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Starting to Look the Part

Genista pool lining

Looking at these pictures it’s hard to imagine that it was nearly two months ago when we last posted on this blog. Maybe things might have progressed further but there was little point rushing anything as important as allowing the concrete to go off properly when the holiday season was coming to an end anyway.

Relax pool lining

We’re confident though that come April 2023, Genista will be ready for visitors to come, stay and enjoy Puglia throughout the spring, summer and autumn. So what are we looking at here? The picture at the top of this blog is the swimming pool after fitting the lining. You may ask why does it look a sort of sandy beige colour when traditionally pools are coloured light blue. Three to four years ago, the regulations for building swimming pools in the Valle D’Itria were made more strict in order to preserve the authenticity of the region while allowing the tourist industry to continue to continue to grow. Consequently pools are not allowed to be plain azzure blue anymore in order that they blend in better with the landscape.

We think you’ll agree from the sample photograph above of this lining actually in situ that the end effect is a very calming and pleasing one. We are extremely happy we chose the one we did. By the time this post goes live the process of back filling will have been completed and we can then start the paving around the edges.

When we visit in a week’s time we hope to be able to report that that particular process will have begun. Maybe we’ll be finished by Christmas but December and January are notoriously slow months in Italy but we can hope.

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Have we been here before?

Puglia Genista swimming pool

The post below this one was written on October 1st 2020. This one comes to you on 7th October 2021 and it is staggering to think that a whole year has gone by with precious little progress. We could certainly claim Covid was a factor in this and I’ve no doubt it played its part.

But, as stated up front, it has been a year for someone to literally read a permit application…previously approved permit application even….and stamp it approved again. The previous owner of the property has already paid for this permit to be reactivated so the Comune were sitting on the money but doing nothing. They have had disruption due to the pandemic but not so much that this couldn’t be done.

Let’s take a bit more of an optimistic view for a second. As a result of the pandemic and the need for Italy to reboot its economy, a new law was passed. If you had a planning application that was outstanding for 18 months or more you can now write to the Comune stating that, if you hadn’t heard from them with any objections in 14 days, you could carry on with the work. Consequently, our Geometra, Giuseppe, staked out the swimming pool area and sent pictures with the letter signed by us to say that we would begin work on 6th September unless we heard otherwise. Hence the picture you see at the top of this post. That isn’t a police crime scene, it is the beginning of swimming pool construction. We hope.

OK, that’s the good part. We eagerly awaited the arrival of a JCB but technicalities delayed proceedings for a week. Which were delayed again due to Giuseppe having to take some measurements from the new building and submit them to the Comune. It is at these moments that you start to wonder really who to believe. You get a different story depending on who you talk to. And you start to invent all kinds of possibilities about what is actually going on. I might add we are not the only people going through this nightmare.

Anyhow, we were then informed that we would have the official go-ahead from the Comune by October 4th. At this point we really didn’t know what to say. We thought we had been waiting the last two years for the official go-ahead from the Comune and it hasn’t happened. What happened to the ’14 days or we are going ahead’ law? We still don’t have the answer to that question.

At last count, we have received the go-ahead and work will begin on 14th October. We are assured by Christmas we will have a fully-functioning, solar-heated swimming pool. I know….watch this space.