Not bad for a damp day

This morning, as forecast, we awoke to a rainy day. It wasn't the wettest day we've had here, but still damp enough for everyone to be glad of some indoor work as an alternative to working on the terraces in the rain.

After breakfast, therefore, Holly was given a tin of wood stain and a paint brush to go down to the apartment and start staining shelves, while Zach was given a chisel and a hammer to get started on removing tiles from the wall of our now decommissioned downstairs bathroom.

For me and Stuart, the morning's tasks were seed shopping, dog registering and electric fence investigating, so after I'd done an hour's worth of office work we set off in the car, heading to Borgo a Buggiano. Once we'd finally navigated our way through the little village's confusing back streets to the square that is home to not one but two agrarias on opposite corners, we parked up and decided first to visit the shop that we haven't yet been into. We found a good selection of seeds and managed to spend €30 buying more than half of what was on our list. We then headed to the slightly larger agraria and spent another €30 on more packets of seeds, bringing our overall haul to: three types of tomatoes, three types of beans, peas, aubergine, courgette, cauliflower, two types of cabbage, asparagus, parsley, chick peas, chilli, leeks, peppers, broccoli, celery, lettuce, beetroot, two different types of squash, two different types of onion, cat grass (for the cats, not us) and sunflowers!

Now we're itching to get these sown!

High on the success of completing our first task of the day, we next headed towards Massa e Cozzile, which lies on the outskirts of Montecatini. Way back in December when we took Reggie to the vet for the first time, the vet had scribbled down the address of the office with which we need to register him and we had put the job off for way too long! We drove along the main road scouring the buildings for numbers - Google maps had given us an approximate position, but it was all a bit vague. We eventually realised that the office we needed wasn't on the main road itself, but that we needed to turn off the main road, go through some impressive gates and along an imposing drive to 'Villa Ankuri'.

Villa Ankuri now houses various council/healthcare-related offices, but according to a brief history of the place, the villa was first referenced in 1716 as belonging to one of the main players in the then thriving silk industry in Pescia. It must be quite some place to turn up to work every day and beats the usual purpose-built office building:

(Pic shamelessly stolen from the Comune di Massa e Cozzile website - it simply wasn't that sunny today.

Anyway, we parked the car and wandered around feeling rather lost - as a gentleman came out of the main door though, Stuart explained that we had come to register our dog and asked if he could point us in the right direction. The man kindly told us to go inside as we were in the right place already. Once inside, Stuart repeated our quest to the lady behind the reception desk and she told us to go through to the Servizio Veterinario offices which were just around the corner.

We duly walked through and found ourselves standing right in the middle of someone's office (with real, live office work going on around us - people doing filing, photocopying, making phone calls etc.). This is not the first time we have done this - it gives me a feeling of intense discomfort, fully expecting to be challenged at any moment (it feels as if we should have waited outside until we were invited to come in), yet just as on other occasions, in other offices, the office staff simply smiled and said 'hello' while going about their tasks, before one of them invited us to take a seat at her desk once she'd finished her pile of paperwork stapling, shuffling and filing.

The friendly lady looked at our paperwork and explained that we would need to make an appointment - she duly made an appointment for us for Thursday morning, to which we will need to take all of Reggie's paperwork, our own paperwork, proof of payment of the €29 fee, oh and Reggie himself! She explained that Thursday's appointment would be at a vet's surgery in Massa e Cozzile (we assume that Reggie will have to be scanned (like our supermarket shopping) so that they can read his bar code (microchip) and then enter our details against his microchip details in the database for Tuscany.) After explaining how to find the surgery, she sent us on our way with a friendly smile.

Task two completed (or at least partway there), our final task for the morning was to go to the Agraria Castellare to price up some electric fencing.

We have been pondering how best to protect our vegetable plot (to be) from beasties that, given half the chance, would like to use it as a free restaurant and tuck into all of our hard grown vegetables. The main culprit in this case is wild boar. We were considering building regular fencing around the lower terraces, but had been drawn to the idea of an electric fence for a number of reasons: 1. it would be less visually intrusive, 2. it would be much (much) quicker to erect, 3. it would be easy to move around, should we want to (or should we want to extend the fenced-off area) in the future. All in all, we were pretty much sold on the idea of electric fencing, even if it ended up being slightly more costly than standard fencing.

When we went into the shop, the assistant, Stefano came and shook Stuart's hand and asked what we were after. He took us straight to the electric fencing supplies, asked us a few questions (whether we wanted 3 lines, what area we wanted to fence off, whether it would be run off the mains or a battery), and started collecting the various bits and pieces we would need. When it came to fence posts, he suggested that we go to Frateschi's instead of buying it from there, as Frateschi's would likely sell them for a better price (you can't say fairer than that!). He went to great lengths to explain how to assemble the fencing, which bits to attach to which, what we needed to pay particular attention to, and so on. He even got a catalogue out to use as a visual aid as there was a drawing in it showing a fully set up electric fence! We were touched by his attention, and we understood most of what he told us, but when we got back into the car (with all the kit), we looked at each other and agreed that we would be doing some Googling to fill in the gaps where our Italian had let us down!

With a car full of seeds and fencing, we headed home after a very productive morning.

It was almost lunchtime by the time we got in, so we had a hearty lunch of leek and potato soup after which it was time for a full afternoon's office work for me, while Holly went back to wood staining, Zach went back to tile chiselling, and Stuart did a few useful jobs around the house, including fitting a new light in the kitchen.

All in all, not bad for a damp day!