More of the same!

Another day with no connectivity (or car). Today's blog is brought to you  courtesy of the free wifi at Franco's bar in Pescia...

Day 5: no internet, no car - getting boring.

I allowed myself a lie-in until 7am this morning - knowing that there was no point in rushing through my exercise and getting into the office, I enjoyed the extra 30 minutes of pressing the snooze button before finally getting up and getting my equipment out.

I ran through the usual animal tasks: I fed the cats, let Lucca out (poor Florence is still on strike, too frightened to come downstairs or go outside after having had two run-ins with Reggie over recent weeks), let Reggie out, fed Reggie, and went to let the geese out. However, as I reached the gate to the terraces and looked up, I saw two familiar white figures in the goose enclosure - either they had cunningly worked out how to let themselves out or... we had forgotten to put them in last night! I quickly surmised that it was the latter thanks to the fact that the door to their house was still propped open. I felt simultaneously guilty and quite pleased that they had made it through a night unscathed. We know from a couple of evenings recently when we've been out and not back before dark that they tend to go inside their house of their own accord eventually, although of course without the door being shut they are not actually safe from predators.

Anyway, since the geese didn't need letting out, I got straight on with my exercise. After I'd finished, I decided to give Sue a quick call and ask a huge favour: whether I could cycle down to theirs and hop on their wi-fi to attempt to download some work that I could then bring back and do offline. Of course she said yes, so after a bowl of cereal and a quick shower, I packed a rucksack and headed off on my mountain bike for the first time in many months.

The cycle into town was very enjoyable (the same could not be said for the return leg), and on arrival, Sue made me a coffee and left me with my tablet PC on the patio while she went about her own morning tasks. I managed to make contact with the office, and downloaded a couple of emails, but the tablet PC wasn't really up to the task and I didn't get as much from the morning as I had hoped. Lesson learned: the laptop would have been more useful (although heavier to carry on my back) - even that would only be useful up to a certain point though, as all of the software I use for work is on my desktop PC (and that definitely won't fit in a rucksack on my back!).

As the time marched on towards lunch time, Sue needed to go into town to collect Erik and Henry from school and suggested that I go with her and make a stop at the Vodafone shop in town to buy a dongle - it wouldn't solve all of our problems, but it would serve as a temporary stop gap and ease the situation slightly. Agreeing that it was a good idea, I left my bike at their house and climbed into their little green Fiat with Sue. We headed straight for the Vodafone shop - which was closed. Plan B was to try the computer shop - but it too was closed. Tomorrow (2nd June) is a bank holiday in Italy (Festa della Republica), and quite a few businesses seem to have closed today in order to make the most of the day off tomorrow. We admitted defeat as it was time to collect Erik from his school, followed by Henry from his, and after a quick stop at the bakery on the way, we headed back to their house where I left them to their afternoon and picked up my bike to cycle home.

I am ashamed to say that I had to get off my bike and walk for the last couple of uphill bends in the road - I was utterly puffed out and didn't even manage to catch my breath until I got back to the house. I think I need to work on my hill climbs!

By the time I got home it was nearing 2pm and Stuart was just making us some egg sandwiches for lunch. We ate them in the shade of the garden umbrella - today really was punishingly hot and my cycle ride home hadn't helped with my temperature regulation.

After lunch, we got tools out and while Stuart went off up the terraces with the strimmer, I followed with the hedge cutters, attempting to do some damage limitation and cut back some of the re-growth of brambles, bracken and acacia that has happened on the far sides of the terraces.

I gave up at around 4.30pm, feeling wiped out, and Stuart carried on for another half-hour, leaving us with some beautifully cut terraces. Of course there's still more to do - where we had cleared last autumn and early this year there are piles of branches and bramble littering the terraces, which it's almost impossible to strim around, so we need to roll our sleeves up and collect up all the bits of branch and bramble. The problem, though, is what to do with it all - as of today (1st June) it is illegal to have bonfires in this area, due to the risk of forest fire. The ban on bonfires lasts all summer (for obvious reasons), so we won't be able to dispose of the clippings/branches/offcuts in that manner, at least not until the autumn.

We eventually both retired to the patio with a glass of water (no, that's not a typo, we gave the wine a miss this time) and chased the umbrella around on its pole, trying to angle it so that it would deliver us some shade - even at 6pm, the heat was relentless.

We have a new set of guests arriving in the apartment tomorrow, so tomorrow will be all about preparing for their arrival and making sure Reggie has a nice long walk in the morning.


Day 6: Did I mention this was getting tedious?

This morning I allowed myself a lie-in until 6.45am - it would have been a little longer but for the fact that both Lucca and Florence were getting impatient for their breakfast and making sure that I knew about it. I ran through all of the animal-related tasks this morning, including letting the geese out as we had made a point of remembering to put them away last night.

