Mama gets a faint sense of deja-vu

Fourteen degrees at 8:30am. Dull and raining. Spotted the first fire salamanders of the year this morning. They'd better move a little bit faster. Carmine now has 18 cats, all kicking around like truanting adolescents, looking for some diversion.

I've been rather fire-salamander-sluggish with my posts in the last couple of days, partly because the whole family has been struck down with a virus, and partly because I've been dashing away, not with the smoothing iron, but with the aspirotutto, a wet rag, a mop and bucket (with a hole in it), a broom, and a dustpan and brush. And with more than a faint sense of deja-vu.

Yes, the builders have been back, and when they finally dropped the house keys into my hand and called "ciao" after a fortnight beavering away, they left behind them a thin film of white dust. Everywhere. As builders will. As builders always do, despite their greatest care and attention.

I'm not complaining though. (No, really.) For this was a slick operation. An in-depth reccie a couple of months ago, followed by a meticulous computer-aided planning phase, and one Saturday all the materials swung up the hill in Franco's motocariola, a kind of motorised wheelbarrow with caterpillar tracks. The following Monday, three chaps were knocking on the door and two weeks after that they were heaving their equipment down the hill, following a job well done.

And we have been left with two new stufe in ceramica (or stufe in maiolica or kachelofen with an umlaut, or stufe alpiker, take your pick). They have white rustico coats and antique piode tops (sourced from a dusty pile discovered in the corner of the cellar). Two new companions to our old friend Mathilda. As yet unnamed, they will, we hope, handle the night shift, warming both the children's winter bedroom and the bedroom closest to it. When they're dry, that is...

Thanks to Franco for his Saturday and his patience. And to architect Lino Ferro and his team for great stufa-building, for dowsing the bedroom (where can I get one of those rods, by the way?), and for some interesting insights into the making of the church frescoes. It was a pleasure to have them here (the fumistas, not the frescoes), and they are heartily recommended. If you like the technology, but prefer a modular, rather than a built-in, version, see here.

Could this be the end of the builder's dust and undressing at high speed?