Friends, physical work and feasting

Saturday: Good to be Home!

It was with a huge sigh of relief that I landed in Florence last Saturday after my week away at the VB conference in Prague. The week was busy and tiring, and although it was good to catch up with my old colleagues and friends from the world of computer security, I spend much of it yearning for my Italian life - the scenery, the fresh air and of course Stuart and our furry friends. Having not seen the outside world or breathed any fresh air between arriving at the hotel on Monday evening and leaving it on Saturday morning, I couldn't wait to get back to Tuscany. The two-leg trip, in which I flew from Prague to Vienna and then Vienna on to Florence, was mercifully less stressful than my outbound journey, although the size of the planes seemed to keep decreasing, with the final leg in a propeller plane. The weather gods clearly pitied me for having spent a whole week inside a dingy hotel and welcomed me home with clear skies and bright sunshine. On stepping out of the plane, it struck me that, yes, Italy was definitely the warmest of the three countries I'd been in that morning!

By the time Stuart had driven me back to the airport and I'd got home, said hello to Reggie and the cats, and I'd inspected all the work he'd done while I was away last week, time was ticking on and I was feeling increasingly weary. We therefore spent the rest of the afternoon and evening sitting on our patio, taking in our beautiful view and catching up with each other's stories from the week just past.

It's SO good to be home!

Sunday: The arrival of a guest

Sunday morning started bright and early as we had a guest to prepare for and collect. After an hour or so spent cleaning the bathroom and kitchen and a final hoovering of the living room, we set off for Pisa airport. Once at the airport, we barely had time for a quick cappuccino and pastry each as breakfast before the flight from Bristol was announced as having arrived, and soon our good friend Louise came smiling through the doors towards us.

We drove straight back to the house, where Reggie gave Louise his customary barky welcome. She had been well briefed though, and sat quietly at the table avoiding eye contact with him and he soon changed his tune, coming over to sniff her, and then testing the water with a hasty lick of her hand. Once the dust had settled, we decided it was time to take Reggie for a walk - which seems to be one of the best ways for him to get used to new people and relax in their company. We drove up to the cava track, and on arrival found another car parked up at the start of the track - a very familiar car. Our enthusiasm at realising Donatella was also out walking at the cava was quickly tempered with concern about how we would be able to manage another encounter between Ray and Reggie - Reggie not having ingratiated himself with Ray the last time they met. Stuart quickly called Donatella's mobile and ascertained that she and Ray were on their way back down the track, so we agreed to keep Reggie on the leash until we'd met and passed them.

Sure enough, we soon came across them, and Ray gave Reggie a good snarl and growling at, while Reggie completely ignored his "keep away from me" messages! We walked together with Donatella and Ray for a while before they turned back and we carried on, finally able to set Reggie free to run around off leash. We had a good walk with him, before heading back to the car and back home for a spot of lunch - bought on the way back from the airport from Amanda's.

The afternoon saw the thrills of a trip to Esselunga followed by a couple of drinks at Bar Pulter and some relaxing on our patio - and for dinner we cooked up a delicious roasted pumpkin and gorgonzola risotto.

Monday: Permissions and wood splitting

Monday started with a multi-purpose trip into Pescia: we had an appointment to see Andrea at 10.30, we needed to walk Reggie and we decided that a coffee at Francos would be a good way to start the day. We parked up in the square and headed first for coffee at Francos, after which we drove over to Andrea's office, leaving Louise and Reggie looking after each other in the car. Andrea needed us to sign some paperwork and chat about various things, but the main thing to come from the meeting was that he told us we could now start work on all the projects for which we've been waiting for permission for so many months! This means it can now be full steam ahead on building the new shed, erecting the solar panels (on the shed), erecting a polytunnel and building a pergola! (Not all at the same time, of course!) We've been waiting so long for the permissions and jumped through so many hoops, that finally finding out we had permission to go ahead actually seemed like a bit of an anticlimax - I think it just took a little while to sink in.

After our meeting with Andrea we rescued Reggie and Louise from the car and had a nice walk along the river. Today, for the first time, Reggie very tentatively put one paw on the scary footbridge that he's always refused to cross (or else had to be carried over), and then another one, before dashing across it as quickly as he could - it seems he has conquered his fear of the iron grill footbridge! That enabled us to walk on a little way further than usual, giving us a nice change of scenery.

By the time we'd finished our walk and headed back up the hill it was lunchtime, so we sat down to tomato bruschetta in the sunshine on the patio.

