Saturday 10 May 2014

Fully furnished!?

Change of author this evening folks, though I won't apologise at this point for any bad grammar and the like as no doubt I won't be allowed to post this until the editor next door has cast her skillful eye over it.

So... what a day... where to start!?

Let's start at the end for a change (well the day hasn't quite ended so I'll write up until this point).

Our day ended when the 'bar' opened at 7.15pm, with a lovely view and about half an hour of sunshine before the sun dipped behind the mountains opposite. We quenched our substantial thirsts with a couple of large, cold beers and a bowl of crisps.


Looks idyllic, right? Wait til you see what's just out of view.

All very lovely, I'm sure you'll agree, but prepare yourselves for what preceded it...




So now you know how it ended, let's wind right back to the start of the day so that you can see how we arrived there.

We both woke early this morning, our brains working overtime with thoughts of the day ahead. After a brief attempt to get back to sleep, we gave in and decided to start the day with an early breakfast and get straight off to the house - we had clearing to do, and lots of it! We are SOOOOO glad that we had access to the house this morning rather than at 6pm today (as would have been the original plan), what with no bed linen, no electric or internet, and copious layers of dirt to clean and tidying to do. When we were sold the house 'fully furnished' we didn't fully realise that meant 'including all our old rubbish'... Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.


We arrived at the house at around 8.30am after Helen had taken her first ever drive on the wrong side of the road. I forget how nerve wracking it is when you haven't done it before, as I've done so much for so many years, but I know how much of a big deal it was for Helen to jump into the driving seat for the first time - one of many uphill challenges we're bound to face, so I'm very proud of her taking the bull by the horns.

So, the sun was out, the air was fresh, our bellies were full of breakfast and we had the bit between our teeth so we started off by going all guns blazing into the downstairs bedroom/office to get our technical hub and connection to the world set up. That took us a little over an hour, so from there we headed straight into the living room/kitchen area - the most chaotically messy (and dirty) room of them all.

Just to reiterate - NONE of this stuff belongs to us.

After an hour or so of sorting and cleaning we headed out to the local supermarket - once again, Helen again opted to drive (very proud of her for giving it a go and very well she took to it too, even if she did accuse me of not taking my passenger/navigator role seriously enough). The plan was to buy supplies not only for lunch but also for cleaning - but not before we had headed to customer services to attempt to acquire a discount card for the supermarket. Discount cards are only available to residents and offer substantial savings as well as an accumulation of points. The lady at the desk spoke no English but gave us a form to fill out, and between us, our broken Italian and Google Translate on my phone, we managed to acquire ourselves said card and off we went merrily on our way to fill our trolley with discounted goods feeling we'd achieved enough for the day already!




By the time we got back to the house it was time to break for lunch. Being excited Brits abroad, we sat in the full heat of the midday sun and ate a prawn salad, cheese, crisps and piccante peppers stuffed with tuna (a bit random we'll concede, but the kitchen was far from fit for cooking at this point, so lunch needed to come ready-made). Oh, and we had a bottle of white wine of course, and very respectable it was too - all the more so for being only €1.80 a bottle!

While we're on the subject of drinking wine in the sunshine, a word of caution: 25C sunshine focused through a glass of wine directly onto the skin of the hand HURTS!! I managed to do this to myself three times before I realised why my thumb was stinging while absent-mindedly playing with the stem of my glass.

Ouch - that sun is hot!

So, after an all too brief stop for lunch, Helen went inside to test the phone line and call her folks back in Bristol. Success! Not only do we have electric, hot water & internet, we also have a landline - which is something we didn't even have in Abingdon for at least two years prior to leaving. (Let's hope Italians don't suffer from the same cold calling as we do back in Blighty.)


Helen looks worried not because she isn't enjoying talking to her Dad, but because she's looking at the pile of rubbish that needs clearing...

Finding no more valid reasons to delay the inevitable, we thew ourselves head long into the cleaning and tidying again. I headed into the 'man cave'/shed and left Helen dousing the kitchen in the Italian equivalent of Flash liquid and Dettol spray. Several hours later, we had a clean(er) kitchen (certainly fewer mouse droppings in the kitchen cupboard), a tidy man cave and that ENORMOUS pile of crap that we showed you earlier!


All-new, improved, tidied man-cave.

So now you know how we earned those beers at the end of our day, but we can't finish the post without picking out some of the highlights of the 'treasure' we found in the house and shed/man cave... (If we could only find a car boot sale somewhere we'd be richer than in our wildest dreams... SURELY!)

So, here's the run down, in a kind of Generation Game style:

Lamp shades

Cuddly toys... (in a bin liner)






A desktop computer, complete with printer AND juicer




A selection of pine furniture that would bring a touch of class to any home




A selection of power transfer adapters so HUGE that you need never be without the correct one again!

Which one is it?!


A cuddly bear in a casserole dish



And not forgetting a full pan of used frying oil, just one previous owner - too disgusting to show on this blog, or even to take a photo of to be honest.

So that's it, day one of our new life.

Tomorrow we plan to devote some attention to the garden.

Stay tuned for days two, three, four and more.













3 comments:

  1. You guys deserve a medal. Keep drinking that 1.80 wine - I think you're going to need it. Keep us posted.

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  2. Wow that view would be enough for me sod the rubbish!! Enjoy ur sunday its piddling it down here btw! :-) xx

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  3. Thanks guys, wine and view combo seem to be getting us through it ;-)

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