An email from Judy:
hi kiddo
been meaning to write but its been so f... hot noone has the energy to do anything.... been working, which after Zoe and the baby is a piece of cake!!!!!
good news though................... you now have inside stairs!!!! they were delivered and installed on thursday..... we also picked up the beds so they too are in the house................ unfortunately (you knew all this good luck something wasn't going to be right!!!) the toliet is still pending!!! not sure when hopefully before sept... which means at the moment no water or gas!!!
one more thing......................... your property......... do you have the papers that explain exactly what you own........... the exact borders etc............. to make a long story short. the house you bought and are now redoing was once the home of a relative of faustos. during a conversation with him this week he mentioned that if you go around the road that circles your garden and under your house built into the wall there is a hugh cantina that should belong to you. but again we don't know if in your bill of sale this was specified etc. etc. etc. its something that you'll need to look into when you get back here.
am assuming that you are swamped with work so when you get a free moment write. will have fausto send the pictures of the stairs this wekend...xxxxx judy
I am delirious with joy! I have stairs! I can now go up and down in my house without going outside. My joy is equal to the frustration I feel at not being able to see the stairs in person. But this is such a milestone that I also feel tremendous satisfaction at having finally reached this point. And perhaps this news from Judy is true; maybe my property is bigger than I thought. This kind of thing happens in Italy where houses have been bought and sold with a handshake for centuries and boundaries and property lines are blurry. After all, if I am to believe the realtor that sold me the house, it was built in 700, making it nearly 1400 years old. In all that time I assume it has gone through many transformations, shrinking and expanding as it passed through the hands and lives of the various owners who laid claimed to it.
I'm not even sure what it might mean to find a cantina below my house; would I have a subterranean room? Is that where I would keep the wine made from the grape vines that don't yet exist on the property? And what would be the cost of bringing a cantina back to life? I've already got two houses and a garage that need restoration and no money to complete the task. An embarassment of riches, so to speak.
