Bingo! Sorry, House!

Picture the scene…actually, I’m a day late with this blog so apologies to all my loyal readers, isn’t golf a ridiculous game…we’re in Western Liguria. That’s my wife, daughter and self, slowly falling in love with the area but rapidly not falling in love with terrible properties in attractive surroundings or attractive properties – you get the idea. The last estate agent to take us around, (and believe me she should be the last agent to take anybody anywhere), has shown us three totally unsuitable places but has one more up her sleeve.

The house we’re walking towards is in a pretty village, not ‘postcard pretty, this is where the tourist buses park’ but a real medieval village with real medieval villagers going about their daily lives. In the case of the men this appears to mean sitting outside the local café drinking and playing cards while the women scurry from shop to home laden with fresh pasta. We turn a corner and are walking past a large vine-covered building when the estate agent stops. ‘Here we are’ she announces in her best Brummie Italian accent. (it’s a long story not worth telling). She forces open a large wooden door and we step back in time. The house is over two hundred years old and is built into an original rock face. First impressions are of rough stone walls and ceilings, archways, large shuttered windows and, when the shutters are pulled back, one of the most impressive views I’ve ever seen. We look out across a vine-strewn valley towards the majestic Alps. Peaks and ridges appear to jostle for position like family members fighting to be at the front for the camera. We’re falling in love but

It’s a big but - that’ll do Jenkins Minor. The house is too big for what we need and what we were looking for. It actually consists of two houses knocked together. Effectively the kitchen is non-existent and the place is a tip. We wander outside. Opposite the house, across the narrow lane, is a large terrace with built-in barbecue. We ask to whom it belongs (I did English A level, you know). We’re told it is ours if we buy the house. Oh dear!
Daughter says ‘Buy it’. Wife says she likes it very much. I say tune in again next week.