Casa in Abruzzo Part 2

When we bought a house in Italy that had not been lived in for over 30 years, we weren't quite sure what we would find.

Cobwebs would be in abundance for sure, but what about other Italian specialties such as scorpions, snakes and common rats?  Had they taken up abode there and would our arrival disturb a well-established ecosystem of several decades? 

We thought this was possible and prepared accordingly with leather gloves and ankle top boots.  The house was full of cupboards, chests of drawers, inviting but slightly scary-looking trunks ... we opened them very gingerly one by one.

Instead of wildlife, we discovered the worldly possessions of the old lady who had lived there since she was a young bride.

In the kitchen we found everything we could possibly need and more – one cupboard revealed about 30 espresso coffee cups and about 30 shot glasses!  Beautiful crockery, pots and pans.

As we got bolder and delved deeper, we opened a large old trunk upstairs, the size and shape of a coffin ….  We gingerly prised the lid open and were amazed to find perfectly preserved linen and some beautiful handmade crocheted tablecloths and bedspreads.  They had no moth damage, no dampness stains or mould and they smelt clean and relatively fresh.  There must be something about the combination of the climate and the construction of these houses built with external walls over a 1m thick of solid stone in the 1700s that gives very good long term storage!

We continued to explore and felt a strange sense of poignancy as we discovered the personal effects of the old lady (and her husband who had died many years earlier).  We felt sad disposing of her clothes which were also in perfect condition, but we could not find anything else to do with them.

There was a large chest of drawers beside the front door.   As we opened the top drawer, there was …yes, a SCORPION!!  We carefully took the drawer out and set the frightened little guy free to find another home sufficiently far away from ours.

This was the only scorpion we discovered in our house, and there was nothing scarier than that, just some spiders’ webs without their owners.  We began to clear out these spaces with bare hands and open-toed shoes, and the only snake we saw was one crossing the road in front of our car one sunny day.  Having said that, there was a suspicious rustle in the wine cellar which we have yet to clean out. 

One evening there was a call from our open front door – “Permesso?”  (Hello, can I come in?).   Sure, you are most welcome.  It was the builders from up the road who had earlier appraised us of the possibility that we may not get power connected any time soon (see last month’s story).  They came bearing a large builders power cable.  “You can’t be without power. You should have told us earlier”, they said.  One of them stood there with the lead and power plug in one hand and a large pair of pliers in the other.  He looked up and saw where he could put the cable through a small hole in the grating above our door.  Snip ...KAPOW! FLASH!  as he cut the plug off the lead.  “Oh, the power must have been on!”  (The lead he was holding was already connected to our neighbour’s house above).  “Oh well, the circuit breaker will have triggered now” he said, just checking by wetting his fingers and touching the bare wires…  Within minutes these guys had strung the power lead through our house to where the main power cable entered the house.  In a few minutes we had lights!  Wow!  It was amazing and we were so grateful to our new friends.

We could not believe the kindness and generosity we had been shown yet again.

As we chatted, we talked about a fridge, which we didn't have but needed.  One of them had spotted an old fridge in the darkness of an old part of the house we had bought that had been vacant for over 50 years (another old lady had lived in this part). . Before we could say anything more, this fridge was sitting in the kitchen next to one of the only four power points in the house. The amazing thing was that they plugged the ancient appliance in and it worked after sitting idle for many decades!

We had moved from no power to both power and a fridge courtesy of the generosity of local people who asked for no payment, but just insisted that it was unthinkable for someone to be in their midst living without power.

That night we looked out from our balcony as the sun set on the beautiful Appennine Mountains and pinched ourselves to see if this was really happening.   Down below us two ancient old women with no teeth were taking their evening walk.  They looked up at us and one waved her stick:  “Welcome!  Good health to you and we thank the Lord!”