After lunch it was time to roll up our sleeves. Louise may have come out to visit us for a holiday, but she was game for putting in a bit (make that a lot) of work. The one thing she'd told friends and family she thought she'd be doing this week was chopping wood, and we couldn't let her go home without having done any, so Monday afternoon was dedicated to wood chopping and splitting.

Stuart took his chainsaw up to the end of the drive where logs were still piled up from the trees that fell across the gate in the big storm we had back in March. While Stuart sawed the logs into smaller, splittable pieces, Louise and I barrowed them back down the drive to the wood storage area where we set up a chopping block and began splitting and stacking them. After a while it was clear that with only one splitting axe, one of us would always be slightly redundant, so to maximise our efficiency Stuart headed off to Frateschi's to buy a second splitting axe, and Louise and I spent the rest of the afternoon splitting logs in tandem. I have to take my hat off to Louise: not only did she pick up the wood splitting technique within minutes (it took me at least two separate occasions to get a feel for it), but for her first experience she had a large pile of some very hard, very dry acacia logs to tackle - while wood splitting can be one of the most satisfying jobs I've yet to do, splitting hard, dry wood is definitely not the easiest or the most enjoyable!

After a couple of hours of splitting wood, we'd increased the wood pile by a decent amount and felt we'd earned a drink on the patio and truly earned our dinner!

Tuesday: Mists and a foggy head 

Tuesday started with another Reggie walk - this time, we headed to Sorana. There had been some wet and thundery weather overnight and as we made our way along the valley we were treated to some stunning views as the mist hung eerily in the valley, picking out each individual ridge and making it look like an elaborate stage set. I'd quite forgotten just how beautiful and magical our valley can look at this time of year when we get autumnal weather.

Magical mists.

We were heading for the woods just beyond the village, and once we were parked up Louise gamely held Reggie on the leash for the short section of the walk along the road - I think she felt that it was more like Reggie was taking her for a walk rather than vice versa, such is the strength with which he pulls (all 27kg of him) when he wants to get somewhere or go and sniff at something! He had a good run around off the leash once we got into the woods though, allowing us to walk at a little more relaxed pace, although all three of us had to keep jumping to the side of the track to avoid being splattered in mud as 27kg of dog came thundering through the muddy puddles.

Is Louise taking Reggie for a walk or is Reggie taking Louise for a walk?

After our walk, we drove to Nerone's cafe in Pietrabuona for a quick cappuccino each, before heading back to the house to start on work for the day. On getting back to the house, Louise turned her hand to making a delicious spiced roasted pumpkin and tomato soup (using the rest of the pumpkin that we'd roasted on Monday as well as tomatoes from the garden) while Stuart and I made a start on cleaning the apartment as we had guests due to arrive the next day.

The soup was delicious - definitely one we will be repeating, especially as we have plenty of home grown pumpkins and tomatoes to use up! After lunch it was a quick clear up before Samantha arrived after finishing her shift at Amanda's for my weekly Italian lesson. Stuart and Louise headed down to the apartment to finish the cleaning process, leaving me to struggle through four different Italian tenses with the ever patient Samantha. I don't think that a week away in Prague being surrounded by English speakers did anything for my Italian language skills and I felt as if I spent the ninety-minute lesson desperately trying to get my brain to play catchup!

By the time I'd reached the end of the mentally exhausting lesson, Stuart and Louise were just finishing up in the apartment. There wasn't enough time to get stuck into anything much more, so Louise and I busied ourselves clearing out the drainage channels in the drive and barrowing the rest of the cut wood from the gate down the drive to the wood pile, ready for splitting.

We had another enjoyable evening relaxing with a glass of wine and food and good company.

Wednesday: Wood chopping and feasting

For Wednesday's dog walk, we decided to try and find a spot a little further along the river. The riverside walk becomes more attractive the further out of town you head, and we wanted to try and find if we could get onto the river bank a little further along it. We found a spot near to the da Vita agraria and climbed down onto the river bank. We had a very enjoyable walk, with Reggie bounding up and down the banks. The walk was enjoyable, the scenery interesting, but were soon all melting - initially it had seemed like a cooler morning, so we'd all dressed in long trousers and sturdy shoes, but as the sun broke through we roasted in our weather-inappropriate attire and fantasised of pairs of shorts and sandals while enviously watching Reggie run in and out of the babbling river.

Kiwi vines.

A field of kiwis!

After our walk, we decided we'd earned a coffee, so headed into Pescia and parked up next to Bar Pulter. We were going to leave Reggie in the car with the windows open (it was in a shady spot), but much to our amazement, he climbed happily out of the boot despite the square being busy with cars! We didn't want to push our luck though, so headed straight to a table outside Bar Pulter, where Reggie happily sat and waited while we drank our much needed coffees! He wasn't quite so happy when we walked a few doors up to the bakery to buy a loaf of bread though, reverting to his usual panic on seeing pedestrians on the pavement - he is definitely still not a town/city dog, so we won't be making a habit of taking him into the square.

