Tank on empty!

We had a bit of a late night last night - Helen was up late editing the blog and I worked on the website until she had finished. It was a yawnathon in the office - so much so that I'm surprised there was any oxygen left in there when we retired to bed at about 00:30.

Consequently, we both woke up feeling wrecked this morning. Helen somehow managed to drag herself out of bed to do some exercise at 6.30am - I have no idea how she does it, it took all my strength just to watch her through the single eyelid I could manage to open.

The morning was a real struggle for both of us - it felt like our tanks were on empty and it took an enormous amount of effort to carry out even the most basic of tasks. That's the reason why I sat down to start writing this blog post before 4pm - it's very often completing the blog that stands between us and sleep, and today, I am NOT going to allow that to happen! 

This morning, while Helen was busy with her office job, I hung all of the pictures in our bedroom and got rid of the large box of excess clothes hangers we can't find a home for. That means that, apart from re-painting the plastered sections of walls (which desperately needs doing - they are currently a shade of yellow that is not to our taste) and finding something to replace our towels-for-curtains, our bedroom is done! TICK!!

Progress on the second bedroom has come to a halt now until we get bookcases (that could be tomorrow's first job). Once our tonne of books have been moved out of the bedroom and are happily standing on their new shelves rather than strewn across the floor, we will easily be able to complete bedroom two, which will then just leave the office to finish off.

Helen emailed the animal couriers this morning, to check in that all is OK with Lucca and Florence, and to ask for some idea of delivery schedule. We only had  a vague window for their collection, but this end has not been discussed at all. We think they're setting off from Surrey tomorrow, and we already know from the courier's blog that our little Lucca and slightly littler Florence will have two dogs for company - one going to Monaco and another to Geneva, and there will likely be more small animals to join the road trip as well. 

Just before noon we headed out to the supermarket - the rain that had lashed down all night and continued on and off this morning had left cooler temperatures, and we fancied something warm for lunch: piping hot baked potatoes with tuna mayo. However, that meant we needed to buy some tuna, and since we needed a couple of other things anyway, heading for the supermarket seemed like a good distraction from the efforts of the day.

By the time we got back, the sun had made an appearance and had dried the garden seats off, so after all of that it was lunch outside again in the gentle warmth of the midday sun.

After lunch, Helen plodded back into the office to face the second half of her working day, and I set about putting the finishing touches on the composting station so that I could finally empty our compost caddy from the kitchen (which was starting to hum).

Composting in action!

At half past three, Helen came to get me for the daily post-box-checking walk through the woods, but there was nothing for us today - I shouldn't complain really, as I'm sure once we're properly embedded here it will be mainly bills anyway!

I called Richard earlier in an attempt to kick start the process for our residency application by enlisting his help to deal with Mr. Grumpy down at the immigration desk. We're fairly certain we're going to need to send documents away for translating and/or legal verification before we can even start to sit down to fill out paperwork at the council office, so we're really keen to get this job sorted  As it turns out, Richard is in the UK at the moment, finishing a plastering job, but we've arranged to catch up on Thursday morning when he's back to get the ball rolling. I really don't like leaning on people too much to get things done, but on this one we know we're beaten with the time frame we're working to, so will just have to give in and pay Richard for his time.

Somehow, after the tired and sluggish morning we'd had, we both got our second wind (actually it was more like our first wind) at around 5pm! I went out and cut an inch off the wood shed door, so that it now opens without catching on the ground, and did half an hour of hedge trimming (or should I say bramble trimming) on the verge of the parking area. That was until I looked up and found Helen standing beside me having clocked off for the day and wanting 'her' trimmer back. Helen then went and did an hour and a half's trimming of the tiers, and I got the strimmer out to do a neatening up job on the tiers that have only had a rough pass so far.

It's a jungle in there! Everything bar the olive tree needs to be cleared.

And it's a jungle looking that way too!

Thankfully, we've cleared the first three tiers now. They just need some tidying.

Here, you can at least see the olive trees.

Helen got up as far as the 4th/5th tiers today - we've both noticed what a difference the small gain in height makes to the views - it's well worth the steep climb up the slope just to see things from a different perspective.

That's the roof of our house down there!

All of a sudden, the bright yellow farmhouse opposite looks like a close neighbour!

The flies seem much better today - there are still quite a few about, but they seem a little less keen to bother us and fewer of them seem to want to join the party, so we're hoping they might have come to the end of their season/life span and we can get on with some more pleasant garden working. They only really seem to bother us when we're hot and sweaty and when we're disturbing the grass/undergrowth, so we'll be glad to get the worst of the grass clearing out the way.

We clocked off the strimming/cutting/tidying just before 7pm, had half an hour to relax outside with a soft drink, then headed indoors for showers and dinner - which tonight will be a pasta dish with a tomato-based sauce containing roasted pepper and zucchini and plenty of garlic! Bet you're glad technology hasn't yet advanced far enough to transmit odours!