I
do this job because I love it. I love to find new houses, to visualise
their potential, and to imagine how thy will be once remodelled,
helping people to find the right one for themselves.
When
I arrived here from Milan 15 years ago, I had to go through the
same experiences that clients had or have to face when buying
their home . . . look for the right property, find and have the
courage to choose it, investigate the whole situation: legal issues,
notaries, permissions from the town hall. Then I had to find the
proper artisans, builders, everything: meanwhile learning all
the differences between what my expectations were, as a city person,
and the actual circumstances of country life in a little village,
where life goes on at a very different pace from a big city.
Problems
were caused by dirt roads, not by elevators. Water and telephone
weren't necessarily there, and you had to book your wood in August
to get it right in the autumn for your fireplace.
Relationships
with people were completely different from the ones I was used
to in Milan: I had to understand the way people saw life, their
different habits and points of view. Everybody knew everybody,
many of them had been together in the same village their whole
life, and some of them had hardly visited different towns and
cities or countries. People were - are! called by their name,
not by their profession: nobody goes to the tobacconist's, one
just goes to Domenico's, for instance, and everybody's going to
Massimo's to have a nice supper.
Slowly
slowly I started to get used to this new vision of life, and that's
what I feel I am doing when I help my clients with all necessary
information, introducing them to the Tuscan country life, 'translating'
not only words, but experiences; and then having the reward of
seeing how well it suits everybody, and the pleasure with which
they adapt to life around here, wherever they come from.
