Officially summertime!

Amongst all of the antics with our little furry four-legged friend two weekends ago, we managed to take time out to head into Lucca.

The weather has all of a sudden slipped into what we recognise as full summer here in Tuscany, and although the weather has been lovely for many, many weeks now, it's the unrelenting heat in the mid-30s and warm overnight temperatures of almost 20C that are now keeping the indoor temperature way up towards 28-29C, meaning the fan in the bedroom is back on duty each night.

With it being so hot (and somewhat exhausted by the entire saga with little Tiny Tim) we'd somewhat lost our momentum with regards to toiling away outside on the land, so with the excuse of needing to find a book for the first English lesson Helen was going to teach this week, we headed over to Lucca for a few hours.

We parked the car and hopped up onto the city wall where we enjoyed the shade afforded by the trees that line the cycle/walkway on top of the ancient wall and walked towards what we know to be the start of 'Via Fillungo', which appears to be the main high street if you can call it that in such an old city.

We followed the street as far as the old Roman amphitheatre, and soon after we found a book shop which had a modest selection of books for learning foreign languages and, after much deliberation over the various 'learn English' books, we walked away with two books and headed in search of lunch in the form of a panino.

We soon got distracted by empty alleyways and unfamiliar streets and got lost exploring for half an hour, which is always a nice way to get away from the throngs - that was until we stumbled across Piazza Napoleon, in which the Lucca Summer music festival is held. Judging by the number of people we spotted dressed in black t-shirts, and knowing some of the festival's lineup, we deduced that this evening's concert must be the turn The Hollywood Vampires, a band consisting of Johnny Depp, Alice Cooper and Joe Perry.

While we sat down to a sandwich and a cold beer we watched the people loitering in their typically black clothing killing time until their idols set foot on stage later that evening.

With a light lunch dispatched, we headed back to try an ice cream shop that Samantha had told us about earlier that morning - apparently the best ice cream shop in Lucca. We're far from aficionados when it comes to ice cream, but to our pallets they tasted very good indeed; I chose a mix of banana and crunchy rum while Helen opted for a plain yoghurt version, these kept us company on the walk back to the car.

That night, we had committed to go to the local Circolo to an evening organised by a voluntary group of locals that raise money for and host the children of Chernobyl. Remember that disaster? How quickly in the UK we moved on from that and onto other things! Here, there are a number of now adult Russians that were orphaned in the disaster and were refugees in this part of Italy, and now the work continues to offer stays in Italy for the young children still living in the polluted area to give them some respite from the sickening conditions back home.

As well as this being a good cause, there was the draw of local bad Manolo Strimpelli that always bring a crowd with their irreverent folk style music. We had seen them once before last year and they were great entertainment, so we looked forward to seeing them again. We arrived at the Circolo at around half past seven, fully expecting to be some of the first there, only to find the BBQ in full swing and in the large outside terrace full to capacity!

The evening was great fun, and we ran into a few familiar faces including Fabio from our English evenings who arrived around 11:30pm so we chatted with him for a while as we watched Emanuele, who runs the club, take to the stage and belt out the lyrics to one of the songs, apparently having been the singer in a band some 25 years ago!

The rest of the weekend was fully consumed with the dramas of fostering and trying to rehome little Tiny Tim, and the mixed feelings of taking him to his new home, and Monday rolled around leaving us feeling a little empty at his departure.

On Monday, I finished off what was the last of the jobs inside Mara and Franco's new apartment in scorching 34 degree heat, feeling glad not to be in the full sun all day long, but sweating all the same.

That afternoon, our friend Daniele who regularly attends our English evenings, called to invite us to dinner at their house the following evening - a BBQ, and extended the invite to the rest of our gang that frequent the English evenings.

After work Tuesday we headed down to the Circolo for 17:30 so that Helen could start her private teaching of English to Michaela, the partner of a walking guide we know, who had approached Helen a few weeks back to ask for help with her English.

