Home on the range

When I got up this morning (at 3.50am) I was in Bristol and the temperature was -1C. By late morning I was in rural Tuscany sitting in the sunshine in a t-shirt, and by mid-afternoon I was on the terraces working up a full-on sweat. It's been quite a long day!

My morning started with my dear devoted parents driving me to Bristol airport at 4.30am - Dad had to scrape ice off the car before we set off and we all hurried from the car to the terminal building to get into the warmth as quickly as possible.

I've had a really lovely trip to the UK - it has been wonderful to spend time with my family and to catch up with some of my friends who were kind enough to make the trip from Oxfordshire to Gloucestershire (Allison), Oxfordshire to Bristol (Jennie, Becky, Lena and Kath), and to cook me a delicious dinner (Louise). I have been showered with hugs and cuddles from my gorgeous nephew and nieces and have really enjoyed catching up with my sister, brother-in-law and of course Mum and Dad. The strangest thing about the whole trip was how normal everything felt - after not having been in the UK for 9 months, I felt as if I had slipped back into UK living almost instantaneously. Of course I missed our little piece of Italy, Stuart and our menagerie immensely, and as sad as I was to leave my UK-based loved ones, I really looked forward to coming home.

So, after a busy but smooth flight from Bristol to Pisa, I was greeted by the smiling faces of Stuart and Sheila at the arrivals gate, and in the car was Reggie's gorgeous little face too. I wasn't entirely happy with the level of enthusiasm with which he greeted me - he did seem pleased to see me, but no more excited than he would be at any other time when he'd been sitting in his travel crate for a while, so was possibly just excited at the prospect of stretching his legs rather than seeing me. Hmmpf. Never mind, I was excited to see him.

Once I'd said my hellos to Reggie and loaded my case in the car we set off homeward bound. The weather was clear and sunny (which wasn't what I had been expecting - the forecast for today had been for rain), the distant snow-capped mountains looked beautiful as we drove eastwards and I felt very happy to be back.

Rather than heading straight home, we parked up in Pescia and let Reggie out to stretch his legs after patiently sitting through the drive all the way to Pisa and back.

We parked on the Lidl side of the river and started our walk along the bank. We hadn't gone very far before we bumped into a young woman walking her dog. As usually happens, Reggie wanted to say hello to the dog, so we stopped and let the two dogs sniff each other, saying 'buongiorno' to the dog's owner and running through the usual set of small talk: male or female? is he/she a puppy? how old? It wasn't long before the woman said she'd met us before - she works with Mimmo at his truck! She introduced her dog as Lola, telling us that Lola was 9 months old. The dogs looked friendly and playful, so she suggested we let them off the leads and allowed them to play. This was Reggie's first full-on unrestricted play with another dog and the pair of them tore around joyfully - jumping, running, somersaulting over each other and not batting an eyelid when they crashed into our legs, nearly bowling us over in the process. This went on for a good five minutes and we joked that we needn't even walk Reggie afterwards, his playtime was so energetic. We eventually dragged Reggie away from his new girlfriend though, and carried on with our walk along the river.

Reggie and Lola.

We continued walking along the river for a little way before heading towards town and Piazza Mazzini. The weather was so beautiful that we decided to sit outside Bar Poulter with a coffee - it wasn't long before we were peeling off layers of clothing and sitting in t-shirts and still feeling overdressed.

After our coffees, we headed back to the car and back up the hill. We stopped at Amanda's on the way to get something tasty for lunch. We opted to share two portions of lasagne and two portions of baccala in tomato sauce, along with a side dish of peas.

There was a welcoming committee for me when I got home: Florence and Lucca both came to sit on the stairs (at a safe distance from Reggie) and look down at us in the kitchen. (I'm not sure they really were excited to see me, but that's how I'm choosing to tell it.)

"Welcome home!!"

By the time we'd finished lunch, the rain still hadn't come (and it didn't look like it was going to). That could mean only one thing: it was time to change into work clothes and head for the terraces.

While I headed up to the uppermost terraces above the house with the hedge trimmers, Stuart headed for the olive trees for more pruning, Sheila headed for the garden and flower beds for weeding and tidying, and Reggie amused himself with a bone. We worked at our various tasks for a good couple of hours before the tiredness started to nag at me and the sun started to drop behind the hill, signalling the start of the rapid drop in temperature and time to pack up and head inside.

This evening, I'm looking forward to an Aperol spritz and an evening by the fire, followed by an early night - happy to be home after a lovely mini-break.