A weekend of two halves

We said last weekend that we'd come to the conclusion that weekend days work best if we split them 50:50 and do something more relaxing and enjoyable in the morning, followed by something more 'worky' in the afternoon. Well, this weekend the 50:50 split was a little different, with the whole of Saturday spent sightseeing (bar a bit of lawn mowing)... which meant that the whole of today was earmarked for work. Hard, back-breaking work.

Stuart got up a little before me this morning and went downstairs to placate the cats with a bowl of biscuits each. As lovely as it is to wake up with a little furry face, well, in your face, it's not easy to sleep through the little prods and nudges they give you (sometimes claws in, sometimes claws out) in an attempt to get their breakfast, so I was grateful for another 45 minutes of undisturbed snoozing before dragging myself out of bed as well.

We had breakfast on the patio, looking over the collection of maps and walking/biking guides we'd picked up on our afternoon out in Abetone yesterday, and were excited to find that there are lots of walks in the area marked on the map, including several from very close to our house (we always suspected this was the case, but it was nice to see them marked on an official walking guide) - there are also some interesting-looking cycle routes, which Stuart has his eye on and I'd love to do to, if I can ever re-discover my cycling confidence (although I've a feeling that might not be until I've found myself a mountain bike/touring bike).

Anyhow, once breakfast had been dispatched, there was only one thing for it: suit and boot up and head for the olive tiers.

I'm afraid to say that our day doesn't really get any more interesting than that. We spent a couple of hours strimming and trimming and tidying before lunch, stopped for lunch (bread, cheese, cured meat), then spent another 3.5 hours strimming, trimming and tidying before exhaustion and frustration got the better of us.

By the end of the day you could be mistaken for thinking that I had been in a fight with a sabred-toothed tiger. My arms, hands AND legs are covered not only in bites (insect bites, that is), but also in scratches from the brambles and the acacia trees.

I'm sorry to say that the building site gloves that have stood Stuart in such good stead for all of his building-related tasks in the UK are not up to the job of handling acacia trees. We have been using TraffiGlove Red (cut level 1) as supplied by SE Workwear in Abingdon, but I think we need to upgrade to something tougher (Ady, maybe you could send us an emergency aid pack including some green ones for cut level 3?!! :-) EVERY time I attempted to move a cut branch of acacia, I seemed to stab myself through the gloves, drawing blood on several occasions.

For those who are not so familiar with acacia trees, this is the vicious state of their stems/branches:

The giraffe has a desensitized tongue and is able to strip leaves from the thorny branches and crush the thorns with its molars. 

It'll all be fine once our giraffe arrives....

My battered and bruised appearance was not helped by the fact that, when we went exploring higher up the tiers, where things get *REALLY* overgrown, I clambered through some vegetation that seemed to attack me, leaving one arm stinging and burning, with strange, blistery-burn-like marks all over it. (We're in the process of consulting Dad over what it could have been that took such an aversion to me.)

Climbing up the tiers was quite depressing. While we've been working hard on tidying all the tiers you can see from the house, the land goes on quite a bit higher (supposedly there is even some flatter land at the top, although we have yet to discover anything that could be construed as 'flat'). The land beyond what looks like the topmost tier from the point of view of the house is incredibly overgrown. While the upper tiers have been a struggle to clear of acacia and bramble, the land beyond them (which includes some olive trees, so we really need to clear it to reach them) really is like a jungle. It's going to take quite some manpower AND power-tool power to get that sorted, and we just have to accept that it's a job that we won't be able to accomplish quickly.

Today's before and after shots of the upper tiers go something like this:

Before.

After.

Sometimes it really goes against the grain to cut down the plants that are growing naturally on the tiers. There are some lovely wild flowers, and we often come across flattened areas which look very much like they've been used by something (deer?) for sleeping. It seems mean to disrupt their surrounding, and wrong to cut down the interesting vegetation, but it has to be done. One thing I haven't had the heart to chop down are the stunning lilies growing on the upper tiers:

Beautiful lilies.

They seem to be growing wild.

As ever, the higher we get up the terraces, the better the view back towards the valley seems to become:

Each terrace up affords a better view.

We know that we have done a lot of hard work - the lower tiers have been treated to Stuart's fastidious strimming and tidying and look beautifully neat (in fact, they look as if they've been given a buzz cut), while my less neat clearing towards the top has resulted in us actually being able to see the outline of the higher tiers - they will eventually be subjected to the buzz cut as well. However, it still seems like there's an enormous mountain to climb, and looking back up at the tiers from the house, we sometimes find ourselves doubting the amount we have actually done. I therefore decided to do a compare-and-contrast exercise.

The picture below is looking up at the tiers on day 15 (4 weeks ago - the day our furniture arrived!) and the picture beneath that is looking up at them today. Regardless of which you believe is the prettier picture (the 'before' picture certainly has a bluer sky, and you might find the lush green of the vegetation more attractive than the brown colour of the cut grass), today's does show some progress towards where we are aiming - and some of the olive trees you can see on the upper tiers weren't even visible before.

Four weeks ago.

Today.

So that's your update for today - we're both tired, sore and aching and looking forward to an hour of downtime with some TV before heading to bed.

Buonanotte.

Setting the record straight!

