End of the weekend

Lucca demanded breakfast at 7am today by attacking my feet. Helen quickly shot out of bed to feed him, I think in the hope that I would not be disturbed and would thus wake up feeling jolly. The only problem was that Helen went straight back to sleep and I couldn't, so I lay there thinking about what to do until 9am so that Helen could get a decent sleep, Sunday is the only day she doesn't get up at 06:30am to exercise, so I owe her that.

Despite last night's weather, it was a glorious morning and we had breakfast on the veranda while we worked out what to do with the day. We both knew that a day of fun without at least some form of work is not something we can afford at the moment - time is ticking, so we had to decide on which of the jobs that need doing sounded most like fun. A trip to the garden centre to buy some flowering shrubs to brighten up the garden and outside the apartment got the vote, so we decided to head to Garden Cinzia (our usual gardening haunt) after breakfast and throw €100 at them and see what we were left with (not literally of course, there was a bit of a breeze today and that wouldn't go well).

Before we left I had to put in a call to my friend Jeff back in Blighty. Jeff is a long-time conference friend of mine and when we posted a plea on Facebook a few weeks back asking if anyone would come and collect our car and drive it back to the UK, he was second to jump in and offer his services. He was only beaten by the skin of his teeth by Simon, another conference friend, but as time ticked by and the residency issue dragged on, we missed Simon's window of opportunity (we really appreciate the offer though Simon [Colin] - and hope to see you over here soon!). We had to wait until Jeff got back from his honeymoon to see if he was still up for the drive, and thankfully his trip to sunny Tunisia had softened him up enough to still think it was a good idea! We've been keeping in touch over the course of the last couple weeks, waiting for our residency application to go in so that we could get him on a plane and over here, but as you will all be well aware, that has all been going rather slowly.

So, when the prospect of us being able to pick up our new car suddenly came about, I was straight onto the bat phone to Jeff, and this morning we hatched a plan: all being well, we should be seeing Jeff here around Thursday this week for an overnight stay before waving both him and our little car farewell and bon voyage. It'll be great to catch up with Jeff again.

By the time we were ready to leave it was 11am already, so we headed straight to the gardening shop. When we got there, though, a sign on the gate said 'closed on Sundays in July and August' (in Italian of course). The complete randomness of opening hours will take some remembering and getting used to! Disappointed, we decided to try our luck at a place we've not yet seen open - a larger garden centre opposite Obi. Yep, another day, another drive to Montecatini Terme.

Just before you reach the complex of shops containing Obi etc., there is a small shopping centre with three stores in - the most noticeable of which is 'Maurys', which advertises itself as 'No 1 for the house'. I made an unannounced pitstop there just have a look around to see what exactly they sell. Given that we drive past it at least once week on our regular trips to Obi, I thought we should make sure we're not missing out - plus I wanted a back-up plan that would mean that if this garden centre was also closed, it wouldn't have been an entirely wasted morning.

Maurys turned out to be a bit of an Aladdin's cave - much larger than expected, and full of household products. They sell such items as their own brand of washing-up liquid (super concentrated in 5ltr tubs for €1.99), and lots of other cleaning and grooming-related bargains (as well as deck chairs, cushion covers, plastic storage boxes, a few toys... ). We ended up walking out of the shop with fully loaded arms having only spent €26. Our purchases cover a lot of stuff for the apartment, and we'll definitely be returning if the quality of the merchandise is OK.

After this, we pulled into an open garden centre, brilliant! It has a large, well stocked nursery, and we were excited to have found it open. The sign on the gate said they would be closed between 12:30 and 16:30 (which might explain why it has always appeared closed when we've driven past before), and as we pulled into the car park we realised the clock read 12:29. We decided there was nothing else for it than to play ignorant, go straight in and engage a member of staff and hope their anticipation of a sale would outweigh their desire to shut up shop for a long lunch. We asked a very friendly lady for some evergreen shrubs and she very happily dragged us around the entire place, showing us a multitude of plants. It felt a bit like we were on a bizarre version of the Generation Game where we had to make a mental note of everything and would be asked to recall it all at the end!

After the tour she supplied us with some boxes and a trolley. We heard her explain to another staff member that we were English, so it seems leniency was granted, and we ended up doing a kind of supermarket sweep being well aware of the time! (We should mention that at no point did the lady or her colleague try to hurry us or pointedly look at their watches or tap their feet or drum their fingers on the counter - they seemed happy for us to be there despite eating into their four-hour lunch break). Ten minutes later, we had a trolley full of shrubs and dashed to the counter where everyone was waiting for us (the first lady we spoke to, who'd given us a tour, her colleague and some teenage youngsters who must have been sons of one or the other of the sales assistants and who were prodded into helping out with some English words!). They all jumped to the job of adding up and bagging up, and as it turned out, we had spent exactly €100 (although I think there might have been some rounding off of numbers - it's not uncommon for Italians to round down to avoid having to deal with small change).

Before we left they wanted to know when we were going back to England, and once we managed to get across the fact that we were 'home', they wrote out a €50 voucher for us to use within the next ten days! No clues for guessing where we will be next weekend!

With a bootful of flora and our booty from Maurys, we headed home for lunch, wound the patio umbrella up to shield us from the heat of the sun and ate liver pate, artichoke and tuna pate, cheese, and local salami with bread.

After lunch we mustered up enough enthusiasm to start 'work'. I set to work on making insect screens for the rest of the windows in the house, while Helen planted out the shrubs that needed it. We just hope we can keep everything alive for the arrival of our first guests now!

Three insect screen frames assembled and stained, shrubs watered in, and some patio weeding completed, we decided to do a bit more tidying in the apartment and made a start at putting up the new floating shelves and populating the TV unit with a healthy selection of CDs and DVDs.

While putting the second coat of stain on the frames (Helen had done the first coat in between planting), I managed to catch up with my brother on the phone for an hour, which was great, as I've not spoken to him since we get here. Helen also had an email from her Mum and Dad this afternoon, which put a smile on her face, as well as one from Wendy, and news that the Kidd family may be out to pay us a brief visit when they are in the area early next month! All leaving us feeling warm and fuzzy inside.

So, when the bell tower in Pietrabuona struck 7pm, we decided to call it a day and have a gin and tonic on the patio, having made the random impulse purchase of two individual tonics yesterday in a cafe to go with the Sipsmith London Gin we had shipped out with tour stuff from Abingdon, very nice it was too!

At about 8pm the cats were getting testy with each other, indicating that they were hungry, so we headed indoors to blog, shower, wash up and cook dinner - during which Florence decided she was feeling a bit rubbish (didn't last long though):

Feeling a bit rubbish?

So we've managed to tick another few jobs off in a productive and busy weekend amidst tumultuous weather.

Oh and I killed five tiger mosquitoes today with my bare hands - a record that might take some beating. I'm very happy with that, but I think they still got the better of me today.