20 miles from our house. It was felt in locations we frequent where it woke people in the night.  Seems to me this is more than a coincidence.

A light magnitude 2.9 earthquake hit 27 km (17 mi) away from Rome, Lazio,  Italy, in the early morning of Thursday, May 8, 2025 at 3.42 am local time (GMT +2). The quake had a very shallow depth of 10.4 km (6 mi) and was felt by many near the epicenter.

Meanwhile in the kitchen

Shortly after we arrived I was given a large bucket of bitter oranges to make marmalade.  I had been promised these before we left so I came prepared with 12 matching jars and 12 printed labels.  I did think about bringing my trusted jam pan but that seemed a step too far particularly as last year I bought locally an inferior pan for the job.

The Italian oranges, like most things here, are a challenge and getting a set is tricky.  I used the oranges in three batches over 3 days, the first lot required a second boiling, the second batch worked perfectly, by the third I was quite nonchalant using much more fruit than the recipe required.  In total I produced 27 jars, or the equivalent because I ran out of glass jars and resorted to a plastic fridge storage box until a jar becomes available.  So I have plenty to give to my donor and to friends here and back in the UK.  I have already given one to the nice geologist who was here this morning carrying out a hydrological survey as part of our planning violation. 

Yesterday at the end of the process I had a major clean up in my sticky kitchen whilst pondering where I am going to keep all these jars.  And yes the marmalade tastes delicious, fresh and fruity with a set sufficient to keep it on the toast.