Thank crunchie it's Venerdi!

And so it was that I managed to cobble together a plate of pasta for the birthday girl last night. We'd decided that changing to go out at 8pm was just a little more than we could face - had we have booked somewhere, I'm sure it would have been a different story, but as it turned out, we saved ourselves quite a few euros and a late night blogging.

Thanks to the internet and Delia Smith (for the cheese sauce), I managed to produce a plate of pasta with two-cheese sauce (combining parmesan and fontal), cubed prosciutto cotto (cooked ham) and mushrooms that I had sautéed in garlic. By the time I'd done all that, the birthday girl had finished her birthday blog and we both collapsed on the sofa to watch a couple of episodes of Scrubs.

A good night's sleep followed, and this morning we both went to work in the office - Helen to do battle with more conference papers, while I had the job of picking up the residency issue so that I could go down to the comune offices and attempt to make an appointment. We had lots of good advice from Sue yesterday, and she said that there will undoubtedly be something missing, no matter how prepared we are or how much research we do - and she recommended just getting an appointment to try and apply for residency, and at least then we would hear from the horse's mouth as to what else we needed. It seemed like good advice, so my plan for today was to do exactly that.

It didn't go too well. I had a fugginess in my brain that I hadn't felt for a while - not since my thyroid started misbehaving last year. I'd switched onto Italian thyroid tablets a few days ago and remember reading that different brands suit different people better, so it's possible that I'm not doing quite so well on these - but it's early days, and thankfully it was only brain function and not the same crippling physical tiredness I felt before.

So I went outside to do a few small, but useful jobs: empty the dehumidifier, water the plants, and sort and load the recycling into the car. On my approach to the car I realised that the central locking wasn't working and my heart instantly sank - it could only mean one thing: the battery was flat again. Sure enough, it was, so I took it off and hooked it up to the charger again, I'd had some suspicions yesterday that the radio might be to blame, as when I turned the key in the ignition, it started playing music (having definitely turned it off the day before). That was enough for me to remove it, but I did'n't manage to do so without using some force - it wasn't OEM and had been fitted badly and just did NOT want to come out. Two snapped cables later (and no damage to the car), it was unceremoniously dumped in the man cave. I just hope that's the problem - an easy fix is what we need for a change.

I gave Helen the good news and continued to struggle for the rest of the morning to get any kind of linear thoughts going or even to read emails - by the time I'd read a sentence I'd forgotten the first part of it. It was very frustrating as what should have been a productive day had gone completely flat and I was feeling useless, already looking forward to bed but it wasn't yet lunchtime. I decided to make lunch and we ate outside in the blazing heat, it was in the 30's today again and it felt it.

After lunch and a bit of fuel, I decided that if I was going to be housebound, then I could at least make a start on my conference design work. Helen and I will both be going to the annual VB conference in September, so we both have work to do in preparation. Being a job I've spent 15 years of my life doing, and a conference I've been doing the design work for for almost as long, this took minimal brain power and I almost coasted through the afternoon until Helen asked me to go for the usual walk to check the post at around 4pm.

There was a bit more post today, which included a card from Hannah, one of Helen's friends, that appeared to have been posted on the 6th of May!! A new record for slow delivery time that will take some beating! Sorry, Hannah, if you were wondering why we hadn't acknowledged receipt of it!

When we got back we both looked at our computer screens and simultaneously decided the office-working week was over. For a minute, we entertained the idea of a glass of wine on the patio, but instead we both ended up on the terraces -  me with hedge cutters and Helen with a pitch fork - attempting to make some inroads into the as yet untouched (by us) land. We'd had a bit of an epiphany yesterday and realised exactly where our geese need to live. Yes, we have decided that we will be getting geese! 

There is quite a bit of work to do yet, but after a couple of very sweaty hours this afternoon, we'd made good inroads and we are looking forward to finishing the clearing so that we can then spend joyous hours driving around in circles trying to find someone that sells fencing and posts. Fortunately, we think we have a lead on where to go for the birds (thanks again Sue & Chris!).

Before.

Going in!

Some progress, but lots of work still to do.

So it was now gone 6pm and it was definitely wine time, so we sat out as the sun went down until it got a bit too cool for Helen so she went in to shower while I sat out blogging as darkness started to descend.

The battery charge indicator on the car battery hasn't moved at all, all day, so we'll leave it on overnight and try it in the morning. If I can locate my voltage meter I can then test the alternator. Fingers crossed it's just the battery or stereo, otherwise the car needs a trip to the garage for who knows how long. Being a one-car household, we haven't quite worked out the logistics of that, but we'll cross that bridge IF we come to it.

So what's in store for the weekend? Who knows?! Sunday for sure we should be getting a visit from our good friends Jenny and Pete with their daughter Megan. They're holidaying in Pisa with family so are coming to pay us a visit and we are very, VERY much looking forward to that.

Tomorrow? Jenny has invited us to meet them in Lucca. Ordinarily we would have jumped at the chance, but the car might be too big an issue to overcome in the morning - so let's see how that plays out. Other than that, we have a Skype call scheduled in the afternoon in order to do a podcast interview with a couple of guys in the States who contacted us, keen to hear more about our story. We'll update you on how that goes tomorrow, but for now the shower beckons, as does dinner!