On getting home, we put the finishing touches to the apartment (adding the welcome pack and doing a final once-over of the floors) before sitting down to a lunch of leftover soup and cheese. Louise and I decided over lunch that we would spend the rest of the afternoon completing the wood splitting task - we had barrowed four barrow loads of logs down the drive which were now waiting to be split, so we went to change into our work clothes and pick up our axes.

While Louise and I struggled through yet more hard, dry acacia, our language getting progressively less ladylike (actually that was probably just me, I shouldn't tar Louise with the same brush!), Stuart made a start on blocking up the old doorway that used to lead from the kitchen through to the old mancave. Now that we have all of our permissions through, we are free to go ahead and permanently block up this doorway - which is also the first job that needs doing before we can make a start on building the woodshed.

After a hard afternoon's work, Louise and I had finished the pile of logs (with the exception of a few particularly knotty pieces which will take someone with more strength and expertise - or else a chainsaw - to get through), reckoning that over the two days of chopping we'd probably increased our winter wood pile by maybe 20%. We were just starting to pack away when our apartment guests arrived, so Stuart and I welcomed them, before heading indoors to shower and change - this time into nice clothes (for Stuart and I, 'nice' means not work clothes, not dog-walking clothes, and not clothes that are covered in doggie slobber - it's an increasingly rare occurrence for us to be wearing nice clothes...). Louise was treating us to dinner!

We headed out to Sorana, trying our luck at Da Sandrinos (not having booked a table). Luckily they had room for us and we enjoyed a wonderful feast of a meal: Tuscan antipasti to share for starters, then a delicious steak with mushrooms for me, pork escalope in lemon sauce for Louise and Tuscan sausages for Stuart. We even pushed the boat out with pudding, all three of us being tempted into the delicious ricotta and pear torta. We virtually rolled out of the door and headed home to bed feeling thoroughly fed and satisfied.

Thursday: Cheesecake!

Thursday was another industrious day but in a different way: I needed to turn my attentions to my office work for a few hours, while Stuart headed off to Sorana with David to do some gardening work for the morning. While we were busy with our respective jobs, Louise turned her hand to creating a chestnut cheesecake - using a recipe from the Esselunga magazine. More on that later.

By the time I'd finished my office work, Louise had finished her cheesecake, so the two of us headed to the vegetable terraces to do a little weeding. It was while weeding that I unexpectedly came across some fully grown, fully ripe aubergines that had been completely hidden from view beneath a forest of tomato plants - what a find!

We hadn't been weeding long when Stuart and David returned from their morning's work, so we all sat and had a chat before David headed home and we turned our attention to lunch: egg mayo sandwiches (on the patio, of course).

After lunch, Louise and I changed into work clothes and this time headed up the terraces above the house. The plan was to start doing some more clearing but in fact we ended up doing a different type of clearing that desperately needed doing: our enthusiastic attempts at clearing the upper terraces last winter and spring has left piles and piles of twigs, branches and small trees lying around that need disposing of. Frustratingly, these quickly get covered in undergrowth, which makes it impossible to cut through and difficult to extract. Louise and I therefore spent the afternoon pulling branches and trunks from the undergrowth and cutting/snapping them into easily burnable pieces which we then stacked ready to burn.

Stuart, meanwhile, did more work on blocking up the doorway - this time making it thoroughly draft-proof.

We all downed tools at 5pm and headed for showers and 'nice' clothes again - at 6pm we were being collected by David and Sarah, who drove us into Pescia for a trip to our friendly local enoteca (wine bar). We were soon joined by Donatella as well, and the six of us had a great time drinking delicious wine (the enoteca serves really decent wines for just €5 per glass - way more expensive than we would usually pay, but the free buffet adds value and the wines are really a step above what we have become accustomed to drinking). We were thrown out of the enoteca at 8pm - not for our rowdy behaviour, I hasten to add, but because the table had been reserved by someone else and they needed it back at 8pm, so we headed to Franco's and enjoyed another bottle of wine there before leaving when we noticed we were the only ones in there and the poor proprietor looked like she wanted to lock up and go home. We said goodbye to Donatella in the square where she'd parked her car before being driven home by David & Sarah - we'd all had a really wonderful evening, full of fun and laughter, and I think Louise enjoyed herself as much as the rest of us did, a true sign of a really good and welcoming friendship group.

