Monday
I opted to stay in bed for an extra hour this morning, so for the first time in a week, Helen was up before me. This was not because I was had taken a turn for the worst, but because I'd arranged to meet Dave at the Bistrot for coffee at 9am so that afterwards he could let me into the place where we'd been working last week so that I could retrieve my large SDS chisel drill for today's work.As 9am approached, I floated the idea of Helen joining us for coffee and maybe even taking Reggie for a walk afterwards - almost instantly the bait was taken and all three of us were heading up the valley.
The Bistrot is technically closed on Mondays, but one of its proprietors, Simone, was in there getting breakfast ready for the numerous Gambian/Sierra Leonean/Malian refugees that now reside in the rooms there, and since she now recognises me from my regular visits with Dave either before work for coffee or after work for beer/wine, she waved Helen and me in and promptly set to work making two cappuccini for us.
It wasn't long before Dave arrived and joined us, but today we didn't have time for a leisurely coffee so it was just a quick caffeine fix before collecting the drill and leaving Dave to cut wood while Helen, Reggie and I headed to the quarry for a walk.
There was a dampness in the air today, and a generous covering of cloud, so it felt colder at this time in the morning than it had done for days, despite there being no frost for the first time in nearly a week.
By the time we'd ascended the track to our usual turnaround spot though, Helen was one garment lighter and my hands were no longer stuffed in my pockets - and it continued to warm on the way back to the car.
When we got home, Helen headed into the office and I set to work chiselling off a strip of render above the shed roof so that I could then render the bitumen roof covering into the wall to complete the waterproofing.
I'd started this work yesterday with chisel and lump hammer, but it had taken me an hour to do a metre and with 7m to do in total, I'd given up in favour of waiting for a power tool to help speed the process. With the help of the aforementioned chisel drill I had not only completed the remaining six or so metres by lunch time but also cleaned up the mess in time for yet more egg mayo sandwiches made with our own eggs.
After lunch and while waiting for Frateschi to re-open at half two, I busied myself with a little tidying in the vicinity of the shed in the hope of pushing it slowly in the direction of tidy. I even managed to give Helen back her small piece of flat outside bike space so that she no longer needs to exercise in the shed itself.
As 3.30pm approached I could procrastinate no longer and headed to see Paolo for the all important leather gloves I needed. The gloves would provide me with enough heat protection so that with one hand I could operate the gas torch to heat the bitumen, and with the other, gloved hand, I could press the molten bitumen to the wall - not a complicated process but a potentially dangerous one, hence my procrastination.
With gloves procured and gas torch connected to a gas bottle, it was time to climb back onto the roof to dice with a potentially firey death!
With this tool - which at the pull of a trigger felt like it was emitting the equivalent of a solar flare - I worked my way quickly along the roof line, glueing the roof material to the wall with a fair amount of ease. It very soon became clear why Angelo, my trusty Albanian builder friend, had insisted when he lent me said burner that I buy 'the white leather gloves from Frateschi', as the glove quickly became covered in molten bitumen.
As I finished the job, feeling more than a smattering of achievement, David arrived with his chainsaw in need of a chain sharpening session.
It was now past four and my work for the day was done, so Dave and I sat on the patio and bonded over chain sharpening while Helen, who had recently headed up to the upper terraces to continue with a bit of clearing, carried on throwing ash poles down to lower terraces.
As five o'clock approached and daylight faded we headed up to join Helen so that Dave could have a look around the newly cleared terraces before all heading down to the house.
I had yet again today promised myself I would head to Coldiretti - the local agricultural organisation - this evening to once and for try and sort out the agricultural tax code I needed to secure the purchase of the tractor. So with Helen in tow, and Dave heading home, we dashed into Pescia knowing that their office hours ended at quarter to six.
We headed straight upstairs upon arrival, having been told that is where Elena (the lady we needed) worked, and were soon ushered into a tiny office where there were now five of us: three Italian women and us two.