So, to set the record straight, yes, that was me asleep on the sofa last night. Never before have I fallen asleep like that - I don't even remember it happening. Anyway, that is not in dispute. I had, however, written a considerable amount of a blog post before narcolepsy took hold. What happened to it is anyone's guess - I always write my posts on my tablet, and for some reason it had not auto-saved while writing, so Helen couldn't pick up where I'd 'left off' last night. Brownie points to her for having managed to write that entire post after I had crashed out - it took all the effort I could muster just to crawl upstairs and brush my teeth before climbing into bed (and I don't even mind admitting that I gave into my rebellious side and switched off the electric toothbrush BEFORE it had finished its three-minute cycle).

Talking of cycle, I rose at half past six this morning - early, if not quite as early as the cats would have liked, but their persistence paid off in the end, and while I could probably have stuck it out for an hour longer, I decided to get up and give them their breakfast in the hopes that they would stay downstairs with me, leaving Helen to sleep some more (after all, I had gone to bed at around 9pm, and Helen didn't make it to bed for another two hours after having to rewrite the entire blog post, so I figured she deserved a little extra sleep to catch up).

Anyway, back to cycling: I was still feeling a little groggy, but by 7.45am I had mustered the enthusiasm to go for a bike ride. I'd planned a new route online yesterday, heading for the first time through Pescia. It was only 8.5 miles long, but I wasn't sure what kind of climbing I would need to do - and besides, I'm simply working on getting into a regular routine at this point, so longer rides will have to wait for weekends once I've got Helen back on the tarmac.

It's a nice steady descent all the way into Pescia for three miles - those three miles promised to be a little less fun in reverse, but still nothing compared to the climbs I've done recently. Once through Pescia, I turned left to cross the river and started to climb up towards the village of Querceta. When driving towards Pescia from the autostrada, you can see a village perched on the ridge to the right of and overlooking Pescia - there is a very prominent large, red house/villa, which makes it something of a landmark (for us at least). Anyway, that is where I imagined my cycle route was going to take me. It was a fairly short, but really quite steep climb - at one point I ran out of gears and had to get out of the saddle just to keep moving! It was only short though, and once up the hill there there were some lovely views back across Pescia with the Duomo in the foreground. However, the place with the red villa was in the next village up, so I'll have to amend the route for next time.

Pescia and its duomo.

Pescia

After a short descent, I crossed the river to the north of Pescia and was soon on the gradual climb back up towards Pietrabuona - just outside of which I was overtaken by the first of the day's cycle clubs heading up into the hills beyond our house. They came past me fairly easily, but I managed get a snap of them before they got too far away. I'm sure they'd have found it harder to overtake me had I not already done 6-7 miles and besides, they were in a peloton and that's an unfair advantage (at least, that's what I'm telling myself to make myself feel better).

A bit blurry, but I was going fast (although they were going faster).

My gears needed tweaking when I got back - the chain was rubbing the derailleur in some gears - so I put the bike in its workstand and, with a cup of tea, tinkered with it for 15 minutes as the morning warmed up, It really is beautiful cycling weather here early in the morning, I must get back into my early morning routine and make the most of it.

By the time I'd finished sorting my gears out, Helen had finished her own daily workout session, so after a shower and putting some washing on the line we sat together on the patio, having a late and leisurely breakfast in the warmth of the morning sun.

After lunch today, we were torn between what we felt we ought to do and what we felt like doing. After much deliberation, you'll be pleased to hear that the rest of this post isn't (for once) full of strimming,  language issues or trips to the bank or supermarket!

We jumped into the car and headed out - we'd talked about revisiting some of our old haunts further south versus places nearer to us that we hadn't yet explored. The latter won, I think partly because deep down we knew it was more helpful by means of research for our holiday business (and in no small part because we knew more tourists awaited us further south).

Decision made, we headed north towards Abetone to see what ski resorts offered during the summer months (and to recce the cycling terrain of course, in case one day I get further than Vellano). Having looked at the route on Google Maps, we had two options from here: one was to head towards Vellano and beyond, and the other was to take the Sorana road - a road used by the lorries that visit the numerous paper mills along the valley. Google said the latter was ten minutes shorter (at 1 hour 15 minutes) and the map suggested that the road was somewhat straighter, so was the option that got our vote.

It was a twisty-turny route to say the least, but interesting nevertheless and with plenty of picturesque views along the way. Somewhere about halfway along the route before we joined the 'main' road from Pistoia to Abetone, the scenery changed: the woods felt other-worldly, and we soon came across a large camp/caravan/motorhome site amongst the trees, complete with small chapel. I say 'large' campsite, but there a were only half a dozen motor homes there, as well as the ubiquitous fruit van selling its wares, a bar and alimentari - which all seemed a bit weird considering the remote road we'd been climbing for half an hour.

Shortly after we passed a sign saying:

Standing on the 44th line of latitude.

We deduced that we had just driven across the line of 44 degrees of latitude. It was so strangely intriguing that we had to stop for a photo - crossing this imaginary line gave you a real sense of your place on this globe of ours.

As we got close to the main road from Pistoia, things took a turn for the unexpected again - the villages became more civilised (with bars, restaurants, pharmacies, ATMs...) and inhabited. That was not what we had expected at all after driving along such twisty roads for so long, all the time gaining altitude - but I guess the relatively easy road link with Pistoia makes all the difference. Anyway, we passed through many a small village, all dotted with restaurants, bars, post offices, alimentaris and all manner of civilized establishments. They were all very pretty too, with a nice feel to them, some of which I'm sure we'll be revisiting.

