30 December – 4th Day of Twixtmas
On the eleventh Day of Christmas
We are here in Italy
Eleven pages of planning docs
Ten hours of sleeping
Nine o’clock, our friends left
Eight Dutchmen drinking
Seven laughs a minute
Six Fano Views taken
Five courses eaten
Four stockings readied
Three lots of shopping
Two people cleaning
And the house was only one degree
We have our geometra visiting this morning. He is an architect, cum quantity surveyor, cum lawyer, cum planning permission specialist. We want a garage, this is an epic story. For various umpteen reasons quite specific to Italy, this is not an easy thing. We are now four years into trying to get permission for a garage.
We have committed ‘abusi’ – we have abused the planning system apparently, by having restored a house where the walls are not straight – could be because it is 300 years old maybe? In addition downstairs is 10cm too low and upstairs is 15cm too high. This seems to be a cardinal sin, mainly because historically Italians have seemingly ignored planning restrictions. If our house is more than 2% out on the lodged plans, the Comune can enforce fines, higher taxes and if they wanted to be particularly awkward, insist on us removing the offending extra space. All of this is important because the garage we want is predicated on volume, and we have to know exactly what volume the house is. We now know that when our ‘variation’ to plan was submitted to the Comune and we signed it, that we should actually have measured the height of the house inside and out, everywhere basically.
So far we have had 3 sets of measurements done, taking about six hours in total and it is possible the Comune will ask for more to be done, because our geometra thinks our variance is marginal. Ho hum. Today’s run is scheduled for after the geometra has been – that was pre-migraine.
Another day, another unexplained migraine, where my head is being strangled by a steel band – this lasts despite copious but legal amounts of ibuprofen. Some eight hours after getting up, I still have the thumping and I can’t run when it thumps, as it hurts. Okay what do we do about migraines? – identify triggers – red wine, alcohol generally, chocolate, dairy. Yup I’ve been eating those in abundance over these last few days.
Having decided my kilometre target for 2018, being 2018 km from now until the end of next year, I have to go out tomorrow. So today, cut down on the dairy, avoid the chocolate mountain, and take it easy on the vino. Tomorrow I run, come hell or high water or a headache, the countdown has begun.