I explained our situation as best I could before handed over print-outs of emails from both the tractor vendor and our accountant. After a furious volley (in speed, not temper) of Italian words came our way, we were ushered into a different tiny office, but this time by just one woman, where we sat down and listened to her reeling off a load more unrecognisable words and phrases. She seemed very nice and very friendly, but she didn't seem to make much allowance for our limited grasp of the language! We managed to establish - we think - that it was safe to proceed with registration for an agricultural tax code (without it causing us unwanted tax bills), but that we must keep an eye on the new budget this December and that we need a 'spesometro', whatever the hell that is! Google Translate certainly doesn't know.
Anyway, after much signing and photocopying, we were told we could collect the tax code and card displaying it on Wednesday morning - a result of sorts, we just need to break the news to our ever cautious accountants now so that they can manage things appropriately.
So, a busy but productive start to the week which we ended in front of yet another roaring fire with a glass of wine and some Italian homework for Helen while I bashed out this post.
Tuesday
We were both up with the alarm on Tuesday morning, and while I dashed around on the animal rounds Helen got herself sorted for exercise in a much, much milder temperature than of late. After my initial brief burst of activity, I settled on the sofa with the dog to get stuck into our copy of 'Beekeeping for Dummies' and left Helen to the really strenuous stuff.For those who didn't catch my interesting fact of the day on Twitter or Facebook, I learned from the book that the word 'Honeymoon' (apparently) comes from a time when newlyweds spent a full cycle of the moon drinking mead in the belief that it would bring them a baby boy.
As Helen came back into the house she suggested that we head stright out to walk Reggie, as doing just that yesterday seemed to have made for a much more chilled doggy during the day. Keen to try and emulate the same again, we did just that, stopping at Nerone in the village for a quick cappuccino each.
It felt oddly cooler and damper as we descended into Pescia - not that Reggie cared, we're yet to find temperature at which he finds it too cold to splash around in the river. After our usual walk to the railway bridge and back with nothing to report we got back into the car and headed home as the cathedral bells rang out ten o'clock.
Nursing something of a sickening shoulder muscle injury (after Reggie did his best to dislocate it on the way out earlier, trying to get to Lucca) I had lost almost all my enthusiasm to do anything manual and was feeling more than a little grumpy about it so decided I'd do nothing until I'd had another coffee. However, Helen, having decided the temperatures in the office required her to have a hot drink, beat me to the stove and offered me a cup of tea, which I gladly accepted and stayed put on the sofa a while longer.
This wasn't just any cup of tea, this was leaf tea. I don't remember the last time I had leaf tea and if this is the difference between leaf and bag then I'm a convert, this was the BEST cup of tea I'd had in... well a longer time than I could remember (thank you Jennie and Pete for the tea leaves). A very exceptional cup of 'Assam Superb' later, I was feeling more up to the day and decided I need to head out for a bit of shopping. Not the ridiculous black-Friday sort that I've been seeing so much about - not a whiff of such madness over here you'll be pleased to hear - but to get some more materials, but before that I needed to book the car into a garage: after Reggie almost dislocated my shoulder this morning, I then found that the rear door of the car wouldn't open, so I couldn't even get him into the car.
The car door has been a bit flaky for some time, but a few clicks on the remote key normally sorts it -not today though, and true human nature we'd kept ignoring the problem until it was too late. So when Helen came out after locking up the house on our way to walk Reggie, she found me sat on the rear bumper nursing a sore shoulder while Reggie stood there sniffing the air and Florence sat on the chopping block just 3m away, still as a statue, Reggie didn't notice her at all - his nose is definitely better than his eyes!
Getting back on track: I headed into Pescia to try and book an appointment at the garage I've towed Chris and Sue's Panda to on three occasions now - one of the guys in there is very friendly and speaks a good deal of English, so thought I'd give this a go. However, as I pulled into the car park it was as busy as ever in there, and it was clear there was no guarantee I'd get to speak to this particular guy. When one of the other mechanics walked past me and could do no more than look at me when I greeted him with a cheery 'buongiorno', I had a moment of clarity, hopped straight back into the car and headed a bit further out of town to see Enrico, Amanda's husband.
Enrico's car park area was also full, but he spotted me immediately and we exchanged pleasantries before I told him and demonstrated to him the problems I needed fixing: #1 the rear door, #2 the driver window no longer stays in its rails so requires one hand to operate the button and one hand to hold the window in its rails as it ascends (not the end of the world, but not easy as you're trying to exit a toll both on the motorway!).
