With our bathroom still out of action, Monday started with a mercy dash to the coffee shop in the village for a coffee and use of the facilities - I'm sure I was finishing the same yawn I started when I got in the car as we parked the car at Nerone's! We'd had torrential rain overnight and when we stepped out into the morning air were shocked by the warmth and humidity - it felt like walking into a steam room.
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| Atmospheric views for coffee after the rain. |
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| Early morning cappuccini. |
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| All soil stack removed, now to re-build it. |
This threw me, and I started to question whether I'd measured the pipe correctly, so I went back home to double (make that triple) check it. So if we call that shopping trip number one, which I had returned from empty handed, I was already beginning to regret having answered Helen's question of whether we would have a working bathroom again by the end of the day with a 'YES'!
After checking them over, I confirmed that the pipes were indeed 110mm... but what I hadn't noticed was a reducer amongst all the connections - meaning that halfway down, the pipe changes to 100mm. Don't ask me why, but maybe that's the size of pipe the septic tank needs.
After checking them over, I confirmed that the pipes were indeed 110mm... but what I hadn't noticed was a reducer amongst all the connections - meaning that halfway down, the pipe changes to 100mm. Don't ask me why, but maybe that's the size of pipe the septic tank needs.
Anyway, pleased that I had checked the pipes again, I rewrote my shopping list and headed to a shop in Pescia that had been recommended to me by Chris. When I arrived, I decided to start the process off by warning the unsuspecting guy behind the counter that my Italian wasn't very good. At this point his his eyes took on a mild look of panic as he seemed to be trying to access his high-school English memory banks. As it happened though, I got through the list without trouble. Well, without language trouble at least - it turned out that the shop sold everything except pipe in 100mm diameter - was this some kind of arrangement that he had with Paolo?! I'm sure there's a good reason for this, but what was clear was that after buying all my 110mm pieces from here, I'd need to stop off and buy a 100mm 45 degree bend from Paolo to complete my list!
By the time I got home from my shopping trips it was almost lunchtime, so decided not to get my hands dirty until after I'd eaten. We ate as usual on the patio, but it was a quick affair, Helen now being at full speed with her conference work and me really hoping to get our bathroom working before the end of the day.
And so the afternoon saw me playing with stinky pipes of various diameters, re-fitting pipe clamps that had been poorly located and shortening some of the downpipes so that there was actually a little fall on them.
I reached a point mid afternoon where I realised I needed just three extra pieces to complete the job, so I went out on shopping trip number three of the day to pick up three small extensions. When I got home I eventually, with the help of the water tanks and my new long ladders, managed to complete the job before heading indoors for a MUCH needed shower.
Time would now tell whether the new vent in the system would solve the smell issue - so for the time being we were crossing everything we could (except our legs - it was an enormous relief to know we had a fully functioning toilet at our disposal day and night) as otherwise it would likely mean having to wait for what would undoubtedly be an expensive emergency plumber to come and take a look.
And so the afternoon saw me playing with stinky pipes of various diameters, re-fitting pipe clamps that had been poorly located and shortening some of the downpipes so that there was actually a little fall on them.
I reached a point mid afternoon where I realised I needed just three extra pieces to complete the job, so I went out on shopping trip number three of the day to pick up three small extensions. When I got home I eventually, with the help of the water tanks and my new long ladders, managed to complete the job before heading indoors for a MUCH needed shower.
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| I knew there was a reason I hadn't thrown the old wooden door away yet! |
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| Soil stack completed with an extra metre above the roof and a vent on top. |
On Tuesday morning I had one thing on my mind: our guests downstairs - but as I was up earlier than them I headed out to do a few chores. These included selling 6kg of our tomatoes to Amanda, which I swapped for a nice chilled bottle of Prosecco to serve as an apology gift for our guests, along with a refund of one nights stay for the first night when they had been unable to sleep!
When I got home I headed down to the apartment with the money and the Prosecco, hoping that there would be nothing but fresh smells in the apartment.
I was greeted with smiles - a great start - and the smiles got even wider when I presented them with the Prosecco. There was not a sign of any ill-smelling nastiness in the air, which meant I could breathe a huge sigh of relief before leaving our guests to their day. One of the three BIG ticks we were hoping for this week (sorting out the plumbing problems/getting our oven fixed/taking delivery of our new washing machine) had been achieved - although we'd have to wait a few more days yet before we could be sure the problem was fixed.
