Migliori Martedi

After yesterday's exertions, I agreed with Noah to have an extra hour in bed today, so we didn't see him for breakfast until 9am. I could have happily slept for another hour but managed to drag myself out of bed just after 8am. Noah had decided to work today rather than take another day off, as the forecast for the day - and the rest of the week - looked wet, and he didn't feel like trudging around a city in the pouring rain.

Bearing in mind that Noah was giving up his day off (and that I was still tired from yesterday's efforts), I decided to make the day a little less 'worky' and had decided that a shopping trip was in order first thing. I compiled a list over breakfast:

Bags of gravel
A jerry can
A pair of chainsaw safety trousers
Some kindling
A tarpaulin
Some metal fence posts

So, after breakfast, we measured up the exercise area/work area for a new roof (tarpaulin) - the last canvas affair had ripped in the wind a few weeks ago - and then made to set off. First things first though: car keys. I soon realised they weren't in their usual place, but knew I that I had been the last person to have them. I dug into the dark recesses of my tired mind to try to recall where I had put them, but the grey matter was not yet fully functioning. The only place I could think of was in the pocket of my work trousers - except I couldn't find those either. Then it dawned on me: I had decided last night that they were due for a wash. I'll skip the next bit, where I looked in the washing basket, as I think you know where this is going - they were, indeed, merrily spinning around in the washing machine at 40C, and the wash cycle had about another hour and a half to go.

There was nothing else for it but to put a pot of coffee on and sit on the patio to wait.

About 20 minutes later, Helen announced she'd 'broken' the washing machine by trying to pause the cycle and open the door. Just as I arrived to investigate, though, she was opening the door, retrieving the keys (which had just appeared at the window of the washing machine) and successfully restarting the wash cycle - brilliant! AND the remote central locking still worked (somehow!)!

Disaster averted, Noah and I drove down the hill. Our first stop was Frateschi's builder's merchant to try and buy some gravel to refill the ruts in the driveway - now that the drainage is installed, the gravel should no longer be washed away in heavy rain, or at least that's the theory.

There was no Paolo in the yard when we arrived, but a new (to me) face, Massimo. I thought I'd start the ball rolling by telling him my Italian was not good, as I was on unfamiliar territory trying to order gravel for delivery. His response was 'mamma mia!', and he told me his English was non-existent (or words to that effect). I asked for some gravel, and he took us straight outside to inspect the options they had on offer. I chose the largest stuff and we went back inside to find out the price. Massimo could only give me a price for the gravel, not the delivery - for that, I would need to speak to the boss, Paolo, who would be back in five minutes. I explained to Massimo where we lived, which prompted him to ask 'the house of Vicky?' (in Italian, of course). I realised that Vicky was the daughter of Keith (from whom we bought the house) - she and her boyfriend had initially come over and lived here with Keith and Geri before moving back to the UK after a couple of years. Indeed, several of the bills that we've been paying have still been in her name.

As soon as Massimo realised that we had bought the house from Keith and Geri, he moved onto talk about the weather (it seems it's not just and English pursuit), and seemed to be telling me to expect snow this winter, maybe even for Christmas!

After the small talk was over, Noah and I left and headed to the other side of Pescia, to Davide's hardware store on the road to Lucca. I decided I would try and buy as much here as I could, as I like Davide, and he's certainly a lot friendlier and more helpful than the grumpy old bloke in the other hardware store. Alas, all he could provide me with was the jerry can - but while I was asking for chainsaw trousers, a woman who was waiting in the queue started talking to Davide, and then he in turn to her, both very quickly. I wasn't quite sure if the conversation was for my benefit as I couldn't follow what they were saying, but when it ended and she looked at me for a response, I had to confess that I couldn't understand. She asked me where I lived, and when I told her, and she said I should try Frateschi's for the trousers. That hadn't even occurred to me, so I thanked them both and left. 

Next stop, grumpy hardware store. The only thing I wanted from here was kindling, but grumpy man had none. He showed me the firelighters instead, so I bought a pile of those anyway (if we don't use them for the fire, they'll keep for the BBQ next year).

Next stop was the 'agraria castellare' on the southern end of Pescia. This place is fast becoming a favourite - they don't stock everything I could need (they're not a hardware store), but if it's anything related to farming or gardening, they seem to have it and for very good prices. However, all I could find here was the metal fence posts, no chainsaw trousers or kindling. It was bit of a long shot, but I thought I'd try anyway. That meant that the only place left was OBI yet again - but at least I knew they had tarpaulins and bags of kindling.

It was now 11:20am, and the window for going to see Paolo in Frateschi's (which closes at noon) was rapidly closing, so it was a quick dash in and out of OBI. Two tarps and four bags of kindling later, we were heading back to the car while I explained to Noah how the trolley-for-a-euro system worked. He'd never seen the likes of it before, and was surprised to see that I got my euro back after plugging the trolley back into the line at the end. He said he'd never heard of such a system before, but that in the US, Walmart have introduced trolleys with GPS that stop the wheels turning once they are taken outside of the car park - a clever system indeed, but one that seemed to result in piles of them being left where they were emptied and not returned. It reminded me of the story of NASA inventing a pen that would work in space, while the Russians just took pencils with them - I'm not sure that's a completely true story, but it's a good analogy nonetheless.

By this time, it was quarter to noon, so we hot-footed it in the direction of Pietrabuona. We arrived at Frateschi's at two minutes past noon, to see that a queue was delaying their closing time - so we went in to join the queue and wait out turn. Paolo had clearly been briefed by Massimo, so it was a quick process to order and pay for two cubic metres of gravel (out of interest, this is the only thing I've bought so far by volume, rather than by weight). It took more time to explain to the driver who would be delivering the stuff that I wanted it dumping just behind the gates at the top of the drive and not near the house, as the drive slopes down and if it was at the house, I'd have to barrow it all back uphill. I got the job done though, and was told it would be delivered this evening.

