Upside down (take 1)

I can’t really decide whether the last few months have been eventful or uneventful.

On one hand, it was definitely the least mobile summer I’ve had – possibly ever, as the tiny-human-in-making tied me to the sofa for prolonged stretches of time.

At the same time though, over these months we managed to turn our lives pretty much upside down. And no, our little person hasn’t even been born yet. 

As if the imminent expansion of our family nucleus wasn’t enough by itself, we kind of also, ehm, bought an apartment. This wasn't entirely planned – at least not right now. Our vague search consisted of being subscribed to receiving announcements for apartments on sale, which normally didn’t yield very interesting results – up to the end of May, when we saw one which actually wasn’t bad. We spent a few weeks moving through “what do we do – it’s nice, right – it’s insane to plunge into buying and reconstructing an apartment right now – we will never manage to move in before the tiny person arrives – but it IS nice – how does this buying-an-apartment thing actually work – let's try to make an offer and see – how do mortgages work – negotiation up and down – omg they accepted our offer – we are becoming house-owners!”. Which brought us to mid-summer, but – as we realised – as all these procedures take time, and August is a fully dead month in Italy, we eventually signed off our souls for a set of keys only at the beginning of September.

We are owners!

All ours

Upon which we embarked upon furious pace of reconstruction works. 

For quite a while I was wondering if the apartment would be ready and we'd manage to move in on time, or we'd end up having to i) spend another winter in our rented flat (very cold!); or ii) move with a fresh baby (insane!); or iii) move just ahead of my due date (gahhhh!); or iv) sleep on the street after we've given notice in our old flat without being sure the new one would be ready.

Fortunately, between the professionals, Mik, friends and my brother (who came for a few days to visit us, or rather to slave off in our new flat)…

During...

... and almost done!

Three men and a sink

… in extremis, we actually did manage to move in three weeks ago!

The first breakfast!

And we’re thrilled with our new home. It’s bright and spacious, has double-glazing (not too common in Torino), you can see the mountains, it has a bakery just underneath (dangerous!) and all you need is within walking distance, it’s close to the centre, and the fourth floor without a lift will keep us fit for the mountains. And we already have a sofa-bed, so if you are courageous enough, come and visit :-)

The Alps from our living room

As if it wasn't enough, in between all this, our beloved Rospo started to give us a series of I’m-reaching-the-end-of-my-lifespan warnings. With the driver’s window not opening, the car smelling of petrol (inside), the A/C and ventilation turning dysfunctional in high August, and new problems coming practically weekly, we eventually got to a conclusion that it might be time to make an upgrade. And so to a new flat we also added a new (well, second-hand) vehicle.

Honestly, with all these changes, it has been like watching a movie of someone else’s life, a life that is completely unrelated to mine.

In an attempt to retain at least some elements of life that we still (remotely) recognise, we undertook a few (very low key) outings.

I Re Magi

Lago Verde

 

 

Lago di Malciaussia

 

 

Val Soana

 

... and Turin, of course

My mum and my aunt came for a visit…

… and, thankfully, brought us a suitcase full of baby stuff, which – together with things we inherited from various friends – rescued us from the state of complete material unpreparedness on this front (getting the house at least sort-of ready was simply higher on the urgent/priority list and absorbed all our time and mental space).

So I guess overall, these last months have been perhaps not quite eventful, but definitely intense (I'm not actually sure how we did it all). The to-do list is still quite long (buying chairs, for example, would be a good next step), but overall we’re doing fine - so the main thing to do now, really, is to wait…