Heating up

Summer is well and truly under way now and 30 degrees is no stranger to the weather forecasts - in fact as I type, Helen has just informed me that later this week we're due to hit 34C. Memories of last year's sweltering summer come flooding back and of just how much that kind of weather slows you down - that, combined with the afternoon of work we did yesterday in only 30 degrees which saw us both with heavy eyelids around 9pm... but more on that later as I like to work with a timeline, I'm no Tarantino.

After walking Reggie on Monday morning I went out with a to-do-list-ticking activity in mind - what better way to start the week!? Also in the knowledge that the summer burning ban would soon be coming into force, I knew if I didn't get rid off the last two piles of prunings today then we, along with our guests, would almost certainly have to look at them all summer.

Lower terrace fire of bramble and elderflower that Helen had recently cut down.

The main eyesore in the car park that had amounted to a sizeable heap over the winter.

Having bonfires in 30 degree heat is warm work, so I was glad to have both finished before 11am that morning so that I could cool down with a little light chainsawing before lunch, making a start on the wall of wood we have along the driveway that can now be put into the wood shelter. This will also mean we'll be reclaiming the space needed to build the tractor shelter, although after an hour's cutting barely made a dent, it's clear the tractor park is still some months off being started yet.

After lunch under the pergola, I left Helen putting out more fly traps in the olive trees and then starting the last of the pointing of the garden wall.

After covering over the solar panel (before the weather gets scorchingly hot), I headed out to OBI to get a piece of wood and some flexi-tubing for another little project we'd been talking about of late: the original idea came from our friend Paul, which was to route the cold air exhaust from the hot water heat pump into our bedroom, acting as air conditioning. However, we tweaked the idea and decided to route it instead into our utility and larder room to help keep the room just that little bit darker and cooler throughout the summer to help with the storage of our freshly harvested crops.

The solar panel is covered 

After first taking the window out of the utility room, I secured the space with a piece of board, into which I cut a hole for the tubing.

Window out, board in!

Hole for the tubing cut before staining the board.

... And from the inside, tube fixed, cool air blowing in..

I then attached the tubing to the exhaust pipe, and stuck the other end in the hole in the window. The DIY air conditioning works fairly well when the heat pump comes on and the utility room is a good couple of degrees cooler than the rest of the house, although as Helen pointed out, once we have the solar panel plumbed in and working, the heat pump won't be coming on at all during the summer months!

On Tuesday I headed out to do a bit of gardening with David, bringing back with me some 'treasure' - one man's rubbish is another treasure and this little lot went straight into one of our compost bays and will become compost for this autumn.

Gold I tell you!

Almost finished!... This bit.

Lovely display of lillies that Claudia gave us last year.

and DONE!

On Tuesday evening we popped up to Castelvecchio to see Paul, Kathy and Simon, their friend from England who was returning home the next day. We enjoyed drinks, chat and snacks, while Reggie had the run of the garden - and by the time we got home, Reggie was ready for bed and we had eaten enough snacks not to need any dinner!

Wednesday was our weekly Italian lesson with Johnny and also David, but once again no Sarah as she's still working back in Blighty. As soon as the lesson was over, I dashed off to Pescia to go to Coldiretti, the local agricultural organisation, as it was the last day of May and when I had gone to present all my financial bits and pieces to them back in mid-April, I had been told to return during May (cutting it fine on the 31st!) to pay whatever was owed to them for processing my accounts and to Mr Tax Man.

I arrived to find a very quiet office and as I sat down to wait, the very lady I needed to speak to appeared, taking a chap into her office with her. She recognised me and asked what I wanted, I explained that I needed to pay something this month but she replied saying that she had processed everything and there was nothing yet to pay and that I should return at the end of June!

After lunch Helen went into the office for the afternoon while I went down the veg garden to put in more canes for beans and tomatoes and generally tidy up a bit.

Cucumbers and toms have supports and drip irrigation now for the hot weather.

Potatoes will be cropping soon....

...as will the artichokes.

Chard still going well and first crop of radish harvested.

Sun = wine (not always, but often).

After a glass of wine on the patio with Helen, I bade her farewell and headed up the valley with clean underwear and a toothbrush as I'd been invited up to David's for dinner and XBox games while Sarah was away. Since boys' games nights can get quite late, Helen had suggested that I stay up at David's overnight so that I didn't disturb her when returning in the early hours of the morning (hence packing the undies and the toothbrush).

Nice pre-dinner beer on the patio...

...and a personalised one at that!

On Thursday morning, I left David's and headed into Vellano to buy veg from Luca, the guy from whom we usually buy locally grown veg from his stall outside the circolo (village club) in Pietrabuona on a Wednesday, who also has a stall at the Bistrot restaurant in Vellano on a Thursday. Bags of veg procured, I headed home in time for Helen's conference call mid-morning so that I could endeavour to keep Reggie at a sensible volume for the duration of the call.

In fact, he was quite relaxed and even tried out his new bed - well, the temporary bed that will be home to my son Ben when he comes to stay this summer when for two weeks we will have a house full of family and an apartment full of guests! Ben may find he has to fight Reggie for it though...

Happy on the pallet bed.

After lunch, we had our Italian lesson with Samantha, after which I did a bit of work on our friend Marie's website before taking Reggie for his evening walk in the woods.

Time to get the strimmer out again soon... LOOK at that bracken!

Friday arrived very quickly this week, and I started the day with a lengthy walk with Reggie, heading over to the old quarry and river that borders our land as I was curious as to whether after a prolonged dry spell (of around a month) there was any water still running in it.