When we got home, Noah and I set to work putting up the tarpaulin that would make gym version 2.0 a reality. We also wanted to make it high enough to be able to swing an axe under (not quite the same thing as wide enough to swing a cat) so that we could continue with chopping and splitting wood in the wet weather. After drilling a few more holes in the render and driving some of the new fence posts into the ground opposite, we had a new gym/wood chopping/bicycle repair/workshop/all-weather picnic area. And rather grand it is too, I just hope it lasts longer than version 1.0.

Should be enough room to swing an axe!

After lunch under a slightly threatening-looking sky, but in warm temperatures, I suggested to Noah that, as it still hadn't rained at all, and it looked likely to stay dry for the immediate future, he should consider a lift to Lucca straight after lunch - especially as he shouldn't, technically, have been working at all today. After much deliberation, he decided to accept the offer, and after Helen and I had filled in a doggy adoption form (to find out whether 'Jeremy', the pointer cross, could become a reality), I dropped Noah into Lucca with a rough plan to collect him from Pescia train station later in the evening after he had called to let us know what time he'd be arriving. The plan was rough as we needed to accommodate Antonio coming to see me at the house to look at the chainsaw at around 6.30pm, and Helen being out (with the car) in Pescia with Sue for another Italian lesson between 5pm and 6.30pm.

On the way home from dropping Noah off in Lucca, I decided to stop off and see Enrico as I was passing his garage. The brakes on the car had all of a sudden started to grind horribly, so I knew it needed sorting sooner rather than later to minimise expense. I pulled in at the garage to find him and his colleague busy fixing cars.

Enrico recognised me after a second, and I explained that the brakes needed changing. Instead of going into a discussion about when to bring the car back in (as I was expecting to happen), he insisted he have a look immediately - a good thing, I thought, as he could assess what he needed to order and when I brought it back, it would be a simple job of replacing whatever it needed. He took both front wheels off and then the pads and threw them somewhere after showing me there was almost no pad left at all and that it was pretty much metal on metal. That certainly explained the noise! He measured the discs and told me that they were probably OK, but that they were right at their limit and asked me what I wanted to do. I asked for a price for both bits and, after jumping on the phone, he told me that another €130 would cover two pairs of new discs - so I opted to get the job done properly.

What I now expected was for him to consult his diary to find a suitable time to book the car in to do the work - but instead, he sent his friend somewhere with the old discs. I asked when he wanted to change the discs and brakes and he said 'subito' - straight away! Apparently he had sent his mate up the road on foot to collect the new parts! It seemed that our tactic of buying a ubiquitous Fiat Doblo was paying dividends. However, I soon realised that this pay-off could come at a cost, and not just a financial one: it was now about 4:20pm, and Helen needed the car to go out for her Italian lesson at 5pm, and at the moment, the parts were in the box, Enrico and I were drinking coffee, and it was at least a ten-minute drive home!

Enrico goes to work.

Helen needed the car in about 20 minutes at this point...

I called Helen to warn her that things could be going pear shaped, she in turn called Sue to make a back-up plan, but as it happened, even after Enrico had fitted the spares and insisted on taking the car out for a test drive, and then I had paid for the work, I was still on the road at a couple of minutes past five - not ideal, but not a disaster either. I arrived at the house at 5:18pm to find Helen at the end of the drive waiting for a Le Mans style change-over of driver, so I waved her off onto her first solo drive in the dark into town and I went to the house to find the cats, the geese having already been put to bed single handedly by my wife (with a little help from some lettuce).

Antonio arrived shortly afterwards and looked at the chainsaw. After a hard revving it for a little while, the oil started to flow. It seems that, had I carried on cutting a little while longer, I wouldn't have needed to call him at all - but as it turned out, he needed me to sign the guarantee anyway, so I didn't feel too bad about calling him out. We chatted for a few minutes and I used English where I could, to help him, as promised, then he left me with my ready-to-use chainsaw.

When I got back into the house after waving Antonio off, the phone rang. It was Noah, who was calling, as planned, from Lucca train station to say that his train would get into Pescia at 18:50 - in theory, too late for him to walk up and meet Helen after her lesson (which was due to finish at 18:30), so I suggested that he should wait in the bar opposite the station until I could there to collect him. I kicked myself for not having handed the  mobile phone to Helen when she set off into town, as I had no way of letting her know that Noah would be at the station - which meant that she would have to drive all the way back home, only for me to drive all the way back into town to pick up Noah,

Come 7.40pm, there was no sign of Helen, and I was starting to worry about Noah sitting all on his own at the station wondering where his lift had got to! Minutes later, however, Helen walked through the door - I made to dash to go and take the keys from her to drive into town to pick up Noah, but she cut me off, telling me that Noah was just installing himself back in the apartment downstairs! I was confused, but she explained that, once their Italian lesson had finished (which had overrun, again), Sue suggested that they drop by the station (since they were so close to it) on the off-chance that Noah might be waiting there - and, as they drew up, they had spotted a lone figure sitting on the pavement waiting patiently! Noah must have been a little confused, because they turned up in Sue's green Fiat Panda (and he'd never met Sue before either), but he seemed grateful to have been picked up! Sue drove both Helen and Noah back to her house, where they transferred to our car and Helen drove Noah home. All safe and sound!

After all that, the three of us settled down to some home-cooked Tuscan ragu from the freezer and a glass of wine. Tomorrow really is meant to be wet (the forecast is '100% chance' of rain), so we will be putting the all-new undercover gym/wood cutting area to the test!