Sting like 26 bees

It's been a busy week this week: bees, walks, lunch at our new local restaurant, an impromptu dinner party, strimming, weeding, planting, and generous amounts of both rain and sunshine.

Monday was the third day in a row that we'd tried starting the car and it had point blank refused to spark into life. With Reggie getting increasingly frustrated at not being able to go and stretch his legs on a proper walk (or, perhaps more accurately, us feeling increasingly guilty at not being able to take him out), Stuart decided to take matters into his own hands (with a little help from me). This is exactly the sort of situation in which you realise how useful it can be to own a tractor... With me in the driving seat of the car and Stuart on the tractor, and a rope connected between the two, we chugged slowly along the drive, gradually towing the car as far as the freshly asphalted section of driveway just before the gates. We left the car there, hurried back to the house to collect Reggie, and returned to the car with everything crossed that a bump start on the slope of the driveway entrance would be enough to do the trick. The gate slid open, the hand brake was off - and... we were off! Success! It was a relief for all three of us to finally have transport again, and we headed straight for the cava track above Vellano for a much needed change of scenery - taking care to remember to park the car facing downhill just in case we needed another bump start. Of course, since then, the car has started every time, but Stuart has booked it in to be looked at by a mechanic next week nevertheless.

Feeling on a roll after our success with the car, we decided to put some time aside on Monday afternoon to do our first ever inspection of our bee hive. The weather has been very changeable of late - rather a lot of wind and rain, and although it was breezy on Monday, it was dry and sunny, and with more rain forecast for the rest of the week, we decided it would be a good opportunity to go and see the bees. Our friend Mara (who brought us the bees) had offered to come and help with our first inspection of the bees, but we decided we would go it alone - after all, we'd watched Mara do it a few weeks ago, what could possibly go wrong??

We got all kitted out in our bee suits, got all our tools assembled, and headed off to the bees. We took the lid off the hive, puffed them with smoke, and started taking the frames out one by one to inspect them.

The misplaced confidence of a first-time bee keeper.

Everything went well for the first two to three minutes. We managed to get the frames out of the hive, and take a quick look at each of them.

Moments later, however, our tools, the camera and the lid of the hive were lying strewn in the grass where we’d flung them in panic and we were running up the drive flapping our arms and swiping at the air (all the things you’re not meant to do)!

Somehow, in the blink of an eye, things had gone from fine to really NOT fine. We each had clusters of bees stuck to our upper legs and from the feeling of searing pain we could tell that they were definitely not happy bees. When we'd finally finished running up and down the drive, safely removed all of the beasts and retreated to the house, I counted 26 stings on my legs, and Stuart had around 15-20. To an onlooker the whole situation must have looked hilarious, and once we had calmed down and nursed our injured pride, it didn't take us long to see the funny side. Once thing is certain: we have well and truly tested our resistance to bee stings and can safely say that neither of us is allergic - which is a relief!

We immediately confessed (via the magic of WhatsApp) to Mara what had happened – she thought it was probably a combination of things: it was windy, which the bees don’t like; the wind also meant that the smoke from the smoker kept being carried off in the wind rather than being directed into the hive; and she thinks the bees might also have been stressed by the relative lack of food around at the moment (the rain and strong winds we’ve had a lot of recently have decimated most of the blossom – it’s a poor year for acacia blossom in particular). We’d also left an uncovered jug of sugar syrup close by (which we were going to feed them with), which is another no-no.

Needless to say, we shan't be making our second visit to the bees until we have proper adult supervision, in the form of Mara!

As the week wore on – and the stings on our legs changed from small white lumps to enormous bright red swellings, then slightly less red but incredibly itchy bumps – the weather turned wet again, and on Wednesday we got a good soaking. After our group Italian lesson at Sarah & David’s in Vellano on Wednesday morning, the five of us (Sarah, David, our teacher Johnny, and us) went on a group excursion, walking the track from Vellano to Macchino – in the rain. We were heading for our friends Michelle & Mimmo’s restaurant, Trattoria Lina.

We arrived at the restaurant somewhat damp, but in good spirits and were given a warm welcome. We enjoyed a delicious lunch there - a huge antipasti spread, hand made maccheroni with ragu, stuffed aubergines, and a peppery beef stew - before setting off in the rain again to head back down to Vellano. We calculated on our way back down to Vellano that Reggie had been home alone for a whole 8 hours, so once we reached the village we hastily said our goodbyes and hurried home to him. After having been licked to within an inch of our lives, we stuck an excited Reggie in the car and headed out once again, this time to walk a stretch of track from Sorana to San Quirico - thankfully, by this time it had stopped raining.

The rest of the week was similarly wet, although as is usually the case at this time of year, even on the wet days there were periods that were warm and dry - there's rarely a day when it's wet and grey all day long. In those dry periods we managed to get out and do some work outside, and on Friday evening as the clouds parted to reveal blue sky, we took our first visit to the newly opened Circolo Arci - a village club - in Pietrabuona. The terrace of the circolo is positioned in such a way that we can sit and sip our drinks while looking back at our own house and admiring our handiwork on the terraces!

There was a damp start to the weekend on Saturday once again, but it was warm nevertheless, and on our morning dog walk, along a path that leads from Pietrabuona village to the village of Medicina, it felt as if we were in some kind of tropical wetland. The warm mists hanging in the trees gave the scenery a magical quality and added a dimension of mystery.

By the time we did another section of the same walk on Sunday morning, the weather had cleared up and we were treated to stunning views across the valley.

The rest of the weekend saw us working on the veg beds, doing some much needed weeding, tidying and planting out, cutting back the vegetation on first steep bank beneath the house - which had been starting to look worryingly jungle-like - as well as finally finishing filling (concreting) the gaps along the edges of the utility room, and having an impromptu dinner party with David, Sarah and Donatella in celebration of David's birthday. I say "dinner party" but that makes it sound rather grander than it really was - which was actually just a meal thrown together at the last minute - nevertheless, it was a lovely evening and it left us with big smiles on our faces.

In store for the week ahead are the arrival of a new set of apartment guests, a visit to the car mechanic, a visit to the geometra, the usual work, Italian lessons, dog walks, veg tending, chicken husbandry and, no doubt, various unanticipated tasks and challenges!