After two days' absence from my exercise routine I felt I had to make up with a long session on the turbo trainer, so was mightily relieved to get through it and back into the house for a shower, and breakfast at my desk.
After checking his emails, Stuart started his day out on Goose Island with his plans for the goose house and a pile of wood.
We both worked through the morning - Stuart having an unexpected break when the rain came down for about 20 minutes, but heading back out again when it cleared up and the sun came back out again, and me having a half-hour break to make a call to the lovely Allison back in the UK office on our new Skype phone. I was amazed by how well the Skype phone worked - crystal clear sound, and I was delighted to hear that when I called Allison, the number that showed up on her caller display started '01865' - the Oxford area code. When we set the Skype phone account up, we were given a choice of area code, and we plumped for the Oxford one in homage to whence we came - we still weren't sure whether that was what would show up when we called other people though, so it was pleasing to find that it was!
By lunch time, the sun was scorching hot again, and we ate as usual in the shade of the umbrella on the patio.
It was straight back to work after lunch though, as we had an appointment with Andrea, the geometra, at 4pm and planned to leave the house a little earlier to run some errands before arriving at his office.
Before we knew it, it was time to down tools and head out. First was a stop at the bins to empty our recycling, then it was on to our friend smiley Davide's ferramenta to collect the chicken wire that we'd ordered with him at the weekend.
Davide was as smiley as ever, and had the two rolls of chicken wire waiting for us at the back of the shop. He helped load them into the car, we paid, and we were off. Next stop: Andrea's.
When we arrived at Andrea's office, he and his assistant were already sitting at the computer going through our Telecom Italia paperwork. Telecom Italia is now the only service where the contract is still in the name of the previous owners of the house - we needed to change this, and to change the contract to a simpler, cheaper one (currently, we still pay for internet provision and all sorts of special tariffs that the previous owners had set up and that we don't want or need). After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and both Andrea and his assistant getting confused by the various tariffs offered by Telecom Italia (like most telephone companies, they don't make it easy!), we finally sorted things out. Andrea took photocopies of my passport and codice fiscali, as well as the last Telecom Italia three bills that we have paid, and got me to sign a letter that his assistant had typed out requesting the change of contracts. They then faxed all of this off to Telecom Italia, and we can expect the contract to be changed in a few weeks' time.
Andrea also updated us on the progress of his enquiries with the comune as to our plans for an extension and request to cut trees down - it seems the person he needs to speak with is away on his holidays at the moment, so we have to wait until he returns.
After that, we left Andrea's and headed for home. It was only 4.30pm when we got back, so we both headed back to work - me to my computer and Stuart to Goose Island.
We managed another fair stint at work, and didn't call time on it until gone 6.30pm, by which time the goose house was really starting to take shape. My very clever husband has even managed to recycle some of the old doors/windows from the apartment and incorporate them into the structure of the house to avoid having to buy even more wood. They give it a certain quirky and interesting quality as well:
Of course, there's still a little bit more to do to finish the goose house, and we're not sure that it'll get done before we go away next week - the forecast for the next few days looks a little wet, and that, combined with our enormous to-do list for going away, might put a stop to work on it. However, it won't take too long to get it finished after our return.
After downing tools, we spent our customary hour on the patio, then headed indoors to start preparing dinner. The next few days will be pretty jam-packed - there's office work for me to get finished before we leave for Seattle, we need to clean the house top to bottom before our house/cat sitters Louise and Dan arrive on Saturday, we need to pack, charge up laptops, write a set of notes for our house/cat sitters, do a supermarket shop, re-visit the CUP on Saturday, fill the car with fuel... and the list goes on!
We had an update from Louise and Dan this evening (who are driving here from Bristol) to say that they have reached Dijon and their journey is - so far - on schedule, it's exciting to think they are already heading for us! We're really looking forward to seeing them and showing them our little piece of Italy, although we'd really rather stay here as well and spend the whole week with them.
Dinner calls!
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