Cutigliano

Piteglio

Within 45 minutes of leaving home, we felt like we were driving through another country, such was the difference in scenery, architecture and so on. As we neared the ski resort itself, things got a bit more tacky - not in a bad way, it just felt a bit cheaper and more homogenised, and I think we could have been in any one of a number of resorts set up for skiing.

Abetone's never going to win any prettiest-village prizes, but looks much like any other ski resort. Probably more attractive when covered in snow.

Patches of snow on the mountains behind.

On entering the centre of town we came across trucks and trailers everywhere, all emblazoned with Italian livery and the main central car park had been turned into a small 'village'. It turns out that tomorrow is some sort of Italian youth off road biking event. The bikes were definitely an off road variety, but not at all like the motocross ones we have in the UK. They had strange seats that were very low down and large rear tyres. I suspected the seat was for a lower centre of gravity which, combined with the large rear tyre, meant they must be hill climbing bikes. Sure enough, as we took in a view of the mountainside that has most of the ski slopes on, we could see tracks on the ski runs that bikes were working their way up! 

Ski slopes - off-road bikes were tearing up and down them!

Notice the patches of snow still at the top of the mountain - Abetone is as 1400m and it was definitely colder here, as well as very hard to believe that only a couple of hours previously Helen had been sweating profusely having mowed the lawn.

After a little walk around to get our bearings, we bought ice creams and sat on a bench overlooking the mountains (or what we could see of them - a large bank of cloud was covering the tops of most of them, somewhat spoiling the view!) before hopping in the car to head for Pescia - we had lemons to look at!

Helen had cioccolato and mirtilla; I had bacio and pistacio.

Sadly the clouds covered the mountain tops. It was chilly too!!

On the return journey, we opted for the route past Vellano - it looked a little longer (and that's certainly what Google Maps would have us believe), but at least we would have tried both routes. As it happens, Google Maps doesn't know what it's talking about!! I couldn't tell you how long the drive was, as we stopped so many times to take photographs - pretty hilltop towns, amazing views of the massive plains around Pescia, this route had it all! Not only that, but it was actually a better, wider road, and before we knew it we were rounding a bend into Vellano then were passing the end of our driveway heading for Pescia (we had to summon up a fair amount of willpower to drive past our house - it had been a long afternoon and it would have been all too easy to just head home and relax on the patio!).

I knew from my haircut adventure last week, and chatting as best I could to my new friend Nello, the artisan barber, that the lemon exhibition being put on tonight by the Oscar Tintori dynasty was somewhere near the Duomo in town, so we drove through that part of town with our eyes peeled for any signs of lemons or people looking like they were about to go and look at lemons. Sure enough, an old convent(?) had its doors open with two lemon trees placed just inside the entrance. We quickly ditched the car and walked back to peep our head in and see what was going on. On entering, we were met with the sight of all sorts of citrus trees placed around a pretty central courtyard in which throngs of very well dressed people were chatting, milling about, and wandering around, with very civilised background music being played by a violinist and a harpist.

Pretty courtyard, well dressed folk, and lots of lemons!

Couldn't believe the weather and *temperature* difference between here and the mountain tops!

We ambled around, reading about the different species of lemon (and other citrus plants) and their hybrids and their history. Apparently, all but one citrus varieties come from Asia, the other from the Carribean - who knew!?

Citrus fest!!!

In the corridor encircling the courtyard there was a display of a quite bizarre series of photographs of ballet students in the grounds of some agricultural building (I don't mean a corrugated shed, but a huge villa with a cypress lined driveway and sculptures in the grounds...). We found the displays about botanical art in the churches of Pescia more interesting (highlighting the flora that appears in the various religious paintings in the churches of the area) - however, we were feeling rather frazzled by this point, so we took a few snaps of the notice boards and we'll make use of the high res DSLR shots to read and translate them when we have some time.

Feeling rather pleased with ourselves that we had actually been to an event that seemed exclusively attended by locals (or at least Italians), and that we hadn't seen advertised anywhere, so only knew about it via the barber, we finally headed for home to take in the last half hour of sunshine on the patio.

When the last of the sun had disappeared behind the ridge opposite, we headed indoors to blog and consider dinner, while Lucca finally ventured downstairs from the safety of his hiding place under our bed and told me in no uncertain terms that he wanted brushing by rubbing his head on said brush that was waiting for him on the arm of the sofa.

All tuckered out

So today's blog post was meant to be brought to you by my husband. I left him starting the blog in the living room while I went into the office to check emails and do a couple of things. When I went back in, this is what I found:

Ah. That'd be no blog writing tonight then...

This would partly be due to the couple of beers and glass of wine had with dinner, but far more to do with the fact that both Stuart and I had little to no sleep last night thanks to our new arrivals.

We left you hanging last night as we were waiting for the arrival of Lucca and Florence. We eventually managed to find out from the couriers (who had been unexpectedly delayed in Nice) that they were planning to book themselves into a hotel just off the autostrade in Altopascio and that they would be arriving at around 10pm. We therefore set off from the house at around 9.30pm.

It struck us as odd that this was actually the first time we have been out of the house after dark since we moved here! We've never, until now, driven down our drive in the dark or driven along most of the familiar roads after dark. We noticed how different things look at night time, and how both Pescia and some of the smaller hamlets and villages we pass through on the the way to Altopascio seemed to be buzzing with nightlife (not bars and clubs, you understand, but people meeting and greeting at trattorias, people sitting on the pavement outside gelaterias, cyclists meeting up for a chat and a coffee, older folk enjoying a drink outside a bar... and so on).

