When I arrived in Motovun this evening, I found my house in good order. There was electricity. There was water. There was the telephone connection needed for the contact with the World Wide Web. It did not take me long to realize that central heating was not working, though. I understand next to nothing about the system, but a gauge on the oil burner’s control panel suggests that the water pressure is too low. And I do not know how to jack it up. My guess is that there was no water for a while since I left home, which led to the pressure problem. After a few phone calls, I expect someone to fix the system, but it may take days for that someone to actually show up. In the meanwhile, I am using a couple of electric heaters to make myself a bit more comfortable. It will be an uphill battle, no doubt. After several hours and two heaters going full blast, the temperature in the house is exactly where I found it when I arrived: fifteen degrees Celsius. Motovun is not for the fainthearted.

Addendum I (October 17, 2011)

Overnight, the temperature in my house has dropped to fourteen degrees Celsius. The two electric heaters cannot possibly heat a large and open stone house, but only two closed rooms. In this case, the bedroom and study. But there is a new twist to my predicament. The electric company is fixing something on the upper square, and a good part of the old town will be out of juice between eleven and two o’clock today. This I learned only this morning from the bulletin board in the loggia on the lower square, where public notices of this sort are posted for all to see. The explanation that goes with the notice is kind of garbled, but the gist of it is that the electric company is now doing the sort of maintenance it has been skipping for many years. Once again, Motovun is not for the fainthearted. And I returned to the hilltown only yesterday evening. God only knows what is going to happen the next few days.

Addendum II (October 18, 2011)

I was lucky to get someone who knows about central heating systems. That was yesterday evening. He came exactly when he promised he would come. The water pressure was too low, indeed. But jacking it up did not help. As it turned out, the batteries in my thermostat needed replacing. My mistake. I completely forgot that every so often—say, once a year or two—I need new batteries. This morning I rushed to the store to get them, for there were no others in the house. However, new batteries did not do a thing. Crestfallen, I called the fellow who was here yesterday evening, and he promised to come this evening for another try. According to him, the whole thermostat might be in question. In the meanwhile, the temperature in the house varies between fourteen degrees Celsius in the morning and fifteen in the evening. Luckily, the electric supply is steady. No power cuts are planned, either.

Addendum III (October 19, 2011)

As the good fellow had guessed, the problem was with the thermostat. Although it did not need replacing, or even repairing, some fiddling with it was needed. He unscrewed a part of it last evening, yanked it out, and checked a few connections. When he plugged it back in its place, it came alive at long last. And the heating kicked in. Apparently, the connections between several electronic bits of the thermostat got gummed up after several years of inattention. One way or another, the temperature is slowly rising. It is a few minutes past midnight, but it is already at eighteen degrees Celsius. Even though it will take a while for the house to start feeling really comfortable, everything seems to be in good order. Phew! The fellow will return in a week for a proper service of the whole system. But I feel on top of the world even now. After only a few days of hassle, my house feels like home again.