'step right up, see the main attraction'

Let’s take a stroll around our new Italian home. Heavy wooden front door, (must get the wife to restain it), leads straight into our brand new bright yellow kitchen. Take a left through the brick archway into the living room, tastefully decorated in surround – sound brick. (There’s an awful lot of brickwork in this house, ceilings as well as walls – exposed, partially exposed, covered). The open fireplace boasts an impressive Muriel-covered chimney breast, as my first boss would have called it. The mural featuring a tree, a snake, and a boat on the sea is from the Naïve School of art, in other words it’s rubbish and we love it. Hang on to the thick rope banister as we climb high brick steps to the first floor or primo piano as we say in the trade. Sharp right and we face bathroom number one – no exterior wall or window but plenty of condensation. Right again and a large wooden-floored (more stain please, wife) bedroom greets us. ‘Buon giorno’ we reply as we take in the useful storage/boiler room stage left and the overwhelming mountain views from the stage right window/. Now we retrace our steps to the top of the stairs and turn left, hoping not to hit our heads on the overhanging, yes you’ve guessed it, brickwork. A pleasant, whiter-walled curving into a white ceilinged room faces us. We’re told it’s a second bedroom but no one tells us what to do, (apart from the children and any client kind enough to retain my services), so it’s a second living room, with a sofa bed. Floor to ceiling window with superb view – same mountains.

As we leave this room you remind me to tell you the story behind the artwork on the walls. Another time, perhaps. Which way? At the back of the room brick steps lead up to a second bathroom, ideal for those of restricted growth. Turn left, however, and we climb one step into what might as well be a different house. In fact it was a different house, so what’s your problem? This part of the property is modern and gleaming with tiled floors and not a brick in sight. The first room is the second bedroom, bright and spacious and, oh look, there’s those mountains again. Of this room is what some people call a ‘wet room’ which means you have to be careful with the shower curtain or you get soggy loo rolls. Now we climb some crisp white-tiled stairs to …look I’m going to get a little emotional now, ok? At the top is a sweet little room that would make a lovely little study for me. Picture me tapping away at my blog, my great first novel and deploying my brand new powerful telescope to focus in on, well I never, are those mountains? Now picture wifey loading the washing machine, hanging items on a thoroughbred clotheshorse and dashing away with a smoothing iron. I’m now one hundred and twenty seven years old and never had my own study but I must confess I do look attractive in my clean, pressed holiday attire.

We now leave the study, sorry utility room, and cross a little corridor to the extremely useful second storage room, the one the nasty grown-up property developer seller tried to keep from us. What do you mean this could be my study/? It’s dark, it has no windows, it’s…oh, forget it but I know you meant well. If we follow the corridor to the right it ascends some stairs to another property, mysteriously empty. To the left, then sharp right we follow the corridor to a door that leads on to an alley. It is the front door at the back of the house, three floors higher than the other front door and many yards to the left (or right depending where you’re facing).

This completes our tour. Thank you for being an attentive audience. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have. I do this work in a voluntary capacity but if you wish to show your appreciation in any way…
Next time – the world outside, its people, its dramas, its time I had lunch.