Anyway, with a quick emergency stop for a refuel (why does the low fuel indicator always decide to beep alarmingly at the most inconvenient times?!), we arrived at the hotel at 9.58pm. We couldn't see any sign of any UK-plated vehicles in the car park, or anything large enough to carry animals in it, so assumed we had arrived first, and sat and waited. We didn't have to wait long, as no more than four minutes later we spotted a white transit van slowing to turn into the hotel car park - with baited breath we waited until we could see a bit more and spotted the UK number plates. The excitement of knowing our little cats were in that van was giddying!

Once the van had parked up we went to meet its occupants - Julia and Martin. Julia headed  into the hotel to check in while Martin helped us with the cats and their luggage. It was quite surreal when he slid back the side door of the van to reveal a large bank of animal cages, only one of which was occupied and had two VERY familiar faces poking through the bars looking very inquisitive. My heart melted to see them!!

After handing over their luggage (a small bag of bits and pieces Mum and Dad had sent with them) and paperwork, Martin went into the back of the van to put the cats into their carry boxes. He did this alone (we've never managed to do it single-handed!) and we could hear him talking gently to the cats all the time - he was lovely with them, and he and Julia clearly both have a real affinity for animals. In a jiffy, the two cats were in their separate carry boxes and handed over to us for securing in our car.

We had a brief chat with Martin and Julia - they'd had a very long day and were keen to get some dinner and rest. The next morning they were due to drive to Ancona on the East coast of Italy to get a ferry to Greece, where they were due to collect some animals from Athens, some more from another mainland city in Greece, then one from one of the Greek islands before heading back through Europe and making their way to the UK. They clearly love animals, and I can see that reuniting animals safely with their families is a lovely thing to do, but I can't imagine having the enormous burden of responsibility of having to care for other people's beloved pets in transit in foreign countries. The thought of the responsibility makes me shudder!

Anyway, having expressed our gratitude and wished Martin and Julia a good evening and safe onwards journey, we got back in the car to greet these two in the back:

Initially, they turned their backs on us and did some fairly loud complaining, but after about five minutes they settled down and were very quiet (clearly 4 days in a transit van travelling through Europe has de-sensitised them!).

After about 20 minutes of driving, we were trundling down our drive in the dark - about halfway along we came across a female/young deer standing in the drive, which ran off up into the trees when the headlights shone on it. (That made two deer sightings for me in one day with my stag encounter earlier in the morning!)

The minute we got in the house (and secured the doors), we opened up the carry boxes and both cats walked straight out, bold as you like - no funny business with not wanting to leave the 'safety' of their boxes (as had been the case when we took them to Mum and Dad's initially), and no darting straight for the smallest, darkest, safest spot they could find. Instead, they seemed to take it all in their stride and tentatively started walking around sniffing every possible item and surface they came across.

It almost seemed as if they were happy to be with us and could maybe even recognise some familiar smells amongst the furniture and belongings.

It wasn't long before they ventured upstairs - that was a bit too much at first, and there were some plaintiful miaows when they got scared all alone up there, but all in all they seemed happy to explore.

Florence steps cautiously out.

Florence thinks about going upstairs.

Lucca chooses to start with just sniffing the stairs.

We decided it would be unfair to go straight to bed, so we stayed up with them until a little after midnight.

We retired to bed, unsure how peaceful the night would be... and it turned out we were right to be dubious about the quality of sleep we could expect. Between our own heads buzzing at the thought that the cats were HERE with us in the house, and the cats themselves exploring, knocking things over, jumping on and off the bed, miaowing, jumping on and off the windowsills, etc. we barely slept. I felt as if I'd barely managed to grab as much as 5 minutes sleep all night and in the end I got up at 5.30am because I felt as if I could go one of two ways: either get up now, or fall deeply asleep and not wake until halfway through the morning.

I dressed as quietly as I could, and let myself out through the security door via the man-cave, set myself up on the turbo trainer and felt slightly pleased with myself to be starting my day's workout before 6am! It was only about 15 minutes later that Stuart also got up - the cats were transfixed by watching the birds through the bedroom windows but couldn't help but give a running commentary of miaows as they did so, thus making it impossible for Stuart to sleep. (All of the sights and sounds here are new to the cats, and the windows present a tantalising glimpse of what is out there: the windows are wide open to the fresh air, but as they are covered with anti-fly mesh, they stop animals, large and small, being able to get in or out!)

And so getting up at 5.30-6am after approximately 5 minutes sleep all night is how we both came to be so tired today (for the record, my eyelids are heavy and my bed is calling, but I felt duty bound to get this update out before heading for the land of nod!).

Of course, the cats had had a long, busy night (and to be fair, I imagine they haven't had much in the way of quality rest over the last few days with all of their travelling) and were completely tuckered out this morning:

Florence all tuckered out.

Lucca all tuckered out.

Our own day today consisted of attempting to do some work this morning - which was tough in equal measures due to extreme sleepiness (possibly caused by a poor night's sleep?!) and to wanting to follow the cats round the house watching them explore and seeing what they would do next.

Having been up so very early this morning, we were both ready for an early lunch, so snuck outside with our tomato bruschette in a military-style covert operation so as not to alert the cats to the fact that we were opening the door to the big outside world!

