Hectic but all good

This week has been... hectic. A whirl of work and social engagements left us feeling pretty exhausted by the end of the week, but it's all good stuff, and it's lovely to have reached a stage where not only do we have an active social life, but we are really starting to feel as if we have a social life that includes both English-speaking friends/events and Italian-speaking friends/events - something that seemed like an impossible dream not so very long ago.

On Monday night we had invited Claudia, Massimo and their girls over for the evening and dinner. Claudia, who we met through Mara, and who was the kind bestower of plants back in the early spring, was very interested in coming over to see our house and see what we’re doing here - how we are growing our veg, our chickens, our bees and so on. We definitely owed her and Massimo some hospitality, and realised that, with the visit of Stuart's family fast approaching, and apartment guest due to arrive soon, we really needed to act fast to fit the visit in.

Stuart decided to spend the day cleaning our house and preparing food, while I toiled away in the office, but by lunchtime it became clear to me that Stuart was doing such a thorough job with the cleaning upstairs that he wasn’t going to get around to getting any of the cooking done. I therefore put my work on hold at lunchtime and spent the entire afternoon cooking (a Ligurian potato salad, a lentil ragu, a quinoa beetroot and courgette salad, hummus, and spiced carrots)  – while also worrying about the fact that I wasn’t at my desk! By the time Claudia, Massimo, Laura and Lily and arrived just after 7pm, we had JUST finished cleaning & cooking.

We started by showing the family around the orto (veg garden), the bees, the chickens and the upper terraces, before showing them around the house and finally sitting down under the pergola for something to eat. Poor Reggie was quite upset by the arrival of four new faces all at once, and because there was quite a lot of walking around, he barked almost non-stop until we finally all sat down.

We had an enjoyable evening - Claudia and Massimo demonstrated the patience of saints as I think that the stress of rushing around all day trying to get everything ready had taken its toll on at least my Italian abilities and whereas on other recent occasions I've felt pretty upbeat with where my language skills have got to, on this occasion they deserted me and I struggled to string sentences together. Sigh. Hopefully just a temporary setback and one of the troughs that come with the peaks.

Monday also saw our first proper heavy downpour since Stuart had hooked up the rainwater collection tanks - along with a few good claps of thunder to boot. It didn't last long, and had all dried up within half an hour, but we were pleased to know that at least some had made its way into our tanks:

Tuesday was the scheduled arrival of our next set of apartment guests, so Stuart spent the morning doing yet more cleaning - this time downstairs in the apartment, while I got stuck in with my office work.

On Tuesday evening we had booked to go to a 'Friends of Pietrabuona' dinner - a fund raiser for the local church, which was being held at our local restaurant, Da Nerone. We'd booked our places via Amanda, and we know she would be there, but otherwise we wouldn't know anybody. We arrived feeling a little apprehensive, but soon felt better when someone told us we were on a table with Amanda. Not only that, but we soon saw two more familiar faces coming in our direction: Amanda's parents, Julia and Vittorio, were also sitting at our table, along with a friend of Julia's, a lovely lady from Collodi. Before long, we had settled into the evening and were chatting away in a mixture of English and Italian, flitting between one language and the other. We ate a courgette risotto, followed by a mushroom pasta dish (so good Stuart had to have three helpings), followed by roast pork with fries and salad, finishing with a delicious cream and chocolate torte, made by Amanda. All of that was washed down with a good supply of red wine - great value for €18 each, and a great way to support the local church. We tore ourselves away just as the dancing was beginning, narrowly avoiding being dragged onto the dance area by Amanda, but promising that next time we would stay for the dancing.

Friends of Pietrabuona.

On Wednesday our car went to the garage for its revisione (the equivalent of an MOT). Stuart took it to the garage the other side of Pescia, then cycled back up the hill home. Since we were without transport for the day, we'd invited our Italian teacher, Johnny, to come to our house for lunch in exchange for a lift up the hill to Vellano for our weekly group Italian lesson. Luckily, we still had plenty of food leftover from Monday, so were able to offer a presentable spread, after which Johnny duly drove us to David & Sarah's house where we had our lesson, then dropped us back home again afterwards.

We had been hoping that the car would be ready to collect by the end of the day, but after a call from Enrico it was clear we weren't going to see the car until at least the next day. Somewhat sheepishly, we let David know our situation - we had been due to go up to Vellano for 'pizza in the piazza' that evening, but were somewhat stuck without a means to get there! David generously offered to come and pick us up, and Donatella kindly offered to take us home at the end of the evening, so we were sorted. Pizza in the piazza turned out to be another fun Italian evening soaking up the atmosphere, eating well, and enjoying being outdoors until late in the evening without even the need for a cardigan. Of course we had a great time with David, Sarah and Donatella - they are such good company, and it was a relief to have a night off speaking entirely in Italian!