While they shut themselves in the library for an hour and a half, I nursed a cool beer and played backgammon with Emanuele while waiting for David (Sarah still being in London for work) and Paul and Kathy to arrive so that we could all head to Daniele's in one car.

Daniele is Pesciatina born and bred, while his wife, Lara, comes from San Quirico in our valley, but they now live in a small village called San Salvatore, just inside the comune of Montecarlo (which in the car takes only ten minutes from Pescia). We arrived to the inviting smell of a lit BBQ and soon were in Daniele and Lara's lovely garden enjoying drinks and antipasti under the pergola, the sun still glaring down hard at this time of the evening.

Having been told by Daniele not to expect too much, 'it's just a simple dinner as an excuse to get together', we all ate until we could eat no more! There were crostini in abundance, sliced cured meats and cheeses, a farro and tuna salad, then all manner of flesh cooked on the grill, huge lumps of watermelon, and coffee and cantuccini to end with. We left, stuffed, at around midnight having had a really great convivial evening that we all agreed should be repeated.

Daniele and Lara's dog tried to join us at the table.

On Wednesday, I sadly said goodbye to some old friends, my old Merrell shoes that I bought on a trip to Vancouver while staying with our friends Andy and Vanessa eight years ago. They had lent us their car and sent us off to hike up 'the Old Chief'', but since I hadn't brought any suitable footwear for such an activity (the trip had been tagged on after working at one of Helen's conferences in Vancouver), we stopped at a mall on the way and I left with a nice pair of Merrell shoes with vibram soles. Little did I know they would be with me eight years later, having had a rather tough life! Recently, they finally gave in, and it was time to replace them with a new pair of Merrells, how could I not, having had such a good experience the first time?

The rest of the day I finally turned my attention to our own house, having not been asked by anyone else to do anything else, so I made a start on finally finishing the flooring in the sheds, the majority of which I had done when I built them but I had yet to cut and lay slabs under the doors which up until now had been an open invite to the local rodent population to go in and set up home.

On Thursday, after having had a terrible night's sleep on account of Reggie going nuts in the middle of the night in his bedroom, and Helen having to get up to let him out into the garden to do even more barking, we awoke to find out why: one of our young apples trees (that we planted three years ago, and had this year, for the first time, started fruiting) had been brutally ripped out of the ground and rolled down the hill towards the house.

There used to be an apple tree here...

...it had been ripped out of the ground, rolled down four terraces, and ended up by the gate.

It was the second time we'd found this tree had received some overnight attention but, with the first having been much less brutal, we had put it down to deer (rubbing against the 'protective' cage that surrounded its trunk), so we hadn't been too worried. Clearly this was not the work of deer but more likely the wild boar we had captured on the wildlife camera in the car park in the early hours of Wednesday morning, intent on getting to those tiny apples the tree was busy growing.

Wild boar up to no good.

Historically (not that we have much history here but in our short four years), we've only come across a small family of pigs on the driveway once. Evidence of pigs digging around in our woods, especially along the upper donkey track, is not uncommon, but never have we had any clear evidence of their presence so close to the house. It's a worry for us now, as should Reggie come across one he may not fair as well as when he finds deer, the males in particular known for killing dogs with ease.

This, combined with the fact that, since this beast has eaten well here once, it is likely to keep returning, and maybe bringing its friends and family, means that we're going to need to prioritise the fencing in of the terraces for everyone's sake (including holidaymakers that sleep directly beneath Reggie's bedroom).

On Friday, we finished our day jobs a little early so that we could head back to San Salvatore to meet Daniele at his house again, having agreed to go for a walk in the countryside around Montecarlo with him. We arrived at 16:00, and after a quick coffee we set off from the house at an alarming pace, Daniele almost running, it felt to us, and it was still over 34 degrees!

After an initial panic, Helen and I settled into the walk, as did Ugo the dog who for some kilometres struggled to keep up.

It was an interesting walk, with some stunning views, and we discovered parts of the countryside and hidden-away hamlets that we'd never seen before.