After lunch it was back to the office for some more work - Stuart was office-bound today as well, doing some of our long-overdue filing and fixing some issues with his computer.

I was grateful for the distraction when the phone rang at around 2pm and I answered it to hear the lovely sound of Allison's voice at the other end. We had a lovely, long chat and catch up. It was great to talk to her, to hear all her news and just to while the time away in the same way as we would if we were still sitting opposite each other at our desks.

Come 4.30pm, I'd really had enough for the day, and Stuart said his brain was feeling fried too, so we decided to head into town to do the supermarket shopping, visit the post office to attempt to claim a parcel that we think had been left there for Stuart, and probably also have a quick Friday night stop off at our new local, Bar Pulter.

We headed for the post office first. Stuart had received a phone call yesterday lunchtime, which he understood to be either the postman or a delivery person saying they had a package for him and asking him what he wanted them to do with it. He was unclear as to what the options were other than 'leave a the post office', so he opted for that one and was met with a 'va bene' from the person on the other end of the phone. However, there was no delivery card or anything like that, so it was simply a matter of asking if there was a parcel at the post office.

The man in the post office seemed friendly and helpful, but had nothing for us. We think he might have suggested we try another post office branch (we *think* there is another, smaller one in town), but he said quite a lot that we simply didn't understand. Another frustrating setback!

We decided to go to Bar Pulter next, and ease our worries with a sit down, relax and a beer. After a while, we decided that we couldn't really face the supermarket, and that we quite fancied a pizza for dinner, so when we finished our drinks we headed back to the car via a pizzeria and went home, hot pizzas on laps, in time to sit out on the patio and eat dinner BEFORE 7pm (that never seems to happen!).

It was after dinner that we came indoors for Stuart to start writing this blog post and I came to check on some emails... so this is where we ended up with Stuart AND both cats all tuckered out, and me feeling very much on the way to being in the same state.

As ever, I am thrilled that it is the weekend again - the sense of relief of not feeling pressured to do any paid work is wonderfully liberating. We have a number of potential activities planned - we need to go back to Mercatone Uno to find out where on earth the kitchen for the apartment is (which is starting to become a bit of a concern) and also to order some furniture for the apartment living room if it is going to have as long a lead time as the kitchen. We also know that there is something going on in town where Oscar Tintori (the lemon specialist) is having a lemon exhibition?/display?/demonstration? between 4pm and 10pm, and we know that in the nearby town of Collodi there are various events going on, including fireworks and music at 11pm (which sounds great in theory, but whether we manage to stay awake long enough to go out at that time is another matter!).

With all that in the offing, I'm heading to bed now.... I just hope the cats sleep through the night tonight!

Waiting, waiting...

Today has been a waiting game, and we are still, well, waiting.

The latest ETA on our furry friends' arrival is around 9.30pm - but we need to go and meet them in a village about 20 mins drive from here. So since we need to head out soon, and will probably be back quite late, this is just a short post with a promise of a longer update tomorrow.

We received an email from the couriers this morning to say that they hoped to be with us at around 6pm this evening - but at about 4.20pm they called to let us know they had been delayed with a puncture in Nice and were just having the wheel changed (in Nice), hence the rather late delivery/pick up this evening. The poor cats will be so very fed up.

So, before I leave you until tomorrow, just a quick nature-watch update: I'd dragged myself out of bed to go and exercise this morning and was feeling particularly unmotivated and grumpy, but as I approached the end of the drive on my first run up it I saw a beautiful majestic stag standing at the end of the drive! He scarpered into the trees as soon as he saw me. I tried to convince myself that it had been worth getting out of bed just for that! I've seen plenty of dogs, squirrels, ducks and pigeons on my Bootfitness sessions in the park in Abingdon, but a stag is a somewhat different exercise buddy.

Wish us luck with bringing the cats to their new home!

Wildlife Wednesday

We were both having a lovely night's sleep last night, until around 4am, when we were rudely awakened by a very vocal creature outside in our garden making what can only be described as very shrill squeaking noises. Stuart was convinced it was a "monkey bird" because it squeaked like a monkey, and he was sure that it had "flown" over the house from one side of the garden to the other (hmmm). I was adamant it was the same noise as we were hearing a few nights ago and was the squeaking of a muntjac deer (that simply ran from one side of the garden to the other). Anyway, the squeaking was VERY loud, VERY shrill, and VERY persistent, and before long, it was joined by the hooting of an owl or two. This morning, I looked up the YouTube clip of a muntjac deer that we'd found the other day, and after playing it to him, Stuart conceded that perhaps it had been a deer rather than the mythical monkey-bird after all. The noise was almost identical to the squeaking in this clip, if you're interested. (Now imagine trying to sleep through that.)

Consequently, we were not quite as rested as we probably should have been when the alarm clock went off this morning. I dragged myself out of bed at 6.45am to go and run around outside, and shortly afterwards I was met on the drive by Stuart, all Lycra-d up wheeling his bike along the drive to head off up the valley. He returned, some 45 minutes later, having made it as far as Vellano, the next village up from us. It was a shorter ride than the one he did last week, but the road is *much* steeper. I don't know how he does it!

