We moved back into our property in early October, after living in rented accommodation for seven months whilst our Italian farmhouse was being restored.

Builders being as they are, this was three months after the initial date given for the completion, and here we in our third month of supposedly living “the Italian Dream” but still not quite there.

Patience is the most important virtue required living in this land of bureaucracy and it has been tested to the limit and beyond over the last sixteen months of living here. Whilst waiting for planning permission we lived here through Italy’s coldest winter for sixteen years in this house. It had holes in the roof, sellotaped windows and doors that did not fit .The rained poured through and gales swept from the Alps to find a habitat within our walls. Our heating consisted of three mobile gas heaters and a large log fire which we sat in front of when we were not chopping up the six tonnes of logs we got through. Our faces were warm but our backs may as well have been packed in blocks of ice.

We are happy with most of what has been done to date, especially the absolute luxury of having a roof five layers thick, central heating, guttering and drainage. I had no idea that I would be excited about having drainage but if I tell you that it used to just empty into the quagmire surrounding the house, you may appreciate my joy at actually having underground pipes. I can now look forward to having a very fertile garden, where hopefully I will not have to don a pair of wellies just to get to the dustbin or washing line.

For the last three months tradesmen have either filled the house daily or disappeared for weeks with jobs partly done. The plumbers have fitted sanitary ware but then depart saying that the builders have to deal with the sealant around the bath, showers, bidets and wash hand basins. Two weeks worth of daily phone calls brings the builders along for an hour and a lunch break that lasts not the usual three hours, but three days. Back they come for a further fifteen minutes or so – why on earth they did not put in another hour on the last visit remains a mystery.

Two weeks later the workman arrives to complete the tiling and grouting. As he is easy on the eye with rippling muscles, a six pack and the most flirtatious manner, I really do not care how long he takes. My husband however, is not taken in with his “charms” and is not impressed that he works in Armani trousers and a close fitting white t -shirt!

All of the joinery work is pretty poor and needs to be done again or at the very least, amended extensively. The joiner promises to come along on a Monday or Tuesday but we have learned not to assume he means the following Monday or Tuesday. He smiles when we show him the problems, telling us that he can fix anything but death. As he is so amenable I cannot help but like him, but as far as my husband is concerned, Yuri (we think his father is Russian) commits the most heinous crime of all by wearing a baseball cap back to fronts. He fitted two internal doors for us just prior to Christmas but because some of our walls are 400 years old, the frames need some “packing out”. This is no fault of Yuri’s of course but neither is it his job – that again, is work for the builders. Whether they are responsible for the sealant is not yet clear. After Yuri fitted the windows, we had very heavy rain which leaked in because the sealant is not his job for the windows either.

We lost one of our two electricians part way through the renovation when he was tragically killed whilst installing some electrical wires in a house with a gas leak. Needless to say, we could not complain about our house still needing to be finished or the fact that some of our plugs were not in where we had asked for them to be. One day recently though, the plumbers came along to finish the electrical work!

The scaffolding was up around the whole house for seven months and a couple of weeks after it was taken away it was all brought back so that the copper downpipes could be put in. In the same way a mechanical digger was brought along to dig out the soil for drains, taken away and brought back a few days later to finish the job.

Dealing with Italians is a minefield because of the fear of offending. When the tradesmen enter the house they ask for permission to cross over the threshold. Unfortunately they request every time they wish to re-enter after popping out for a screwdriver, spanner or such. Sometimes I seem to spend my day constantly confirming that yes, they have my permission.

Through all of this, I have had to put up with the owner of the building firm being unable to talk to me without putting an arm on my shoulder and on one occasion, my waist and standing only a couple of inches away to talk to me about the work. He seems to have the knack of knowing when my husband is away from the house. As far as I’m concerned, apart from the fact that he is creepy, scruffy, chain smokes, is at least a foot shorter than me, worst of all he wears a cardigan!

Now if it had been the guy who fits and grouts the tiles – well that would have been fine.