'Twas the week before Christmas...

The theme for this week has definitely been one of completing chores - be they cleaning related, bill-paying related or Christmas postage related. Hopefully this means that we will get to relax next week!

Monday

Monday morning saw me escaping from the horrors of the weekend, leaving Stuart to check on the apartment and then get on with work on the shed while I drove into Pescia for a long overdue catch-up with Sue. I had a lovely morning, first catching up with both Chris and Sue and then walking into town with Sue for a 'posh' coffee (i.e. one made by someone else) and a catch-up on the last couple of weeks. It was great to have a proper chat with Sue and I left Pescia feeling happy and contented.

It wasn't long before I was back in Pescia - after a quick lunch, Stuart, Reggie and I all clambered into the car and headed into town for an afternoon of chores. First on the list was a 'quick' visit to the post office to post some parcels to the UK for Christmas. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the post office was quite empty when we arrived - it was the end of lunchtime, which is a quiet period for the post office. We took our ticket, deli-counter-style, waited to be called to the counter and were fairly soon being called forward by a lady who looked at our pile of parcels, consulted with her colleague before telling us we needed to go away and fill in two separate forms for each item.

We took the forms over to the tiny table (why on earth the tables in post offices and banks are quite so small I don't know) and began the painstaking task of filling out names and addresses on all the forms. Each form required both the sender's address (ours) and the delivery address, there were two forms for each parcel and five parcels - you do the maths! When we'd finally finished scribbling addresses we realised we would have to go back to the start of the whole process, take a new ticket and wait once again to be called to the counter. We duly took a ticket and waited... and waited. The lunchtime lull was over  by now, and streams of people were coming through the door. With only two of the 7 cashiers dealing with parcels (all the others were dealing with payment of bills and other forms of post office admin), the wait was long and tedious. What made it worse was the fact that we knew we would have to come back to the post office in a little while in order to pay some bills! (We needed to collect a bill from the geometra's office first, then head back to the post office to pay it.) As we sat and waited in the overheated room, the thought of having to come back and do it all again filled us with dread.

Our number was finally called, we took our parcels and forms to the counter and managed to get everything handed over and stamped. If the long wait hadn't been painful enough, the next painful part was being told what we would have to pay for the privilege of sending 5 small parcels to the UK. €86. Yes, I worked out that for the same price I could fly over to the UK and deliver them myself!!

We left the post office feeling as if we'd been robbed, but with relief that at least our parcels would be starting to make their way to the UK. Since we had by now been in the post office for almost an hour, with Reggie waiting patiently in the car, we decided to do the dog walk next. We duly got Reggie out of the car and took him along to the river where we enjoyed the feeling of fresh air after having sat in the hot post office for so long.

By the time we'd finished our walk, the geometra's office was open again, so we were able to pop in, have a quick chat with Andrea and collect the bill (an annual property tax, the deadline for which was in two days' time), before steeling ourselves to go back into the post office. Once again we sat waiting for our number to flash up on the screen - watching as other people who had come in after us were served before us. Clearly certain cashiers only deal with certain tasks, so the order in which people are seen is not strictly first-come-first-served and you can be sitting waiting for your number to come up watching tens of other people come and go in front of you while you wait.

Our number did eventually come up though, and after paying the electricity bill, the water bill and the property tax, we finally left the post office once again with the feeling of shock at how much money we'd just handed over!

Next we needed to head over to Enrico's garage in order to pay yet another bill - the bill for the repair of the car last week. On arriving, however, Enrico told Stuart that because the secretary wasn't there he couldn't give us the bill, so we will have to wait to pay that one.

By the time we were heading back up the hill darkness had already fallen - it felt as if the entire afternoon had been spent sitting in the post office and handing over large amounts of money! On the positive side, we had managed to tick off several things from what is now an extensive to-do list for this week.

Tuesday

The plan for Tuesday morning was to take a trip to Ikea to buy some replacement furniture for the apartment, so straight after breakfast we left Reggie home alone and headed in the direction of Pisa.

We'd joked that we could have taken Reggie with us to Ikea (of course in reality we wouldn't dream of it, not least because he would hate it even more than we do) and while we were there I counted 5 dogs accompanying their owners around the showroom on their shopping trips. They weren't even 'handbag' dogs either - at least two of them were almost as large as Reggie. I'm not sure I will ever stop finding it surprising to see dogs in shops!