It was a little after 9pm when we got back to the house - we hadn't had a 'proper' dinner, but we'd all munched our way through the various buffet offerings at the enoteca and free nibbles at Francos, so we topped ourselves up with some cheese and chutney followed by... the tasting of the cheesecake.

Louise's culinary skills are way beyond those of mine and Stuart's (in fact she excels at all things creative, she's one talented lady), and through a combination of translating a recipe from the Esselunga magazine and using her own knowledge, expertise and culinary flair, she had created a delicious chestnut cheesecake, incorporating the chestnuts Stuart and I had picked last autumn and soaked in brandy/rum (we'd made chestnut liqueur, which over the course of the year we had finished, leaving us with a jar full of alcohol-soaked chestnuts). The cheesecake was a triumph and utterly delicious. (In fact, I thought it was better than the very delicious pudding we'd eaten in the restaurant the night before.) For the details of how she made it, please do check out her blog.

Chestnut cheesecake...

... delicious.

Friday: Burn, baby burn (pyromania)

Friday seemed to have come round quickly. I had more work to do in the morning, but we were able to head out mid-morning for our daily (this week at least) coffee fix at Nerone's in the village before heading further down the road to walk Reggie at San Lorenzo.

Lunch on Friday was a home made leek and potato soup from the freezer, after which it was all hands to the deck for an afternoon of pyromania.

All three of us headed up the terraces to the piles of wood Louise and I had made yesterday. Louise and I had requested that Stuart come and supervise the bonfire process as we were both relative novices. We were pretty glad we'd asked him to come when the fire eventually took just as a large gust of wind blew through, sending the flames licking up the sides of the bank and setting fire to everything in their path. For a few surreal moments, Stuart ran around with the pitch fork trying to hit the fire out while Louise and I pointed out new firey routes up the banks - Louise stood at the ready with a canister of water while I grabbed the rake and tried to use it to stamp out some of the escaping fire before eventually it all calmed down and we got things under control. It really made it crystal clear why burning in the summer time is such a bad idea (and illegal here) - even after a considerable amount of rain, the grass on the banks of the terrace caught in an instant and spread like, well, like wildfire. Thankfully the wind calmed down after that, and we spent the rest of the afternoon with Louise feeding the hungry fire while Stuart and I cut down more acacias and brambles and created even more piles of vegetation that need burning.

Louise keeps the fire under control.

Cutting yet more dratted acacia.

After the excitement and drama of the afternoon, not to mention the intense heat of the fire, we all felt drained and felt ready to call time on the afternoon's work as early as 4.30pm. Nevertheless, we'd burned through a good pile of vegetation and cleared another good section of terrace - good progress overall!

We collapsed at the table on the patio for a soft drink, before opening the wine. Not long afterwards, we were joined by our apartment guests, Denise and Kathy. We'd invited them up for a drink and spent an enjoyable hour or so chatting with them and getting to know a little more about their 30-day trip around Europe.

By the time Denise and Kathy left to go and get their dinner ready, the temperature had dropped, so we all headed indoors and cooked our own dinner. This evening's dinner was another triumph: roasted tomato and mozzarella risotto with home grown cima di rapa. Cima di rapa are turnip leaves - a member of the brassica family, the leaves have a lovely iron-rich taste and made a delicious addition to the risotto recipe. Of course, we followed the risotto with another helping each of Louise's chestnut cheesecake.

Once again we headed for bed feeling as if we'd really earned a good night's sleep!

Saturday already?

Saturday started with a dog walk - with the obligatory stop at Nerone's for a cappuccino beforehand. Today, we decided we'd try the Pescia to Collodi walk again and had a lovely quiet walk from one town to the other, showing Louise the spectacle that is the ostrich at Collodi, and meeting the donkeys up close (for Reggie the donkeys were up a little too close and personal, and we had to drag him away before he tried to bite one on the nose). The weather today was a bit iffy, with showers forecast throughout the day, but we managed to stay relatively dry, with just the odd drop or two but not enough to warrant reaching for the waterproofs.

Reggie wasn't quite sure what to make of the donkey.

We came home from our walk via Amanda's once again, to stock up for lunch. Today we had meatballs in a lemon sauce, polenta gnocchi in a cheese sauce, stuffed tomatoes and roast potatoes. She makes such good food!

Louise is due to return to Bristol tomorrow - she will probably be relieved to get home for a rest and will I'm sure enjoy the peace and quiet and cleanliness of a dog-free zone. It has been lovely having her here this week, we've really enjoyed getting stuck into things with her at our side and really have appreciated her help - not to mention her cooking!