Thwarted by the weather - again

This week, our productivity was once again stymied by the weather, but this time it was fierce winds that put paid to any work outdoors.

Strong winds are not entirely uncommon here, but these were of an altogether different level and the strongest we have experienced since the big storm of March 2015, when apocalyptic winds flattened whole sections of woodland and wreaked devastation around the valley. Thankfully the wind was somewhat less powerful this time but still hovered around 50kmph, and I’m sure some of the gusts way exceeded that. What was also different about the wind this time around was its duration – we can usually expect a storm to last a whole night (as it did back in 2015), but for three days the wind tore around the valley, and it wasn’t until Thursday that things calmed down appreciably.

Here at numero 182 we were extremely fortunate to be sheltered by our hill – the winds were north easterly and it seems we were perfectly positioned to miss the worst of their wrath, and despite being able to hear the roar of the wind in the valley, things at the house were relatively calm(er).

Our friends around the valley were not so lucky and spent sleepless nights on both Monday and Tuesday nights listening to the wind whip and roar and feeling their houses shake and shudder with each gust – it was hard to admit to them that we’d actually slept relatively well and had barely been disturbed by the noise.

As well as the wind being strong enough to put paid to working outdoors, Reggie even went for a day without a walk as I wasn’t keen on the idea of Stuart and Reggie walking around in the woods with the trees waving around crazily in the wind - I had visions of the pair of them being pinned beneath a fallen tree, so put a temporary ban on tramping around the woods. The wind also made things feel bitterly cold, both outdoors and inside, and indeed on Monday evening we had our first snowflakes of the year here at our house and by 11pm there was a very (very) light dusting – most of it was blown away by the wind though, so not much could settle.

On Monday night we wrapped up warm and went to our neighbours’ house – Valerio and Rossana live just below us on the main road and are the pair we spent a lovely couple of hours with on Christmas Eve and who’d sent us home with copious gifts and bunches of holly. Valerio had telephoned Stuart out of the blue at about 10pm on Sunday night to invite us round for necci (chestnut flour pancakes) on Monday - and who are we to turn down the opportunity to be fed deliciously hearty traditional Tuscan food whilst getting to know our friendly neighbours better?!

We had a lovely evening, although I confess that our level of understanding dropped to somewhere around 50% because, as utterly charming and unfalteringly friendly, welcoming and generous these lovely people are, both Valerio and Rossana do have a tendency to speak at a million miles an hour! Perhaps they give us more credit than we are due for our language skills, or perhaps our fumbling and misunderstanding really doesn’t bother them, but either way they couldn’t have made us feel more welcome.

By the time we left their house at around 11pm, we could barely move from being SO full! We started the evening with farinata di cavolo nero, a traditional ‘peasant food’ dish made from polenta, beans, cavolo nero, sage, garlic and pancetta – warm, filling and delicious. We then moved on to the main event of the night: piles and piles of necci (which are slightly sweet both from the sweetness of the chestnut flour they are made with, and a small amount of sugar that is added to the pancake batter). We ate the necci with prosciutto, salami, ricotta, and ricotta & chocolate sauce, and by the time Stuart had single-handedly made it to the bottom of the enormous stack of pancakes (what is it with people forcing extra helpings on my husband – and more to the point his feeling duty bound to eat until everything has gone, no matter how full he feels?!), we both felt stuffed to the gills. But we weren’t yet finished. Next, came out two types of cheese, and then came out bowls of fresh fruit and nuts, and then generous slices of panettone were thrust upon us, then vin santo, coffee, and finally we managed to politely refuse a round of chocolates!! Phew, what a feast! We felt as if we wouldn’t need to eat again for at least another week.

We ended the evening with Valerio showing us some clips from a motion-sensitive video camera he recently bought on ebay and on which he had recorded two foxes coming to eat from a bowl of food they had left for them outside the house. It was lovely to feel so welcomed and embraced by these neighbours, despite our clear and frustrating deficiency in the language department, and as we wobbled our way to bed that night we felt warm and fuzzy inside despite the howling gale outside.

So with the high winds at play for most of the week, there is little to report on outdoor progress. Inside the house, Stuart decided it was time to tackle the utility room. After first emptying the entire contents of the little room into the office (so that I am now once again working alongside the washing machine and the contents of the larder), he made a start on attacking the walls.

This little room was once a downstairs bathroom and before we could make it into a permanent and fully efficient utility room, various pipes needed to be moved, holes in the walls patched up, the walls plastered, flooring put down, permanent shelving put up… and so on. One part of the conversation with our neighbours we did manage to grasp on Monday evening was a discussion about what we were planning to do in the utility room. Valerio had suggested that, rather than replastering all four walls of the room, we might consider simply removing the plaster and repointing the two outside walls of the room – giving the walls more of a chance to breathe than if we re-covered them in plaster. We thought this was a good idea, so after Stuart took the opportunity on Friday morning to start chiselling off the plaster on the end wall while I was out in Pescia having a long overdue catch-up and coffee with Sue, we dedicated both of our energies for the weekend to working on the walls of the utlitity.

Before.

 

After.

Saturday was mainly spent chiselling off plaster and chiselling out old mortar from the stone beneath the plaster – a very dusty day. Those who know me well know how much I despise living in a house that is covered in layer(s) of masonry dust, but one of the many things I’ve learned since moving here is that if I can play a part in the work… I hate it very slightly less. So while Stuart chiselled the plaster away with the drill, I carted bucketloads of rubble outside to clear the room before turning my attention to chiselling the mortar by hand. By the end of the day we had both aged by about 15 years, with grey hair and grey faces (as had almost every surface in the downstairs of the house), but the walls were all prepped and ready to be repointed.

Sunday, therefore, was dedicated to repointing – a skill I learned (I won’t go as far as to say “mastered”) last year when we were frantically working on getting the apartment back into shape. After a morning of procrastinating with a late breakfast, a dog walk, a check of the chickens and an early lunch, we couldn’t put it off any longer and spent the whole afternoon in the cold little utility room applying fresh mortar. By the end of the day we’d finished refreshing the two stone walls.

Before.

During.

Part-way done.

Almost done.

We are hoping for an altogether calmer week this week, although the utility room will take precedence over outdoor work for the next few days regardless, as it's a job we are keen to get completed and checked off the list. Once the walls of the utility room have been finished, we hope to put some permanent shelving in for storage of food, and once everything is organised a bit better we plan to house both the washing machine and a chest freezer in what should by then really be a 'useful' room.