It took me a while to cut my way down to a point where I could see clearly, as in shorts I was keen not to brush past too much greenery and pick up ticks. As it was, two did find their way onto my shins but never got very far thanks to the hairy sensors on my legs.

Couple of sheild bugs making more sheild bugs

There is water down there still!

After being out for almost an hour Reggie immediately collapsed on the cool tile floor and while Helen worked in the office, I went to the spare bedroom to measure up for a new built-in wardrobe, similar to the one we now have in our own bedroom.

Just after doing so and filling my pockets with the usual items (keys, wallet, I.D. card and car keys), Helen reminded me that today was a bank holiday, Republic Day in fact, and that pretty much everywhere but the supermarkets would be closed... so that was the end of that project at least until Monday!

After lunch, I headed out a little earlier than usual to do the food shopping, leaving Helen to finish up in the office for the week.

Thankfully the supermarket was the quietest I'd seen it in some time- on a bank holiday, it could have been the opposite, but clearly Republic Day is a good day to stay at home and not do shopping.

About six weeks back, Esselunga posted us three vouchers to be used May/June, each for €20 off a €100 spend, so this week we used this 'free' €20 to buy expensive items that would not go out of date: olive oil, toiletries, and a small selection of ales as a treat for weekend lunchtimes.

A taste of our old lives... all IPA style.

Once home, Helen and I went back to the same quarry area that I had walked through that morning, this time taking chainsaws and hedge trimmers to clear the route around there and to start cutting up some of the many fallen trees laying all over the place - which we stacked onto a couple of pallets... of course.

Despite the shade the large trees in this part of the wood gave us, we were both dripping in sweat by the time we stopped work around 5pm, having cut around half a tonne of wood into roughly metre lengths for stacking.

We each headed for the shower as we were going into Pescia this evening with Paul, Kathy, Donatella, David and Fabio, David's friend, to see what delights Pescia's second Street Food Festival had in store for us.

After last year's event having been a washout, my expectations were quite low, so we were pleasantly surprised to see a buzzing piazza with a great selection of food. There was even a truck selling Indian food, from which Helen and I took a plate of food each, washed down with a lovely draught IPA from the German bar at the top of the square.

Street food!

 

What has originally been planned as an hour-long visit to see what was occurring turned into a lively few hours with our friends, heading home after dark, courtesy of Paul and Kathy who had picked us and Donatella up on their way down the valley.

We'll definitely put this festa onto our calendar for next year and hope that slowly more veggie options appear alongside the ubiquitous Tuscan carne!

Saturday morning, Helen, Reggie and I headed out into the woods for a walk before it got too hot for Reggie and, after shutting him safely indoors with his breakfast, we escaped out to Sorana for a coffee and pastry at Sandrino's bar which is now open fully for the summer season.

After prying ourselves away from this pretty little spot on such a lovely morning, we filled the car with fuel and collected bread and some marinated anchovies for lunch from Samantha in the village.

We enjoyed a lazy lunch with one of the IPA beers I'd bought from Esselunga under the protection of the pergola as it was again 30 degrees. After a coffee, we headed indoors to try and tick another job from our list: ordering a chest freezer for the freezer-shaped hole in our utility/larder room.

I spent an hour  switching between the websites of three local stores, finally settling on not just a freezer but also a fridge - we'd recently decided, after seeing how the veg garden is going and the kinds of foods we're needing to store, that more fridge space would be incredibly useful and that we'd sacrifice a little freezer space to get it.

We were on the verge of ordering the goods for delivery, but then baulked at the almost €90 delivery cost so instead, after measuring the boot of our car, decided to go and collect them ourselves... one at a time.

So, we parked that job for Sunday morning and instead headed down to the veg garden for a few hours to lavish some weekly TLC upon it, weeding all the beds and fabric around it, watering thoroughly and harvesting the last of the mustard lettuce and rocket in the process, as well as planting out more climbing beans and potting on various bits and pieces in the polytunnel.

Third dead whipsnake this year caught up in the butterfly netting :-( .

Meticulous weeding by hand.

And amongst the brassicas.

A very tidy veg garden that made us feel very proud that evening.

A dog who loves his ball...

... and loves his garden.

Rocket harvest.

Mustard leaf pesto trial... a success!

Mr Toad out to gorge on wildlife again.

On Sunday we decided to work down at the gates as it was all starting to look a little unkempt. Not only that, but a couple of weeks ago a tree had fallen into the wood storage quarry just inside the gates which needed sorting out. That meant that an afternoon of cutting, chipping and strimming was in store, but not until after lunch.

First of all though we walked Reggie and, like yesterday, we headed out for coffee and pastries on the way to Montecatini to look around the white goods stores.

After a look around Euronics and noting the available options, we headed to 'Expert', the shop from which we had very nearly ordered the goods yesterday... only to find them closed! A bit of a disappointment, one that we probably should have foreseen, and one that curtailed that job for the day, this was becoming an elusive tick on the to-do list!

After lunch we were treated to half an hour of rolling thunder and a few minutes of rainfall, which kept us indoors temporarily, before the sun decided to come back out to play, so we loaded up the tractor with tools and headed off down the driveway for the afternoon.

The gates to Jurassic Park?

Chipper time!

Lovely compost in time for autumn we hope.

A full cubic metre of shreddings was our reward.

The second of six we need to fill.

After a very tiring almost five hours solid of back-breaking work - Helen strimming in front of the gates, behind the gates, the whole of the lower donkey track, inside the quarry and all along the drive, while I chipped all the branches and shrubbery that we'd cut between us - we headed home to clean up and celebrate a productive weekend at Numero 182, yet again feeling like we'd taken another forward step - and that surely deserved a glass or two of bubbles!

The evening felt worthy of bubbles.