Social & Sunny Sunday!

After a short lie-in this morning, we got up to complete a few chores that were on our list of things to do before our visitors arrived.

While Stuart finished the washing up from last night and this morning's breakfast, I swept and hoovered the floors, hung out the washing, and we both did some tidying. I then spent a short while weeding while Stuart starting doing some sorting out in the woodshed, but with the sun beating down, even the briefest spell outside was enough to have us melting, so after we'd showered and cleaned up, we resorted to sitting still on the terrace under the shade of the garden umbrella with a cold glass of water.

Just after 12pm, we heard the clunk of car doors and sure enough Jennie, Pete and Megan had arrived! It was so lovely to see their friendly faces heading down our path, and to be able to welcome them to our house and show them our little piece of Italy. Megan made a beeline straight for the cats, who were mainly fairly friendly and compliant, while we showed Jennie and Pete around the garden, then the house and the apartment.

It really is a huge confidence boost when we show people around and they make positive comments and appreciative noises - as much as we think we've done a good job, it's always reassuring to find that other people like the look of what we've done and, indeed, approve of the spot in which we've chosen to spend our lives!

After a cold drink and a brief catch-up, it was time to head out for lunch, so we all piled into the no. 182 bus (which thankfully started again today, so it's far so good with the new battery!) and headed for Da Carla in Sorana.

Da Carla was buzzing - a place that's packed with locals is always a good sign! We ate a delicious meal, starting with antipasti, and following that with pasta in cacciatore (hunter's) sauce for Jen, pasta with pesto for Pete, a large pork fillet for Stuart and lamb chops for me. There wasn't much on the menu to tempt poor Megan, as the pizzas are only cooked in the evening, not at lunchtime, so she filled up on bread while we all chomped our way through our lunches. Stuart and I shared a side dish of battered courgettes, and Stuart, Jennie and I all tried the speciality of the restaurant (and indeed the immediate area): Sorana beans.

The beans (which were delicious) came in an enormous flask in some sort of savoury broth, with sage leaves. To serve, it was a case of helping oneself using the long thin ladle:

Delicious Sorana beans.

After the main courses, we were all tempted by puddings - Jennie and I had tiramisu, Stuart and Pete had a ricotta and pear tart, and Megan had chocolate and stracciatella ice cream. All very delicious indeed:

Ricotta and pear tart.

Tiramisu.

Finally, after a coffee, it was time to leave, at which point Jennie insisted on treating us to lunch. THANK YOU JENNIE!

After lunch, we decided to have an amble around the fishing lake that sits next to the restaurant and to let Megan have a quick play on the slide in the small play area next to it, before hopping back into the car to drive back to the house.

Once back at the house, we offered to show our visitors a bit more of our garden, and took them up the olive terraces, from where there is an even better view. With not much of head for heights, I think Jennie was happier down on terra firma, but she was game enough to clamber all the way to the top anyway:

The lovely Kidd family. We miss these guys!

We then sat and chatted, drank tea and cold water while Stuart went inside for the Skype call with the Americans that he'd rescheduled from yesterday - keeping everything crossed that the internet would actually play ball this time and allow him to make the call. He came back out again after a good half hour or so, and said that it had gone well - so fingers crossed that the interview will have been good enough for them to use as a podcast. Watch this space!

By the end of the very lovely, but very hot afternoon, everyone was wilting and Jennie and Pete decided it was time to put Megan (and themselves) into a nicely air-conditioned car and head back to Pisa. (To be honest, the idea of an air conditioned anything at that point was so appealing I was almost tempted just to get into our car and sit inside with the air con switched on - of course, I didn't, but the idea was nice.)

We felt sad to wave goodbye to the Kidds - it was SO good to catch up with them and we loved showing them where we live. As much as you can show people photograph after photograph of a place, it never quite catches the atmosphere and feeling of the real thing. We really hope they will come and visit again soon, and are excited to hear that plans are afoot for them, along with some of our other friends and their families, to visit in the spring!

After waving the Kidds off down the drive, we retreated to the relative cool of the house and spent a little while tinkering on computers before finding that it had cooled down to a very pleasant temperature outside, so went to sit on the terrace and browse the Decathlon website to look at mountain bikes. 

We've decided that we could do with some inexpensive mountain bikes that we can use to just pop down the road to the post office or alimentari, or to cycle down to Pescia every now and then without having to get all kitted out in lycra (which we would feel the need to do if we were using the road bikes). We're also hatching plans of being able to cycle to Chris and Sue's so we can spend an evening socialising without having to worry about driving home (although when we put this to them, Henry and Erik gave us a look that said 'seriously? are you mad?' and told us that if we did that, we'd be more likely to end up having a sleep over with them than cycling uphill all the way back home!). Anyway, having had some birthday money given to me by my very generous and lovely friends and family, I have been toying with the idea of spending it on some inexpensive mountain bikes, hence browsing the Decathlon website.

As we sat on the terrace we realised that the sun was actually still very hot, and it had reached a point in the sky where the garden umbrella was no longer any use - no matter how we twisted or turned it, it simply wouldn't provide any shade. Having had so much sunshine and a little too much heat today, we decided to decamp to the guest patio, which is nicely shaded under a pine tree, and spent a very pleasant hour or so enjoying the change of scene and appreciating our garden from a different viewpoint.

Eventually, it was time to water the plants, then head inside, feed the cats and write the blog. What a lovely day.