With the car booked in for Friday and Enrico telling me to leave the car at Amanda's shop in the village for him to collect (much more convenient than Pescia), I headed off to the wood yard to buy what I hoped would be the last of the wood needed for the shed.
In a fit of spontaneity I pulled into the hardware store on the Lucca road as I don't often pass this way so thought I'd see what kind of lockable bolts he might have in stock for the shed doors.
I know we've talked about this place before, but you really would have to see this place to believe it. I walked into the section of the shop that houses the pet food, ironmongery, kitchen items, work gloves and gardening stuff (told you it was madness) and had a rummage around to see what locks and bolts he had. It turned out that he had a vast array - some looked like he'd bought them 10 or more years ago, and if this is the way he's always displayed his stock it's not a surprise! Imagine what it would look like if an ironmonger decided to set up a stall at a car boot sale but arrived late, just as the gates were opening, and his pitch was just a few pitches before than that of another ironmonger - in a panic he empties all of his stock into a heap on the table. That's what I was having to deal with, but to his credit, he must have the best selection of ironmongery in the area.
My problem was that I had left the house not knowing what the Italian for a bolt was. I knew that a bolt that goes into a nut is a 'bullone', but there was no way it was going to be that easy. I started to panic, knowing I'd been in this area all alone for a while and that someone was bound to come and ask me what I wanted so I grabbed a pair of new work gloves and continued to fumble around.
Sure enough, a lady did come and ask what I needed, I told her just gloves today and followed her back to the till to pay my €4. If nothing else, my little detour has put this place on my ironmongery map for the future, I just need to make sure I know exactly what I'm going for next time.
With that done, I pulled into the wood yard to buy another four long thick planks of pine with which to construct the interior walls of the shed. One of the guys who now recognises me asked what I needed and disappeared on his fork lift to get them while I went in to see Elena to pay for them.
It was a nice easy exchange today, with no need for a diagram or calculator to work out meterage, which I'm sure poor Elena was relieved about, and I was heading home just before noon.
I arrived home on the stroke of noon and Helen suggested we have an early lunch. It was now colder in the house than out, so hot soup was the order of the day, although I snuck in a couple of boiled eggs to accompany mine in an honest attempt to help rid the fridge of the shop-bought eggs which, with the home produced eggs piling up, were rapidly starting to look like they might be going to waste.
After a warming and hearty lunch I headed outside to work on the shed while Helen went back to the office to finish some work.
I spent the rest of the afternoon (or at least until 3.30pm) working on the interior shed walls - the walls that will divide the shed into three sections, which will give us loads more wall space to store stuff.
After a while, Helen came out into the now very warm sunshine and headed off up the terraces again with a lighter and fire lighters, more bramble was going to burn this afternoon!
When 3.30pm approached I downed my tools and headed out to the Esso garage on the way into Pescia. On the way home earlier, buoyed as I was by making an appointment with Enrico to give the car some much needed TLC, I had pulled into the petrol station to ask for an oil change. Yep, you read me right, it's not uncommon here for petrol stations to offer other services. I was asked to come back this afternoon at half three for the oil change, which is what I did.
A minute after I'd arrived, the car was up on the ramps and I was taking in the view that we normally drive past at speed, looking at one of the houses that we viewed back in 2013 before settling in the one I currently write this blog from.
 |
| We looked at the white house back in 2013. Had we moved there, we would have been neighbours with the Phillipses! |
40 minutes later I was taking the car off the ramp. On a roll, I decided I'd treat the car to new wipers as there hasn't been any blade on them since we got the car (not sure what that say about the MOT process over here, us having been given the car just after it had passed its MOT).
€132 later, after an oil and filter change, with three new wipers fitted and a free magic tree thrown in, I was heading home, feeling pleased with myself for making the normally unmoveable attendant belly-laugh after telling her the car currently smelled like dog and that the free magic tree would make it much better.
It was getting dark as I got home, which afforded me only a little more tinkering with shed doors while Helen put the bonfire out and collected three more eggs from the chickens - two white, one brown, which meant there was still only one red chicken laying.
