With the Italian version of the Beast from the East due to hit this week, and overnight temperatures of -8C forecast, like all good Boy Scouts/Girl Guides/seasoned countryside dwellers, we did everything we could to prepare to see us through the cold snap - we had 75 litres of water in Jerry cans ready for toilet flushing and 18 litres of drinking water in bottles ready for drinking/cooking in case the water pipes froze, and we left the bathroom tap running overnight to give us as good a chance as possible of avoiding frozen pipes.
Thankfully, we awoke to running water on Monday morning, which meant Helen could exercise safe in the knowledge she could shower afterwards. The temperatures had indeed gone below freezing but, as yet, not caused us any problems, the week was still young however.
Thankfully, we awoke to running water on Monday morning, which meant Helen could exercise safe in the knowledge she could shower afterwards. The temperatures had indeed gone below freezing but, as yet, not caused us any problems, the week was still young however.
At the end of January we had been starting to feel as if we were slowly edging our way out of winter, there were helibores on the roadsides, snowdrops in the woods and crocuses starting to appear, not to mention the abundance of mimosa flowers around and about, so the idea of it getting this cold at this point in the year hadn't really occurred to us - although after such a mild and wet start to the year it came as little surprise.
Up until Sunday evening I had been expecting to be working on Monday over at Mara and Franco's house (on their apartment project) along with a guy named Andrea, an expert in traditional building materials who Franco had asked to come and impart some of his knowledge to us. This guy comes from the north of Italy (Lombardy) and happened to be in our area running a course in natural plasters over in Livorno, so he'd said that, for a fee,h e would tag on an extra day onto his trip to come and see us before heading home.
But when Sunday came, despite me having boarded up the windows and made a temporary door in the apartment so that Franco and Mara could seal and heat the rooms in the work area, the plan fell through - the weather was simply going to be way too cold to use traditional lime putty-based plaster and Franco capitulated, letting Andrea return home to come back to us another time in the year, currently planned for April.
When I headed out into the morning to run some errands I was mightily relieved that there was no work today - the strong icy winds cut through you like knife, completely inhospitable weather and as I drive to Montecatini I wondered how on earth we as a species had inhabited the cold expanses of the Frozen North.
Having finally managed to remove the steel blades from our woodchipper, I was ready to take them, along with the hand axe I bought last year, to be sharped over at what according to Franco is the last place in the area offering blade sharpening services.
Thankfully, I was able to park within a couple of blocks of the 'coltelleria' knifery, as the weather seemed even more Arctic here than up on our hill. I handed over the items to the lady in the shop who had no concerns about the axe sharpening, but looked as if she hadn't seen chipper blades before. I explained that they were for chipping green branches, she scribbled down my number and said they'd be ready in a week.
I trotted back to the car, conceding that just a hoody was probably a little optimistic today and headed home to light the fire and make lunch.
I spent the afternoon working on websites in the toasty office environment, it was over 20 degrees in there that afternoon, which made for a comfortable few hours until we took Reggie out for a walk in the cold!
On Tuesday morning it was -6.5°C when Helen went out with Reggie and the house temperature had dropped to 15.8°c but the water in the house was still running - we had lost water to the apartment, and our toilet was making suspicious noises when refilling, but given that we had thought we would already be without water, we claimed it as a victory.
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| Frost inside glass bottles. |
Wednesday was much the same as Tuesday - it was gloriously sunny but bitterly cold, the temperature reading -7.5C when we first got up. Feeling cold even in the sunshine is something we are have become completely unused to, so it was a strange feeling and we kept as much to the house as possible, feeding the log burners in both the living room and the office in order to wrestle the house up to a comfy temperature, reaching 17°C by lunchtime! Thankfully our tactic of leaving the bathroom tap running overnight seemed to have worked once again, and we still had running water in the house (although once again none in the apartment) - we thanked our lucky stars as we knew some of our friends in the valley hadn't been so fortunate and had been struggling without water since Monday.
