Steps

I’ve been working on the interminable external steps. It’s all very well working in local field stone and yellow earth mortar but it is demanding of skill, patience and endurance. It’s also one of the costs of living on a steep hill with stone terraces.

Originally there was a rough cobbled sled track that led - ran vertiginously - through the terraces but later occupants built cast concrete steps over this. It must have been a huge job - with old houses like this one you grow to appreciate the enthusiasm and energy past generations expended. And maybe desperation. The hundreds of metres of stone terracing are testament to someone’s drive to render the land productive and to tame slope and gravity.

Another set of occupants covered the concrete steps with a thick layer of mortar and terracotta floor tiles. Over the years the rain and damp got under these.

I’ve stripped the steps back to the old concrete and masonry as a base for my Fred Karno intervention.

It’s pleasant enough in the late autumn sun with an audiobook playing and stew in the wood stove oven.

One step at a time.