Wednesday
Wednesday had two Italian lessons in store, but only one for me and that was our usual group session in Vellano with David, Sarah and Johnny (the very patient teacher).As the group lesson was arranged for half nine in the morning this week, I gave up on the idea of trying to do anything even vaguely productive beforehand so had a lazy start to the day with my head buried in my bee-keeping book.
Soon enough we were off to Vellano for coffee, biscuits (Helen's home made ginger biscuits) and of course a lot of head scratching.
Johnny had prepared a lesson of reading and translating this week based on a piece about the Italian saying 'parla come mangi' (which literally means 'talk like you eat'). The saying is used when someone else is using too big a vocabulary, or making something more complicated than it needs to be, and its meaning is along the lines of "speak more simply!" Of course EVERY Italian uses too big a vocabulary as we're concerned (at the moment), so maybe this phrase will come in use, or maybe I'll use it once and earn myself a poke in the eye...
Anyway, as well as it being a good lesson it was also interesting to learn about eating habits of the Italians, so it was in no small dose a lesson in culture also, I hope Johnny has more of these lined up for us.
The lesson went on for almost two hours and it was almost midday when we got home so we set about making lunch straight away so that we could both attempt a little work before Samantha arrived around 2pm for Helen's one-to-one lesson.
After Reggie had shown a very encouraging level of interest in Samantha last weekend (albeit from the boot of the car, through hardened safety glass), we were hoping for a better reception for her this week. Reggie, of course, had other ideas and although he was happy taking treats from her, his barking was headache-inducing.
Soon I had him loaded into the car to go for a walk and leave the girls in peace. We drove through Pescia to the usual parking spot for the 'chicken run' walk, it being a suitably long walk to cover the duration of the lesson.
We had a slightly longer than usual walk along the river as the weather was so beautiful - it could have been the early morning of a midsummer's day had I not known better, and I was soon wishing I had shorts on, there was a very gentle breeze with a coolness to it but the sun had a deep warmth to it without being hot.
After getting back to the car, having managed to keep Reggie's chicken count at zero today, we crossed the road to the agricultural merchant as I wanted to buy a couple of large 'feed' bins for the chickens.
 |
| New feed bins in place. |
That done, we headed homewards, stopping at Frateschi to collect the automatic chicken door that I'd ordered an which UPS told me (via email) was going to be delivered there today. However, when I arrived, there a parcel from Amazon waiting for me instead. Confused, I took it and left after a brief chat with Paolo about a 'simple life', or our idea of it, and went home wondering where the parcel was. It was only 4.30pm, so there was still a little delivery time left, but it seems most couriers are done with their deliveries around here by that time of day.
Once I was home and the fire was lit, we were taken by an unexpected wave of festive spirit which saw us playing one of the many versions of 'The Best Christmas Album in the World' and stapling fairy lights to our ancient chestnut beams while drinking Prosecco.
We had a lovely impromptu evening, even managing an hour of UK TV downloaded earlier that day now that we have upgraded our internet package to the top tier.
Thursday
On Thursday morning I was off to Vellano to work with David again. I was up with Helen at 7.30am, as has started to seem usual over these last two weeks, so I should have had plenty of time to get my gear organised and loaded before leaving, but as it happened I spent most of the hour looking into where the UPS parcel containing our chicken shed door had got to - only to find that a delivery had been "attempted", failed, apparently, and it was now heading back to the UK arriving first in Bologna this morning!I hurriedly emailed the seller to see if they could intervene before throwing some breakfast down me, finishing only as David arrived, so Reggie got the last bit in the bowl and I threw a load of stuff in the car hoping that I'd remembered everything, I HATE rushing like that!
First off it was back to Frateschi to buy more concrete and steel for the step building we were going to do today, and then off up to Vellano where step building ensued before we finished the morning felling some accacia trees.
After our obligatory post-work glass of vino in the Bistrot, I left David talking to one of the African guys in there and headed home for lunch.
The day was wearing on and after a late lunch we decided we would take the dog for a walk in Pescia and hope to catch the people at Coldiretti to get my agricultural tax code finally.
As Helen logged off work for the day I dashed up to take the opportunity to shut the chickens in as they all were indoors. I also did the daily egg check as Helen hadn't made it up there yet today and discovered that today we had the gift of FOUR eggs!! Two of each colour, which means the final hen has started laying at last - all we need now is for the cockerel to start crowing (or do we?!).
