One year on

Today, it is exactly a year since we spent our first night in our house here in our little piece of Tuscany.

For anyone not familiar with the beginning of our story here, or in need of a reminder, THIS is how we first entered the house (using power tools) and THIS is how we spent our first day as inhabitants.

That first night here, I cried myself to sleep - wondering what on earth we had done, too jumpy about the number of creepy crawlies to sleep, and desperately missing our carpeted, double-glazed, centrally heated, mains sewer-connected, mains gas-connected house in Abingdon. Thankfully, the next morning, when I woke up to find it was still sunny and that amazing view was still there, all my worries melted away and we both rolled up our sleeves to start the mammoth (and still ongoing) task of getting the place in order.

The last 12 months have seen plenty of challenges, frustrations, unforeseen obstacles, tears (lots of), freezing cold winter nights, fierce storms, power cuts, communication black-outs, illness and hard, back-breaking work, but also lots of fun, laughter, heaps of satisfaction, quality time with friends and family, the joy of making new friends, beautiful weather, stunning views and, of course, lots of prosecco.

We still have a mountain to climb - getting this place to how we want it, and even maintaining it in its current state is like trying to run up a down-escalator, but I think we've now reached a point where we can actually appreciate some of the things that we have achieved over the last year. It's taken us a long time to acknowledge that we've made any progress, and looking back over our old photographs has been a lesson in standing back and taking stock and allowing ourselves a gentle, cautious pat on the back.

We have our first paying guests (strangers, as opposed to friends/family) of the year arriving this evening for a 2.5-week stay in the apartment. We desperately hope that they will find the apartment to their liking and that they will enjoy the local area and scenery as much as we do. We also hope that Reggie won't terrorise them, but that's going to be harder to pull off! Having spent this morning supermarket shopping courtesy of a lift from the lovely Sue & Chris, and the rest of the day cleaning the apartment and cooking a meal for our guests, we are now about to open a bottle of bubbles and reflect on the last 12 months while awaiting their arrival.

Cheers!

In each of the photos below, 'then' is on the left (and varies in date, some from when we first arrived and others after we had done a little work) and 'now' is on the right.