The arrival of autumn

This week has been another busy one - for me, it's been a week at the computer helping tie up the loose ends in preparation for next week's Virus Bulletin conference in Prague, while Stuart has put in some hard graft working with David in Sorana as well as back home both on the computer and in the garden, finally finishing the anti-Reggie-climb fencing.

We had a day of rain this week (well, a morning of very heavy rain), and the weather has definitely taken a decidedly autumnal turn. This week saw the first day in perhaps 5 months that I have felt compelled to dress in jeans, woolly socks and a jumper rather than shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops. We've even considered lighting the fire, but haven't caved into that just yet. Having said that, when the sun comes out during the day it can still be scorching - this is definitely a time of year to be dressing in layers to accommodate all extremes!

Autumn sunshine.

We finally received news on the whereabouts of our new washing machine this week - it turns out that it was damaged when it arrived with the courier, so they waited to see what we wanted to do about it... but without asking'/telling us. After chasing it up with the shop and finding out where it was and why it had been delayed, we were offered the chance to re-order a new one (with another 6-9 day wait for delivery), to cancel the order completely and have a full refund, or to accept the damaged one (it has a couple of scratches) along with a €30 voucher in compensation. Not being fussy about what my washing machine looks like (I'm more concerned that it does the job of cleaning clothes), we've opted for having the damaged washing machine in the hopes that we might actually take delivery of it before next week is out...

Thursday this week saw us saying a very fond farewell to our New Zealander guests Chris, Craig, Robyn and Roger. They are lovely people and we've really enjoyed their company and having them around. We even finally got Roger close enough to Reggie to take a look at the inside of his ear and give us his professional (vet's) opinion on a small, slightly inflamed sore that he's had inside his ear for many weeks. Saying that, the only way Roger could advance on Reggie was for Stuart to pin him down (Reggie, that is) on the lawn while I tried to calm him down. It seems that making friends with a vet was one step too far for Reggie in the space of just 6 days. Maybe given another 3 weeks he might have had a breakthrough...

We were somewhat mortified that, as we were saying our final goodbyes to our Kiwi friends, Reggie over excitedly jumped up at Robyn and planted his paws on her - leaving huge muddy paw prints on her pristine white top! Thankfully, the very kind and patient Robyn took it in her stride and laughed it off - I'm not sure I would have been so forgiving!

Thursday afternoon saw our next 'community day' with David, Sarah and Donatella. This time, we were focusing on work for David and Sarah, and instead of starting work in the morning and finishing up with a lunch, it was decided we would start in the afternoon (mainly for my benefit as I still had work to do in the office) and finish up with dinner. David and Sarah don't have any land of their own as such, as they live in a village house in Vellano, but they do 'borrow' land from another ex-pat couple, Paul and Veronica, for a vegetable plot (orto), and Paul and Veronica - who don't live here full-time but who visit several times a year - had also told them that they were welcome to take some firewood from their land in exchange for tidying up some of the fallen/felled trees and leaving enough processed firewood ready for them to use when they come to the house for a visit in November. Thursday, therefore, was Operation Firewood.

While Stuart and David went off with their chainsaws to start cutting up a couple of fruit trees that had come down a while ago, Donatella and I set up chopping blocks and got to work with our splitting axes, while Sarah, who is currently somewhat incapacitated with an excruciatingly painful shoulder injury, started the process of stacking the wood.

Synchronised wood splitting - could this be a new Olympic sport?

We all worked away at our various stations for a good solid couple of hours until we finally called time on the day's work with a respectable pile of wood to show for our efforts. Unfortunately even this much will barely last a week to ten days, so there's still a lot more work to be done here, but it's a good start!

One afternoon's efforts.

We headed straight from Paul & Veronica's land to David and Sarah's house, where we revelled in the relative warmth (the wind had turned remarkably chilly) and the comfort of a beautiful home and Sarah fed us tasty snacks followed by a delicious dinner of vegetable lasagne (made with vegetables from their orto), salad, and fig and rosemary cake. The food, which was already amazing, tasted all the better for knowing we'd earned it, and we had a lovely evening happily eating, drinking and laughing until it was time to head home and rescue the animals.

Our newly invented 'Community Days' seem to have a double benefit for us - in fact more than double, multiple benefits. Not only do we get a huge amount of work done when it's our turn to host the work, but we also find that when we work at someone else's place, we come back to our own house & land feeling more inspired and more motivated to get on with things here. Other benefits include the camaraderie and social aspects of the day, as well as getting to eat amazing food at other people's houses!

Friday actually saw us both somewhat on the tired side, but after I'd finished my office work and we'd taken Reggie for a walk at the cava, we decided we would turn our attention to our own orto - which once again has started to resemble an acacia/bramble/nettle jungle. We spent a good couple of hours cutting down the beans and cucumbers, which have now (finally!!) finished, weeding the beds, cutting back some of the acacias and putting straw over the weeded beds. We still have plenty more to do (more jobs for the weekend), but it was a good start.

Happy weekend!