Over the hump

Wednesday over already!? The first week back to work is racing by.

Despite the success of the last two days, I'm trying not to get too far ahead of myself and making sure I get enough sleep - I still seem to need a bit more than is normal so I don't want to invite trouble. This led to a late start for me this morning and I didn't rise until 9.30am, by which time Helen had fed the cats, let them out, taken the dog out into the garden, fed the dog, let the geese out, completed her morning's exercise, showered, had breakfast and sat down in front of her computer!

After a couple of physical days, I decided that a more sedate day would be advisable for me today and that I would tick off some bits and pieces of administration. So, after coating the new worktop with a second coat of wood stain/oil, I headed into Pescia to pick up our only working front door key from Sue - who was having a key nightmare of her own, having misplaced their only car key (not a good year for keys so far then).

I then headed into town to Cecchi, the little hardware store we frequent when we can, to get a couple of keys cut. Two minutes later I was leaving with three keys wrapped up in a tiny piece of brown paper, as is their custom, and just three euros lighter in my pocket.

Earlier on, I'd managed to retrieve the broken piece of key from where it was stuck in the lock, which meant that, now that we had a new set of freshly cut keys, our key/lock situation was resolved. Relief!

When I got home, I was surprised to find it was half past noon already - my stomach knew it was lunchtime despite having only had breakfast a couple of hours earlier. I'd like to think this was my well trained, military-precision body clock in action, but I suspect it has more to do with a sudden and dramatic reduction in calorie intake from the holiday eating schedule back to the normal routine.

I ignored my grumbling stomach and went outside to do a couple of tests on my worktop filler using the offcuts that had been left leaning forlornly against the wall outside - how different life could have been for them if only they had been at the other end of the planks. I don't yet know what their destiny will be, but good wood won't go to waste around here - after the demolition of the man cave before Christmas, it's like a wood waiting room outside the house, with all different shapes and sizes of pieces waiting to find out how best to apply themselves from here on in having lost gainful employment as a man cave... but I digress.

With the filler tests now left to dry outside it was definitely time for lunch - the grumbles I could ignore, the light-headedness I couldn't. Fresh Tuscan bread with an enormous bowl of bean dip that we made yesterday (chick peas, borlotti beans, cannelloni beans, garlic, tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, ground cumin, salt and pepper) soon sorted out the hunger pangs!

After lunch, it was time for me to join Helen in the fridge... whoops, did I say fridge? I meant office. I jest, but it is definitely chilly in there. The weather has hit a milder patch, which leaves us in a position where it's chilly indoors, but is it really worth a fire? Had we not decimated our wood pile already, and if we didn't still have a few more weeks yet of winter ahead of us before we can clean out the wood burner for spring, we would have put the fire on without question, but as it was, Helen had to cope with extra clothing, a hot water bottle and hot drinks.

I'm not sure my poor neglected computer knew what was happening when I pressed the power button after lunch, it happens so infrequently these days, but I needed to scan yet another couple more letters/bills addressed to the previous owners referring to sums of money unpaid. We had tried translating one, which seemed to be a final demand for waste disposal tax from 2009! The second was far more cloak and dagger - from our translation of it, we understood that there was an outstanding tax payment by the previous occupiers, and that someone trying to collect this tax had left an envelope about it at the town council offices for collection but only by the person named in the letter or someone they sent in their absence. A bit bizarre, but I scanned them and sent them to our geometra... if in doubt!

It seems we had got it correct on both counts. Andrea advised us either to ask the previous owners if they had paid the refuse bill for 2009 (can't imagine that happening) or else to pay it ourselves and then get the money back from them (pah! and the rest!) so we've decided to ignore that one. Regarding the second letter, he said that the collectors will probably assume that the previous occupants have left the country (correct), so I think we can ignore that one too. Could we finally be coming to the end of their lovely legacy, I wonder?

Once that was done, I could no longer a) get up from my desk due to being pinned in by bicycles and tools as the dog had fallen asleep right across my exit route or b) ignore the stack of receipts and paperwork that needed dealing with. I therefore spent a couple of hours clearing the backlog, leaving me with an empty desk and an empty mind (some will say I've always had the latter).

By the time I'd done that, it was 3.30pm and the dog was awake so I went and sat with him on the sofa for half an hour to give Helen some peace to finish up her work for the day while I looked at information on hydraulic ram pumps - ingenious little devices for slowly moving water uphill to fill cisterns and tanks etc. without electricity and with only two moving parts. I'm not sure whether they have enough power to move water the distance uphill we need though, so for now, the research goes on.

When Helen surfaced from the fridge (I said it again, office!), we took the dog into town to give him a good walk along the river bank and back through the piazza, then hopped back in the car to get home to put the geese indoors before darkness fell, and light the fire.

While Helen blended and portioned the Tuscan bean soup she made last night ready for the freezer (yes I mean freezer and not another room of the house), I tapped away on my tablet PC then started preparing dinner, hoping for another early night and another good night's sleep tonight.