Post #4158564

We have been staying with our son in Rome for the past week. We were driven off the boat by extreme heat — In Cagliari, as in Rome, temperatures have rarely fallen below 30ºC, even at night, and have occasionally risen to the mid-40s, which made walks even to the grocery store, 1.6 shadeless kilometres from the marina, something of a risk for us. I have also been struggling with my health; I was often unsteady and in pain whenever I moved around the boat. Given put some of this down to deepening depression and stress. We have been looking for a home ashore since late February, this year, and despite a score of applications for rental properties, submitted to agents and landlords in nearly half a dozen cities, we haven't had a single positive response. We are not — ever, it appears — the types of tenant they're looking for, even in monthly rental brackets limited to three figures, even in a couple of Italy's poorest neighbourhoods. Whatever residues of luck we had once are spent. In less than a week, we lose our temporary refuge here in Rome and we'll have to move back aboard a boat we can no longer manage or maintain. High summer berthing fees and a steep insurance renewal will leach a significant part of the money we've harboured for our first month's rent and deposit. We have exhausted escape plans B and C and having spent the last couple of days venting our frustrations on each other, we have exhausted ourselves. So it goes.