The pretty hamlet of San Martino in Colle.

The Quercione (giant oak).

There are supports holding up the ancient branches.

Also known as the Quercia delle Streghe (the witches' oak).

In part of the walk we used a small section of the ancient pilgrim route, the Via Francigena which connected Canterbury to Rome - in fact in some places you could see the grooves left by the cart wheels.

Cart wheel grooves on the Via Francigena.

We basically encircled the hill town of Montecarlo for three and a half hours, clocking up over 18 kilometres and feeling wrecked by the end (aching hips, aching knees, sore feet). We're clearly no longer used to this kind of walking any more (at least not at such a pace, and not in such extreme heat!) - give us strimmers to cut grass, hedgecutters to cut bramble, or firewood to cut and split, and that's where our strength lies these days, our hiking days maybe over!

We clocked up a little over 18km in total, the mapping device having missed the initial section of the walk.

After downing a glass of cold water back at Daniele's house, we waved him goodbye and hobbled back to the car to drive home.

The weekend's task was to make a start on what we hoped to be the final grass cut of the summer (this all depends on the weather, of course, but the sustained heat has now started to halt new growth and, should summer stay like this, there will be a gradual yellowing of everything now until new growth starts again in autumn). After the exertions of Friday, however, we were fit for nothing on Saturday and spent the day hobbling around the house, staying out of the sunshine and feeling rather broken!

After a good night's sleep however, Sunday was a new day. After an early start (on the terraces by 08:30am) and three and a half hours' of strimming each, we had managed to cut all of the main section of terracing above the house. We downed tools, hit the shower, and headed out for a bit of exploring, heading for the medieval village of Montevettolini, near Monsummano ,to view this little village that has been mentioned to us on a couple of occasions now.

Having seen on the internet that there is a small restaurant in the main Piazza, we decided to maybe have a bite to eat there for lunch.. but in typical Italian style we arrived to find it closed (quite probably the owners were sunning themselves on a nearby beach).

As we walked around the village, it slowly dawned on us that we had, in fact, been here before! (And on that occasion the bar and the restaurant had also been closed!)

It was now after two o'clock, the heat was extreme, and  we were both rather famished after all the physical exertion of the morning, so we decided to head towards Montecatini Alto, this being a sure bet for food outside of normal lunch time hours.

We didn't get that far however, as a little way along the road we came across a nice looking place which appeared to be open, so we pulled in to try our luck for a rather late lunch, only to receive a warm welcome into a blissfully cool (air conditioned) dining room. What a find!

Given that we only tend to eat out these days if a friend has a birthday or if we have friends and family over, it felt a bit overindulgent for us to be eating like this, but hunger had won and the guilt soon faded once the chilled white wine arrived.

To start, we shared an enormous platter of cheeses with a spicy jam, which I then followed up with a veal steak while Helen had a plate of perfectly cooked slices of tuna steak - a rare find around these parts and it was amazing, I think Helen thought her birthday had arrived some weeks early.

Back to reality on Monday, I kicked off the week working on the outside area at Mara and Franco's, building a fence, a couple of gates, a small door and a couple of other bits and pieces, putting in some good work on my vest tan as I did so!

On Tuesday evening it was back to the Circolo for the second of Michaela's English lessons, which went well. Helen, having got an idea of her level from the previous time, had prepared accordingly some material to work on, and both came out of the library looking rather frazzled.

This week, with nowhere to dash off to, we stayed at the Circolo for around an hour, chatting with 'Michi' as she's called by friends, and Emanuele, who filled me in on the various folk bands in Italian history from where some of Manolo Strimpelli's inspiration is drawn.

As the summer wears on, Helen's workload steadily builds as it heads towards conference time of year and all the preparation that it entails - a good reason to stay indoors and out of this sunshine, but I know all too well she'd rather be in it getting her hands dirty with me. This week, though it was more a case of getting my feet dirty, along with most other parts of me.

