What a week!
My apologies for not blogging, but life was a little out of control last week. We finally moved all the stuff, that means, tables, chairs, refrigerators, ovens, bar, wine glasses, table cloths, pots, pans etc. etc. from the old Erba to the new Erba.
Monday we moved all the stuff that we could physically load onto the truck. Tuesday, they brought in the big guns. A huge truck showed up, with a really huge ‘braccia’ or arm that went in through the old Erba window and brought out the big kitchen equipment. And while this was impressive, it was nothing compared to bringing it onto the front terrace of the new Erba. I’m estimating at least a 100-foot height, with a guy down below maneuvering a refrigerator through the branches of the pine trees. The braccia is most certainly the inspiration for many a sci-fi monster, it just looked like a monster head coming through the window and then extending and extending as it looked for stuff to pick up.
We had a pretty large crew of people helping, and lots of neighbors dropped by for an hour or so to help out. It’s astonishing how many people have pitched in to help.
Here’s one of my favorite moments, as the big work tables came in for a landing, no one had thought to use a dolly, but being good Umbrians with medieval roots, they found some wooden stakes and made rollers. When we finally did get a dolly, no one saw any reason to use it.
The rest of the week was spent in organizing, cleaning, painting chairs and recovering cushions (my first time experience at upholstering…so don’t look too close), laying the floor in the lounge, and trying to figure out where to put stuff. Why is it that when you move out of somewhere you cannot believe how much stuff you had crammed in, and now you can’t find a place for it! Jeff actually thinks that Claudio is more of a pack rat than he is, but that is pretty hard to believe.
Neither Claudio nor Martina said anything, but it had to be an emotional experience for them to leave the old Erba. They ran the bar there for 12 years, and the restaurant for 5, so that’s plenty of time to store up memories. I think the stress and anxiety of the move overwhelmed any sense of sentimentality, but it had to be there.
The garden looks pretty with the umbrellas up, we’ve set the outdoor lights, the kitchen is pretty much together, except we are waiting for the official permission to get the gas line turned on, so the to do list is starting to come down to the fine tune list which is just amazing progress. And the more time I spend there, the more I appreciate what a truly beautiful location it is; an hour or so before dusk, these huge birds start coming home for the night, calling to each other. What a wild adventure this is!