After exercising and showering, we sat down to a breakfast in the early morning sunshine on the patio, and as time went on the heat of the sun grew more intense. We therefore cleared the breakfast bowls away, harnessed Reggie up and set off along the drive for a walk - we wanted to give him a good walk today to attempt to tire him out a little so that he might(?) be a little calmer when our guests arrive this evening. This time we decided to go down the road again, but to go a little further along the main road, until we reached the turn-off to Medicina, Fibialla, San Quirico etc. We figured that, it being a bank holiday, the roads would be quiet today, and certainly free from large lorries visiting the paper mills. We were right about there being no big lorries on the roads today, but we'd forgotten to figure in the hoardes of bank holiday cyclists - from individuals, pairs and threesomes, all the way up to groups of up to 20 at a time. Today, Reggie quite quickly mastered the not-lunging-at-cars trick, but cyclists and motorbikes were another matter altogether. He seemed very upset by two-wheeled modes of transport and lunged at them with full vigour.

We walked along the main San Quirico road for a while until we reached a footpath sign for Fibialla and a mill, we decided to try following the footpath just to try and find the mill, which was supposed to only be 190m away. The footpath took us right through someone's back yard and past two small horse paddocks. It being a hot morning, the horses were in their shelters, but one poked its nose out to have a look - and frightened the life out of Reggie. His first experience of a horse had him growling and barking, even though it was at a safe distance from him. We couldn't find the mill (to be honest, we didn't try too hard and soon gave up because we were all hot), so headed back down the road towards Pietrabuona. As we waited to let traffic past at the turning onto the main road, a familiar pick-up truck drew up - it was Franco and Maura, who stopped to say hello and to tell us that they've just bought a house in the woods, from which they can see our house! It was nice to see them and hopefully we will see them again soon when they are settled in their house. They pulled away, heading into town for a visit to the vet with their little dog, leaving us wondering where their house is!

We carried on up the road towards home, and as we passed the house in the bottom the old man who lives there was just coming out of his door. Of course, that made Reggie jump a mile, but Stuart stopped to introduce himself and us. We chatted to him for a little while, during which he told us that he could hear Reggie barking from his house (we apologised, but he didn't seem too bothered), and then he went on to tell us that he had lived here during the war when the Germans were in the valley (clearly he has been here all his life). We think he said that a German officer once slept in his house. Amazing to think of what he must have seen, the terror of what took place in some of these villages and in Pescia itself. He seemed a very friendly chap, and we were pleased to have FINALLY met one of our near neighbours!

By the time we got home, it was 11.30am, so Stuart set about mowing the lawns and strimming the edges while I sat down to the computer to start some off-line work.

We stopped our respective tasks for a lunch of tomato bruschette with mozarella in the sunshine, before returning to our chores. I decided to help Stuart in the apartment so we knew we'd get it done in time for our arrivals, so the pair of us headed down to dust, vacuum, clean the bathroom and kitchen, change the linens and generally make sure the place was ship-shape. With that all finished by about 3.15pm, I returned to my office work while Stuart set about making a salad and some platters of cold meats and cheese for our guests - with it being a bank holiday today, we'd offered to get them some food in to tide them over until they can get to the shops tomorrow. After that, Stuart made some quinoa salad for our own dinner and did the washing up. I clocked off at about 6pm and we anxiously awaited the arrival of our guests. We knew in advance that they weren't dog fans, so were planning to put Reggie in his crate with a bone so that they could at least arrive in peace and steel themselves for the inevitable onslaught of barking later on. We knew they would be arriving roughly between 6pm and 7pm, but we didn't want to peak too soon and put Reggie in his crate unnecessarily early. As it was, we almost missed our chance completely. We were all out in the garden when I heard the crunch of tyres on gravel. Thankfully, Reggie didn't hear it and wasn't in view of the driveway so Stuart was able to cajole him indoors with the promise of a bone - had he either seen or heard the arrival we would have had no chance of distracting his attention. We welcomed Keith and Jacqui and showed them to the apartment then left them to their evening. Not really sure what to do with ourselves, we settled for an early dinner in the sunshine on the patio - dinner finished before 7pm must be some kind of record for us! It wasn't long after we'd finished that we started to hear the unmistakable whine from Reggie's cage. He'd clearly got all of the best bits off the bone and now that it was no longer quite such an absorbing pastime, he was eager to get out. We duly came indoors ourselves and let him out of his crate, ready to settle down to an evening of maybe watching a film.

In theory, tomorrow should be the day we get our car back. Neither of us are counting our chickens though! The data facility on Stuart's mobile phone, which has been tiding us over as a means to (painfully slowly) access emails and internet and Facebook Messenger, decided it would also stop working this afternoon, so we are feeling well and truly disconnected. We are waiting for an email from the car dealership to let us know when the car is ready and, ironically, an email from Italia Wi-Fi to let us know when the internet problem has been fixed and how to get it back up and running again. Of course, it only being Tuesday, we're not expecting to hear from Italia Wi-Fi just yet as they've promised us that we'll be reconnected by the END of the week (oh and they've said they will give us a month's free usage for the inconvenience caused - £85 to make up for a week of lost work and potential lost bookings, but at least it's something I suppose), but you never know. The irony is in the fact that they are corresponding with all their clients - who don't have any internet service - by email. How is that meant to work?!

Anyway, maybe tomorrow the data on the mobile will work again, and there will be a flurry of good-news emails. I live in hope.