Our rainwater collection tanks had run out of water a few weeks back, and we'd had to resort to using metered water to keep the veg garden watered until we could get the ram pump (that I set up last year to draw water from the stream that borders our land) going - a job I had been avoiding until I had rerouted the delivery pipe through the sheds rather than being an unsightly trip hazard behind the house.

Having recently emptied two of the three sheds I'd managed to reroute the pipe and we were now ready to put the ram pump back into service.

A few frustrating hours across the rest of the week ensued as I couldn't get the thing to run for any more that a few seconds. After ruling out one or two things and making a new filter to stop the supply pipe getting blocked, I realised that there was constantly air in the supply pipe which was causing the pump to stop functioning.

What I couldn't work out was how the air kept getting in - the supply pipe was nicely below the surface of the water, maybe the new filter needed more holes in it? So I took down a drill to do just that, and managed to get the pump running for a few minutes. It kept running... so I headed the 40 metres up the river bed again to see how the filter was working, and all looked great! And then it stopped. However, just as it stopped I realised I could hear a hissing noise behind me, I looked around to find a damaged pipe with water squirting out.. and letting air in! I'd finally found the problem but had no spare joints to repair the pipe so had to wait until Frateschi reopened that afternoon.

Having recounted the tale, Danilo down at the builder's yard told me he was convinced the culprit would be squirrels. I was unsure, but once back down in the river it seems Danilo may have had a point, there had clearly been something gnawing at the pipe and the teeth marks looked small.

Anyway, with the pipe repaired, I primed the pump and off it went! Having felt only that morning like the pump was junk and that we'd have to go back to the drawing board, it was suddenly fixed and by the time I got back up to the house, water was filling the tanks!

Reggie will be much less pleased however, as he has thoroughly enjoyed coming down to the river with me to splash around in the refreshing cold water (although of course it may not be long before another pipe repair is needed).

On Friday evening, we went back to the Circolo to meet another Emanuele. This guy lives in Castelvecchio and is part of the group of local mountain bikers know as the 'Nani' or the dwarves who amongst other things dedicate their some of their spare time to clearing some of the footpaths in the valley - he's now a qualified mountain bike instructor and wants to start organising biking holidays in the valley, but finds a lack of English a problem and, having heard about us through the other Emanuele, wanted to meet and have a chat. Seemingly another really nice guy, we had a great chat with him about the state of the footpaths in the valley and the need to encourage tourism by way of walking an cycling tours. We subsequently arranged to make an attempt to help him with his English at the same time as Helen helps  Michela with hers, the idea being that while Helen teaches her, I will try my hand at teaching Emanuele. I'm not convinced I'm up to the job, but as we've found out over here, you have to jump in the deep end to get the best from everything, what's the worst that could happen? An Italian with a Brummie accent?!

On Saturday morning after coffee and cake we headed over to OBI to buy a paddling pool, something that we had given thought to last weekend after our hours of strimming in the heat. The idea of being able to at least put our feet into some cold water from the comfort of our outdoor armchairs was too much to resist, and we thought that maybe even Reggie would build up the courage to use it. Strangely, as much as he loves splashing around in the river, he doesn't trust a paddling pool one inch and on the last attempt, he used it only to drink from.

Almost as if we controlled the weather, as soon as we started filling the pool some rain arrived - not much, sadly, as the new olive trees on the terraces could do with a drink (something that will have to be done by hand soon if nothing more falls). It soon brightened up and by the time 6pm rolled around we both emerged from the office (having done both our Italian homework and a few hours' prep for Tuesday's English lessons) we relaxed with feet in the pool and some chilled white wine. Reggie, of course, merely drank from the pool.

On Sunday morning we headed again into Pescia for breakfast, happy to have our favourite coffee bar back open after a summer closure, after which we decided to head straight home to finish the last of the strimming that escaped us on the upper terraces. This time, it was just a case of an hour and a half's worth of strimming each to get the job done, which was just as well because just as we finished, the clouds darkened, the rumbles of thunder got louder, and the heavens opened. We ate lunch inside to the sound of loud claps of thunder, but disappointingly little rain again.

