Residents at last!

After an early night all round, we were all feeling improved today. I'm not certain how much sleep we got as at about 11pm Helen woke me to tell me that the electric was off - all circuits in the house were dead. Knowing that the meter was down in the apartment, I decided not to worry about it until the morning after Allison and Q had surfaced. Helen slept a little more fitfully though - worrying about why the electrics had gone off and about whether Allison and Q would be alright having been plunged into darkness, and she battled over bed space once again with Florence.

Anyway, after Helen had surfaced for her exercise, I dozed a little while longer but not by much. I therefore assumed I was up early today since we had been in bed by 10.15pm last night (with the electrics out I didn't have an alarm clock to check the time this morning). However, while cleaning my teeth I heard the tell-tale squeak of the pipes from downstairs, indicating that someone was drawing water in the apartment. The squeaks come from the hot water heating system - although Q is convinced it's a family of dolphins living in the toilet cistern. That had to mean that Allison and Q were awake, so I headed straight down to the apartment to see if they were alright and to reset the electricity meter. On approaching the apartment, though, I saw lights on inside - they had electricity! Baffled, I went back to check the consumer unit upstairs - it appeared that something had tripped the RCD on the half of the unit controlling the electrics for the main house, so it was only our part of the house that was without electricity, downstairs they were fine. I've no idea what caused that to trip out.

Anyway, after sorting out that little problem, I chatted with Q and looked through some of his photos from his recent visit with his bike to the French Alps, where he rode some of the lumpier parts of the Tour de France including Alp D'Huez and the Col du Galibier!! Very impressive feats indeed, and I have to admit to being somewhat jealous of his fitness levels, not to mention the experience of climbing the famous Tour mountains.

I left Allison and Q to breakfast and to finish packing for their overnight stay in Florence, and then at 10.30am, all four of us piled into the car and we dropped Allison and Q to the train station in Pescia for the 50-minute journey into Florence. It would be Florence in the rain today, so I think they were planning to head for the Uffizi and leave the outdoor sightseeing for tomorrow when the sun is set to make a reappearance.

After waving a quick goodbye to our guests, Helen and I headed into the Piazza in Pescia. We had an electricity bill to pay and we were hoping we could get our ID cards today - we had been told that we needed to take the letter that we'd received last week to the Comune office, along with three passport photos each, and we would get our cards, although I think we were both expecting it not to be quite as simple as that.

We walked in to an empty Anagrafe in the Comune building (a good start!) and presented our letter and our three passport photos each to the man behind the counter. He seemed to understand what I had asked for, and started tapping away at his computer. We held our breaths, waiting for the inevitable obstacle to turn up, but next, he turned and asked for our passports - another good sign! We both waited again for something in Italian by way of a problem while he tapped away, then he started printing a few things out, and returned our letter and passports. Could it really be this easy?! 

Next, he took out two blank ID cards from a drawer, stuck them in the printer, printed them, then asked for our height in centimetres! Nope, we had no idea! He obviously didn't understand that we Brits haven't fully adopted decimalisation and that we like to do some things in metric, some in imperial, and telling him "6ft 2inches" and "5 ft 9inches" clearly wasn't going to cut it. Fortunately, Helen had spotted a tape measure fixed to one of the walls while we were waiting - so we checked each other's height (much to the amusement of the Italian ladies who by now were waiting in a queue behind us). Once we'd given him our height measurements, confirmed we both had brown hair and brown eyes, and told him our professions, he stuck our passport photos to our cards (and his duplicates), stamped each twice, got us to sign them, stuck film over the photos and signatures, stamped them again, asked for €11 (which we paid), then handed us our cards - and we were on our way... simple as that!!

They might not have granted our residency if they'd seen our convict-style photos beforehand!

It was such a relief to have our identity cards in our hands after all that we've been through! It was too early for Prosecco, so we settled on a couple of cappuccinos each in the same cafe as we took Allison to yesterday, and that we took Helen's Mum and Dad into last week. The guy behind the counter recognised us today and said 'hello', which was nice, and helped reaffirm the feeling of belonging here. I had a brief chat with him when I went up to order a second round of cappuccinos. The second round of coffees seemed to come as a surprise to him - he asked if they were good, to which I of course replied 'very good'! I think that two coffees in one visit is very un-Italian, but we didn't care, I now know him to be another Andrea, so we'll look forward to frequenting his establishment more frequently, especially as four cappuccinos only cost €4.40!

By the time we got home (after paying the electricity bill in the newly refurbished tabaccheria), it was almost midday, so after emailing the geometra to tell him that we now have our residency - so that he can inform the water company and get us onto the cheaper rates for our water supply - and emailing the car dealer to let them know that we can now cancel the six-month insurance on their policy and get our own, cheaper policy, it was time for lunch.

The rain, which had been pattering on and off all morning, had subsided by this time, and it was very mild, so we ate outside and watched the clouds drifting around the valley and hills.

After lunch, Helen went to the office to do some work, and I made my way through a short list of little jobs: I fitted the new canopy to the apartment entrance, fitted a drip detail to the apartment window exterior (to shed driving rain), cut a hole and fitted the tap into the barrel behind the goose house, cut and fitted the guttering to the goose house, repaired the doors on the goose house (that used to be the apartment doors), removed caterpillars from our young kale plants, soaked the recently acquired fig seeds ready for planting, and installed a hook in the man cave for hanging the goose feeder overnight (it turns out that geese can't have food without water, as their eyes and nostrils can clog up, and we don't want to give them water inside their house overnight as they are likely to kick it over (or sit in it), so we're now taking their food away overnight, and putting it back in the morning).

Canopy.

This should hopefully protect the doors from the rain.

Fitting and staining a drip detail.

Yes, for your delight, it's a photo of a hook. Exciting, hey?

By the time all that was done, it was almost time to drop Helen to Sue's as they were going out for their first Italian lesson this evening with Sue's Italian friend Rita. Helen and I put the geese to bed early (they didn't seem that impressed, and took a little encouraging), then hopped in the car to drive down the road.

That left me to cook dinner and feed the cats, and wait for Helen to call to let me know she was ready to be picked up from town. However, I was halfway through dinner preparations when Helen and Sue turned up - Sue had driven Helen back up the hill to save me the trip. Helen looked pleased to have got the first lesson out of the way as she had been feeling nervous about it all day long. This week's session was only really a chat to talk about how the lessons will pan out though, and to meet Rita properly - next week the learning will start in earnest and she will go to see Rita on her own, as Sue is planning to dip in and out of the lessons so that Helen can build up a bit of confidence and vocabulary in order to try and get somewhere near to Sue's level.

After a quick 'hello', Sue left us to our dinner preparations, I finished writing the blog, showered, sent scans of our ID cards to Andrea so that he can sort the water bills out for us, then finally it was time to have some dinner and relax.