Friday, November 5, 2010

Hunters

The hunters are out again. Lots of bangs and barking dogs. Although the bangs and the barks seem to be less that last year. We commented on this with some friends and they confirmed that this was their thoughts too. They have had some near misses with Italian cacciatore (hunters) in the past and are therefore quite conscious of the apparent lessening of hunting activity.
What was it Oscar Wilde was quoted as saying about those who hunted foxes:
“The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable”
Bit different here though with local wild boar being a sought after meat. It is very nice I must say.

Plans, plans, plans

We arranged for a geometra (sort of a house-engineer come designer, come pretty much-everything-else-to-do-with-houses-apart-from-building-them chappie or chappess)  to come round and have a look and a chat about what we would ideally like to end up doing to Casa Grotta.
Very nice bloke. Suffered from a stroke last year, but he can’t be more than mid-forties. Speaks fluent English which of course is fantastic for us.
So we are having some plans drawn up. The next step would be seek planning permission from the comune with the following step being actually to do something. Gulp. The permissions cover things like extending the size of the property (which we aren’t) and change of use of rooms (which we are as we have a very long earth floored room that was used to keep livestock on the ground floor. As we do not intend to continue that tradition we want to have the room as living space. We have to get permission to do that. Odd I know, but that is what you have to do)

You might well ask, “How are you going to pay for all this?” A very good question. Our thinking runs along the lines that if we have a proper, drawn-up plan (which won’t be very expensive at all and is essential to doing anything), and we have the correct permissions from the comune (again which we believe won’t be very expensive), then we will be in a position to start just as soon as we are able to fund some work.
I hasten to add that there is no time limit being put to this.

I am working on a couple of income-generating schemes, such as forging grand masters  (unfortunately I am a lousy painter, especially in oils)  nobbling race horses (I know nothing about horses) and last but not least, major frored and embesselement (difficult to have success with spelling this bad).

Should any of you know of anything that I might turn my hand too with a modicum of success, please do let me know. The more legal the better.

Good Blooper.

Using the word embezzlement just now reminds me a great La D blooper.
We were talking about someone who had really told a very exaggerated tale about his goings on and La D remarked that he had really embezzled his story! I did say to her that I thought the word she meant was embroidered, but she convinced me that embroidered was only a form of needle therapy. I have the puncture marks to prove it!!

La D’s mum

Some change. Still in hospital. Will report later

Ciao, mantenere la fede

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