A significant dumping of snow was forecast for Thursday, and the forecasters certainly didn't get it wrong this time. We awoke to a winter wonderland, with snow still falling. Reggie was delighted to get to play in the snow, Florence a lot less so - with the cold white stuff reaching her rather saggy undercarriage, it made her usual daily outing rather wet and uncomfortable and she soon retreated back into the warm and dry, I would say looking a little annoyed at the state of the outside world.
This was the biggest snowfall we've had since we moved here, and for the first time we were officially snowed in - while the roads looked clear, getting to the road was simply not an option - the 250m of our driveway was simply too slippery to negotiate, so there was no way we were going anywhere unless it was on foot.
We were happy to spend the day in the warmth of the house of course, especially when, come late morning, the snow turned to icy cold rain - deeply unpleasant.
Come Friday morning, all traces of snow had disappeared, washed away by the rain, and we were able to get out to do our weekly shopping as well as have our Italian lesson with Samantha in the afternoon (rescheduled from the previous day when she wouldn't have been able to reach the house safely in her car).
The rain that had washed the snow away continued into Saturday, and we spent the day listlessly trying to work out what we could usefully do with our time, eventually reaching the conclusion that there wasn't anything productive we could do in such filthy weather, and so we settled for spending the afternoon watching Harry Potter in Italian - a loose form of homework.
Sunday, on the other hand, was dry and bright, so we wasted no time in getting outside (after our morning coffee and pastry in Pescia, that is) and continuing our work on the tractor park. We felled a couple more trees, Helen stripped them of bark, dug a couple more holes and managed to erect the posts for the back edge of the frame as well as some cross pieces to hold everything stable. It's slow progress, but satisfying to know that everything we are doing is with material sourced from our own land.
We finished the week with an impromptu social evening - Mara had messaged us during the afternoon to ask if we'd like to go out with them for a pizza in the evening, so once we'd downed tools for the day we cleaned up and changed and met Mara and Franco at a spot just down the road where we jumped into their pickup and drove along the valley to the village of San Quirico. Turns out that the circolo (village club) in San Quirico also does pizzas - and very good ones at that. We had a really tasty meal, great pizzas, great company and a great way to draw the weekend to a close.
(This blog post covers the week 26 Feb - 2 March 2018.)
This was the biggest snowfall we've had since we moved here, and for the first time we were officially snowed in - while the roads looked clear, getting to the road was simply not an option - the 250m of our driveway was simply too slippery to negotiate, so there was no way we were going anywhere unless it was on foot.
We were happy to spend the day in the warmth of the house of course, especially when, come late morning, the snow turned to icy cold rain - deeply unpleasant.
The rain that had washed the snow away continued into Saturday, and we spent the day listlessly trying to work out what we could usefully do with our time, eventually reaching the conclusion that there wasn't anything productive we could do in such filthy weather, and so we settled for spending the afternoon watching Harry Potter in Italian - a loose form of homework.
Sunday, on the other hand, was dry and bright, so we wasted no time in getting outside (after our morning coffee and pastry in Pescia, that is) and continuing our work on the tractor park. We felled a couple more trees, Helen stripped them of bark, dug a couple more holes and managed to erect the posts for the back edge of the frame as well as some cross pieces to hold everything stable. It's slow progress, but satisfying to know that everything we are doing is with material sourced from our own land.
We finished the week with an impromptu social evening - Mara had messaged us during the afternoon to ask if we'd like to go out with them for a pizza in the evening, so once we'd downed tools for the day we cleaned up and changed and met Mara and Franco at a spot just down the road where we jumped into their pickup and drove along the valley to the village of San Quirico. Turns out that the circolo (village club) in San Quirico also does pizzas - and very good ones at that. We had a really tasty meal, great pizzas, great company and a great way to draw the weekend to a close.
(This blog post covers the week 26 Feb - 2 March 2018.)
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