After traipsing through the IKEA showroom to double check that the products we'd picked out online were suitable for our needs (we were glad we did as we changed our minds on two of the items), we found the pieces of furniture in the warehouse and handed over yet more large amounts of money - there seems to be a theme developing this week! We left the shop with a new chest of drawers, a new coffee table, new rug, doormat and door curtain for the apartment as well as two new desks for our office - with the shed coming close to completion, Stuart is finally starting to move tools out of the office, and with any luck, after Christmas we will be able to reclaim the office for its original intended purpose. The desks we are currently using are both hand-me-downs from the previous owners are neither comfortable nor well made, so we've been promising ourselves new desks for a while.

By the time we'd finished in IKEA and got back home again it was well into lunchtime, and with Samantha due at 2pm for my weekly Italian lesson, we hurriedly heated up some soup before tidying the house up.

Samantha was once again greeted by Reggie with a volley of barks, but like last week, he soon calmed down and he sat quietly on the sofa while I had my lesson.

While I had my lesson, Stuart continued organising in the shed until the light faded when we collected wood for the fire and retired indoors for the evening.

Wednesday

Wednesday started with an early dog walk along the river in Pescia before coming home to drop off Reggie and head up the hill to Vellano for our group Italian lesson. We dashed into the house, settled Reggie down and made a quick bathroom stop - but when I turned on the tap in the bathroom, nothing came out! After the plumbing traumas of the weekend, the idea of there being a problem with our water supply seemed like a practical joke! There wasn't time to worry about it there and then though, so we parked the problem for later, imagining that we would have to come home later to mess about with water pipes and searching for air blocks.

David and Sarah's house seemed blissfully clean, tidy, warm and plumbing-problem-free, a lovely oasis to escape to, and we had another great lesson with them and Johnny. Last week, we had hatched a plan between us to go out for lunch together today in celebration of Christmas. It was the closest thing we have come to a 'work Christmas do' since we moved here. We therefore finished our lesson with a prosecco aperitif at David & Sarah's before all heading down into the village to Manero's restaurant. Despite being the only people in there, we were treated to a feast of a meal: Tuscan antipasti (cured meats, cheese, fegattini bruschette (toasted bread topped with liver pate), fettunta (toasted bread brushed with garlic and drizzled in olive oil), beans with onions, marinated garlic, marinated artichokes, marinated anchovies and pappa al pomodoro), ravioli with artichokes, ravioli with ragu, pappardelle with wild boar sauce and THEN an enormous plate of assorted meats cooked on the grill. Of course we washed it all down with plenty of wine and we had a lovely couple of hours enjoying the company and the food and feeling in the Christmas spirit.

Magical views from Vellano

By the time we said our farewells to David and Sarah and to Johnny, it was getting on for 4pm, meaning that we had a very limited amount of daylight left in which to get to the bottom of our water problem. It was with enormous relief, therefore, that when we got into the house and tried the taps, we found water flowing freely! Whether it had been a temporary problem caused by an airblock earlier that had since released itself, whether the water supply had been interrupted by the roadworks down in the village, or whether Reggie had rolled up his sleeves and fixed the problem for us while we were out, we're not sure (we suspect the latter is the least likely...), we were just happy not to have to spend the next couple of hours chasing pipes down the hill and instead we lit the fire and decided to continue the Christmas cheer with a relaxed evening watching Christmas films.

Thursday

After having largely ignored anything house or apartment related yesterday (with the exception of another once-over of the floors in the morning with a mop and some bleach), we knew that today would be full-on. Instead of doing my usual early morning exercise routine, Stuart and I were both up early and out of the door by 8am, taking Reggie up the road for a lovely fresh early morning walk on the cava track.

We were home by just after 9am, so while Stuart washed up in our house, I headed down to the apartment to embark on yet more cleaning. By this point in time, we were fully confident that the floors were clean - they'd been mopped and bleached so many times you could eat your dinner off them - but with guests arriving tomorrow, the rest of the apartment needed its usual 'turnaround' clean, the furniture needed moving back in, and the new furniture needed assembling!

