Today was mainly dedicated to preparing for the arrival of our friend, Chris. I managed a quick half hour or so of work first thing in the morning, after which we headed into town to do a supermarket shop - the first one we'd done under our own steam (in our own car) for several weeks! We decided to try leaving Reggie at home but giving him the run of the (downstairs) house rather than locking him in his crate while we were out. I made sure Florence (who is STILL on strike and refusing to go out, after having been chased by Reggie two weeks or so ago) was safely shut in our bedroom, and locked the cat flap to prevent Lucca wandering in expecting the coast to be clear, then made sure there were no breakables close to the edge of the kitchen worktop and nervously told Reggie to be good while we were out!
The supermarkets were quite quiet, which was a relief, and once we'd done the shopping we celebrated with a cappuccino in Franco's bar in the square - just the one though, as we didn't want to leave Reggie home alone (and free to roam) for too long. We then carried on up the hill, making a quick stop at Frateshi's so that we could pop the umbrella we had been loaned the other night when it was lashing down with rain back into Da Nerone, and Stuart popped into Frateschi's to see whether any packages had been delivered there for us. We were "expecting" (in the loose sense of the term, since we have lost all faith) a new modem to be delivered to us this week. As we HAD thought we would be away on holiday, we had asked for it to be delivered to Frateschi's (although not received any acknowledgement of that request). Either way, there was no modem at Frateschi's and we haven't had anything delivered here, we are still without our internet service and have not heard a peep from the provider (Italia Wi-Fi/EuroConX) since I emailed him a week ago. Great customer service hey?
So we carried on to the house, unpacked the shopping then made a start on doing some cleaning and tidying, both of the apartment and the house. Just as I was vacuuming down the stairs, we were plunged into silence and darkness - the electricity had tripped. That's nothing unusual, but for the fact that it was only really the vacuum using any more than usual (we didn't have kettles, washing machine or water heaters on at the same time). I moved the sofa to check the consumer unit - and all switches were as they should be. Hmm, odd. Stuart went down to the apartment to check the main meter but came back up again with the news that it was a full-on power outage. That put paid to any more vacuuming!
Since it was around 12.30pm, we decided that it was a good time to stop for lunch and hope that the electricity would come back on again soon, so we had our lunch on the patio, every now and then looking to see if lights had come back on in the house. They flickered back on momentarily, but we didn't even have time to celebrate before they had gone off again. We therefore continued our cleaning and tidying after lunch in darkness and resorting to old-fashioned sweeping instead of vacuuming.
Just as we were finishing up, the lights came back on - and this time they stayed on! Brilliant. It had just gone 2pm by this time, so we'd been in darkness for about an hour and a half. It was just about then that Stuart received a message from Chris to say that he had managed to get on an earlier train from Florence and would be arriving in Pescia at about 3.15pm. We quickly swung into action and loaded Reggie into the car and drove into town to take him for a walk. We parked up on the Lidl side of the river and walked from there as far as the railway bridge. We didn't see another soul for the duration of the walk so Reggie happily ran around off leash, running down to the water to have a sip and back up again, and down again, and up again. We were envious of him being able to cool down in the water - it was scorching and very humid. After we'd finished the walk, it was time to head to the station to collect Chris. His train was delayed, but only by 10 minutes or so, so it wasn't long before we were greeting him and introducing Reggie to our latest guest.
Stuart decided to take Chris for a welcome-to-Pescia drink at Bar Pulter. Reggie refused point blank to get out of the car and because it was such a hot day we couldn't leave him without leaving all the doors and windows open. Although we'd managed to find a parking spot very close to the bar, it wasn't visible from the seating area and I didn't feel happy leaving him unattended unless we could see him. I decided to try a new tack and offered to drive the car around the corner, to a spot where I knew he would get out, and see if I could walk him round to the square and see if he would sit with us outside - as he does sometimes seem happy to do. Today was definitely NOT one of those days though. Poor Reggie knew something was up and every time we even changed direction to head towards the square he took fright. I felt terrible for trying to make him go where he didn't want to go, so we headed back to the safety of the car and, after quick phone calls to Stuart and to the Phillipses, Reggie and I headed to the Phillipses' house.
Once we were parked up outside the Phillipses', Reggie happily jumped out of the car and led me all the way up the hill to their house, where he promptly had a long drink of water then flopped onto the floor underneath the table. A little later, Stuart and Chris (Perkins) came walking up the hill to join us and Chris, Stuart Chris, Sue, Erik and I sat chatting the afternoon away. When we realised the time was getting on for 7pm, we decided it was time to leave and take Chris (Perkins) to see our own house! We collected the Phillipses' house keys, Erik's terrapin, its tank and food (the terrapin is coming to stay with us while the Phillipses go on holiday) and headed off up the hill, with me cradling a saucepan containing said terrapin and trying to make sure he didn't slosh over the edge (I don't know if terrapins can get car sick/sea sick, but it certainly was a choppy ride for the poor little thing)!
On our way home, we stopped off at Amanda's to buy some food for our dinner. Poor Amanda was in darkness - her electricity had gone off at 12.30pm, like ours, but 7 hours later it still hadn't come back on again. We sympathised with Amanda and asked if there was anything we could do to help, but short of re-connecting her electricity supply, there was nothing she could think of. We therefore bought - actually, Chris very kindly bought - what felt like half the shop, before wishing Amanda good luck and carrying on up the hill to the house.
We unloaded shopping and animals. First job was to set up "Terry" (not his real name, but it's what he will be called while under our roof) the terrapin's new home - for now, his tank is living on the edge of the kitchen worktop, although we understand that he enjoys going outside from time to time as long as he doesn't get too hot, so the worktop will be his permanent base, with excursions to the outdoors when weather permits.
After showing Chris to the apartment, we all settled at the patio for a drink and proper catch up, followed by the delicious spread of home-cooked dishes we'd bought from Amanda's. As darkness fell, Stuart lit the fire pit to keep us warm (it was quite a novelty to feel cold, but the novelty soon wore off!), and we were entertained by the most amazing display of fireflies lighting up the terraces. It really was a magical spectacle, and I can well imagine why people used to think they were fairies.
We eventually all retired to bed at a semi-respectable hour. We haven't really decided what Saturday holds in store, other than dog walking, so watch this space.
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