We arrived at the house one morning at the same time as an Enel van. A fat sweaty bloke got out of the van and inspected our electric meter and external wiring. Drawing in a breath he then said the words you never want to hear in Italy: “C’e un problema.” It turned out that the electric had been cut off many years ago and in the interim the house next door had been completely rewired and the old cable running from our house, across the neighbour’s house to the nearest electricity pole had been completely removed. This meant we needed to get the permission of the neighbours to run a new cable and have an external cabin built for our new electricity meter. Paranoia struck again and I envisaged years of bitter argument while we sorted out our power supply. However, despite the power problem we decided to move into the house anyway. We could draw buckets of water from the cisterns and we went out and bought a job lot of oil lamps. This turned out to our advantage as it considerab...

Last time I wrote we were staying with our friends Claude and Jane while waiting to complete on the house. The completion, which in Italian is called literally “the Act”, was finally set for 10am on the 28th July at the Notary’s office in Martina Franca. After the formality of the meeting to sign the Sale and Purchase Agreement three months before, I was a little disappointed to find it was a very casual affair. Pierot and Immanuelle from our Estate Agents were dressed in suits, but the Notary wore jeans and trainers. Mr Convertini, the vendor, was dressed in chinos and a polo shirt and had the demeanour of a man about to receive €66,000 in negotiable cheques. His son came with him, thoughtfully attired in a Union Jack T shirt. We suspected that Mrs Convertini had sent the lad to make sure the old man didn’t do anything impetuous with the dosh before returning to their flat in Bari. We had a different translator this time, a young Swedish woman who rendered the Completion Contr...