Thankfully, the cavalry arrived a little after 10am in the form of David and Sarah, who had some spare time today and had offered their help. So while Stuart and I cleaned off the pieces of furniture that had been outside for the last few days and moved them back inside, David and Sarah did battle with flat pack furniture.

Want some furniture building? Bring in the cavalry.

We stopped to eat a delicious lunch cooked by Stuart - pasta with mushrooms and blue cheese. It was such a beautiful day (handy when you're assembling furniture in the garden - the weather has at least been kind to us this week!), that we ate outside on the patio in the glorious, glorious sunshine.

After lunch it was all hands on deck and between us we dusted, vacuumed, cleaned, moved furniture, hung new pictures, put up Christmas lights, decorated a mini Christmas tree and made the apartment look better than it ever has done! We are truly grateful to David and Sarah for rolling up their sleeves and spending their entire day helping us - and not only with the furniture assembly but also with cleaning. I'm pretty sure that had we not had their help, we would still have been waiting for floors to dry while puzzling over flat pack furniture in the cold and dark at gone 10pm!

The new 'gallery' in the apartment, showing watercolours of the 10 villages of our valley.

With the apartment looking ship shape and guest-ready, and having waved David and Sarah off on their way home, we retired upstairs to light the fire. Depressingly, our house was in need of at least as much cleaning (well, maybe less bleaching), but that would have to wait until the morning, so we settled down for a cosy evening by the fire, happy in the knowledge that the apartment is fresh as a daisy.

Friday

Friday morning was a bit of a struggle - after the mammoth efforts in the apartment over the last few days, the last thing we felt like doing was tackling the cleaning of our own house, but tackle it we must, with visitors arriving in just a handful of hours!

Straight after breakfast, we headed out for a quick coffee followed by a shorter than usual dog walk - we walked along the track from the San Lorenzo hotel to the edge of Pescia and back. Reggie probably felt a little short-changed after a walk that didn't afford him any time off the lead, but at least we knew he'd had some form of exercise and we promised him we'd make it up with a proper run around tomorrow.

Once we got home it was all hands on deck and we spent the next 3 hours dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, tidying and scrubbing - much to Reggie's amusement. As I was on my hands and knees trying to wipe the living room floor, Reggie came and sat right next to me, eye-balling me and trying to take the wet cloth out of my hands - not helpful! Thankfully we finished cleaning with about 2 minutes to spare - enough time to quickly change into normal clothes before running to the car.

We hadn't had enough time to make ourselves any lunch, so we stopped off at Amanda's shop and got Samantha to make us each a prosciutto and cheese sandwich, which we then ate in the car en route to Pisa.

In stark contrast to yesterday's beautiful blue skies and sunshine, today's weather was grey and damp, and as we drove along the autostrade you wouldn't even know there were majestic mountains in the distance - in fact, I wondered if our guests would think they'd arrived back in England again, such was the grey and dampness of the day.

Once we arrived at the airport we parked up and went to the arrivals hall to wait. Like trips to IKEA, trips to the airport always have me amazed by the number of people who bring their dogs into the crowded terminal - we counted four dogs with their owners waiting at the arrivals gates. I can't image Reggie enjoying that experience!

We waited for about 20 minutes before we spotted the familiar smiling faces of Paul, Marie and Sheila (Stuart's Mum) coming towards us - it was great to see them!

Anyone called Smith?

With the bags all loaded into the car, we headed straight home to reintroduce everyone to Reggie and to get started on the prosecco. Reggie was a little overwhelmed by the large number of people coming into his house and treated everyone to a round of barking, but quickly realised he knew Sheila and calmed down with her, concentrating his efforts then on just Paul and Marie. Clearly 12 months is too long for Reggie to remember people, but it wasn't long before he realised that Marie was definitely a friend, not a foe. True friendship with Paul was a step too far for one evening, and Reggie kept his distance, but he did at least give him enough benefit of the doubt to stop barking at him pretty soon.

Reggie gave this man a wide berth!

We spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening catching up with prosecco, roasted chestnuts and bread drizzled in olive oil before the boys embarked on cooking up a delicious vegetable chilli (helped heavily by Marie). After a lovely evening, we all retired to our respective beds for what we hoped would be a good night's sleep for our weary travellers so that they can start their holiday feeling refreshed tomorrow.