December 27, 2005. San Domino, outside Marketala, part of Cortona.

JC and Peter have arrived from Terentola train station, and their arms are full of wood from outside, it’s suddenly a rumble of activity and voices. There aren’t enough blankets. Peter’s already been in the attic looking .The tactic is: to heat the room they will be sleeping in. Thankfully it’s warmer today. The sun was out and I opened the kitchen window for a while. Peter says the house is a thousand years old. I think it used to be a church! We have been warned not to reach into the woodpile or other dark spaces lest we encounter scorpions, mice or vipers (which we have been warned, are poisonous) and mosquitos!



Yesterday we went to Siena and were duly tourists, gaping and studying the duomo, which has striped columns in black and white marble, and a shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. I remembered every word of the prayer, which was written out on holy cards.

There are little heart shaped relics on the wall, with little booties attached and some bicycle and motorcycle helmets, to mark the passing of lives ended too soon. Every inch of the church is covered with some sort of art: sculpture, painting, marble mosaics in the floor. What a day to have been born an artist, when these churches were made!



Now everyone's in the kitchen re-living the trauma of the container being unloaded, which I am afraid, I didn’t capture here in earlier posts. The narrow road up to the fort, the huge cargo, the lack of personnel (due to our site contractor guy quitting at the last moment), the wind, the weight of the steel substructure, the forklift we ended up with; the passing truck which was recruited into the effort with euros and Renato’s facility with the local dialect. The howling wind, the stone cold church. Gord was very cool throughout all this, but I know he was very, very happy when the equipment was safely loaded into the church.