On Monday morning Anton the plumber arrived from Pistoia at 9.30am on the dot with his dad in tow to lend a hand with running the pipes into the apartment bathroom and kitchen below.
Reggie was soon ensconced in the back of the car so that the plumbers had free run of the house, unencumbered by a barking dog - they needed access to the utility room for most of the day, so there was nowhere else for poor Reggie to go.
Other than helping Anton make some holes in the internal walls of the apartment to get the piping from A to B, I did little of consequence other than answer his questions, make coffees, provide the odd tool and wire in the heat pump (in a temporary fashion) at the end of the day. Helen, on the other hand, had a tough day trying to concentrate on work with all sorts of banging and crashing as well as the sound of poor Reggie barking from the car - stressful to say the least, but to ease the discomfort of the day Anton left us with hot water in the kitchen tap. What's so unusual about that?, you might ask... well we've had nothing but cold water in the kitchen tap for the last 18 months! After today there would be no more boiling the kettle to wash up, and no more wincing in pain at the icy cold water while washing vegetables!
On Tuesday morning we had a surprise visit from a relatively new friend. Susan lives in Castelvecchio not far from our friends Paul and Kathy, and although I had bumped into her on a few occasions, Helen had not yet met her in person, so today we all got to pass the time of day over a coffee and some delicious pastries that Susan had brought for us. It made for a very pleasant morning and took us almost up until lunchtime. (As a side note, Susan is also the lady that spends a lot of time taking beautiful photographs of the valley and surrounding area - some of you may even have one of her calendars on your wall, as we gave a few as gifts at Christmas.)
Tuesday was thankfully a plumber-free day, which meant that Reggie was a lot happier! I took the opportunity of a dry day to have a look at our leaky roof window - with three tupperware containers strategically positioned under the window on the landing, and the rain coming through without fail, I decided it was time to take a look at the problem before all the wood rots away around the frame. I siliconed around the frame in the hopes of making it watertight - but not before admiring the view from our roof (and replacing the couple of roof tiles that I had broken by sitting on them while admiring the view...).
Tuesday was thankfully a plumber-free day, which meant that Reggie was a lot happier! I took the opportunity of a dry day to have a look at our leaky roof window - with three tupperware containers strategically positioned under the window on the landing, and the rain coming through without fail, I decided it was time to take a look at the problem before all the wood rots away around the frame. I siliconed around the frame in the hopes of making it watertight - but not before admiring the view from our roof (and replacing the couple of roof tiles that I had broken by sitting on them while admiring the view...).
Wednesday is our weekly group Italian lesson, but with Sarah working away, we felt it was only fair to offer to host the lesson at ours rather than David having to play host on his own.
Reggie gave Johnny the usual barky greeting but soon calmed down and started snoozing on the sofa, and we soon settled into a lesson that was entirely conversation based, with the three of us tearing apart the Italian language as we tried our best to talk to Johnny in his native tongue. It was hard work but thoroughly enjoyable and it felt good knowing we'd spent almost two hours conversing at least half of the time in Italian (although not without a lot of correction).
Johnny left at midday, and Dave stuck around for a beer before heading home, leaving Helen and me to have lunch before getting into a bit of work for the afternoon.
While Helen went to the office for a few hours I headed into Pescia to acquire some medicines from the pharmacy before heading homewards, making a stop at Frateschi on the way to pay my bill from yesterday and grab a few more bits and pieces.
On Thursday Anton the plumber returned - he was supposed to have had the technical guy from the heat pump manufacturer with him to sign of the work he'd done for the guarantee, but he'd cancelled at the last minute, leaving Anton somewhat 'arrabiata', but this didn't stop the two of us getting on with the last of the work. This involved cutting a large hole in the new shed roof for the heat pump exhaust and draining down and removing the 80 litre water heater/tank in the main bathroom.
I'm sure that Reggie was relieved (and Helen too, for that matter) to find that Anton had done all he needed to do and was on his way before lunchtime. Before he left, we chatted about various wood burner options for when we finally get around to upgrading our wood burner (which is woefully rickety and inefficient) before the next winter.