We enjoyed a Ligurian style salad using some of our home grown snake beans from the garden (courtesy of David & Sarah who grew them from seed and passed them on as small plants) and eggs from our chickens. With Kathy having ordered 24 eggs for Friday just gone, and the chickens seemingly having made a group decision that it's too hot to make eggs every day, we hadn't eaten any ourselves for a couple of weeks - no real hardship, but it made the salad all the more enjoyable to have some eggs in it.

Snake beans!

A morning's harvest.

Just like the day before, the storm blew over quickly and the sun reappeared, so while Helen went outside to wrestle with some elderflower and pokeweed that was blocking the view from the guest patio, I set to work writing this blog - a long overdue catch-up, but as you can see, we've been somewhat busy enjoying life of late. Work hard, play hard.

Animal antics (Tiny Tim tugs at heartstrings)

Never a dull moment.

In recent weeks it feels as if we have really been made to know that we are living in the middle of the countryside. Of course, we do know it, but every now and then Mother Nature makes sure that we haven't forgotten her. Recently it has felt as if all the wildlife in our vicinity has made a concerted effort to make its presence known.

Now we are fully into summer, and sleeping with the windows open is obligatory if we have any hope of getting the bedroom below 30C, our sleeping patterns are at the mercy of the various beasts with which we share our hillside.

Last week we woke at 03:30am one night to the sound of a deer barking right outside the window (in reality it was probably on the terraces close to the house, but it was loud enough to sound as if it was standing right beneath the window).

The very next night we woke at 04:00am to the bizarre and extremely loud sound of a pair of foxes fighting on the top veg terrace, immediately below the house. We shone a torch out, and saw two pairs of eyes shining back up at us, but they were undeterred and continued their shenanigans for about half an hour.

Then there have been the family of swifts that have used our bedroom windowsill as a landing and feeding ledge daily, the evidence of fox digging around the chicken enclosure, the rocks that have been displaced in various spots along the drive - probably by badgers (and indeed our guest, Norman, told us that he had seen a badger in the car park one night), and the hedgehog that appeared one evening on the other side of the guest fence and which sent Reggie into barking overdrive (the poor thing just curled up - clearly trying to hide from the racket that Reggie was making - and in the end, in a bid to stop Reggie digging his way right the way under the fence to get to it, I donned a pair of thick suede fire gloves and took it to a safer, altogether quieter spot along the drive).

But by far the animal that has caused us the most loss of sleep, and taken up the most amount of our energy, time and emotions, has been a little 10-week-old kitten who presented himself in our lives on Thursday evening.

He didn't come as a complete surprise, as two days previously one of our nearest neighbours (the house at the very bottom of our hill) had messaged us with a photo of said kitten drinking from a bowl saying "is this your cat? we've found it outside our house". We didn't think much more of it, other than having in the backs of our heads that where there's one kitten there might be others and we were a little cautious when taking Reggie out for walks in the woods.

Come Thursday evening, we were sitting under the pergola just about to start our dinner when suddenly there was a loud miaowing. Nothing unusual in itself, because Florence was sitting in our bedroom window and miaowing down at us outside. But this was different. It was coming from a different direction, and it wasn't Florence's miaow.

We downed forks and rushed down to the guest garden/top of the veg terraces where the sound seemed to be coming from, and started searching the undergrowth. Of course, no sooner had we got down there than the miaowing stopped - possibly because Reggie had started up a volley of barking - and it was impossible to locate. So, we headed back to our dinner, managed to take another two mouthfuls before the miaowing started up again. This time, I crept as quietly as I could around the back of the house, turned the corner and saw a little black and white face looking back up at me from the pile of rubble behind the house. The instant it saw me it dived for safety - underneath next winter's wood pile.

