We were both being dive-bombed at around 2.30am, yet when the lights went on the little blighter went and hid somewhere, nowhere to be seen. When the lights went off again, there is was buzzing at high-pitched top volume in one or other of our ears. I swear it was playing a game with us (one that it was winning).
In the end, I had the bright idea of stuffing cotton wool in our ears. Frankly, by this stage, as far as we were concerned, the mozzie could have as much of our blood as it darned well liked, as long as it left us in peace and didn't wake us while it was doing it! We each duly stuffed our ears with cotton wool and turned the light out again. I managed to get back to a somewhat fitful sleep, but Stuart didn't manage to get back to sleep until gone 5am. He said that the cotton wool was not fully effective either - the mozzie came back and it was just as loud, just a little more muffled.
And so it was that I didn't manage to haul myself out of bed until almost 8am, and plodded outside to do some exercise feeling decidedly lacklustre. I left it until 9.30am before going back into our bedroom, as Stuart had been sleeping in. He looked decidedly unimpressed with the world when he finally sat up in bed. All thanks to one tiny mosquito.
Our collective mood improved somewhat when we headed outside for coffee and toast on the patio. It was a glorious morning. The sun was out, there was a gentle breeze, and the temperature was just perfect. Summer has most definitely not yet finished over here! We sat and drank our coffee while watching the red squirrels run up and down our walnut tree. I'm pretty sure they will have taken all the walnuts before we get our hands on any, but they are entertaining to watch. Lucca seems to like hiding himself behind a tuft of slightly longer grass and watching them too - I don't think he has designs on them for his next meal, he actually just seems interested.
After breakfast we decided to head into town to make another attempt at collecting the pictures we'd taken in for framing a couple of weeks ago. It being market day, the car parks were fairly chock-a-block, so we ended up driving up a side street we hadn't been along before and coming out at another (very quiet) car park. I do wonder how long it will take before we are fully familiar with all the nooks and crannies in our local town.
We collected the pictures (despite not even having taken our name, the guy in the shop remembered exactly who we were and which pictures were ours - although it did take him a short while to remember where he had put them!) and headed back home.
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| I was going to show you the framed pictures, but Lucca sat on them. I don't think he wants to share. |
After hanging some washing on the line we realised that we couldn't really put off the supermarket shopping any longer - we'd run out of several staple items and, while we could probably scrape through today with just an emergency trip to the alimentari for some water and cereals, we would definitely have to go in the morning in any case, so decided to get the job over and done with.
These days we are operating a two-supermarket strategy. Certain items - loo rolls, beer, cornflakes, cured meats, cat litter among them - are significantly cheaper in Lidl, while other items, surprisingly, are cheaper in Esselunga. We thus split our shopping between the two shops (which, thankfully are not too far apart). Lidl was our first port of call today. Nothing of particular interest to report... until, while we were waiting in the queue at the till, things all kicked off with a couple of Africans and some Italians in the queue alongside us, there was much shouting, and before we knew it there were two policemen (carabinieri) joining in with the fracas.
We couldn't quite work out what the issue was, although it seemed that the Africans had perhaps instigated things by being a little too pushy. There is a relatively sizeable population of African immigrants in Pescia, some of whom hang around in the supermarket car parks trying to sell dodgy sunglasses, cigarette lighters and the like. Being the friendly chap that he is, Stuart has struck up conversations with some of them in the past, asking what brings them here. The story he got is that there is no work for them back at home (the woman he spoke to hailed from Nigeria), so they have come here to find work. Except they can't. And, unlike the UK, Italy doesn't hand out any benefits to people unless they have been paying into the system (which seems completely fair and sensible). Given the process we have struggled to get through to obtain residency here, we cannot fathom how these non-Europeans manage to stay here (while there are still a lot of hoops to jump through, residency is far and away easier to obtain for EU citizens than for non-EU citizens).
Anyway, back to the action. There was a lot of shouting. The two Africans were shouting (a lot), the Italian customers were shouting, as well as trying to tell the Africans to calm down - which only seemed to make them shout even louder, the shop assistant was shouting. Even the carabinieri were shouting by the time we left. I don't know whether I'm doing a disservice to the locals to suggest that there is some resentment towards the African immigrants (having lived for 40+ years in the UK with Daily Mail type attitudes permeating the population it's a natural assumption to make, but then I wonder if Italians are more tolerant), but the conclusion I drew was that some form of resentment might have had something to do with why things had turned er... a bit rowdy.
Quite a crowd had gathered in the car park - or rather customers that had been in the queue and seen what was going on had hung around in the car park to wait and see how things panned out. While we were waiting for one on-looker to move out of our way so we could reverse our car out of our parking place, who should we spot arriving but Sue in her little green Fiat Panda! When we eventually managed to get out of our parking space, we did a loop of the car park to find Sue and have a quick chat and catch up before heading on our way. By the time we left the car park, a second carabinieri vehicle had arrived with back-ups. There were now four officers and still a lot of shouting, although the action seemed to have moved out of the shop and into the car park. As we exited the car park we noticed that there were spectators watching from the balconies of the apartment block across the way. One even had a pair of binoculars!
When we pulled into Esselunga car park it seemed very sedate and civilised in comparison. No such excitement or dramas going on here. We managed to get the rest of our shopping done pretty quickly before heading to the check-outs, which were all completely empty. Bliss!
Shopping all ticked off, we headed home for some lunch. Today, we went eastern and made a bowl of hummus. When living in the UK hummus was a regular lunch staple and, after 5 months of feasting on bread, cheese, salamis, tomatoes, etc., we had a craving for some eastern-style dip. The shops don't sell anything even vaguely resembling the myriad of dips you get in the UK, so home-made hummus it was!
During lunch a big black cloud loomed overhead and there were a couple of distant rumbles of thunder. That hadn't been in our plan for the day! We deliberated over what to do for the rest of the afternoon - both of us being even more indecisive than usual thanks to feeling increasingly jaded and lacking in sleep. Eventually, though, we snapped ourselves out of it and pulled on our work clothes. I headed out to try and (re)clear some more of the terraces on the far side of the house, while Stuart headed out with his bag of fence nails and a hammer and started attaching the fencing to the fence posts on Goose Island.
It was hot, sweaty work. The beautiful morning had turned into a muggy afternoon and the thunder kept rumbling away. I felt quite disheartened as, after 40 minutes of strimming, chopping acacias and raking, the terrace just looked as if I'd sat down on it and flattened the grass as opposed to giving it a proper cut. I was hot and bothered and not feeling in the groove! Stuart seemed similarly lacking in get-up-and-go, but from where I was looking it seemed like he'd made a good start at erecting the fencing.
After another hour or so, my terrace was starting to look better, but still in need of more attention - but at which point, the rain finally broke, so it was all hands on deck to take the power tools into the dry and grab the washing off the line before running indoors.
By this time it was getting on for 5.30pm, so Stuart decided we should call it a day. He headed up to Macchino to go and talk to his new friend the Stihl chainsaw salesman and place an order with him for yet another power tool (the daddy of all power tools this one, but one that we can't afford to scrimp on as we will be relying on it to cut the wood for our winter fuel).
I think it will be a quiet evening tonight, and heading to bed armed with every possible anti-mosquito device we can lay our hands on! Tomorrow, we are planning to meet up with Chris and Sue and go and watch the Palio in Pescia - mediaeval costumes, drums, flag throwing, what more could you want from a Sunday? We are really looking forward to it!
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