And then there were four... but only just!

Today promised better weather, and I'd decided to give our helpers a change in task as I thought that a third day of walking up the driveway to climb the donkey track to drag wood down, then cut it, load it onto a barrow and wheel all the way back to the house might be a bit demoralising. Besides which, they'd collected so much wood over the last two days that any more might actually block the driveway.

So, after breakfast, I set Tess and Kathryn to work cutting up and stacking the kindling in the new wood storage area, and took Nick to work with me on the garden fencing - to start with, digging the post holes while I went out shopping.

I had an email yesterday telling me that my special order carbon monoxide alarms had arrived, so I needed to collect those for a start, but I also needed new inkjet cartridges, some more fence posts, 50m of wire fencing and some wooden pallets.

After I had bought everything but the pallets, I went home to unload and have a quick coffee with the guys - all three of them were now cutting wood as Nick had already dug all of the holes he could. It seems the ground on the outer edge of the lawn is much easier to dig and has much less by way of gravel, ceramic tile, old nails and large stones in it - so it was a very pleasant surprise to find out that what I had expected to be a murderously long job was done already. (On the flip side, it does look like we'll need extra concrete to make sure the fence posts stay put in this soft ground.)

I told our trio of helpers that we'd have lunch early today, as Kathryn had to leave at 12:40 in order to catch the train to Pisa in time to get to the airport for her flight to London. So, at 11.45am, I made a quick dash to Frateschi's to acquire some old pallets (or bancale as I now know they are called in Italian).

I found Paolo serving just one other person, which was a relief, as having already asked him for pallets last week - and having already forgotten the word for pallets in the meantime - I was hoping I wouldn't have to try and explain it all over again to one of his staff.

Paolo took me to the yard and showed me a couple of piles of old pallets from which I could help myself, and when I asked him how much he wanted for them, he said 'nothing'! Result!!  So I crammed as many pallets as I could into the car (it seems a Fiat Doblo is the perfect pallet size - a fluke?), and for good luck, I also piled four on the roof.

How many pallets can you fit into a Fiat Doblo?

When I got home, it was time to get lunch sorted - on the menu today was our first ever batch of Tuscan white bean soup that Helen had made last weekend and when I had tested prior to it going into the freezer it had blown my socks off! I could not believe how tasty it was, and sure enough, it didn't disappoint today either. As I've said on this blog before, I've never been the world's biggest soup fan, but this has become my new favourite by far - knocking chicken soup off the number one spot down to number two. I wasn't the only one who enjoyed it - our helpers exclaimed that it was the best soup we'd given them yet.

After lunch, it was time for Nick and Tess to take Kathryn down to Pescia train station in their campervan so that she could get on her way to Pisa. We were sorry to see Kathryn leave - like the others, she's been a great help, hard working and a real pleasure to have around.

Kathryn, Nick and Tess.

While they were out, I went to do a bit more with the fencing from yesterday by way of fixing wire netting and top rails to the posts.

The garden fence takes shape.

It wasn't long before I  heard the arrival of a vehicle on the drive, and was surprised to see Nick running towards the house shouting 'Change of plan! The trains are on strike!' We know that Italy is notorious for being plagued by frequent strikes, so it wasn't a complete shock, but this was the first time we have been caught out by them (albeit indirectly). Nick and Kathryn had a quick look on the internet to see if they could go to Lucca station instead, and to check that the flight was still running, then Nick dashed out with Kathryn to drive her all the way to Pisa airport - all trains were off!

As Tess stayed behind to work, I could see we'd soon be at the point where the larger wood would need cutting and stacking, so I left the fencing and went to play around with the pile of pallets to construct walls not only for the new wood pile area but also the existing one so that I could stack the wood higher and further under cover.

In the meantime, Helen had appeared in 'proper' work clothes and took Tess with her up onto the terraces for a change of scenery so that Tess could rake down yet more piles of bramble that Helen had been cutting from clearing yet more terraces over the course of the week.

After about an hour, the hand-held hedge trimmers decided that they had done more than enough and the starter cord broke - not the cord itself, but the cord wouldn't retract... again. This was the same problem as we had the first time they were repaired, so we've given up with them and relegated them to the scrap heap (and we'll be needing to acquire a second, much better pair to the fold very soon).

Helen battled on with the backpack hedge trimmers, but using this piece of kit is much much harder and heavier work, and after half an hour she turned to lopping acacias instead.

Nick finally got back at around 4pm and was keen to put in an hour's work until darkness fell, so I set him up with the chop saw to start cutting and stacking the larger bits of wood while I finished on the pallet work and then went around collecting all the tools that get scattered far and wide when there are five of you working all around the house!

As darkness fell, I called time on work and announced beer o'clock, so after Helen had put the geese to bed and Nick and Tess had changed, they appeared with a large packet of turkey and cranberry crisps and we had a couple of beers, which then rolled into dinner (home-made Tuscan ragu with pasta). We had a great evening and much discussion on the differences between Italy, the UK and New Zealand, amongst other things, and before we knew it it was gone 11pm. Tess jumped up and did the washing up - refusing to leave until she'd done so - and then we all retired to bed after a long day at the office.