After showers and bowls of cereal, it was off to work - me in the office and Stuart continuing with his librarian duties, hanging pictures in the upstairs bedroom, re-wiring the water heater plugs so that we can use them with UK timer switches, and various other jobs. Unfortunately, this meant that I as I worked, I was showered with little bits of dust and grit that come down from the ceilings whenever any heavy work is done in the room above. Note to self: must remember to cover the top of my glass of water next time.

A little while later, I was convinced I could hear talking, and realised that Stuart had been on the phone outside. Turned out he had called the previous owners and after a long conversation had got a few answers to some of our mysteries, including finding out that they had apparently left the payment of bills in the hands of Andrea (the geometra), saying that they had been into the bank to sign a form to give Richard power to withdraw money on their behalf in order to pay them. That was all a bit confusing, as it's the first we've heard of it, but we'll ask Richard about it when we next see him.

Come midday, we decided to have an early lunch and planned to get to the bank for shortly after it opened - so we ate on the terrace before heading back to the office/upstairs for another couple of hours of work.

At 3pm we headed out into Pescia. Confident we knew what we were doing, we negotiated the finger-print-recognition air lock one by one, and headed straight for the 'waiting corridor' outside the bank manager's room. It does feel a little like you're sitting in line waiting to see the headmaster, but thankfully feeling a little less trepidation as Marco (the bank manager) is a friendly, smiley chap.

We waited for our turn, and eventually were welcomed in with a warm handshake. We explained that we wanted our documents back - when we first applied for our mortgage, Marco had needed original copies of various documents, including my birth certificate, which I duly couriered to him. We now need these back in order to start the application process for residency. Our question was met with a look of confusion, followed by a load of gabbled Italian. We *think* he said that all of our documents were sent off to another branch in the application process, and we *think* he said they would not be returned for 30 days. He also said a load of other stuff, all the while looking really friendly, but neither of us had a clue what it was all about. He ended by saying that we should go back in one morning with Richard (at least that's what we think).

We left with big smiles, but heavy hearts - it seems an impossible mountain to climb to get on top of the language, and every time we think we are getting somewhere, something happens to make us we feel as if we've been set back (in fact, sometimes nothing happens to make us feel as if we've been set back - simply not using the language/not encountering it for a couple of days is enough to set us back). This is particularly the case for me - my 'day job' is so involved, so utterly surrounded by English words, English grammar and working out what on earth people are trying to say in English, that I barely have time to even think about Italian language. There's simply no free head-space to try to consolidate any learning I've done in the odd 20-minutes I've managed to grab with an online lesson here or there, or from the odd weekend when we've been out and used a bit more language. My perception of the situation thus far is that Stuart has been on fire with his language skills - ALL of our major accomplishments to date have been almost entirely down to him and his willingness to throw himself into it and have a go. However, today, even he admitted to feeling a bit left behind on the language front, and as if he hasn't progressed for a while.

After the bank we headed for Cinzia - the garden centre we had been to a couple of weeks ago, where they seemed to have a lot more on offer than the places we popped into yesterday. We managed to find a very sad-looking chive plant (sold to us at the discounted price of €1), which we're hoping we might be able to breathe new life/new growth into, a sage plant, a red/orange 'lanturna' and a pink hydrangea. I've been hankering after a hydrangea or two since before we arrived - we see so many pretty ones in all different shades and colours in and around the little villages we visit, I decided that it would be nice to have one or two to brighten up the guest patio, and concluded that there were so many around, they must be sold everywhere. Not so! We saw one slightly sad-looking blueish one yesterday (not my favourite of the colours they come in), and another sad-looking white one, so when we saw a healthy-looking pink one, it was a no-brainer: got to have it! Hopefully next year we will be able to shop for them earlier in the season and we can branch out into some of the more interesting dusty pinks and greens.

Anyway, after the garden centre we decided to have another quick stop off in town at what seems to have become our new local (Bar Pulter - an establishment that sells ice cream/pastries//coffee/beer/wine/pizza...), where the lady now recognises us and is very friendly. Once again, we sat surrounded by Italians of all generations passing the time of day, and talked about how frustrating we're finding our slow uptake of the language, how difficult the whole residency process is proving to be, and other little niggles (and slightly bigger niggles).

After our drink in the square we headed home with our plant purchases. On emptying the boot, we found we'd got slightly more than we bargained for and a cheeky little lizard had hitched a ride from the garden centre to our house! Lizards are fast-moving little creatures and I was quite convinced that we wouldn't be able to chase it out of the car and it would end up setting up its little lizardy home in the back seat of the car (goodness knows there must be enough flies and spiders in there by now to keep it well fed, with the number of piles of rubbish we've ferried to the bins). Thankfully, though, with Stuart doing a bit of lizard herding, he managed to get it onto the handle of an umbrella and lift it gently out of the car - at which point it did a star jump off it and dashed into the undergrowth.

That made us smile, but we had even more reason to smile once we got in the house: I had finally received an email with news of Lucca and Florence - the courier is hoping to bring them to us by tomorrow evening!!! The thought of being reunited with our furry-faced friends is both a very happy one and a slightly anxious one (we are quite sure that they will NOT be happy to see us, and we are prepared for it to take quite a while for them to come around and be friendly with us again - plus we have some concerns about their ability to adapt to the countryside way of life and all of the new dangers that lurk in the undergrowth - in fact, we've both had stressful dreams about them over the last couple of nights!). Overall, though, we are veeery excited to see them. The poor little things were picked up from Mum and Dad's on Saturday spent Sunday in Surrey, and have been on the road in Europe since Monday. It seems as if they will be the last to be dropped off on the trip through Europe, after having visited Geneva, Monaco and Perpignan along the way - their travelling companions are two other cats and two dogs, as can be seen in the blog update the courier posted (these are not the most flattering photographs of them, but it's nice to know they really are coming to us and getting closer!).

