Anyway, today started early, but not anywhere near as early as our journey did a year ago. Once again, it was a very mild morning and my exercise session felt harder in the warm air.
After a shower and breakfast, I settled down to work in the office while Stuart went down to the apartment to work on some of the things that still need doing.
The morning was uneventful - Stuart popped out for some plumbing supplies, while I carried on at my desk.
We stopped for lunch at around midday. Stuart seems to have been suffering over the last couple of days with exhaustion, irritability and a lack of energy, so I think that the early lunch was a must for him in a vain attempt to muster some energy.
After lunch, I went back to my computer for a couple more hours before going out to join Stuart and lend a hand where I could.
By this stage, he had abandoned work in the apartment and returned to his screen-building project. I could hear him rustling around in the trees on the lower terraces cutting and cleaning pieces of hazel, which he then brought up to the guest patio to add to the screen.
I made myself useful by carrying on with the hazel cutting on the lower terraces while Stuart worked on the screen, then did a range of other small jobs to help things along.
The day was hot. It was both sunny and fairly humid, which sapped what already little energy Stuart had, but we worked on until 5pm - by which time the screen had moved on a fair way. It looks really good and won't take long to finish off now, although whether or not that gets done before our guests arrive is another matter as the list of jobs to do before then is as long as our arms.
After tidying tools away, we retired to the patio to collapse and relax in the balmy evening. It was while we were sitting on the patio, Reggie pottering around us, that Reggie suddenly rushed to the fence and started barking his head off up the terraces, standing on his hind legs and desperately wishing he was tall enough to get over the fence. This is not an unusual occurrence, and it can be somewhat wearisome, but this time, as we both turned to say 'Reggie, quiet', we realised that there, standing on the top terrace looking down at the three of us was a deer! Needless to say, it turned and ran off to get away from all the noise, but Reggie continued barking for a good while, after which he sat staring up at the terraces just in case the intruder made a return visit.
So we now know that we definitely have deer on the terraces once again. We guess that there is also something else visiting the lower terraces as yesterday, for the second time, we found that something has been digging up and eating our potatoes. The damage was less severe this time - just 4 plants dug up and eaten as opposed to the 20+ last time - but still very frustrating. One thing is for sure though, Reggie was in the clear. The poor dog took the blame for the last round of potato devastation (despite my protests that it was unlikely to be him as potatoes are toxic to dogs and he hadn't been ill), so this time he was acquitted of the charge. Unfortunately that makes it a more difficult problem to solve though - it's easy enough (relatively speaking) to stop Reggie going down to the veg beds unattended, but not so easy to stop local wildlife digging things up. Especially when you appear to have a faulty electric fence that doesn't kick out enough power (one of the many things that need sorting out)!
A few other niggles that add complications to our enormous to-do list are: yesterday we received yet another bill from Telecom Italia in the previous owner's name (the transfer of accounts should have been made by the geometra shortly after we arrived, 12 months ago, and even after several delays, we understood that the transfer had been made several months ago). This means that we are being billed (yet again) for services we haven't been using and don't want (it turns out we are still paying for internet through the phone line, and still paying for various packages that the previous owners had but which we didn't want) - the upshot of which is that we are being billed €118 for a telephone line that hasn't even worked since early February! Now, the fact that the line isn't working is kind of our fault for not having reported the problem yet - it's one of those tasks that keeps getting moved from one to-do list to the next - but still, I wasn't expecting a bill for €118 for a phone line that hasn't been used! Stuart has been in touch with Andrea about the latest bill, so we await to see what happens next. Next on the list are a toilet with a faulty flush, the tap on the bottom of the water butt in the goose island being blocked and not letting any water out, oh and ... our car is due to go back to the dealership tomorrow to try and get to the bottom of all of its problems. Despite asking to borrow a car as a replacement, they have simply said that we will need to leave the car with their mechanic 'for some days'. Bl**dy brilliant!!
You can be assured that there are plenty more niggles and frustrations that I've left off this list (did I mention that we still haven't had the contract for the purchase of our house from the notaio? that we still haven't had the ownership documents for the car? and that Reggie has lost his tag so we need to get a replacement engraved?), and that there is an even longer list of things to do that are less frustrating but equally important and pressing.
We never imagined it would be easy here though, and who are we to complain when we live in such a beautiful place, we only need to walk out of the front door and look around at our amazing view, the trees and the terraces to feel grateful for being here.
In store for tomorrow are: supermarket and garden centre shopping to try and get everything we need for our visitors' arrival before we are left vehicle-less (and hopefully to tide us over until we can get the car back); Stuart taking the car to Porcari (and cycling back); and more work in the apartment (if there's any time in the day left by then!). Early to bed tonight then.
No comments:
Post a Comment