Pushing on up the hill

Last night's meal at Da Sandrino in Sorana was lovely. Thankfully, the hard of hearing old lady Stuart had spoken to on the phone did seem to have made sense of his coldy Italian, and there was a table ready and waiting for us when we arrived. We were almost the only people in the restaurant when we walked in - at 7.50pm. We thought that a little odd, but put it down to Friday night maybe not being the same big night out over here as it is in the UK. Not more than 20 minutes later, though, the place was buzzing! We were glad we had called ahead to reserve a table.

We shared a big platter of antipasti to start with, then branched out into different main courses: Allison had steak with mushrooms, Stuart had pork, I had duck, and Q had wild boar. All the food was cooked to perfection and absolutely delicious. Of course, we had to try the desserts - ricotta and pear tart for Stuart, while Allison and I each had a mascarpone and pine nut tart. Of course, we had to follow that with coffee. And, of course, we had to follow that with limoncello. We left the restaurant feeling very satisfied - such a lovely treat, thank you Allison and Q!

We drove home, then had a couple more limoncellos to finish the night off. What a lovely evening.

This morning, I got up at 7.30am to go and let the geese out, feed the cats and do some washing up. It was another hour or so before I head Stuart stirring upstairs - the poor thing didn't sound good though, and all I could hear was coughing and spluttering and nose blowing. This cold seems to have knocked him about a bit.

As Allison had requested another morning on the terraces today, and Q was going to go out for another cycle ride, I decided to make a start. I had planned to get the strimmer out this morning and have a go at the terraces we'd started to clear yesterday. I traipsed up to the top terrace with the backpack strimmer, started it up, and started attacking the terraces. After a few minutes I started to get frustrated - my hands were aching from holding it, my visor kept steaming up every time I breathed, and I seemed to be making very little impact on the state of the terrace.

Allison soon joined me, which was enough excuse to turn the strimmer off to say good morning to her, and at that point I decided to throw the strimmer towel in and join Allison with more acacia lopping instead.

Once Q had sorted the bike out and set off on his way, Stuart came out to join Allison and me on the terraces and took over where I had left off with the strimmer, while Allison and I continued with the lopping and sawing of branches and trees, the piling up of the cut bits, and the collecting of our own cuts and scratches.

A couple of solid hours' work later, it was lunchtime. Since we needed to buy supplies for the coming week, Stuart headed off to Esselunga to take advantage of the lunchtime lull in the shop, while I threw together some leftovers for lunch for Allison, Q (who had just arrived back from his cycle ride - having had two punctures and not having been able to complete the double loop he had planned) and me.

When we'd finished our lunch, Allison and I headed back up the terraces, while Q headed off to look at the suspect tyre that had punctured, before heading out again for another attempt, this time hopefully puncture free!

Allison and I managed to get as far as the 10th terrace above the house today - previously unchartered territory! It's exciting to be pushing the bramble and acacia back further and further up the hill and uncovering more and more terrace. The problem with cutting acacia though (other than the vicious scratches, cuts and puncture wounds) is that the enormous volume of branches that you produce makes the terraces look very messy and, from a distance, it's hard to see just how much of an impact you've had. Once we've cleared the piles of tree and branches and given the newly uncovered terraces a strim it will look fantastic, though.

Terrace no. 10 still in sunshine at the end of the day - maybe we need to put a table and chairs up there for summer evenings!

Stuart made it home just after 3pm, so I helped him unpack the shopping then did a bit of tidying. Allison had also downed her terrace-clearing tools, to divert her attention to packing suitcases and preparing for departure.

Come 4pm, we had a lovely visit from Sue and Erik. Allison had been keen to meet Sue, and although the rest of the week had been too busy, we managed to fit in a quick visit for a coffee this afternoon. Erik helped Stuart refill the geese's pool, while Allison, Sue and I had a good chat.

All too soon, it was time for Sue and Erik to leave, and for Allison and Q to finish their packing and tidying. We seem to have been blessed with perfect guests on every occasion so far, and Allison and Q were no exception, leaving the apartment spotless.

As it neared 6pm, Stuart and I decided it was time to put the geese to bed so that we could set off for the airport at 6.15pm. The geese, however, were not having any of it and led us a merry dance. They had played hard to get last night as well, and we suspect that they don't approve of their lovely new sawdust floor covering - perhaps they don't like the smell of woodshavings.

First, they were on the top terrace, so needed shepherding down to the 'goose house terrace'. We managed, eventually, to get them down, but they refused point blank to use the lovely ramp that Stuart had lovingly made for them, and instead slipped, flapped, slid and stumbled their way down the bank. Once safely on the right level, we shepherded them closer to their house. As they neared the open door though, they turned, and fled back up to their top terrace again. This pattern repeated itself over, and over and over, until we started to worry that Allison and Q might actually miss their flight. Both cats came up to watch the shenanigans, miaowing at us from the perimeter fence as if giving us direction, and Florence even jumped over the fence to join in. She certainly seemed interested enough in getting into the goose house (perhaps she was trying to show them what was required), but that wasn't the plan! I scooped her up just before she made it fully into the sawdusted area and turned my attentions back to the geese. We were one attempt away from throwing the towel in and leaving the geese to fend for themselves for the night, when finally they stumbled their way (very reluctantly) into the house. Hallelujah!!

Geese secured, we quickly got the cats indoors and all piled into the car to set off for the airport only slightly later than originally planned. The traffic was pretty clear though, and we made it to Pisa in under an hour. We said our farewells to Allison and Q - we have thoroughly enjoyed having them here with us this week, they are great company and have put in some truly hard graft as well. We were sad to see them leave and look forward to having them back again.

After the hour's drive back home, it was time to get ready for our next set of guests - by the time we reach mid-November, we will have had people staying in the apartment for a month non-stop!

Our guests for the next two nights are Stuart's brother Lee and his colleague Rob who are en route to Rome where they will be working next week. Instead of doing the long drive from Birmingham to Rome over a couple of days, they decided to cram 1000+ miles of driving into one day and get as far as ours today, then have tomorrow off, and continue on to Rome on Monday.

We put new bed linens on in the apartment, then headed back upstairs to cook some dinner then relax with a glass of wine and some TV to await Lee and Rob's arrival. They finally made it here very shortly after 11pm - having been up and at it since 5am this morning. Hats off to them for coping with that mammoth drive. Not only that, but they came bearing gifts for us - Christmas gifts from the family, plus bottles and bottles of Robinsons squash. That'll should me through for another couple of months!

After a quick tour of the house, the boys settled down with some very well deserved wine and some bread, cheese and meats. As I write this, at quarter to one in the morning, they seem remarkably awake for people who have spent the entire day driving - nevertheless, I imagine they will sleep well tonight!