Operation capture the kitten then began - we located one of the cat travel crates in the shed and took it, along with a pile of cat treats, to the wood pile where, on our knees we started trying to coax the little thing out. He was clearly very hungry, and the prospect of something to eat was enough to bring him out from his hiding place just long enough to grab a treat and retreat. Unsurprisingly he was incredibly jumpy and the slightest movement of a hand had him scurrying back to his safe place. But after 10 minutes or so of gaining his trust, we managed to coax him out far enough to get hold of him and manhandle him into the crate. The poor thing was terrified, biting, scratching and hissing, and climbing the walls of the crate trying to force his way out through the holes in the wire mesh, but at least we had him secure and out of harm's way.

Of course, Reggie had been watching this play out from afar - stuck in the garden behind the fence - and was extremely agitated. There was no way we could take the little kitten into our house, and it was difficult to know (in our own agitated minds) where to house him safely. In the end we settled on the section of the shed closest to the house, where there was enough space for the cat carrier and would be quiet, dry and safe. We fed him a few more treats, brought him some water, which he lapped up thirstily, and then left him to calm down.

By this time it was getting quite late so we went through the usual bedtime routine with Reggie and headed off for some much needed sleep... Ha. Well, sleep would have been nice! Reggie had wound himself up so much that it took 3 attempts to get him to settle in his bedroom, by which time it was way past midnight. Come 5am, Florence started making it clear that she would like to go outside, so I got up to let her out, only to find that Reggie was already whining and barking and the kitten could be heard miaowing from inside the house! So, despite feeling as if I needed another 3 hours' sleep, I got up in order to perform a juggling act of letting Florence out, moving the kitten down to the apartment (why we hadn't thought of that before I don't know), letting Reggie out of his bedroom and encouraging him to come upstairs with us for a bit while Florence had some outdoor time, then shutting Reggie back in his room so I could get Florence inside!

Thankfully, things calmed down once the kitten was down in the apartment as it turns out the soundproofing is a whole lot better than it is in the shed adjacent to the house, and Reggie soon calmed down, oblivious to the furry bundle in residence beneath.

We needed to decide what to do with the kitten, knew we couldn't keep it, thanks to Reggie's incompatibility with cats, but were clueless as to the procedure for taking it to an animal shelter - besides which we hoped we might be able to find it a home. First things first, though, we needed to give it a good breakfast and some more water, and we needed to clean the crate out, which quite understandably the kitten had toileted in over night.

It was then that we realised that, with no guests in the apartment, and if we blocked off the entrance to the bedroom and covered the sofa with a tarpaulin and towels, we could let the kitten out down there, giving it room to roam and relax a bit, and that would give us a little breathing time to try and find him a home. Of course, it ran straight under the kitchen units, but it didn't take much to coax it back out with some food, which it gobbled down in one go. Then, very gradually it started to relax and come towards our hands for a bit of fuss, and before we knew it the loud miaow had been replaced with a loud purr and he was enjoying being stroked and cuddled and clambering all over us. We fairly quickly worked out that we had a little boy on our hands, and it wasn't long before we found him a name, albeit a temporary one: Tiny Tim.

Tiny Tim soon relaxed with us and started to feel at home.

We spent the next 48 hours desperately trying to find him a home (while rapidly falling in love with him). We put posts on various local groups and pages on Facebook, posted in all our WhatsApp groups, asked everyone we knew, and even other people helped out by posting on Facebook and asked people they knew… yet it seemed nobody wanted him. We photographed him and videoed him and even paid to "boost" a post on Facebook that - according to Facebook - was seen by over 3,000 people. Yet there were still no takers. It was beyond belief that nobody would want to take on this little guy.

Who wouldn't want this little guy?

In the end, just as we were starting to give up hope and coming to the realisation that we would have to take him to an animal shelter the next day, our friend Amanda phoned me to ask if she could pass my number to someone she knows who 'really loves cats' and who might be able to help. Of course I said yes, and within a couple of hours and after a few more videos and photographs had been sent back and forth, the lady had found someone who wanted Tiny Tim!

