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As April creeps in it is all very uninspiring weather wise although we have had some nice days already with several spent outside at around 7am having breakfast, then a return cooler temperatures hope we don’t get a repeat of last year with late snow which destroyed our fruit crop. Work continues to grow and we now involve our friends as well which seems to be of benefit to everyone.
Which brings me on to my soap box topic for this month, Agents and restoration work.If you have already bought or thought about it and made inquiries, you will have noticed the high cost and long waiting time to to get the work done. This is due in large part to some of the agents liking to keep all the selling, planning, and restoration “in house” which means you will pay a large premium for this convenience. Most of the agents have a “cartel” within each company for everything from the sale through to building work. But there other ways, if you are prepared to put in some effort of your own you could save yourselves a considerable amount of money by sourcing in particular builders. In spite of what you may be told there are other builders out there who are more readily available and definitely more reasonable with their charges, even if they like most Italians think all English have bottomless pockets. So if you want the convenience of “supermarket” all under one roof property buying stick with the agent, but if you want an alternative it is out there and after a year or more of excuses you wonder where the convenience went to end of soapbox.
But now on to our final acceptance into our new(ish) life here and which is most definitely going to be the highlight of our year. That is the wedding of Sara the daughter of the Barchetta family our very good friends and neighbours who you will have read about many times on our site. They are the people who have taken us under their wing and guided us through the sometimes hard times we have had along the way, and without who we may have packed it all in by now. But now we are settled and nothing seems to bother us to much as it would have in England, even today we went to sort out three items, but as is normal one was ready the other two “maybe tomorrow” that is life here. Liz is quite looking forward to being able to dress up for Sara’s wedding and she may even (Liz has just proofed this and says she WILL) get to buy something new, we don’t seem to have a need for designer cloths anymore so a new outfit will be real occasion on its own. But the real treat will be an “Italian” wedding which is being done on a grand scale with all the frills, it was an honor to go out today a choose the couples present from the shop holding the list (almost English). Just hope the day goes well for them, we know her well as she used to come to us for English lessons, which was just a small return for the families help. So next month we should be able to treat you to one or two great photos of the big event, and given the planning going into it they deserve to be good.
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