Richard arrived bang on time, and we drove up (and up...) to Goraiolo. We were slightly delayed en route by a baby deer standing at the side of the road that seemed to have lost its mum and kept running in and out of the road, unsure as to what to do with itself - eventually it skipped off into the trees though, and we were able to continue our journey. Michelle was already waiting for us at her friend's cafe/bar/pizzeria (SeraDi café), so we ordered drinks and took them up to the garden.
We found ourselves a table in a covered area (thinking ahead to when the night air would turn chilly) and sat drinking and chatting.
Before long, the band took up their place and played a few different bongo tracks (although, to be honest, once you've heard one bongo rendition, you've kind of heard them all...). It all seemed very Glastonbury-esque, with tie dye and dreadlocks in abundance - thankfully without the mud though.
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| Smiley bongos players. |
We were soon delivered some tomato bruschetta to accompany our drinks, followed by several plates of tasty thin crust pizza straight from the oven. Absolutely delicious.
We were joined by another of Richard's friends, Anna, who is a German lady who has lived in the area for 15 years and who runs yoga classes. I haven't yet found out how much she charges for her classes, but I've taken her business card and her home number, and it's certainly something I'll considering investigating further. She also said she would give us the details of the person in Montecatini who taught her Italian when she first moved over. Now that could be very useful indeed!
After a few bongos tracks, the band moved on to guitars and singing, and started playing some more familiar songs (even taking requests from the audience - our table in particular, it seemed) and, as the wine/beer kept coming and the evening drew on, the music became altogether more all-inclusive, with audience participation very much encouraged.
At some point during the evening, one of the band members did a double-take when he saw Stuart - and then, all of a sudden, they were ALL at it - laughing and smiling and wanting to have their photograph taken with him. What's all the fuss about?? I wondered, and thought that maybe they'd just never seen a real-life Brummie before. Michelle soon cottoned on though, and explained that they all thought he looked like Matteo Renzi - the Italian President!! (Seriously, Google for images of Renzi and see what you think - they have a point!)
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| Separated at birth?! We MUST be able to use this to our advantage somehow... |
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| Richard poses with Matteo. |
Of course, you can imagine that with several beers inside him, Stuart took this very well indeed, and happily posed for photographs with different people all night.
High on the feeling of adoration from his new found fans, he even went as far as DANCING (a once in a blue moon occurrence), and then took it upon himself to join the band as their new (presidential) tambourine player.
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| Looking like he's been part of the band for years (needs to work on his dreadlocks though). |
Richard also joined in on the bongos for a while, with Michelle supervising - the musicians took it all in their stride and in very good humour:
Needless to say, the evening was one full of hilarity, music, food, dancing, alcohol, chatting, laughing, broken Italian, exchanging of phone numbers (Stuart can't remember why one of the band members took his number down - I'm hoping it might be for some paid look-a-like work...), and we were the last people standing - even the owners of the bar had locked up and left before we all tumbled into the car. Richard drove us back down the road (at which point the excitement of being Mr President finally got too much, and Stuart spent most of the journey asleep, with his head lolling out of the window - which I have to say was slightly alarming to watch from the back seat!). Richard eventually delivered us home just after 2am.
The whole evening was certainly a huge change from the rest of the rather quiet evenings have had since we arrived!
And so it was that we woke up this morning feeling somewhat bleary eyed and lacking in energy.
We had a late breakfast, whiled away what was left of the morning on the computer, then had lunch on the patio.
We talked about visiting the gardens (and butterfly house) of Villa Garzoni in Collodi, just over the hill from Pescia, but in the end, the nagging list of Things-That-Must-Be-Done got the better of us, and we opted to do some weeding in the guest herb garden, get the dehumidifier started in the apartment (which gave a reading of 82% humidity in the apartment when first switched on!), and go on a shopping trip for some garden furniture for the apartment.
We headed out towards Montecatini Terme to visit Obi, where we hoped we would be able to get everything we needed (also on the shopping list was another curtain - matching the ones across the wardrobe - to go across the apartment doors). We managed to find the curtain, and we also picked up a handful of spare fly swats and a 20 litre container for filling with water. It's very common to see people pull up in their cars at little water fountains/taps in the street, and get out with 12 or so empty bottles, which they then fill from the tap. We didn't understand why they were doing it at first (most people avoid drinking the tap water here, unless it's boiled, let alone drinking from a fountain in the street), but then we worked out that it must be an economical way to get water for the garden/allotment etc. We are on a water meter here, so the less we can use the better - but with scorching hot days, watering the garden is essential. We finally twigged that we could get free water from one of these public fountains - hence the 20 litre container.
Unfortunately, the one thing Obi failed to come up with was a suitable garden furniture set for the guest patio. There was only one thing for it - head for Mercatone Uno. We duly got back in the car and headed in the direction of Altopascio. By the time we arrived our energies were really starting to flag - we went to the garden furniture section and must have spent 20 minutes in there looking at different tables, sitting on different chairs, and being completely unable to make a sensible decision. There was nothing in there that really grabbed us. Either the tables were too tiny, or they were too large - there didn't seem to be anything that was a happy medium, other than a couple of extremely ugly plastic monstrosities. In the end, we admitted defeat and left empty handed - feeling frustrated at having failed to accomplish what we set out to do.
We drove home, stopping on the way at the water fountain on our main road. It must have taken at least 10 minutes to fill the 20 litre container with water from the tap!
When we got home, Stuart hopped on the computer to try to top up his mobile phone as he'll be needing it for his work tomorrow, and I headed back into the garden to strim the path/lower tier that I had cleared yesterday. It wasn't too long before the flies got on my nerves though, so I came in for a shower.
We're both feeling the effects of a late night - rather jaded - so hopefully we'll be able to get to bed at a reasonable time tonight to recharge our batteries for the start of a busy week ahead. Tomorrow, Stuart and the strimmer head out for a day's work, leaving me home alone (and without transport!) for the first time.
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