That cheery news spurred us into a quick round of weeding and tidying the garden and planting the new herbs before retiring indoors to prepare dinner. Tomorrow we will have to put a spurt on with the last of the tidying that needs doing in the house, to make sure things are all calm and as stress-free as possible when the cats arrive.

A new library

I woke up feeling closer to normal today. I think our exertions must have taken their toll, as we both still felt tired in the head this morning, but much better physically. Helen managed, yet again, to get up at 6.30am and exercise while I opted for the extra hour in bed. Weather permitting, I'll be out on my bike again in the morning now that I feel like my energy is returning.

After breakfast, I headed out towards Pisa again for yet more furniture. I wasn't overly keen on having to do the journey (50 minutes each way), as I've done it half a dozen times now, but without it I couldn't get our 'library' sorted, and that was the next big job to do.

After an incident-free trip, I arrived at Ikea - it was still quieter than at the weekend, but a bit busier this morning. We think that the local schools have broken up, which would explain the number of mums with kids I saw in the shop - when we were driving out of Pescia a couple of weeks ago, we saw throngs of kids having a water fight by the river and recalled that Richard had told us this was the end-of-school ritual each year before the 3-month (yes, 3-month) summer holiday!!

I managed to get three two-metre-high bookcases into the car, but it was the tightest squeeze yet - I even had to unpack one of them to get it all in, but thankfully I was soon on my way.

By the time I got home it was noon already, so we had a light lunch outside... again, and then Helen went back to the office while I set about building bookcases. We'd planned to go out this afternoon to find another shop to buy some herbs to plants, and we also said we'd try to retrieve our documents from the bank manager so that we're ready for starting the residency process later this week (the bank manager needed copies of birth certificates for the mortgage application process months ago, and still has them).

As it turned out, Helen managed to get into her groove after lunch, and I'd managed to build up a decent head of steam as well, so before we knew it we'd already missed the bank's one-hour post-lunch slot, so that's a job for tomorrow morning now.

We eventually headed out about 4pm and went on a voyage of discovery to find plants. As we've mentioned before, this area is famous for its nurseries, and Pescia has the second biggest flower market in Europe - so when driving around you see plenty of nurseries, and in particular olive nurseries. The trick we haven't yet mastered is working out what each place sells, which ones sell to the public, and where the entrances are (they're not as obvious as in the UK, with a lot looking like residential driveways) - we've often driven past them before we've had chance to stop, but this time we'd identified a road with a strong concentration of nurseries, and drove along it like Mr Magoo.

We managed to find three places to pull into that had flowers as well as olive trees on display, but in each case their herb offerings were somewhat depleted - we overheard the sales assistant in one tell of them a chap that the herbs were 'finito', so we wondered if they stop growing them after spring. Nevertheless, we managed to find small mint, rosemary and thyme plants - which were sold to us at discounted price of one euro each (further confirming our suspicions of the end of the herb growing season).

On the way back, we decided to try and pay Oscar Tintori a visit - he seems to be a bit of a legend amongst lemon growers but deals only in lemons (and other citrus) from what we've gleaned - you can even make a day of it and go and visit the Citrus Garden there. After seeing lemons growing well in a couple of places in the area, we figured we might do OK growing them, so decided we'd like to pick up a small lemon tree. However, Tintori isn't so easy to find either - we know where the turning is for the nursery, as it's clearly signposted, but then we seemed to lose the scent amidst the other nurseries down this particular road, and after doing a couple of laps of the same route we conceded defeat and decided to look him up on the web before trying again. (My newly found barber told me that Oscar Tintori is doing a lemon exhibition in Pescia this weekend with tastings of various lemon-flavoured products so I think we'll try and find that and see what it's all about.)

We stopped off in Pescia on the way back to have another attempt at looking in the little agricultural shop we drive past regularly here - they usually have racks of herbs out the front when they're open, but today there was nothing (another confirmation that herb season is over?). We went in anyway to see what else they sold. Turns out that they mainly sell pet food - shelves and shelves of gourmet cat food - as well as a very small selection of human grocery products and a few packets of seeds, so we left with packets of raddish, cavolo nero, basil and cucumber seeds.

We couldn't help but break our no-alcohol-on-a-school-night rule while in the square so had a bottle of beer each and watched the world go by while listening to the Italians next to us out in their finery nattering away to each other eating ice cream.

Just the one - it's a school night after all.

On arriving back at the house, Helen set to work planting the herbs. She soon stumbled across an obstacle when attempting to dig a hole big enough for a large pot to put the mint into though - it seems there is an enormous slab of flat rock directly under the new guest herb garden! Strange. I wanted to dig up the whole area to see if there was an old millstone buried there, but I got 'that look' from the boss (you know the one), so I admitted defeat and left her to her planting while I went back to writing this blog post.

It's a bit bare still at the moment, but we are still hoping we might find chives and sage to add.

After this, I'll spend another hour sorting books and putting them on the new shelves which are in the stairwell - hard to explain, so a photo is easier:

The set of shelves sit on the ledge next to the stairs in the stairwell.

