Unexpected guest

9Arches has two staircases. One at the main entrance, in the middle of the building, with thick shiny oak threads and curved handrails, and the service one, made of red stone, sits in the courtyard.

Both are very, very steep, with short threads and hard to climb.

UF!

The main staircase was only used on very special occasions - like when the priest came to bless the house on Easter holidays - but mostly when Godfather received any important person to discuss business. He was also the local mayor.

All other times, everybody used the service entrance. 

And that’s the way it stayed through time. 

But Covid came. 

And we suddenly had many families from outside Europe wanting to stay for the mandatory quarantine period, away from it all and safe, in the middle of the countryside. 

The first family was to arrive from Panama. 

It was a young family with a father, a mother and two children. 

Upstairs was fine. All was ready to receive them.

But one week before check-in, the mother wrote saying that she could not bring herself to leave her father behind and the children also wanted grandfather to come.

Was the accommodation suitable for an aged person?

What could we say? Not bringing Grandad because of our ancient steep staircase was unthinkable! 

So we said yes, and started frantically looking for solutions which could be found in the remaining days of the week before their arrival.

We thought first of superimposing a modern steel structure over the crooked stone steps but there was no time to execute it.

In despair, we thought of demolishing the stairs altogether and quickly building a wooden one in its place - only to discover the steps rested on a huge boulder, so only dynamite could have destroyed it. 

And that was a risk we could not take with the house right in the middle of the village.

And time was ticking. 

And to our horror, we quickly found out Covid’s unheard of side effects - readily available building materials were like gold dust and simply not in stock. 

So, we looked around for any available material that could be bought within our borough, for our van could not cross its borders without plausible justification. 

And building a staircase was certainly not one.

In the end, the only thing we found around and in huge quantities were road curbs.

We devised a perfect inclination to embed them over the old steps, quite suitable for any grandfather to climb - in fact, as easily and comfortably as having a stroll in the garden - and ended up with four new steps which sprawled majestically into the courtyard. 

And it made it quite grand!

At the end of the week our work was done, and the quaint service entrance had turned into the main entrance to the house.

On the day of the check-in, the whole village stood in waiting for the family from Panama, but as dusk settled we all recognised it was to be a No-Show. 

We never found out what happened to the family, but thanks to them, we now can all go upstairs safely.