My first job was to apply a 10mm coat of render to the wall around the door to bring the wall level flush with the new door lining I'd fitted some months back, and in doing so to bury the cable the electricians had surface-mounted around the wall for the electric gate control panel.
With that done and drying it was getting on for lunch time, but not before Reggie got to burn off some energy in the woods - one of two planned walks today as we were hoping an extra session of exercise would help with the visit to the vets this afternoon... (who were we kidding!?).
After lunch it was back out into the woods for another half loop before loading Reggie straight into the car before for the drive into Pescia.
We arrived a few minutes early and decided to leave Reggie in the car with Helen as company while I waited indoors so that we could get him out of the car and whisk him into the room in one swift manoeuvre... or so we thought. We'd barely reached the door when we came came to an abrupt halt as Reggie applied the breaks, rooted his feet firmly to the ground and tried to engage reverse gear, almost reversing out of his collar as he did so.
That left me no option but to pick him up and carry him straight into the room where our lovely vet Alessandra works.
He soon found a hiding place in the corner and refused to go near Alessandra. In an attempt to calm him she left the room, gave us some treats for him and asked us to try and calm him for five minutes.
Needless to say he had no appetite and nervously sniffed around the room, sniffing every surface of every object while Helen and I sat on the floor down at his level.
When Alessandra returned to find he was not complying with her plan it was time to do it the hard way, which resulted in Reggie ramming himself between my back and the wall that I was leaning against. This seemed to be the best we were going to get and sufficed for an inspection by stethoscope, part one done!
Next, the all-important jab which was a bit more of a challenge but with his head buried in my gut and the rest of him under the desk the shot was administered... what a drama! And we now have a follow-up jab in four weeks time... I thought dogs were supposed to be easier than cats when it comes to vets trips... seems we've been dealt a dud!
It was getting on for four o'clock when we finally got home and keen to crack on with the utility room I mixed up a bucket of finish plaster and set to work skimming both the utility and the wardrobe in our bedroom - it was Monday and I was on a roll!
...except I was still plastering at half ten at night owing to the fact that lime finish plaster on plasterboard is in absolutely ZERO hurry to dry, unlike the very same plaster on the walls in the utility room which I'd finished sponging up some hours before.
After a late finish it was an early start on Tuesday morning as I headed off up the valley to meet Dave in Vellano for a bit of garden tidying, leaving Helen to man the fort and walk Reggie in the woods before I got home.
It was a late lunch as after work that morning I'd gone back to Vellano to inspect some left-over wooden flooring in the loft of the place where David and Sarah are living. The house is recently up for sale and as a result various bits and pieces have been shipped back to England or else need to find new Italian homes. Knowing we were working on the utility room, when David saw this flooring he paired it up with us, so assuming there was enough of it, it was ours to re-home.
Once we had loaded the flooring into the car I headed off for a late lunch, after which I jumped straight to laying the new flooring having measured it and discovered there would be only half a plank left over!
As darkness approached it was time to shower and walk down the drive to wait for David and Sarah who had kindly offered to pick us up on their way past as we were all Pescia bound. More specifically, we were bound for the wine bar which after having closed down last year is now open again under new management.
Paul and Kathy were outside waiting as we approached on foot, and Donatella arrived shortly after us, and we jollied the night away with a mixture of ales from Faversham (yeah... English ale, turns out the new guy has a thing for out good old British ale) and wine, of course accompanied by plates of cured meats and cheeses which, as we didn't leave until gone midnight(!), constituted dinner for us all.
A thoroughly enjoyable evening was had by all and we decided it was something we should aim to repeat regularly!
On Wednesday morning we headed up the valley to Vellano for our weekly group Italian lesson with Johnny - possibly the last we will have in this house as David and Sarah are soon to be moving to a new home.
After lunch I hopped into the car and headed south to run a few errands - little of interest, but fuel was getting low, we needed more items from Frateschi, and I wanted to try and catch the glass guy in Pescia to see if I could get some mirror cut to size for the frame I'd made a couple of weeks ago using the old floor beams we recovered when replacing the office floor/apartment ceiling last April.