After lunch I spent the afternoon with a bucket of mortar and a bucket of stone repairing the holes made in the house walls to route the new pipework in and out, after which I returned all of the tools that had temporarily been living outside under a tarpaulin (while work was being done) back to the shed. The vicious winds we'd had during the night had ripped the tarpaulin off the tools and soaked the lot, so the sooner everything was rehoused under cover in the shed the better (in fact, the wind was so strong last night it blew one of our metal garden chairs down the garden steps!).
After closing up the shed, Helen and I loaded Reggie into the car for a walk as yet again he had spent half of the day in the car watching both Anton and me walk to and fro.
After our walk I had the most luxurious shower I've ever had in our house: for the first time, I knew that I needn't rush, that there was plenty of hot water and it wasn't going to start turning cold after 5 minutes. Not that I'm one for standing under the shower daydreaming, but to know that I didn't have to get in and out within four minutes lest Helen would be short of water was a real joy, and I took the opportunity to stretch the length of my shower out to twice what it would normally be...just on this occasion.
A late evening message from Anton told us to expect him back again on Friday morning, this time with the technical engineer from the boiler/heat pump manufacturer.
Angelo the builder unexpectedly arrived just after 9am, bearing a gift of a bottle of Albanian brandy and three boxes of white tiles he had no use for, thinking that we might want to make use of them in the utility room.
After a coffee and a chat with Angelo, Anton arrived along with the engineer and they set about testing the system fully and putting the heat pump through its paces so that the guarantee could be signed off, the technical engineer now being our point of contact for any issues. During the testing I was rather pleased to over hear the engineer compliment Anton on the system he had installed, saying it was bellina', very nice!
After another round of coffees and a quick tour through the digital control panel from the engineer, they all left us in peace - which pleased Reggie as he was yet again languishing in the car.
It wasn't long until lunch after the morning's visitors had left so there was little time for me to do anything too exciting other than head to Frateschi to acquire some bits and pieces to start electrical work in the apartment. Helen and I have decided that, as there are now various holes in the ceiling and walls in the apartment (put there to aid running the new hot water pipes in the cavity space), now would be an ideal time to sort the somewhat bizarre electrics and lighting out before making the necessary repairs.
After acquiring the cable, new light switches, grease gun for the tractor and a couple of new plastic bins, I stopped off at Amanda's to give her one of said plastic bins. During the week I'd read an article about composting within chicken runs, it seemed like an interesting project, but we really needed to get our hands on more green material for composting. It then occurred to me that Amanda must have a reasonable amount of waste from the shop after the cooking she does - so to cut a long story short, she has said we need to make two collections of scraps from her a week, hence the two plastic bins: one for her to fill and one for us to swap with her each visit.
After lunch I headed down to the apartment to make yet more mess, and Helen went back into the office for a while longer before taking the mower and the strimmer to cut the lawns for the first of many times this year.
While she was doing this, and after I'd messaged my friend Granville to pick his brains about connecting multiple switches to multiple lights, I started work on the numerous jobs, running a couple of surface-mounted cables behind the cavity, removing a couple of superfluous sockets and switches before getting to the tricky part: linking all the bedroom lights together.
After sticking my head into various holes and realising I needed to inspect and possibly remove some now defunct waste pipes that ran in the apartment bedroom ceiling void, I decided that it would be easier all round to remove some of the plasterboard sheets to give me some room to work.
After successfully removing a single sheet by using magnets to locate the now covered screw heads, dig them out and unscrew them, I realised I'd be at this for hours at this rate, so instead the hammer came out of the tool bag and I smashed big holes in the plasterboard until I could just rip huge pieces down. This didn't take long at all and for a while I felt like I was back in Abingdon working with my friend Dodge again - except for the fact there was no dance music on the radio.
