Put another log on

After a busy week and the excitement of our first olive pressing it was back to something approaching 'normal' for the most part of this week.

Monday morning, however, we first had to head in Pistoia to try out the newly built hospital. Nothing to be too alarmed about, just a routine examination, but for which there hadn't been any appointments available in Pescia.

It was something of a revelation all told - the hospital was signposted from the autostrada and not very far from the exit, was easy to get into, we found a parking space easily, and the parking didn't cost the earth either.

Upon arriving inside we were greeted by a wall of signage for the various departments housed inside the building, but couldn't see what we needed so approached the information desk to be told to head for 'accetazione' just down the corridor.

We found a rather full waiting room and a bank of desks behind screens, not unlike a post office. Just as our hearts were starting to sink at the sight of so many people, we were greeted by one of two young employees who were there to help people find their way around the system - using a touch screen she printed us a ticket for our turn and then showed us the machine to pay for the appointment.

We only had to wait ten minutes for our turn to roll around - despite the large number of people in the waiting room, the system proved to be satisfyingly efficient and a couple of ink stamps and staples later we were sent off to "waiting area number 18" with another numbered ticket. On arrival at the waiting area we found a screen displaying the numbers, showing whose turn was next and in which consulting room - a bit like a screen in the airport with flight departures listed.

Not only did this put the chaos at the old hospital in Pescia to shame (where we've often waited for ages not even knowing if we're in the right place and there being nobody around to ask) but also any hospital in the UK that either of us has had the pleasure of frequenting.

There was a wait of about 20 minutes then before being called, during which time Helen noticed a guy behind me with some odd English written across his chest on his sweatshirt (something that we see fairly often - it seems some of the cheaper fashion houses don't necessarily always do their homework before printing supposedly snappy English phrases on their garments), I turned to read it to see that it was Paolo, the gardener from the pool house that I had been looking after this summer.

We chatted for ten or fifteen minutes about various things, but of course the conversation started with the fiasco that had led to me handing in my notice at the pool house. To my relief, Paolo said he had no idea how either Samantha (who had done the job before me) or I had managed to last a full season working in the role that found us stuck forever in the middle between the very particular owner of the house and the holiday makers who were paying a substantial amount to rent it.

This was good to hear as, despite being comfortable with my decision to quit, there had still remained a bit of doubt as to whether I had given in too soon - now my mind is at rest!

We were soon on our way back to Pescia after a positive experience with the hospital, somewhere that as we get older we shall no doubt need to visit more often.

We stopped off for a late breakfast on our way back into Pescia - having not known how bad the traffic would be on the autostrada early in the morning, we had missed breakfast at the normal time, and once in the hospital there was no popping out for a coffee in case the appointment came around quicker than expected, so it was a much needed caffeine fix by the time we finally got it at close to 11am! We also stopped off at one of the agricultural shops on the outskirts of Pescia to buy a nice new shiny stainless steel oil container for our precious olive oil as well as a few smaller bottles for decanting into.

It was pretty much lunchtime by the time we got back, so Helen headed into the office to make up for a lost morning, while I sterilised the new 'fusto' and bottles for the oil and then transferred the lot from what had turned out to be a leaky plastic container into its new home.

On Tuesday morning we both headed up the valley to help with day one of our friends Paul and Kathy's olive harvest.

Last year we had also spent a day helping with Paul & Kathy's harvest, and had taken Reggie with us, but this time Helen put her foot down and decided that, for the sake of the olive nets and the pickers, Reggie would be staying at home and out of trouble. Helen had already walked him early that morning so we knew he would be fine for a few hours at home until Helen went back after lunch.

We arrived at the Edwards' property to find the harvesting underway: Paul and Kathy had been up and at it since early morning, David and Sarah were also already there as well as Donatella and an Australian couple from Lanciole, friends of Paul and Kathy's, who had wanted to join in.

The nine of us picked all morning with the aid of the air compressor powered olive shakers, kind of like a pair of clapping hands with fingers spread apart.

The tickle stick

This bit of kit significantly speeds up the harvesting time, and by lunchtime we had harvested around 170kg of fruit already.

As always Kathy put on an amazing spread for us: soup, cheese board, cured meat board, and two delicious different pasta dishes. It was the sort of lunch that could easily have stretched on until dusk, and part of what makes the olive picking such an enjoyable event, but with trees waiting to be picked, we had to call our lazy lunch to an end, and it was back to the trees for the afternoon and back to office work for Helen, who drove herself home, while I stayed and picked for another couple of hours before getting a lift back with Dave and Sarah.

The next morning we got a message from Kathy to say that we had between us picked around 220kg - a great start to their harvest especially after some really strong winds last week that had resulted in a lot of windfall - it now looked as if they might equal last year's 380kg harvest after all.

Wednesday morning we had our usual Italian lesson with Johnny at our house with Dave and Sarah in which we re-addressed the difference between 'gia' (already) 'appena' (just) and ancora (still, yet).

After the lesson and lunch Helen went to work in the office while I sat at the computer opposite to make a start on a detailed quote for Mara and Franco's apartment renovation.

After an enjoyable dinner at their house on Monday evening, and another lengthy discussion while poring over the plans I had drawn and printed, I now had enough info to give them an idea of costs, but with my quoting muscle not having really been stretched since arriving here in Italy, it took some time to warm up and it took me the remainder of the day at the computer to get the quote 80% finished.

