The big holiday!

This week saw the arrival of my mum and kids for their two-week summer holiday. Of course, before we got to that bit the house and apartment needed a good clean. Fortunately for me, our last guests had left the apartment in a very tidy state so the usual turnaround down there was done before lunchtime on Monday. The house, on the other hand, had never before been in such dire need of a good hoover - I have no idea how Reggie isn't bald, there's so much fur around. I must have hoovered up an entire dog's worth of fur and filled the vacuum bag by the time I'd finished at around 5.30 that afternoon (a finish time that would have been later had Helen not jumped in towards the end to clean the bathroom).

The family were arriving courtesy of Air France into Florence airport, after having had to make a short stop in Paris en-route (a small inconvenience brought about by Flybe stopping their direct service from Birmingham after just one season). When I had finished my day's 'work' and hopped online to check the flights, I was happy to see that all was running OK although there was a short delay on the second flight. This gave me time for a caffe doppio at the airport before loitering around the arrivals doorway to welcome the family to Italy again.

It wasn't long before we were walking into the house to the mouth-watering smells of the dinner that Helen had been cooking while we were on our way back from the airport. After our delicious dinner and an evening's chatting, we were all ready for bed and with the promise of good weather the following day we wanted a reasonably early start to make the most of it.

The kids, Mom and I spent the following morning preparing a picnic before all heading up to the suspension bridge in Mammiano Basso with the Phillips family, leaving poor Helen behind to slave away at her computer - a theme that runs throughout the week.

It was hot, but luckily we found a nice big bench table under the shade of some trees next to the trout fishing lake. We proceeded to stuff ourselves with quinoa salad, cheese, bean dip, sandwiches and tomato and mozzarella salad before wobbling off to cross the swaying suspension bridge - which was even more unstable today thanks to the number of people trying to cross back and forth!

Once that 'fun' was done with, we ended the trip with ice creams and drinks at the bar before heading slowly home back down the valley to rescue Helen and take Reggie for a walk.

Wednesday saw me and the family doing the food shopping in Pescia first thing before heading home for lunch which preceded a visit to the Phillips' farm to pick some fruit from their heavily laden trees - something we've been threatening to do for a couple of weeks now and with the kids here it seemed like the perfect time, I have fond memories of walking through farm fields as a child picking plums from the trees and eating them as we went.

Mom, the kids and I arrived at the Phillips' mid afternoon and chatted for a while.... and then a while longer... and.then it was suggested I go and collect Helen after work and bring her back down to join in. I duly did that... and then we opened wine... and only when the light started to fade did we start picking fruit while Sue cooked a delicious a pasta and smoked salmon dish for us all.

With darkness fully upon us and sacks of pears and plums in the kitchen, we sat out under the pergola for dinner before finally calling it a night just a shade before the we small hours (it was still a school night after all) to head home to bed.

Thursday morning was a nervy affair - Kerys had barely slept the previous night as Thursday was GCSE results day and she was waiting for her Mum to call with her results. We all sat around quietly worrying until the phone rang just after 10am, when she Kerys indoors to get her results privately. Even from outside though, we could tell from the noises coming from inside that there was some good news. They were indeed happy noises as the hours of revision she had put in really had paid off: my clever daughter got an A* in maths, As in Biolog, Chemistry, Physics and Business Studies, Bs in History, English Language and German, with a C in English Literature to finish the set. What a relief for Kerys and a hugely proud moment for the rest of us!

To celebrate, we all (this time including Helen) went off for lunch in Monte Carlo where we stuffed our faces with antipasti and pasta, delicious!

After lunch and a quick shopping trip to Montecatini, we went home to take Reggie for a walk.

The kids and I left Helen in the office and Mom downstairs baking a fruit cake while we went to walk Reggie at the quarry track near Vellano. Reggie thoroughly stretched his legs, often disappearing off into the woods out of sight only to come crashing back through the leaves and hitting the track at full stride, belting along the track towards us, before disappearing off into the woods again.

On the way home we stopped at the Bistrot in Vellano for a quick drink and a game of table football before heading home to start dinner as Donatella was coming round this evening for a bite to eat.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable meal and evening with Donatella, and Reggie was in his element surrounded by his new friends and his favourite person in the whole world! Having lit the firepit, we managed to keep enough of the chill off to spend the whole evening out on the patio, and when Donatella left us a little after 11pm, we were still braving the evening chill. We decided we ought to get straight to bed as we needed to make an early start the next day - I say "early", but what I actually mean is early in teenage terms - we had arranged to be at the Phillips house for 9am, ready for a trip to the Orrido di Bortri gorge.

Getting up early was a bit of an effort for all involved - myself included as I couldn't seem to shake an extra wave of tiredness I'd been struggling with for the last week or two - but the kids and I made it up and packed our bags of towels and spare clothes, grabbed some pannini at Amanda's to take for our lunch, landed at the Phillips' house at about 9.10am, picked up Chris and Henry and headed off to the Garfagnana valley to find the gorge.

The plan for the others for the day was for poor Helen to spend the day working in the office, and for Mom and Sue to spend the day together having a proper girlie catch-up, drinking coffee and preparing dinner.

Chris and I managed somehow to get a little lost (again) on the way to the gorge, but it feels like this is becoming part of the trip and on this occasion we were glad we did as the scenery we drove through on the approach was stunning!

Despite the delay and a pre-gorge coffee, we were heading into the gorge fully kitted out with our hard hats before noon with a 5-hour walk ahead of us.

These pictures speak for themselves - we all had a fantastic time and made it all the way to the waterfall a the end of the gorge. And so it was with weary legs that we headed back to the Phillips farm where Mom and Sue had been preparing dinner for us all.

As we arrived, Sue was just heading out to go and collect Helen from her day's work in the office, so it wasn't long before we were all together on the patio overlooking Pescia watching the lights slowly flicker in the distance as we tucked into chicken curry followed by pears (the same ones we'd picked a couple of days prior) poached in red wine. The curry was delicious, and I'm told that the pears were amazing... by the time everyone was tucking into poached pears and custard I had long since had a thyroid episode and crashed out unconscious on the sofa until everyone came in to rouse me for the drive home.