Friends in need - the clear-up continues

After a calmer and altogether more peaceful night's sleep last night, we had two main objectives for the day today: first, to retrieve our helpers Holly, Zach and Winry from the train station and get them back to the house after their overnight adventure in Pistoia (it turned out they didn't manage to make it to Florence at all yesterday, and weren't able to get back to Pescia either, so found a hotel to stay in Pistoia for the night), and second to go and lend a hand up at Donatella and Alex's house where the storm had caused considerably more damage than it did at ours.

After breakfast therefore, we decided to take Reggie for a morning walk - we thought we would take him with us to Donatella and Alex's but leave him in the car as their dog, Ray, would be out and about and probably wouldn't take too kindly to a young upstart roaming all over his territory. We drove to the San Lorenzo hotel and did the walk in the opposite direction - turning back towards Pietrabuona instead of towards Pescia and walking up the road that climbs the hillside. It was a lovely sunny morning, but very fresh and the wind was icy, so we kept moving to keep warm.

We spotted lots of fallen pine trees on the hill opposite.

After our bracing walk, we returned home, to find that Zach had sent a message saying that the earliest train they would be able to get from Pistoia would get them into Pescia at just after 1pm. That actually worked quite well as it meant we could go straight up to Donatella and Alex's and get there for 11am, do a couple of hours there before needing to go to the station to pick up our travelling trio.

So we loaded the car with chainsaw, hand saw, secateurs, gloves, safety hat and dog and set off. On the way there, we took the route via Vellano, and on the way back the route via Sorana. Both routes were littered with fallen trees. It was very clear why the road to Vellano had been blocked for most of the day yesterday, and the state of the via del Traspo, where Alex and Donatella live, was even worse, with enormous uprooted trees to the left and right of the road, tree debris all along the sides. Clearly someone had been very busy yesterday going along the roads to clear them enough to be passable.

As we dropped down towards Alex and Donatella's from Vellano, I spotted their house from the road and immediately saw the enormous problem. Not only had they lost several trees, but a couple of them had fallen right across their garden, on top of their polytunnel and their vegetable growing area. They were also still without electricity and without telephone.

On arriving we were introduced to David and Sarah, friends of Donatella and Alex's who have recently moved to Vellano. We've heard a lot about David and Sarah from Donatella and Alex, and even hooked up with them on Facebook, and we had been looking forward to meeting them in person, so it was great to finally meet them, although it was a shame it had to be in such circumstances. Nevertheless, we all knuckled down to work, Alex and Stuart going at the trees with their respective chain saws, David helping out with the tree cutting, Donatella directing proceedings and Sarah and I trying to tidy up and create a pile of decent firewood.

The first hour and a half flew by, and before we knew it, it was time to go and collect Zach, Holly and Winfry from the station. Sure enough, they were there waiting for us - it was a relief to see them as at one point last night we were left wondering if we'd ever manage to find them again! We took them straight home and all tucked into a lunch of bean dip, cheese, meats and boiled eggs. Holly offered to wash up so that we could get straight back up the valley while she and Zach continued their work with an afternoon raking the terraces again.

We therefore re-loaded Reggie and headed back up the hill.

The rest of the afternoon was spent much as the morning had been - lots more cutting, sawing, piling of wood and really attempting to tidy things up as best we could. Reggie came out to join us briefly once both Ray had been put safely inside, and the chickens had been put safely into their pen. Reggie bounded around happily for a bit until he spotted the chickens, and then proceeded to terrorise them much in the same way as he does with the geese - at which point we decided it would be best to put him back in the car.

We worked on until around 5.15pm, at which point we decided it was time to head home to put all of our animals to bed/inside for the night. We left feeling weary and windswept - it was a beautiful sunny day, but the wind was still pretty strong and very chilly at times, so I think we will sleep well tonight! Poor Alex and Donatella still have a mountain to climb with their clear-up, but hopefully today's efforts will have given them a bit of a kick start, and hopefully we might be able to lend another hand next week. We left them still without electricity or phone - I really feel for them! They were very grateful for our help, but we know that it's only what they would do for us if the shoe was on the other foot and we were very happy to help just as much as we could - we just wished we could have helped more.

Once home, we collected up the cats, put the geese to bed, put the tools away, lit the fire (it's a chilly evening tonight) and made a start on dinner - I've just cooked up a vegetable chilli, so that's what's on the menu for tonight's dinner. Tomorrow will probably hold more work in store for everyone as Holly and Zach were keen to work a day of the weekend to make up for their day out this week - no rest for the wicked!