Pizza in the Piazza, Vellano.

On Thursday, Stuart spent the morning strimming at a property in Vellano with David, while I worked in the office, then he brought David and Sarah back with him for lunch in an attempt to finally finish the food we'd had left over from the start of the week.

Thursday evening was something of a milestone for us - it was the first time we've done anything independently in terms of social lives since we've been here, and it felt really strange to be left home alone for the evening while Stuart went out without me. He had been invited to a boys' night of steak and cards with Franco, Massimo and Fabio (Franco's neighbour) at Franco's house. After finding it a bit of a struggle at first (the other three clearly know each other well and were in 'mates catching up' mode, which Stuart found quite hard to follow), he settled into the evening and thoroughly enjoyed his first experience of (enormous)bistecca cooked on the wheelbarrow BBQ and Texas hold'em poker!

Meanwhile, I spent a very enjoyable evening chatting with our apartment guests, Vince and Joy, a lovely couple.

On Friday our car was finally ready for collection from the garage, so Stuart cycled down the hill to go and collect it. Enrico had changed the oil, fixed the air conditioning fan and changed two tyres as well as no doubt several other things that were needed to get it through the test, but when Stuart returned home and I asked him how much it had cost (bracing myself for the answer), he said he didn't know - the secretary hadn't been in the office when Stuart picked the car up, so they told him to pop in another time to pay!

It felt like a big relief to shut down my computer at the end of the day on Friday and relax into the weekend. After dinner, we headed down to the apartment patio to share a bottle of wine with Vince and Joy, another lovely evening spent chatting and sitting in the glorious summer evening weather.

The weekend was pretty full-on in terms of physical work - perhaps because we are anticipating the two weeks of having family to stay when we won't get quite as much done, perhaps because it was a good antidote to office work, perhaps a bit of both.

After our usual dog walk and coffee on Saturday morning (done the opposite way around from usual, with the coffee afterwards, to maximise the coolness of the morning for the walk), we came home and spent the afternoon clearing the donkey track that leads down hill from our gates. We were hoping to be able to find enough of a track to clear that would allow us to use the tractor to get up and down as far as our lower terraces - and we thought this would be a good place to start. I went ahead with the hedge cutters, while Stuart followed behind with the strimmer, and we did a pretty decent job - right up until the point where the wide track abruptly ends and turns into nothing more than a narrow footpath. We clambered around the woods a bit, climbing over all the trees that have fallen in the winds over the last 18 months, but couldn't for the lives of us find the wide track that's marked on our land map. Frustrated, we decided to make the most of the situation and take the tractor down the newly cleared track to collect some large pieces of wood that have been down there for at least a couple of years. The tractor coped with the steep track very well, proving once again to have been a worthwhile investment.

Before

After.

Clear enough to drive down.

Next year's wood pile started.

The track ends abruptly.

We spent a quiet evening on Saturday just relaxing on our patio and enjoying what felt like a well earned G&T - with home grown cucumber and mint.

We did the same on Sunday morning as we had done on Saturday, starting out with our dog walk in the cool morning air, then stopping off for coffee afterwards. When we got home, it was time to roll sleeves up once again and while I spent the rest of the day clearing acacias, strimming and splitting logs, Stuart planted more seeds in the poly tunnel, tidied up the electrics supplying the lights to the pergola, and tended to the veg in the orto.

Finally, we finished the weekend in style. Well, some sort of style (80s style?) anyway. The local circolo in Pietrabuona was having a 70s and 80s night with apericena, and we'd decided to go and show our support. With the lure of 80s music, we'd also managed to get Paul & Kathy, Donatella, David & Sarah and their friends Fabio & Edoardo to come along as well - together, we probably almost doubled the numbers in attendance. The night might have started slowly, but by the end of the evening we were in our 80s element and the poor DJ had to pack up and leave in order to get us all off the dance floor. Amanda and her son were there too, and we had a really great evening eating, drinking, catching up with friends and busting moves on the dance floor - you can't put a price on a fun evening out with friends!

The fortnight ahead promises to be quite a bit different from usual, with Stuart's family due to arrive on Tuesday. No doubt there will be plenty of sightseeing, relaxing and catching up for them - it's been a year since we last saw Kerys and Ben, so we're really looking forward to seeing them, and of course we're looking forward to seeing Stuart's Mum and brother as well - it will be a tight squeeze to fit everyone into the house, but it should be fun.