I say 'all change' because the weather put a stop to play today, as did our late night with Steve, causing the equivalent of an emergency stop on any progress with outdoor work.
We all woke slowly if at all this morning - Steve knocked on the door to say his goodbyes and head off Rome-wards at 6.10am, following which I headed straight back to my pillow and duvet. Helen dragged herself out of bed at 7.15am to go and do the rounds of the animals and attempt some exercise, and by the time breakfast came round, we were all present in body, if not so much in mind. The late night seemed to have taken the wind out of all of our sails, and that combined with some strong gusting winds, grey skies and a smattering of rain made for a very lethargic start to the day. It was only later when I contacted Alex further up the valley near Vellano that we found out that the winds we experienced here first thing this morning were nothing in comparison with what had been going on just that short way further north of us - so much so that Alex and Donatella barely slept a wink and we heard reports of trees having fallen and blocked roads near to the village of Aramo further along the valley. We can only assume that the hill behind us sheltered us from the worst that mother nature had to offer on this occasion.
After breakfast, I decided it was time to tackle the ever growing to-do list we have scribbled on a piece of paper that has been pushed around the kitchen worktop for days in favour of tree pruning.
First on the list was to call the septic tank guys in Pescia again. I had called them two weeks ago, when they said they would come the following day, but they didn't turn up, and still hadn't come to view the problem, so my hopes were low. Nevertheless, I thought I'd give them a second chance before trying someone else since, as far as I can tell from the equivalent of the Yellow Pages, they are the only people in Pescia that offer the service of tank emptying and where possible we like to keep money in the local community.
I called and explained that I had called two weeks ago and asked when they were coming to visit. I was then handed on to the guy I had spoken to last time, and after asking him to repeat himself a couple of times, I gathered that he said he'd be here in half an hour (at least that's what I thought he said).
I was therefore more than a little surprised when ten minutes later he called me back. I used most of my Italian vocabulary to get me to a point at which he had agreed to help collect and deliver the tanks, but after that where I ran into trouble and ended up telling him that I would ask a friend to call him to arrange the finer details. I then burdened poor Donatella with the task of calling him to seal the deal. (Thanks a lot Donatella!)
I was now feeling like I was making some real progress this morning and was turning this ship steadily around.
I have to say that I had very little faith in seeing the septic tank guys at all, never mind in as little as half an hour. Sure enough, an hour passed, but then I heard the unmistakable sound of tyres crunching on gravel and a couple of guys in high-vis jackets rolled up in a little Opel Corsa - it was the septic tank guys!
I took them to the fence outside the apartment from where you can look down the two terraces to the problematic tank. Here, the disconcerting act of sucking in air through the teeth and rubbing chins commenced - the international signal for some bad news coming my way! Knowing very little about septic tanks, Helen and I had discussed trying to re-start the tank with a new batch of enzymes but decided that getting the thing pumped completely and starting from scratch was the most sensible solution as we definitely need it sorting before any paying guests arrive. However, it soon became clear that, according to the experts, the tank was beyond pumping. Not only that, but they said that its current location is not good, that rain would be adding to the problem, and that we are in danger of losing a large chunk of our recently uncovered terrace by way of a landslide as the tank is now full and overflowing! They recommended a brand new tank, and suggested burying it in the ground alongside the house (on the 'extension' plot that we are no longer planning to extend on). So the worst news possible, really, and we're expecting a hefty quote (preventivo) this weekend, open receiving which I'm sure we'll be doing a bit of our own type of air sucking in through the teeth!
After a lengthy discussion with these guys which lasted an hour, they left me to my day.
After lunch, I chopped a bit of wood up before going indoors to sort out the to do-list for the afternoon.
Helen decided to admit defeat on office work at this point, thanks to tiredness and a headache making staring at a computer screen particularly difficult, and instead to join us on our errands - especially when she learned those errands included hitting Bar Pulter for a coffee.
Helen, Mom, Reggie and I therefore piled into the car and, after getting some much needed fresh air by walking Reggie the length of the track from San Lorenzo to Pescia and back, we parked the car in the piazza in town and headed for a caffeine hit in Bar Pulter.
With coffees dispatched, our next stop was the bank. Today's mission was to try and register for internet banking. It was 3:25pm, the bank had been open for 25 minutes since lunch and would only be open for another 25 minutes before closing for the day.
Fortunately, there was only one person ahead of us when we went in, and we were soon called over by Gianguido, the smiley guy who speaks pretty good English. After explaining we wanted to set up internet banking, he set about bashing away on the keyboard, disappearing to collect printouts, stapling the printouts, highlighting bits of the printouts, making phone calls, giving someone our mobile number, writing on envelopes, disappearing off for an electronic key fob then asking me to sign numerous pages of contract, sometimes three signatures per page. What an effort! All this took about 20 minutes, but at least it looked like only one of us was going to have to do this for both accounts... or so I thought! How foolish of me. He then announced that mine was done, and he now needed to do the same for Helen. This brought frustrated sighs from the people who were by now waiting in the queue behind, but we felt slightly better about the situation when we realised that another couple had been at the other counter for longer than we had (although clearly this wasn't any comfort to those in the queue!).
After Helen had signed her name the 15-odd times that were required, we were taken into an office to be shown how to log on and start our internet banking. We were also asked to sign some declarations to inform the bank where some of our recently transferred savings funds had come from (anti-money-laundering? or just Italians' love of paperwork?) before we finally escaped the now empty (and firmly closed) bank and headed off to pay the electricity bill at the tabaccheria.
With that done, we decided enough was enough, and as it was now almost 5pm we would head home - but not before stopping at the petrol station to buy some antifreeze and paying Frateschi's a visit to ask about replacing a tyre on a wheelbarrow wheel (turns out you don't replace the tyre, you just buy a whole new wheel for the princely sum of €14). As well as the new wheel, I also left Frateschi's with a packet that had been delivered there for me... my replacement batch of LIVE worms had arrived for the wormery!
When we got home it was all hands to the pump to round up the cats, take the dog in, feed all of the above, put the geese away, collect wood for the fire, start the fire, peel the sprouts, write the blog, test the internet banking (which kind of works, in that we can each log into our accounts, but doesn't actually display anything - no balance is shown, no transactions are shown - we are hoping that this is just because it takes a couple of days for the information to filter through...) and settle down for what we're planning to be an early night.
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| After watching me do it for days, Florence and Lucca tried their hand at olive pruning this morning. |
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