So, yesterday evening, feeling a mixture of relief, apprehension and sadness, we drove Tiny to his new home (in Pieve a Nievole – about half an hour away from us). His new family seem like really nice people, they assured us that their dog is very good with cats and that he even used to sleep together with their old cat. They appeared to be totally bowled over by Tiny Tim (well, who wouldn't be?!) and seemed very much to be responsible pet owners. When we left, Tiny Tim was snuggled up on the lap of the teen-aged daughter purring loudly – he had taken to them very quickly, which has to be a very good sign.

Nevertheless, we came home feeling heavy-hearted – there’s still the worry of the unknown; the road the house is on is pretty busy; what if the dog doesn’t like this cat; what if things don't work out, etc.! All quite emotional really. I’ve no idea how people who work in animal rescue shelters manage to pass animals they have cared for on to new owners with little more than a bit of faith. And as for when we think about how Tiny ended up in the woods in the first place (undoubtedly he was abandoned in the woods - an unwanted kitten, the inconvenient product of the household cat, etc.), to say that it makes our blood boil is an understatement.

For such a tiny being, and such a brief spell in our lives, he’s left quite a hole!

As July approaches

It was a busy weekend for us, with the last of the strimming to finish, the veg beds to tend to, the apartment to clean ahead of new visitors arriving on Monday, and the house to clean ahead of Kerys arriving with her boyfriend, Nick, on Sunday!

We duly knuckled down and were most satisfied with our work, managing to tick the strimming of the terraces off the list - at least for a couple of weeks when that job will once again roll back to the top of the to-do list!

We were also pleased to see some progress in the veg beds - the orto has been sadly somewhat neglected this year mainly due to other jobs taking priority, and me having spent much of the first part of the year working over at Mara and Franco's, but we've also been left feeling slightly scarred by the "year of the vole" last year and somewhat reluctant to invest large amounts of effort (time and money) in case all we ended up doing was feeding the vole population of Pietrabuona once again. For that reason, the veg beds have really only had the bare minimum of attention, and therefore it was nice to see that some progress is being made. It's interesting to note how (relatively)slow everything is though, a clear sign of lack of TLC (well, that and compost).

Courgettes coming along.

Cucumber almost ready.

A small pepper.

A very happy self-seeded lettuce.

Beautiful artichoke flowers.

Not exactly the orto, but we had one plum this year! (and 4 cherries)

The olives are starting to swell.

With all the tasks completed around the house and land, it was time to collect Kerys and Nick from Pisa airport. It was lovely to see Kerys - for the first time in 11 months - and great to finally meet Nick who we've heard so much about over the last 4 years. To welcome them to Italy for their all-too-brief visit, we made a quick pitstop at Da Nerone in the village on the way home to get some take-out pizza, which we duly devoured all together around the kitchen table, Reggie not being sure whether he was terrified by the new arrivals or thrilled at the prospect of 4 pizza boxes to lick and tear to pieces.

On Monday, after a late start (well, it was the first day of their holiday), I dropped Kerys and Nick into Pescia, it being Nick's first visit to not only Pescia, but also to Italy. While they were busy in town I entertained myself with a clear-out and tidying of shed number two. Having closed shed number one off to all but the very smallest of intruders last week, and hung the doors on new hinges to make space for guttering above, it was time to sort out the middle shed - first job, empty the shed entirely and build a new set of shelves.

It was no small task, and up until around 2pm it's a real sun trap around the back of the house, so it was sweaty work and any tools left in the sun for any length of time were almost too hot to pick up again and use when I needed them - a bit like a steering wheel in the car on a mid-summers' day (in England, that is, or almost any day from the end of May through to mid September here!).

Everything out!

...and put back in again, tidily.

