Sometimes you just have to laugh!

I just got accosted in the street and scolded by a group of women!  Well 4 women but one ringleader as the others seemed less interested in telling me off as observing what the outsider had to say for herself!

So here's what the problem was: water here in the old town doesn't run into drains but down cleverly paved sloping streets til it reaches the sea.  Today I had a lady clean all 4 storeys of the house top to bottom and it was so, so worth it, but the water that had run down when cleaning the front door had made its way down the centre of the street and round the corner and was perturbing this dear lady!

Hardly a torrent!

I mean, seriously!  Does she shout at the sky when it rains?!  Rather than get into an argument about it being only water and nowhere near her house and probably cleaner than the street, I put on my most concerned face and used my best Italian to say I was sorry and explained it was the cleaning lady and said I wasn't sure what I could do.  And when she went off on one about it being the evening, I said I didn't understand and the other old ladies softened, and I asked if it would be better to have water in the street in the morning and she said yes and I said ok and politely wished them a good evening!

I still don't really see why she had a problem (maybe one of my Italian readers can explain what I'm missing?) but find it funny to imagine her seeing the water, marching round the corner to find its source and then being so happy when I passed so she could say her piece in front of her friends!

Altogether now: "Signora.  SIGNORA!"

Is it possible I may be just a little bit homesick?

I embarrassed myself today.  With everything that's been going on and another confrontation regarding another missed deadline I ended up having to excuse myself as I got overwhelmed and upset.  The lady and man present were very sweet, the lady coming to offer me a tissue, me apologising as it was the first time I'd met her and I didn't think I was making the best impression!  At the end of the meeting, affirming to the man again the importance to me of a quick turnaround and him prioritising the work, they replied I should join them at the beach sometime!  I'm really left wondering if that is the answer to everything here and also the cause of so many of my frustrations!  I can see the allure when you have beaches on your doorstep that look like this...

heaven

...and I love that their work-life balance is so much better than in UK but is it possible the pendulum has swung too far the other way here?  Is that just an over-efficient, still ridiculously-punctual Brit talking?!

I had another meeting just afterwards with an agency who want to help us rent the ground floor apartments this summer.  Lovely couple, I've rented through them before, and they concluded their meeting by insisting I should come join them for breakfast on their sea view terrace sometime.

It's so nice to know I make a good enough impression (even if a bit over-tired and emotional sometimes) that people invite me to join them socially, and after a second dinner with some new friends on Saturday night, I'm confident that slowly but surely I'll build a new social network out here.

As a (relatively!) normal British girl, such a network of friends is really important to me.  (I think it's a girl thing to enjoy and appreciate the company of others so much, as Mr RR could quite happily sit with his computer all day!)  With so many of us in UK living away from our families, I think friends for us take a focal place in our lives that family do for most Italians here (our electrician in particular finds it very strange that I'm living so far from my family - he even asked after my parents' recent visit if they'll be moving out here!).  I've been reminded of that this week chatting away for hours to so many of my wonderful friends and dear mum back home on Skype and Facebook - one even making me cry today at the story of her 2 year old daughter who kept saying my name when she saw the electric mixer, as we so often end up baking cakes together when I'm over at hers!

(Just a little boast - check out just some of the cakes we made on our last day together.  Was really excited by how this "red for Arsenal" icing came out!)

and so yummy too!

Very occasionally, hearing stories like that of my friend's little girl, I yearn for the comfort and familiarity of home in UK, legs curled up on the sofa with a friend, tea and cake, putting the world to rights, but in reality, I couldn't ever swap this adventure for that.  And, hey, one of my best friends is coming out to visit later this week so before long it'll be like the best bits of the UK are brought to me!

P.S. I'm sure I'll accept the lovely offer of breakfast on the sea view terrace, but the beach invitation?  As long as I need help covering this pasty English skin with SPF 50, I won't be going with anyone but Mr RR!

There are some things that just don't need to be shared!

Flowers: always a good start!

Am I right, ladies?

Always a treat to receive a beautiful bouquet

Plus the delivery man was so complimentary about the little he saw of the house.  Must have said how much he loved it at least 5 times in the few minutes it took me to find a pen and sign for the flowers!

Still comes as a bit of a surprise when people are wowed by our home.  You expect people to be polite, but one lady even asked my permission to take photos of the bathroom and bring her boyfriend back to see the place!  Of course I love it, but I know I've not decorated or furnished it in the usual modern or even traditional Italian fashion so it's always so heartwarming to hear people appreciate my style.

More photos of the finished apartments and house coming soon.  Hopefully you'll like it too!

Clarifying my background for the locals!

This has not been an easy week.  I'm not dwelling on it and the less said about it the better.  

There were however two questions I was asked that made me smile.

Firstly, our not very friendly neighbour who insists she never understands a word I say, asked our electrician to ask me which country I'm from.  I replied Inghilterra ("England") and she asked if that was near Canada!  I'm guessing, like many people here, she hasn't travelled far from Monopoli!

Secondly, the electrician's new helper asked me if I fai TV, which really threw me - Do I make TV?  Do we have TV in uk?  Eventually he asked me what I did for work and the electrician explained that I buy old houses, renovate and sell them, to which the young guy replied that he'd seen programmes on Sky of people doing the same, so he was asking did I make these programmes?!  I'm not sure if it's so rare to be a property developer in Italy that he assumed it was the same in UK and so with all those programmes I must have featured on one if them, or if he actually thought I was Sarah Beeny!!  Either way I assured him that no, I didn't make TV shows and wasn't famous, but I'll take it as flattering all the same!!

Saying goodbye and good riddance to this week...

... and looking forward to better days ahead, thankful for all the blessings in my life

Straying from my perfectionist tendencies!

I had a good giggle recently with the man who will be helping us with all the metalwork that remains - handrails, barriers on the mezzanine levels and roof terrace, balconies etc.

My Italian is improving but I am a long way from fluent and my vocabulary leaves much to be desired.  So when I was trying to explain how I wanted the metalwork to look using words such as not too modern, hard, straight or machine-made, but more organic, more like it was hand-made, more classical, more traditional, he wasn't convinced he understood.

Eventually, I tried, using all my childhood Pictionary experience, to illustrate the difference between the perfect, precise look I didn't want and the look I did, and he said ah: deformato!  I explained that deformed to me meant something really badly out of shape, and he said it meant the same to him!  Then we joked about how they would be like something not hand-made, but made by someone with their feet, someone blind and just out of the hospital using their ears to guide them!

He's back tomorrow to take measurements and they should hopefully be ready within a couple of weeks.  Just how deformed they are going to look I'm not sure but if it's reliant on my drawing skills it's a worry!

Songs to renovate an Italian house to!

I thought I'd share with you the songs that were playing non-stop during my visits to check on the builders in Puglia last year, as a little flashback.  I'm sure they will always remind me of this process.

Sadly, particularly for the odious but catchy Blurred Lines, some are still omnipresent here this summer!

Addendum!

So it seems I got it wrong in yesterday's post.  Last night before dinner together, our friends showed us the one point in the town where you can see the sunset, and we just caught the last minutes.

So pretty: I can see this becoming part of our early evening stroll.

Sunset in Monopoli