I think that hammering chestnut fence posts into the ground yesterday afternoon must have taken it out of me - I don't even remember the sensation of sleeping. I remember turning the lights out, and I remember Helen coming back in from exercising, but absolutely nothing in between and I still didn't wake up properly until 9.30am!
I realised yesterday that I wasn't enjoying working on the goose enclosure any more. I couldn't work out why - sure, it's hard work, but I'm no stranger to hard work and we're so close to the enjoyable bit now that I should need no motivating at all. Despite that, however, I just couldn't get into the idea of working on it today... and then I realised what was bugging me: it was all the countless other jobs piling up and niggling at me that I was becoming unable to ignore as they were each slowly but surely crawling towards their own crisis point. All the time while I was trying to concentrate on Goose Island, I found myself resenting it (and more to the point, the amount of time I was having to invest in it) because of all the other tasks niggling at me. So I came to the conclusion that Goose Island would have to be put on hold for a short period while I addressed the most important of the pressing matters.
I skipped breakfast today, as by the time I had made it downstairs it was already 10am and only a couple of hours before lunch, and joined Helen in the office. My first job was make another significant dent in the VB PowerPoint work - it's a little over three weeks until we leave for the conference now, so I needed to get this under control.
A few solid hours of computer work later, I had ticked off the first of the two parts of the job (having made a good start at it the other day). Now, only the creative opening video remains for me to produce, which I will be able to focus on with a clear head and a clear desk - having also dealt with the pile of receipts next to my keyboard.
Feeling better already, we stopped for lunch on the patio in glorious sunshine. It was hard to drag ourselves away from it, and even more so for having been indoors all morning (now I understand how Helen feels!).
After lunch, Helen went back to her VB work while I started trawling the internet to locate one of the gas heaters we had decided on for the apartment. While pricier than the standard variety of portable gas fire, we felt the aesthetics were more than worth the extra cost, so it was time to see what the cost of shipping was going to be.
Sure enough I couldn't find a Calor stockist in Italy, so it was going to have to come from the UK. I had found a few stockists online and found two that would give prices for delivery as part of the ordering process, so went through the process on both. The first site wanted £100 for shipping to Italy - a bit higher than we were hoping for, but an amount we decided we could swallow. The second site was selling the fire itself for £20 more, but when I got to the delivery section they only wanted £31 to send it by ParcelForce Europe. Seems like a bargain for that amount of weight and a bit too good to be true, but as they were offering free delivery to anywhere in the UK, we reasoned the charges seemed to make sense and clicked the 'order' button.
For those of you who have been paying attention to previous posts, you'll know we may have set ourselves up for a fall with ordering a large item for delivery, but needs must on this occasion (and if nothing else it will make for an entertaining post in a couple of weeks).
Gas fire ordered, it was time make an enquiry to the local company that sells an insulating, breathable plaster system that I want to give a try in the apartment to see if it will fix the problem of the damp wall in the bedroom. I wanted to find out what they thought about its suitability for our situation - options after this involve either more money or less space in the bedroom (or both), so fingers crossed for this (though if this company is anything like the dozens of others I've tried emailing since we arrived here, I won't expect a reply any time soon).
Next, I decided it was time to call Sergio. Sergio came and introduced himself to us weeks ago, shortly after we arrived. He was the guy who had been responsible for re-roofing the house, sand blasting the inside and rendering the exterior. He seems like a genuinely nice guy who loves to practise his English, which is very good indeed (better than our Italian that's for sure).
We've been told that Sergio built his own 'eco' house in Veneri just the other side of Pescia, and when we quizzed him on a solar hot water system during his initial visit he said he has the exact same system on his house as we're looking for here, so it's definitely worth pursuing this line of enquiry. Armed with what we've since learned from Chris and Sue, we feel as prepared as we can be to start this ball rolling - the sooner the better now, as although the electric water heaters work well, they are expensive to run and less convenient. Sergio said he would call round tomorrow to talk to us.
I was clearly on a roll today, so my next call was to the currency exchange company we use for transferring sterling into euros - it seems to be a very good service, and with far better rates than banks offer. Transfer arranged, it was time to put a call in to the previous owners to try to get to the bottom of when we might see the money we are owed for the bills we have paid and (and for the car removal).
I got through first time and listened for a while to complaints about troubles with getting a BT account set up. I was clearly the wrong person for a sympathetic ear - I felt like saying 'try it when you don't speak the same language, have someone else's unpaid bills to settle before they'll even talk to you, and you keep getting cut off for not having paid the other people's bills that you've never even received,' but I didn't, I played nicely. Later in the conversation I was assured that €1000 has been left in the local bank for unpaid bills and that if they emailed me a note, I could take said note into the bank in order to have access to the funds. Hmm, not likely! I've suggested that they send a letter to Richard, who they know well, and that he try to withdraw the funds from the bank - his face is well known in the bank, at least, so there's half a chance they might do it for him. On the plus side, it seems our predecessors have enough common decency to be intending to pay, but it does seem like it's going be a ridiculously painful process!
The day was fast disappearing and at 5.30pm, Helen headed out to Goose Island for an hour and a half of clearing and raking. The area is tantalisingly close to being ready now - it just needs a final going over with a strimmer to tidy up the loose ends.
While Helen was busy working up a sweat I decided to prep dinner, wash up and start the blog to give us an early night - who am I trying to kid, it's now 8.20pm and I'm only just finishing the blog to send it to the editing department!
Friday tomorrow - yippee!
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