After taking down three sheets, I couldn't help but wonder how much better the bedroom would be if we had the traditional old chestnut beams and cotto floor tiles exposed above (as they are in the kitchen/living space), so I smashed up a little more plasterboard to get an idea. Needless to say, by the time Helen had finished the grass cutting I was knee deep in plasterboard and feeling rather pleased with myself looking at the ceiling above, it will not only make the electrical work easier but - we hope - look beautiful once properly restored.
It was now getting on so I shut the door on the chaos and I went for another hot shower to wash the years of accumulated dirt from my hair before settling down with a glass of wine to start the weekend in front of the fire.
A late evening message from Anton told us to expect him back again on Friday morning, this time with the technical engineer from the boiler/heat pump manufacturer.
Angelo the builder unexpectedly arrived just after 9am, bearing a gift of a bottle of Albanian brandy and three boxes of white tiles he had no use for, thinking that we might want to make use of them in the utility room.
After a coffee and a chat with Angelo, Anton arrived along with the engineer and they set about testing the system fully and putting the heat pump through its paces so that the guarantee could be signed off, the technical engineer now being our point of contact for any issues. During the testing I was rather pleased to over hear the engineer compliment Anton on the system he had installed, saying it was bellina', very nice!
After another round of coffees and a quick tour through the digital control panel from the engineer, they all left us in peace - which pleased Reggie as he was yet again languishing in the car.
It wasn't long until lunch after the morning's visitors had left so there was little time for me to do anything too exciting other than head to Frateschi to acquire some bits and pieces to start electrical work in the apartment. Helen and I have decided that, as there are now various holes in the ceiling and walls in the apartment (put there to aid running the new hot water pipes in the cavity space), now would be an ideal time to sort the somewhat bizarre electrics and lighting out before making the necessary repairs.
After acquiring the cable, new light switches, grease gun for the tractor and a couple of new plastic bins, I stopped off at Amanda's to give her one of said plastic bins. During the week I'd read an article about composting within chicken runs, it seemed like an interesting project, but we really needed to get our hands on more green material for composting. It then occurred to me that Amanda must have a reasonable amount of waste from the shop after the cooking she does - so to cut a long story short, she has said we need to make two collections of scraps from her a week, hence the two plastic bins: one for her to fill and one for us to swap with her each visit.
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| Project Chicken Run Compost. |
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| Almond blossom - signs of spring! |
After lunch I headed down to the apartment to make yet more mess, and Helen went back into the office for a while longer before taking the mower and the strimmer to cut the lawns for the first of many times this year.
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| Reggie, as ever, wanted to "help". |
While she was doing this, and after I'd messaged my friend Granville to pick his brains about connecting multiple switches to multiple lights, I started work on the numerous jobs, running a couple of surface-mounted cables behind the cavity, removing a couple of superfluous sockets and switches before getting to the tricky part: linking all the bedroom lights together.
After sticking my head into various holes and realising I needed to inspect and possibly remove some now defunct waste pipes that ran in the apartment bedroom ceiling void, I decided that it would be easier all round to remove some of the plasterboard sheets to give me some room to work.
After successfully removing a single sheet by using magnets to locate the now covered screw heads, dig them out and unscrew them, I realised I'd be at this for hours at this rate, so instead the hammer came out of the tool bag and I smashed big holes in the plasterboard until I could just rip huge pieces down. This didn't take long at all and for a while I felt like I was back in Abingdon working with my friend Dodge again - except for the fact there was no dance music on the radio.
After taking down three sheets, I couldn't help but wonder how much better the bedroom would be if we had the traditional old chestnut beams and cotto floor tiles exposed above (as they are in the kitchen/living space), so I smashed up a little more plasterboard to get an idea. Needless to say, by the time Helen had finished the grass cutting I was knee deep in plasterboard and feeling rather pleased with myself looking at the ceiling above, it will not only make the electrical work easier but - we hope - look beautiful once properly restored.
It was now getting on so I shut the door on the chaos and I went for another hot shower to wash the years of accumulated dirt from my hair before settling down with a glass of wine to start the weekend in front of the fire.
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