You and I sometimes do not see eye-to-eye on improvements for il Poggiolo…
I like infrastructure. Good, solid, practical infrastructure. I attribute this to my Southern Methodist roots. However, rest assured this vein of utilitarianism is alleviated by a counter-dose of Quakerism… Peace & non-violence… Catholicism… The Virgin will take care of it all if properly consulted… which resulted in my being raised within the auspices of the Episcopalian Church, thanks to my Yankee… read Philadelphia… maternal grand-mother. I just cannot help myself. I positively vibrate in anticipating a new dishwasher, seeing the Laundry Room with a new coat of paint, and oh! How about a new fireplace or, two? And, if only our Geometra… the Best in the World, by the way… could only corral the Cowboy Builder, who is holding hostage the two fire-boxes I had bought and stupidly stored in his barn, we might see the installation of two necessary-for-heating fireplaces in La Casa Grande’s Salotto & Sala da Pranzo. I am debating also punching out the wall towards the garden to put in glass French doors for much needed light in the Sala da Pranzo. The room is currently so dark…. yeah, yeah, I know. Means COOL during the HEAT of Summer… it’s has become a warehouse of rolled up carpets, You’s extensive collection of decorative pillows… see what I mean. Stuff Addiction can be so fierce… and other paraphernalia no one can see to avoid tripping over, for cryin’ out loud.
Instead, You leans heavily towards rendering il Poggiolo in a more signorile, more principesco, more fou-fou manner, what with urns & statuary in every corner and prospect of the garden surrounding what is, in fact, a Tuscan farm-house. Thank God, none of the stuff needs to be dusted. I hose them off from time to time. But really, how many urns does a garden require… in its lifetime? To You, the number should be unlimited. Oh, boy! Can’t wait.
No sooner out of Lockdown and gracing the precincts of house & garden in the Lunigiana, did not You propose una gita by driving down to Forte dei Marmi and pay a visit to our friends at Recuparando. This is Urn & Statuary Heaven. Oh, and ditto for a Heaven for ceramic tiles, marble sinks, iron garden furniture, etc. etc. etc. Before I proceed with the successes of our Friday morning foray, let me explain You’s well thought out motive. Take notes, if it will help…
You holds me obliquely responsible for the ever more radical inclination to the grassy terrace right above L’Appartamento Azzurro. I try to deflect these criticisms by kindly referring him to the vagaries of Mother Nature and her efficient participation in the matter, ie Her Earth shifts from Her Rain, Cold, Heat. Si, ma mi disturba… He consulted Instagram for possible landscapers. None past muster with me. Sorry. I do not want il Poggiolo’s garden to resemble that of one adjacent to a mausoleum. You then encouraged me to call in the local landscaper, who had worked on a Codiponte friend’s garden, to great acclamation, for advice on how best to resolve the situation of the tilting terrace, so irritating it is for You. Unsightly wears him down, apparently. None of the local landscaper’s suggestions struck a chord, neither with You or me. Wood logs behind the phalanx of fruit trees? No! You & I agreed. We all collectively adjourned into a two month Lockdown declared not three days later. The terrace discussion promptly got lost with our mutual preoccupations about COVID-19. You as a Coronavirus dottore and me barricaded with a crazed Weimaraner puppy, The Croesus-person, as a likely victim of said malady. Then, suddenly, You could speak of nothing else, as Italy slowly, methodically exited from Lockdown. His newly formulated idea… obviously, the break during quarantine had served him well… was not to rebuild the terrace flat but, the less costly notion to distract our natural visual inclination… hahaha… by installing a series of terracotta urns & vases along the fruit-tree tract, the one with the most slope. I piped up with an opposing yet similar concept… distract from the slope by placing the terracotta beauties on the opposing side. The reply I received was Silence. A killer. Now, not the I can pride myself with a consistent record of Democratic conciliation, I did opt to table the discussion, let You get the Urn Thing out of his system and see how the lay of the land, so to speak, settles.
We drove to Forte dei Marmi.
There were once the Glory Years for Stuff here in Italy. A national phenomenon. Back when trash pick-up was nothing more complicated than a great big bin… for everything. So simple. So easy. Relatively neat. And, on one day a month, the Trash Folk would deign to pick up anything you cared to chuck. Whatever. In Genoa, twenty plus years ago, it was the first Tuesday of the month. The city would bloom… No! Better still… EXPLODE with piles of junk, stuff, furniture, furnishings, kitchen utensils!!! and entire households put out on the sidewalk to be carted away early the next morning and not necessarily just by the Trash Folk. Citizens of Genoa too. Our Tradition was… You would come home from his Office, we’d eat something quick and then hit the streets. Walk the neighbourhoods close by or, often, we would tootle around in You’s by-then beat up ol’ AUDI, joining thousands of others in their cars to search for tesori. Enormous traffic jams would develop in certain sectors of the city. Usually in the large residential neighbourhoods of apartment houses scattered throughout Genoa, from one end to the other and, towards the mountains too. It was like a party… a street party. We’d run into friends AND family!!! Fine pickings always. Many of our finds now have found a nice home at il Poggiolo. It was a stellar event since killed by recycling. If you want whatever to be hauled off, you have to haul it yourself to a collection center, open to the public from 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. Not everyone has a beat up ol’ AUDI to do so. won’t demoralise your imaginings about Italy, as to where the stuff ends up. It’s not pretty.
This is how the owner of Recuperando got his start. By day, he was the manager of Alitalia’s reservations offices in Florence years ago. By night, he and a buddy, who had the ape… a three-wheeled scooter with a bed in back to haul… would carouse the byways and alleyways of Firenze on the anointed evening, and, Lord!, did they find the stuff. On weekends, they would spruce up, paint up, patch up their tesori and then sell them at street flea-markets and by word-of-mouth. Business boomed. So much so, the operation was expanded to make copies of some of the more refined or, historic tesori for sale at a better price. There was no stopping it. The majority of the clientele were persons with means. So much means they had grand vacation homes in resorts like Forte dei Marmi. The owner eventually moved there and opened an open air showroom. A Heaven on Earth.
You managed to spend a few Euro’s on two urns and two stands plus, a large pedestal vase with handles. Took two trips with my scuzzy SUV to bring our tesori home. Rather beyond discussion which side of the grassy terrace they all should sit. I let it happen. Shhh, don’t say a word to You but, I must say, they all look quite nice nestled in the chaos of flora of fruit trees and other agglomerations of flora… rosemary, iris, roses, lavender and lilac bushes. Take a gander…