After lunch, I turned my hands to the anti-Reggie-climb fencing, version 3!
It took a while to get the method sorted and involved a few steps back, but once I had a section done nicely I was off and running and soon back down to Frateschi's for yet more netting and heavy gauge wire before continuing for the rest of the day. By the end of the day I'd finished seven or so sections of fence, and although I'd rather it wasn't there, it doesn't actually look too imposing and much less like a P.O.W. camp than I'd imagined. It will look even better once we've grown some plants up into it - maybe some jasmine or clematis for plenty of summer colour and fragrance.
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| Is version 3 Reggie proof? He had better hope so! |
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| Guests now safe from him, can't do much about the barking though. |
When the phone booted I received a text telling me I'd missed a call five minutes ago from Paolo - no, not that Paolo but the oven repair guy who was asking if he could come over straight away as he was only in Pescia! Could this be the BIG TICK number two?
With Reggie safely out of the way in the car, Paolo pulled up and set to work dismantling the oven to fit the long-awaited thermocouple. An hour an a half later he was testing it, but still without success - it still wouldn't stay alight. Cursing, he went out to his van, reappeared with some other part, and ten minutes later we had a WORKING OVEN for the first time in nearly 16 months! A working oven was one of many things that we took for granted back in England but which we have had to fight for here and oh how happy we are to have it. Within minutes of Paolo leaving we'd already decided to spend the evening slow roasting our basket of cherry tomatoes (a plan that we later ditched because it was too warm to contemplate turning the oven on for any length of time!).
Once the excitement and lunch was over I spent the rest of the day in the office next to Helen, both of us doing work for the Virus Bulletin - with the conference now being in less than two weeks, deadlines are fast approaching for both of us!
Thursday passed in much the same way as Wednesday, with both Helen and I working away at our computers in the office, Reggie sloping in every now and then to sit down and let out an enormous sigh as if to say "I'm so bored!!!". We eventually took pity on him and went up to the cava track above Vellano to give him a good run around.
On our way back down the hill we decided to pop in to see David and Sarah for a quick chat. The evening was already cooling down, so we left Reggie in his crate in the boot with the car windows open. We hadn't long said hello to David and Sarah when we heard distant barking. Helen and I froze and listened - and decided that there was a possibility that it was poor Reggie. I hurried straight back to the car to check on him - only to find that he had somehow managed to get out of his crate and was sitting in the boot of the car barking his little head off at a couple of Italian children who were pulling faces at him through the window!
I released him from the car, put his leash on and took him up to David and Sarah's house, where he sat with us very patiently while we had a chat and a glass of wine.
Friday was a busy day: we were expecting a visit from a new acquaintance for coffee in the morning, we had one set of guests checking out and another set of guests checking in, we'd told David and Sarah to pop in to see us on their way back from shopping in the afternoon, and we were due to go out for dinner in the evening!
First up, we had a visit from Carolyn, an Australian lady who along with her family has moved into one of the houses that we looked at when we were searching for property in the valley 2 years ago. It's a beautiful house and really tugged at our heart strings, but the amount of work that was needed was enough to scare us away. We were really pleased to notice a few months ago (from across the other side of the valley) that it had been bought and was being lived in! After tracking Carolyn down, we introduced ourselves and invited her to pop round for coffee. We spent a very enjoyable couple of hours telling our respective stories and exchanging experiences, relating challenges and disasters. After showing her around, Carolyn left to go and collect her son from school, but we will hopefully meet up again soon when time allows - we really enjoyed meeting her and we're dying to see how she and her family are getting on with the house!
After Carolyn had left it was all hands to the pumps for the turnaround of the apartment. Thankfully it was still perfectly sweet smelling and our last set of guests had left it in an almost spotless condition, so the cleaning process was straightforward. By about 3pm we were just finishing up in the apartment and were ready to receive our next visitors: David and Sarah on their way back up to Vellano after doing their weekly shop. We had a drink and another nice catchup with David and Sarah before they continued on home to unpack their shopping and we awaited the arrival of our next set of guests.
Our guests finally made it to us a little before 7pm. We'd been looking forward to welcoming this crowd: four New Zelanders (two couples) including the parents of our HelpX-er Nick who'd stayed with us along with Tess back in November last year! Knowing how much we enjoyed Nick and Tess's company, we were expecting to find these guys and their friends similarly easy to get on with, and we almost felt as if we already knew them, so were really pleased when they successfully found their way here!