Second time lucky, I caught him in the workshop cutting a small piece of glass for an older chap so waited my turn and presented him with the knackered old wooden frame - made from pieces of wood that I realised pre-date both world wars and the unification of Italy!! For me it's amazing to think of that, for him I think he was wondering why I was wrapping firewood around a mirror... each to their own!
On Thursday morning the push continued and I got the paint roller out and painted the wardrobe so that I could then clean the floor and take all of the tools out of the bedroom, before starting work on fitting shelves in the utility room, using the panels of chipboard that had until recently been wardrobes in the bedroom.
After lunch it was our weekly lesson with Samantha for which I had failed to do my homework for for the first time in months. In the vain hope that she wouldn't reprimand me too much I showed her the beautiful new room we had been making rather than completing homework - it seemed to do the trick and we then spent most of the lesson covering 'ci' some more, based around a very interesting lesson we'd had with Johnny on Wednesday morning. For two little letters 'ci' can cause an awful lot of confusion and mean a whole heap of different things.
After the lesson I turned my attention back to a website I was putting together for our lovely friend and recent visitor Marie for her new business venture in the field of special educational needs. For anyone interested in either her work or the website I've done for her, you'll be able to see the finished version here: www.mariesmithsend.co.uk.
On Friday morning I picked up where I left off and joined Helen in the office, the warmest room in the house these days, and tinkered some more with the website. We each tapped away at our computers until lunchtime arrived, shortly after which we headed into Pescia to hit the 2 o'clock sweet spot at the supermarkets to acquire the weekly supplies.
Once home and unpacked, I left Helen to walk Reggie and I headed out to stock up on wine from the local bulk seller in town (he's closed between 12:30 and 16:00, as is most of Pescia, so we can't ever do the food shop and buy wine in the same trip)
Saturday was another lovely day, quite warm and clear, and so after a walk in the woods and a trip out to collect fresh bread and homework from Samantha, we headed home for a bit of lunch - eaten out under the pergola in the warm January sunshine - before deciding to pushing on with the veg garden for the afternoon.
To recap, we had six large beds in use last year, but in order to up our production and at the same time make it more efficient we are making changes to the layout and standardising the size of all the beds, hopefully ending up with 25 beds, which is the most we can fit into the space we have, although as time ticks by I think we may have to settle for 20 this year and be happy at that, putting the final 5 into action this coming autumn.
It's quite slow work and the ground is full of bramble root but the soil at least is easy to work and so it was at the point when we retired to light the fire we had almost another two beds created, a total of almost 6 now and with fine weather and extra pairs of hands forecast for Sunday we could hope to have the second terrace finished and a total of eight beds if all went well.
First things first on Sunday, after taking Reggie for a run around the woods, we headed up the road towards Vellano to go and meet David and Sarah at the house just outside the village that is shortly to become their new home here, after they had been given the keys yesterday. They were keen to show us the house and we were chomping at the bit to have a look around it.
We spent about an hour looking around the house and land - a beautiful, cosy little house, a small amount of land, a stunning view and a large, sunny terrace to enjoy it from. It really does seem like a lovely place and we are so pleased that they have finally found the home that will become the start of the next chapter of their lives here - they have been waiting a long time and suffered many disappointments along the way, so to see them happy and settled will be a great joy for us, and this really seems like the right place.
After checking out the new pad, we each returned to our respective houses (David and Sarah plan take a week or so to move their belongings into the new house so for the time being are still in the town house in Vellano) for a quick bite to eat before they came down to ours for an afternoon working in the warm sunshine on our veg terraces.
With the extra manpower we managed to forge ahead and finish the day with 8 completed beds in total, one of which involved the labour-intensive process of digging out a section of hillside in order to fit the whole 10m length of the bed in. The hillside turned out to mainly consist of large stones - it seems someone must have dumped a huge pile of stones here at some time in the past, and we ended up with enough to make several rockeries!
After a hard afternoon's work we retired indoors to light the fire and Helen, Sarah and David joined forces to cook up another curry from our Spicery box subscription - every time we make one we decide it's the best one yet... until the next time!
We finally all said our goodnights just after 11.30pm after a lovely evening, a delicious meal and a satisfying and pleasingly productive day.
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