We arrived in town and walked Reggie along the busy bit of river, which thankfully was relatively quiet at this time so Reggie only needed leashing a couple of brief times for joggers to pass by.
After the walk we headed over to Coldiretti in the hopes of collecting my tax code from them. Sure enough the lights were on as we parked and we went in and climbed to stairs to see Elena who called us straight in, took our €40 and gave us an invoice for the payment and a few sheets of paper which included the magic tax code! FINALLY!
Not content with such success we parked at the bus terminus and walked into the pet shop in town to buy a new lead for Reggie, me having 'misplaced' his other after a walk this week. It may well be in the car, but as the back door wasn't working and the seats were folded down it was hard to check the car properly so until such time as the door was fixed, we were considering the old lead lost forever.
Having acquired a nice new red lead and a couple of rawhide bones for Reggie we went back to the car where we saw Mada, one of the Gambians from Vellano, waiting for the next and last bus to Vellano, so we offered him a lift home. Mada hopped in the back with Reggie, who didn't make the slightest of complaints, and we wended our way back up the valley, first to Vellano to drop Mada 'home', then it was home for us to get the fire started for the evening and to cook dinner which involved our very first home-grown cabbage, a monster it was too, it'll give us two iron filled meals.
Friday
It was a darker than usual start to the day today, so neither of us much felt like getting out of bed,but of course we did. As I went out to release the chickens I noticed it was a much cooler morning than the last couple of days, but still not quite cold enough to produce a frost - although I suspect it was on a knife edge and that one degree lower could have made the difference.As Helen exercised outside I kept Reggie company inside for a while until I had to leave just before half eight to take the car to the village so that I could leave it at Amanda's for her husband Enrico to collect on his way to work.
We all seemed a little bleary eyed in the shop this morning. Samantha arrived as I did and unloaded a crate of Sicilian oranges, and as I walked in I think my bleary eyed-ness showed and Amanda kindly offered me a coffee, which I immediately accepted.
It was nice and quiet in there, Mum and Dad were also in the kitchen, so we all chatted for a while as I sipped my espresso and I left with a smile on my face despite needing to walk the 20 minutes back home.
Once home Helen and I had breakfast and coffee (my second of the day), after which I headed outside to start putting some shelves up. I haven't quite finished the shed, but a lot of the detritus that needs to go into it and that is currently taking up space in the office is of little consequence so can be moved into the shed without any concern. So that was how my day went - a lot of organising, a job I love doing, knowing that with every improvement I make I am making myself more efficient. I clearly have a low level of OCD to enjoy such tasks but there's no point hiding it and those that know me well would expect nothing less.
We stopped for lunch at almost two in the afternoon. I had no idea it was gone noon, such was the fun I was having laying organising screws and nails, but when Helen called my in for a steaming bowl of vegetable soup I soon realised I was hungry.
After lunch Helen came outside but not to join the organising. Instead, she decided to take her hedge trimmers for a work out and make a start on clearing the section of terracing next to the chicken enclosure. We originally named this section of land "Goose Island 2" when Helen cleared a small section of it last autumn when we thought we'd need to move and hide the geese (and their house) for our inspection by Mr. Florence. As it happened, we didn't move the geese and so any further work in this area stopped as we kept clearing further up the terraces. However, having now reached a sensible level over the last week we decided to concentrate on clearing and tidying the full width of the entire terraced area from the house to where we have cleared to so far.
As darkness descended and Helen's second tank of fuel ran out we packed up, shut the chickens in for the night and headed indoors to start a fire and to find out if we were to expect our car back this evening.
I decided that, as easy as it would be to call Amanda to see if Enrico had told her over their lunch if the car was going to be ready, I would brave it and call the garage directly and ask to speak to Enrico.
Enrico in fact answered the phone. He told me he was just finishing the car and that he would be bringing it to Amanda's this evening around 19:15 so I promised to go and see him Monday to pay him and we bade each other farewell. feeling quite pleased with myself we sat in front of the fire to drink a beer, well, what else was I going to do with a couple of hours to kill!?
No comments:
Post a Comment