It's Friday and the sun is shining!

Our attempt at an early night last night went fairly well - as well as it's ever going to go, and we were in bed reading by 10.30pm, what a novelty that was!

This morning brought a bright sunny start for Helen's exercise, and I arose as usual when she came back in.

Helen went straight to the office to check emails and social media over her breakfast, while I went outside to the driveway after mine. Following Helen's valiant effort to clear the goose terraces yesterday evening in the hot sun, we're running out of excuses to tackle the worst bit, and having ticked off a few other little jobs yesterday, I felt more inclined to dedicate time to it today - so I decided that I should make a start on tidying up the edges of the bottom terrace from below, on the driveway. It's hard to know which is best: whether to tackle it from the driveway, reaching up on ladders, or whether to approach it from the first terrace and risk putting your foot on fresh air thinly disguised as brambles, and ending up on the driveway regardless.

The driveway-plus-ladders approach won the toss, so I spent the morning trimming and moving piles of trimmings across the drive to disappear onto the next terrace down, I'd made reasonable progress by the time lunch rolled around, although you'd have to look hard to see the difference - it's such slow work when ivy is mixed in with bramble and acacia.

My head was starting to thump in the midday heat despite drinking gallons of water, so I decided that after lunch I would sit out the worst (or best, depending on how you look at) of the day's heat and do some admin, start the blog and prep dinner so that I could then resume work around mid-afternoon when it had cooled down a few degrees - it must have been getting close to 30°C again today.

When Helen came out for lunch, she announced that she'd just finished the last of the conference papers - a huge relief for her, as it's this job that doubles her workload during the summer months and which has meant she's had to sit indoors all day Monday to Friday. She still has a fair amount of work to do towards the conference, but now that the papers have all been edited, she should be able to work slightly fewer hours at the computer and get back to working the land - which she's been missing so much.

Papers virtually all ticked off.

Thanks to a combination of the intense heat of the day, the relief of having come to the end of a particular workload and the fact that it's Friday, we managed to enjoy a slightly more laid back lunch break than normal - during which we spotted some (two) mammalian invaders in the walnut tree again. They don't turn up too often, but we saw them yesterday and they were back again today. The last time we saw them (prior to yesterday), it had been such a brief visit that our hastily snapped photo had led us to believe they were martens (either pine martens or beech martens). However, today's visitors stayed for a good half hour and were not shy! While their fur was very dark (almost black), they were very clearly squirrel-shaped, and we could discern red glimmers on their shoulders with an off-white belly - so they must be red squirrels! With a usual range of around 5-6 hectares, we now know why they don't grace us with their presence too often. We just hope they leave a few walnuts on the tree for us to enjoy!

After we'd finished lunch, Helen disappeared into the garden to have her weekly phone catch-up with Allison from the office - she always looks forward to it, and it sets her up well for the weekend. While that was happening, I was looking through yet another Telecom Italia bill!! I went to check the post box this morning, as we hadn't done it for a couple of days, and the only thing in there was another flippin' letter from Telecom Italia. This time it was a bill for €171 - although at least this time it was for a period during which we have actually lived in the house and used the phone (even though the bill is still in the previous owner's name).

These bills are really complicated - language barrier aside, they charge for two months at a time, but some of the services have been charged for June and July, and others for September and October. After unpicking it all and making some sense of it, I think we need to put and end to it and maybe start from fresh with a new number, but with just a basic, no-frills landline (so that we can make emergency calls if the woods catch fire), and the rest we can do with a Skype subscription, saving us a fair amount of money.

Phone bill unpicked, sun still beating down in the mid-afternoon sky, I decided it was a good time to do my "ice bucket challenge" while it was still nice and hot. For the very few people who haven't seen this plastered all over Facebook, this involves throwing a bucked of cold water over oneself, making a donation to charity, and nominating three or more other people to do the same. I received my nomination from Paul Smith a couple of days ago. While the whole phenomenon started off raising money for and awareness of the condition ALS, I decided to buck the trend and make my donation to WaterAid - hmmm, thanks Granville for getting me into this!!

Thinking of who to nominate.

Feeling refreshed!

So after a VERY long lunch break, I finally got to the hedge trimming again, and managed an hour or so before a little Toyota appeared on the driveway below me. It was about 5.45pm, and Helen had just joined the workforce, but I now had to down tools to go and talk to Sergio.

I had a very enjoyable hour or so talking to Sergio about solar (and other) heating systems. His excellent grasp of English and my rudimentary knowledge of plumbing meant we could have a good in-depth conversation about the pluses and minuses of different heating systems. He wants us to go and look at two different solar water systems he's installed locally before we go any further with things, as we first need to decide between a pressurised and a gravity-fed system. After that, we will need to consider new stove types, whether we want central heating, and if we do, whether we want warm air or water heating! Sergio seems very knowledgeable, and I feel as if we're in safe hands. He's also advised us on different wood types for burning (saying that acacia is by far the best), confirmed our choice of carpenter as a good one, as well as telling us that he thinks the enormous pine trees in front of the house should be cut down for safety reasons (that's a conversation we need to have with our geometra next week, as we require permission in order to cut down fir trees).

By the time Sergio left it was around 6.30pm and Helen was ready for the Friday night 'bar' to open, as was I! Helen brought the tools down from the terrace - which is looking ever increasingly respectable and goose-friendly - and we had a very pleasant hour or so watching the sun go down with a beer on the patio while I relayed all of Sergio's advice and information, before the cool air chased us indoors to finish this blog, shower and consider dinner.

As always, we're looking forward to the weekend!