Yesterday's rain blew over during the night and left us with an overcast but dry and mild start to the day, so after breakfast my focus returned to the olive pruning.
Helen, of course, was in the office as usual, and as I disappeared up the terraces and out of sight with my trusty Felco secateurs and pruning saw, Mom entertained herself with giving the apartment the once-over ready for Monday's guests (another set of HelpX helpers), collecting firewood for this evening and dragging a whole pile of branches to the wood pile from half way along the drive - a job I'd been meaning to do for weeks since leaving them there after felling my first trees but all I've done is drive past them so far.
My pruning was interrupted by someone hammering their vehicle horn as they approached the house down the driveway. As I got closer I could see it was the UPS courier. He's only visited once before and that time he asked me to meet him at the end of the drive as he had no idea if he'd be able to turn his van around once at the house. This time, my sign on the gate indicating that there is turning space at the house obviously did the trick - so that's two couriers and the postal service now happy to drive to the house! I think the problematic GLS courier will be too tough a nut to crack, but we'll take what we can get.
I signed his electronic device as he was talking about my phone - I couldn't quite follow him but told him that the land line wasn't working but this didn't seem to be what he was saying. Either way, the transaction was done by then so he hopped into his van, turned and left me standing there with an envelope marked 'extremely urgent'. I searched my mind for what it could possibly be - as far as I knew we had no orders outstanding, and as I walked towards the house opening it, a feeling of impending doom descended on me - this could only be bad news surely? Yet another costly bureaucratic hurdle to got over?
To my surprise and enormous relief, it was far from bad news - it was our tickets for Paolo Nutini's appearance at the Lucca Summer Festival in July, courtesy of Mom and my brother Lee as an early birthday present. For those who don't know, Lucca is a beautiful walled city 18km from here - we go there fairly regularly and always make a point of taking visiting friends and family there as, for us, it's much more beautiful and certainly more relaxed and peaceful than either Pisa or Florence. Each summer they hold a music festival in the large piazza which attracts all manner of international acts that play to a small number of ticket holders. I'd be surprised if the piazza held more than two or three thousand, so it's a really intimate gig for all concerned. Last year saw Stevie Wonder and the Prodigy play, this year's line up includes Robbie Williams, Mark Knopfler, Billy Idol, Elton John, The Script, and Lenny Kravitz, and when it was announced last week that Paolo Nutini had added a date in Lucca, we couldn't resist.
I went back to my pruning until lunchtime neared. Helen was on a Skype conference call, so while Mom babysat the dog to ensure he didn't rudely interrupt the call, I went down to see Amanda to grab something quick and easy for lunch - I left with some freshly baked home-made lasagne.
After lunch it was back to work for all until around three o'clock when Helen clocked off from the day job and we all piled into the car to take Reggie for a walk. Today we decided to try and find another quiet track just beyond Vellano that our friends Donatella and Alex use to walk their dog Ray. As instructed, we parked the car and found the track and once sure there was no one else around, we let Reggie off the lead to stretch his legs.
Reggie had a wail of a time until he accidentally inhaled a dog treat - Helen had given him a treat for having come to her when she whistled and called him, but he hadn't even stopped to chew before cantering off again. Remember your Mum always telling you not to eat and walk/run at the same time? Well Reggie clearly didn't listen. He coughed and spluttered and tried to shift it, but to no avail, so we were left with no choice but to turn back and get him some water to try and soften the blockage. We turned back knowing there was a water fountain near the end of the track.
It wasn't long before Reggie's repeated attempts at hacking up the biscuit were rewarded (sorry if you're reading this while eating your breakfast), and he was soon back to his old self again. That was until we crossed a small stream. We had crossed the exact same stream going up the track only ten minutes earlier and he hadn't blinked an eye, but for whatever reason on the way back he took great offence to the babbling brook and had a good bark at it, only stopping when he was sure it knew who was boss.
We were soon back at the car and enjoying the views as we drove down the road through Vellano back towards home.
When we got home, Helen and I went back up the terrace for a couple of hours - I went back to pruning and Helen went to work with her hedge trimmers and saw, cutting back acacia and bramble. We busied ourselves until 6pm when the light stated to fade and Reggie - who had been busying himself by chasing around the terraces and woods - had collapsed in a heap near to me.
After putting the geese to bed, we retired to the house where Mom had already got a nice toasty fire going and set about settling ourselves down for the evening.
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