After the monumental struggle with tiredness I've had over the past couple of days (which Helen hinted at in yesterday's blog), I decided to try a less strenuous day today - not work shy exactly, but I chose the less physical tasks to tick off my list. That was not before another 12-hour sleep though - I was so tired after yesterday that I woke to find that I'd snored my wife into the spare room, something I haven't done for months and something I'm only liable to do if totally wiped out or have had one too many glasses of the hard stuff - last night was the former.
As it was just after 9am when I woke (yes, that means I was asleep at 9pm last night), the sun was already coming up over the hills behind the house and starting to warm the patio, so breakfast (for me at least) was outside. A beautiful start to the day. At 10am, Helen had a work call scheduled, so I decided to take Reggie out of earshot for a walk to the quarry track near Vellano.
Unusually, there were people up at the reservoir today - we normally don't see anyone but today a small group were felling trees around the reservoir. There was enough noise for Reggie to come close to me looking often for reassurance, but he was happy enough to have a growl at one guy standing much closer to us.
We got home an hour or so later just as Helen's conference call ended, and I sat on the patio with a mug of tea and my tablet PC to finally sort out my to-do list so that's its all in one place. I've been surviving lately with lists written on different scraps of paper, but that isn't organised enough for me and has genuinely caused me some sleepless nights as I've woken in the wee small hours wondering if I've got this, that and the other on any of my lists. The moral of this story is that I need to allow a little time to keep on top of my lists simply to clear my head. I don't think it's helped my mood much over the last few days either.
After clearing my head and sorting my 'master' list chronologically, I headed out in the car to a garden centre near town to grab a few shrubs to add some much needed colour to the outside of the house. We have heaps of lilac-coloured irises at the moment, but little else actually in flower. So, with the car loaded with lavender and four other plants (of types I couldn't identify but liked the look of), I got home in time for a later than normal lunch.
I was due to take the car to the mechanic over near Altopascio this afternoon, so lunch was brief - we'd soon be car-less and I needed to make sure we had everything we needed to finish off the apartment before our guests arrive on Saturday, so I rummaged around in the old shed and found the paint and even some rollers that hadn't been ruined by the rain pouring in through the holey roof so dragged them out and left them somewhere out of Reggie's way.
Chris and Sue had been in touch this morning to offer to accompany me to the garage in order to give me a lift back home and save me cycling back from the garage, but it couldn't be until 5.30pm. After feeling as tired as I have been over the last couple of days I bit their hands off and told the car people not to expect me until 6pm.
After applying a final coat of filler to the walls in the apartment, I locked up and sat in the office with Helen for an hour and a half to tick of some small admin jobs on my list - small jobs, but ones that had been eating away at me for days now, so it was all in a good cause and it made me feel loads better.
At 4.30pm, I hopped in the car to head off and meet Chris so that we could drive to Altopascio in convoy. But of course, the car wouldn't start would it!! It was behaving like a cat that had got wind of an impending trip to the vet - if only it had a sofa to hide behind!
I abandoned the car and weeded for half an hour while trying to call Chris, who had been out playing rugby. When I got hold of him he said he would come up here anyway after a quick coffee, so I jumped into the car quickly to try it once more - and it started (caught by a surprise attack from behind, it didn't see me coming) - so I quickly headed down into town to meet Chris and left helen sanding in the apartment.
We dropped the car off with the mechanic and I managed to explain the three problems we were having well enough, but then couldn't understand what he asking me. I dragged Chris out of his car and into the conversation and as the mechanic was slowly explaining to Chris, I understood that all he wanted to know was when I needed the car back. A strange question, as he doesn't even know what's wrong with it yet, but anyway, he's agreed to look at it and to tell the dealer the scope of the problems by Monday and we'll take it from there.
When we got back to the house, Helen was busy barrowing piles of stone across the driveway and after a brief chat with Chris accompanied by loud barking from Reggie, he left us to our evening - which for me involved the third al fresco meal of the day. Helen had cooked a Ligurian potato salad while I was out, which was ready to eat before the sun went down and I couldn't resist a little glass of red to go with it.
The next couple of days will see us car-less and busy getting the apartment finished off - and hoping we have everything we need to do so!
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