Monday, June 26, 2006: Workmen start early

A rude awakening at 5:30am (UK: 4:30am) as the first of the workmen arrive and start breaking rocks outside our bedroom window and I am not talking metaphorically here. By the time we are up and breakfasted there is a full squad in action: eleven (!) men, a JCB digger and a Bob Cat mini-bulldozer. Needless to say the work proceeds at an astonishing pace.



As Monday is market day in Cisternino we left them to it and went to stock up on fruit and veg for the week. By the end of the day the original entrance is walled across and the inner wall for the flower bed is done. Several metres of the perimeter pathway are constructed and most of the floor lights cabled in. The concrete beside the pizza oven steps is plastered over and the entire complex given its second coat of limewash so all is gleaming white and looking fab.

Several of the lads worked a 12 hour day before disappearing. One of them returned at nine o'clock that night to dump a load of capstones for the boundary walls. So we got an early night expecting another onslaught the following day.