In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Sorry to see the damage, but I was checking your posts back in 2007 to see what the tower looked like and it really looks much prettier with all the flowers.
[url]http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/general-chat-about-italy/6419-signing-rogito-today-hurrah.html[/url]
Has it suffered major structural damage? From the outside you cannot ascertain.
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
[. It's a monument to the ravages of time and nature.[/QUOTE]
Aren't we all :bigergrin:
Sprat
Faulty Tower
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 05/02/2009 - 06:09In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Yes Gala, there has been some damage. Still a little wary of going inside for too long ( well I am), Pilch shot in & out & took these photo's and you can see there has been some changes. Silly me, well how would you know? But there has. As to doing up the tower, it's still an adventure for the future.....Now lets get that bloody log cabin up!
Sprat
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
"moved to italiauncovered.co.uk"
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
The poor old tower IS a bit crumblier now. Still beautiful. Still standing guard over the olive groves, vinyards & massive snow-clad mountains, just...... a bit crumblier. The main damage the quakes caused is the total destruction of one of the cross-vaulted ceilings & considerable damage to the large lean-to roof that spanned it. The main structure, including it's vaulted ceiling is OK. There are a few more cracks & the existing ones are now a bit bigger, the main roof now has a couple of holes where coppi have shuffled about, the top of the tower is now a little more ragged. The chimney stack, is it my imagination, has a bit more of a lean on it.
I've made the "Denunzia" at the comune but not yet heard anything. They've had a lot on. The comune building was damaged & I don't know if it's yet back in use. Then there's the rain & the mudslides with roads blocked or washed away. Difficult times. I am very familiar with one of the immutable & universal laws: Murphy's Law; which predicts that if things CAN go wrong they WILL go wrong. By the time they've paid to rebuild L'Aquila, Onna & everything else, the Mafia, the politicians & the rest of the crooks have taken their share, there won't be anything left for the odd crumbly tower.
Restoration IS looking more distant these days. Phases 1,2 & 3 were to be......Phase 1. Log Cabin, 42 Sq.M. Comfortable roof over our heads giving us a breathing space to do a bit of landscaping, planting & start the Tower. Phase 2. Bring Tower back into use. Underpinned, steel re-inforced with tie-bars, scuci-cuci'd, etc, etc. Phase 3. Build new modern house that connects with the Tower.
Phase one was to start 3 days after I bust my shoulder. 10 months later, an operation & endless physio we are back to square one. Only trouble is that now our Sterling struggles to buy a Euro, prices have shot up over here, have spent a year not earning, Gordon Brown scrapped Taper Relief on Capital Gains Tax & our properties in the UK are going down in value by the day, the caravan got trashed in a gale & the cat died. It's been a bad year. But at least we have more to look forward to unlike some folk in L'Aquila.
Pilch
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
"moved to italiauncovered.co.uk"
In reply to A newbie all over again! by Annec
Sorry to hear about all the problems, but it has been a difficult year for most of us. Still, you are recovering from your injured shoulder and you have many plans for the future. So keep on fighting!
The photo of the tower and poppies - is spectacular.
The tower looks a little worse for wear than it did in the last photo I saw of it Sprat - but somehow it seems to add to its charm. I often wonder if you and Pilch will ever get around to restoring it - and just as often, I kinda hope you never do. It's a monument to the ravages of time and nature.