Yesterday the loss adjuster

Misty valley, muddy fields

Yesterday the loss adjuster from the house insurance came round to look at the so-called damage caused by the leaking roof and windows. When he phoned to make the appointment I had to think hard to remember what he was talking about, as that rain-leaking event has now been so comprehensively superseded by the landslides and the damage has paled into insignificance. It's funny to think that two weeks ago today none of this had happened, the rain was just beginning, and the worst that I thought could happen in my life was to have to strew a few buckets around the living room to catch the drips. No, not so funny, really.

This is the view of the top of the landslide shown in my previous post.
The hole is about 5m deep. The edge of the road
is just on the other side of the red-and-white tape.

The gaping chasm near the house is still creeping towards the road. I think of those houses built on clifftops that are eroding and one by one the houses fall into the sea. It's a horrible feeling, watching this kind of damage occurring in slow motion and being utterly powerless to stop it. I'm living with a constant sense of fear, the kind where you lie awake at night with your heart pounding and your head spinning and nothing makes sense. My dreams are filled with tiny events of everyday anxiety: a huge spider in the bathroom, my glasses getting broken, my wellies developing leaks as I walk through puddles.

The first landslide, the one that took away our road, is sinking further every day. Filippo's crew made us a bypass by cutting back the bank, but the edge of the new road is on the unstable ground and itself is sinking, so we still can't drive the car up to the house. At least we have a fairly firm path to walk on though, rather than having to wade through mud. (My god, that's a feat of brightside-looking-on.) The roadside electricity pole is careening at an alarming angle and ENEL assure me they have a cunning plan to fix it, but meanwhile above the path are stretched the wires that take the current up to Mario's house — stretched very close to breaking point. If they break they'll fall across the path. When that happens, the ENEL guy told me, don't even attempt to step over them or go round them: call the emergency number and wait and someone will be round in half an hour to sort it out. I wanted to know why they couldn't move the wires pre-emptively — you know, so that actually they don't fall on top of our path and potentially electrocute me and my family — but obviously that's a cunning plan too far.

In amongst the dread and stress it's hard to find pleasure in normal life. Everything feels slightly deadened because of the constant backbeat of worry and the awareness that this is not going to end anytime soon. I've never known anything like this before. Early in the morning the mist over the valley was pretty, yet in the photo I see more the ocean of mud than the beauty of the view.