“Uffa” – essential vocabulary when renovating in Italy

According to Word Reference, the Italian word "uffa" means "what a bore!" But, as you most probably already know, Italians have their own body language too and when uffa is accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders, maybe a pair of eyes darting up to the heavens, a helluva lot more can be conveyed in those two …

Problems On The Horizon

A man turned up on my doorstep earlier today and he asked "is Alessandro home?" "No, he's not back yet," I reply. "Ok, then I'll tell you. Your dog has destroyed my vegetable patch. I saw with my own eyes that your dog was at the vineyard this morning and now I come home and …

Pavimento alla Veneziana – the local handmade flooring option

The wonderful thing about Veneziana flooring is that it's made to order. Each one is completely unique and you can choose the exact composition of the stones. In our case, we went for an off-white base with red gems from China, dark green stones from Portugal, and a little bit of mother of pearl (but that's the most expensive) and some caramel coloured stones to break it up. 

Onwards And Upwards: The Roof And The Walls

We're moving forward with the house renovation! It's all getting rather exciting. As of today, the roof is now finished - new layer of insulation underneath, new tiles, a couple more windows to bring in more light, and the solar panels.... It's taken a while but it's finished and finally the builders are starting to …

“How’s The House Coming Along?”

"Slowly but surely," is the answer. At the beginning stages of a house renovation, it's completely linear. Just bricks and mortar; walls and a roof. There's nothing else. It becomes frustrating because you can't say "well, these guys for X have been held up on another project so let's do Y, while we're waiting..." Now …

“The best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray”

Just one quick look at the calendar and you know this week is going to be amazing. I mean, it's not even once every hundred years that Valentine's Day and Pancake Day/Mardi Gras land on the very same day. I could have gone full out on the heart-shaped American style pancakes with maple syrup and …

How Is It February Already?

It's now February. February! How did that happen? We're already a good chunk into what I still think of as the new year. I think it's because I am starting to feel increasingly settled here in Italy, the days are going faster, the evenings are getting longer but I sometimes feel that I let days slip …

Update on the Renovations

It's been a little while since my last update on the building works. Unfortunately, the reason largely lies in the fact that, through no fault of our own, we've been at a standstill throughout most of November and December. On the plus side, we ran into our team of builders at the Befana bonfire in …

Pipes and Pythagorus

The house renovations are moving ahead. Admittedly not as quickly as we had planned, but you can now finally see that progress is starting to being made.  Today the electricians finished laying down the tubes for our lighting, the burglar alarm, the solar panels and the different power sockets. For his part, the plumber has …

So You Think You Speak Italian?

So you've taken a couple of classes, downloaded Duolingo and bought a hefty dictionary. You can breeze through conversations with natives and even answering the phone to an unknown number is no longer intimidating. You're ready to move onto the next level. The next three phrases are not the Italian that you learn in a …