There wasn't much time for chit chat though as we were due to go out for dinner, so we introduced ourselves, showed them around the apartment, had a quick chat and then dashed indoors to get ready to go out.
Friday is fish day at Manero's restaurant in Vellano and for a long time we'd planned to go there with Donatella, David and Sarah. Fish and seafood are not very common in these parts and it's rare to find restaurants serving much in the way of fish, so we were looking forward to a fishy night! We had a great time, feasting on marinated anchovies, spaghetti with mussels, clams and prawns, followed by fried seafood with fried potatoes, and even a panna cotta to round things off. Of course it was also a really fun evening with great company, and the time flew by - we finally said our goodnights to our friends and rolled into our house ('rolled' being an appropriate word after the amount we'd eaten) at gone midnight - truly a late night for us!
Thursday passed in much the same way as Wednesday, with both Helen and I working away at our computers in the office, Reggie sloping in every now and then to sit down and let out an enormous sigh as if to say "I'm so bored!!!". We eventually took pity on him and went up to the cava track above Vellano to give him a good run around.
On our way back down the hill we decided to pop in to see David and Sarah for a quick chat. The evening was already cooling down, so we left Reggie in his crate in the boot with the car windows open. We hadn't long said hello to David and Sarah when we heard distant barking. Helen and I froze and listened - and decided that there was a possibility that it was poor Reggie. I hurried straight back to the car to check on him - only to find that he had somehow managed to get out of his crate and was sitting in the boot of the car barking his little head off at a couple of Italian children who were pulling faces at him through the window!
I released him from the car, put his leash on and took him up to David and Sarah's house, where he sat with us very patiently while we had a chat and a glass of wine.
Friday was a busy day: we were expecting a visit from a new acquaintance for coffee in the morning, we had one set of guests checking out and another set of guests checking in, we'd told David and Sarah to pop in to see us on their way back from shopping in the afternoon, and we were due to go out for dinner in the evening!
First up, we had a visit from Carolyn, an Australian lady who along with her family has moved into one of the houses that we looked at when we were searching for property in the valley 2 years ago. It's a beautiful house and really tugged at our heart strings, but the amount of work that was needed was enough to scare us away. We were really pleased to notice a few months ago (from across the other side of the valley) that it had been bought and was being lived in! After tracking Carolyn down, we introduced ourselves and invited her to pop round for coffee. We spent a very enjoyable couple of hours telling our respective stories and exchanging experiences, relating challenges and disasters. After showing her around, Carolyn left to go and collect her son from school, but we will hopefully meet up again soon when time allows - we really enjoyed meeting her and we're dying to see how she and her family are getting on with the house!
After Carolyn had left it was all hands to the pumps for the turnaround of the apartment. Thankfully it was still perfectly sweet smelling and our last set of guests had left it in an almost spotless condition, so the cleaning process was straightforward. By about 3pm we were just finishing up in the apartment and were ready to receive our next visitors: David and Sarah on their way back up to Vellano after doing their weekly shop. We had a drink and another nice catchup with David and Sarah before they continued on home to unpack their shopping and we awaited the arrival of our next set of guests.
Our guests finally made it to us a little before 7pm. We'd been looking forward to welcoming this crowd: four New Zelanders (two couples) including the parents of our HelpX-er Nick who'd stayed with us along with Tess back in November last year! Knowing how much we enjoyed Nick and Tess's company, we were expecting to find these guys and their friends similarly easy to get on with, and we almost felt as if we already knew them, so were really pleased when they successfully found their way here!
There wasn't much time for chit chat though as we were due to go out for dinner, so we introduced ourselves, showed them around the apartment, had a quick chat and then dashed indoors to get ready to go out.
Friday is fish day at Manero's restaurant in Vellano and for a long time we'd planned to go there with Donatella, David and Sarah. Fish and seafood are not very common in these parts and it's rare to find restaurants serving much in the way of fish, so we were looking forward to a fishy night! We had a great time, feasting on marinated anchovies, spaghetti with mussels, clams and prawns, followed by fried seafood with fried potatoes, and even a panna cotta to round things off. Of course it was also a really fun evening with great company, and the time flew by - we finally said our goodnights to our friends and rolled into our house ('rolled' being an appropriate word after the amount we'd eaten) at gone midnight - truly a late night for us!
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