Thursday was a bit of a washout, as while Helen worked at her computer all morning I crawled back to bed just an hour after getting up and slept until 12:30, having something of a thyroidy relapse out of the blue.

After lunch Samantha arrived for our lesson with a chunk of prosciutto for Reggie and we spent a couple of hours in front of the fire correcting our translations that we had done as homework.

There had been many hands back up at Paul and Kathy's in Castlevecchio on Thursday to continue with the harvest, including a couple of friends of theirs from England who had come over to help out with the harvest, so it wasn't a huge surprise to find out that by the end of the day their harvest was all but finished - a whole day ahead of schedule - and that they had harvested a bumper 420kg this year (a quantity we can only dream of)! Just imagine the yield had the winds not come along and done its dirty work the week before!

On Friday morning, while Helen worked, I messed around with the TV aerial in the vain hope of restoring some of the recently disappeared TV channels. Each time I move the aerial position the TV requires a complete re-tune, which takes five or ten minutes, before I can see if I've improved the situation, so the morning passed by like this with little of interest in between - although happily, the one channel in particular that we were missing came back later that morning (while others remained missing in action).

After lunch we both headed into Pescia to do the weekly food shopping before going home to unpack and walk Reggie in the woods before the start of the rain that was forecast.

On Saturday morning, after Reggie had had his walk we escaped into Pescia for coffee and pastries before deciding on an impromptu walk through the village of Collodi.

We have visited Collodi numerous times but never made it beyond the bottom of the village, its rows of stalls selling Pinocchio paraphernalia (Carlo Collodi, author of The Adventures of Pinocchio, spent much of his childhood in Collodi, which was his mother's home town, and it is from this village that he took his pen name - hence the predilection for all things Pinocchio in this area, such as terrifying 10ft statues looming over you at all the roundabouts and Pinocchio on everything from keyrings to tea towels to fridge magnets...) and its imposing Villa Garzoni. Today, avoiding all things Pinocchio, we flanked the impressive Villa Garzoni and walked our way up and up through the narrow and incredibly steep village, all the way up to the church and fort at the very top of the village, a village that from a distance snakes its way up along the ridge behind the villa.

At the top, we were rewarded with impressive views and a deafening peal of bells from the church tower that rang out as we arrived - almost as if to announce to the world that someone else had made it to the top! With the sound of the bells still ringing in our ears we cautiously made our way back down the steep streets, thankful that the forecast rain had not yet arrived (we would certainly have been sliding down if the stones had been wet!), and headed home for a bit of lunch followed by a bit of work in the veg garden.

Thanks to a combination of factors this summer, I had turned my back on the veg garden in favour of getting some other jobs done around the house. Not only was the weather too hot to be outside over the summer, but the voles destroying almost half what we planted, the hail ripping the few plants that had survived the voles to shreds, and the deer destroying our precious sweet potato plants was all too much to bear and I could feel my mood starting to darken each time I thought about it, so I turned my back on it for everyone's sake.

We still harvested plenty from the garden as Helen has been going down to pick regularly, so all was not lost, but what we have lost are the beautiful clean, tidy beds that we had maintained so perfectly until mid-summer. Since we had a bag full of garlic ready to plant, we decided that it was time to go and clear these beds ready for winter, and to get the garlic in the ground.

What a mess it was down there! We toiled for about three hours and still felt as if we'd barely made a dent, finally throwing the towel in as the light faded so that Reggie could have another walk before yet more rain that was forecast.

The calendula flowers are still going strong, adding a stunning splash of colour to the winter veg-garden-scape.

Some of the canes had started sprouting in the ground!

What a mess! :-/

On Sunday we afforded ourselves a lie-in, which was aided by the pouring rain that had started up in the early hours - why is it bed feels that much more comfortable when you can hear rain and wind outside?

By mid-morning the rain had gone and the skies were clearing, so we walked Reggie and headed out for coffee again before returning home late morning.

After lunch we decided, after much deliberation, not to return to the veg garden (a decision helped in no small part by the very cold wind outside) and instead to make a start on some Christmas shopping, but not before finishing Reggie's new "snuffle mat" - a mat designed to encourage Reggie's natural sniffing/snuffling behaviour and engage his mind in sniffing out treats/his dinner. The mat took one pair of (ripped) trousers, two gym vests (no longer worn), half a fleece dog blanket (ripped), two thirds of a blanket (not used), four of my t-shirts (with holes in them) and 3 of Helen's tops (also with holes in them/not used) to create, not to mention the hours of work spent cutting and threading the strips of material through the mat.

Thankfully Reggie loves his new toy and with biscuits hidden amongst it he spent quite a while snuffling around in it, as was the response we hoped for.

We are going to have to hide it from him when not in use, though, as he very quickly worked out that he also loves to tear off the strips of fabric with his teeth, so to save the hours of work very quickly going to waste, this will be a toy for meal times and/or a distraction on a rainy day only!

The weather was forecast to drop below freezing for the first time this winter on Sunday evening, and we watched as our weather station lost a degree of temperature every 20 minutes or so. To keep the house nice and warm we had lit the fire at lunchtime, and it ticked over nicely, keeping the living room at just over 20 degrees - we've realised it's important to stay on the ball in cold spells like this and make sure we keep the house toasty by keeping on top of the fire, lighting it nice and early and making sure it keeps ticking over through the day so that the temperature of the house stays nice and constant - easier said than done, however, when the it isn't controlled by a timer or thermostat!! Which reminds me... time to put another log on the fire...!