Three and a half years ago, in the midst of the global pandemic, we spent five days of quarantine clearing out the house in preparation for what we expected to be an imminent start on rebuilding.
Today, forty months later, on a bright New Year’s Day, we went back again to see—at last—some progress being made.
Casa Zefferino is now, officially, a building site, with portaloo, site hut and warning signs. The windows have been removed and the doors and shutters, as well as the ancient wine barrels from the cantina, are safely stowed under cover for later reuse.
According to the contract, the works are due to finish at the end of 2025, so there’s a chance that we might actually be able to spend new year in the house. We’re not holding our breath.
The top part of the garden has been largely cleared to make way for the machinery needed to construct the house, revealing a small family shrine that we’d been told was there, but had never seen. It seems that this was built into the retaining wall at the back of the house in 1976, but was overgrown by the time we acquired the property.