I'd earmarked this spot for our books ages ago, and it works well. In true library style, we'll need a ladder to get to the top half of the cases, but in my head, all proper libraries do the same. It would be nicer with a set of wooden ladders rather than our aluminium one, but that might be a shopping expedition for another time!

Looking more and more like a proper library. It's nice to see all of our books out again.

While I've been doing this, Helen has been busy cooking a Ligurian salad of potatoes, olives, green beans, boiled egg and heaps of pesto, so I'd better leave you for now and get to my work as a librarian pronto!

Tank on empty!

We had a bit of a late night last night - Helen was up late editing the blog and I worked on the website until she had finished. It was a yawnathon in the office - so much so that I'm surprised there was any oxygen left in there when we retired to bed at about 00:30.

Consequently, we both woke up feeling wrecked this morning. Helen somehow managed to drag herself out of bed to do some exercise at 6.30am - I have no idea how she does it, it took all my strength just to watch her through the single eyelid I could manage to open.

The morning was a real struggle for both of us - it felt like our tanks were on empty and it took an enormous amount of effort to carry out even the most basic of tasks. That's the reason why I sat down to start writing this blog post before 4pm - it's very often completing the blog that stands between us and sleep, and today, I am NOT going to allow that to happen! 

This morning, while Helen was busy with her office job, I hung all of the pictures in our bedroom and got rid of the large box of excess clothes hangers we can't find a home for. That means that, apart from re-painting the plastered sections of walls (which desperately needs doing - they are currently a shade of yellow that is not to our taste) and finding something to replace our towels-for-curtains, our bedroom is done! TICK!!

Progress on the second bedroom has come to a halt now until we get bookcases (that could be tomorrow's first job). Once our tonne of books have been moved out of the bedroom and are happily standing on their new shelves rather than strewn across the floor, we will easily be able to complete bedroom two, which will then just leave the office to finish off.

Helen emailed the animal couriers this morning, to check in that all is OK with Lucca and Florence, and to ask for some idea of delivery schedule. We only had  a vague window for their collection, but this end has not been discussed at all. We think they're setting off from Surrey tomorrow, and we already know from the courier's blog that our little Lucca and slightly littler Florence will have two dogs for company - one going to Monaco and another to Geneva, and there will likely be more small animals to join the road trip as well. 

Just before noon we headed out to the supermarket - the rain that had lashed down all night and continued on and off this morning had left cooler temperatures, and we fancied something warm for lunch: piping hot baked potatoes with tuna mayo. However, that meant we needed to buy some tuna, and since we needed a couple of other things anyway, heading for the supermarket seemed like a good distraction from the efforts of the day.

By the time we got back, the sun had made an appearance and had dried the garden seats off, so after all of that it was lunch outside again in the gentle warmth of the midday sun.

After lunch, Helen plodded back into the office to face the second half of her working day, and I set about putting the finishing touches on the composting station so that I could finally empty our compost caddy from the kitchen (which was starting to hum).

Composting in action!

At half past three, Helen came to get me for the daily post-box-checking walk through the woods, but there was nothing for us today - I shouldn't complain really, as I'm sure once we're properly embedded here it will be mainly bills anyway!

I called Richard earlier in an attempt to kick start the process for our residency application by enlisting his help to deal with Mr. Grumpy down at the immigration desk. We're fairly certain we're going to need to send documents away for translating and/or legal verification before we can even start to sit down to fill out paperwork at the council office, so we're really keen to get this job sorted  As it turns out, Richard is in the UK at the moment, finishing a plastering job, but we've arranged to catch up on Thursday morning when he's back to get the ball rolling. I really don't like leaning on people too much to get things done, but on this one we know we're beaten with the time frame we're working to, so will just have to give in and pay Richard for his time.

Somehow, after the tired and sluggish morning we'd had, we both got our second wind (actually it was more like our first wind) at around 5pm! I went out and cut an inch off the wood shed door, so that it now opens without catching on the ground, and did half an hour of hedge trimming (or should I say bramble trimming) on the verge of the parking area. That was until I looked up and found Helen standing beside me having clocked off for the day and wanting 'her' trimmer back. Helen then went and did an hour and a half's trimming of the tiers, and I got the strimmer out to do a neatening up job on the tiers that have only had a rough pass so far.

It's a jungle in there! Everything bar the olive tree needs to be cleared.

And it's a jungle looking that way too!

Thankfully, we've cleared the first three tiers now. They just need some tidying.

Here, you can at least see the olive trees.

Helen got up as far as the 4th/5th tiers today - we've both noticed what a difference the small gain in height makes to the views - it's well worth the steep climb up the slope just to see things from a different perspective.

That's the roof of our house down there!

All of a sudden, the bright yellow farmhouse opposite looks like a close neighbour!

The flies seem much better today - there are still quite a few about, but they seem a little less keen to bother us and fewer of them seem to want to join the party, so we're hoping they might have come to the end of their season/life span and we can get on with some more pleasant garden working. They only really seem to bother us when we're hot and sweaty and when we're disturbing the grass/undergrowth, so we'll be glad to get the worst of the grass clearing out the way.

We clocked off the strimming/cutting/tidying just before 7pm, had half an hour to relax outside with a soft drink, then headed indoors for showers and dinner - which tonight will be a pasta dish with a tomato-based sauce containing roasted pepper and zucchini and plenty of garlic! Bet you're glad technology hasn't yet advanced far enough to transmit odours!