For those who are paying attention and are that way inclined, this particular Monday was the day of England's second World Cup game of the group stages (that's football if you're not that way inclined). Nick, a big follower of football, had politely asked if there was anywhere he would be able to watch said match, and after a message to our friend Emanuele, an evening's football viewing at the local circolo (on the big screen by way of projector) was arranged.

We decided to BBQ early for dinner before heading down to the circolo - this gave us the advantage of being outside to manage Reggie when our American guests arrived to check into the apartment at around 18:00. All went like clockwork - well, perhaps the clock was running a little late as the amount of veggies I had bought to cook took quite some time, but Nick, Kerys and I (Helen staying at home to try to keep Reggie quiet for our visitor's first evening here) headed down to the Circolo for the game, arriving just a few minutes after kick-off but already having missed the first goal.

I had planned to drop the kids there, go home and then go back and collect them at the end of the match, but seeing as the only other spectator was Emanuele (8pm is a little early for Italians to be out), I decided to watch the first half with them. Half-time arrived around 9pm, which coincided with the arrival of a few locals, including Luca our friend from the local school. Luca was keen to watch the second half of the match with us, so I ended up staying at the circolo until the final whistle.

On Tuesday morning, with an earlier start, I took Kerys and Nick to the train station so that they could go into Florence for the day.

As there seems to be no ticket booth at the local station any more, having been replaced by two touchscreen machines (which, after all, don't need paid days off sick, holidays or a pension etc.), we made a beeline for the machine that had no queue - assuming that was because this one only took card payments, while the other took cash.

It was soon clear to see why this machine had been avoided by other ticket buyers - with each press of a virtual button it creaked along with an egg timer whirring around for what seemed like an eternity each time - so long, in fact, that when we finally got towards the end of the process it gave us a time-out error and we had to start over again.

It was at that moment that the train to Florence arrived, the machine next to us had just become free so we quickly switched to that one, but just as we paid, the train shut its doors and pulled out of the station and, to top it all off, in the fluster as we hastily grabbed the tickets we left €6 of change in the machine (the change had disappeared by the time we realised our mistake and went back to check).

It was all a bit of a disaster, but the bar opposite the station was open so we went in there for a coffee and some breakfast, then I left them with just a 15-minute wait until the next train and headed to Mara and Franco's to work in their apartment for the rest of the day.

Thankfully, Kerys and Nick's day had improved since the wobbly start, and they spent an enjoyable day together in Florence - pounding the streets in the beating hot sunshine and disappearing into the welcome cool of bars and ice cream shops for a bit of relief between seeing the sights. I collected the weary pair from the station in the early evening and brought them back to the relative tranquillity of our hillside for a relaxed dinner on the outside sofas made up from BBQ left overs in a tasty pasta sauce. With a trip to Lucca planned for the next day, and a determination to be at the station with enough time to avoid a repeat of the morning's ticket debacle, it was a fairly early night for us all.

After the practice run the previous morning, the process of acquiring tickets for the train to Lucca was as smooth as an Italian ice cream, and Kerys and Nick were soon off to Lucca for the day.

Back at home I busied myself with fitting a new chicken water bowl to the rain barrel. Until now, we have filled a washing up bowl full of water and left it in the chicken house for them to drink. The problem with this is that the water very quickly becomes dirty (what with the chickens perching on the edge of the bowl to drink, or just as somewhere to sit), and changing the water involves throwing away a large volume, so we were seeking another solution. The water in the barrel that collects rainwater from the roof of the chicken house had become somewhat cloudy, so the first job was to drain the barrel and clean it before the new drinking bowl could be fitted.

The bowl is a simple device that uses a small float to fill it - a little like a toilet cistern only more rudimentary. We hope this will cut down on water usage - time will tell, but within an hour of fitting it and filling the barrel, one of the chickens started to use it and the rest soon copied.

The chickens enjoy the run-off from emptying the barrel.

The new water bowl even matches the barrel!

They love a bag of veg peelings!

Egg production is going well.

After lunch I liberated Helen from the office and we headed into Pescia to source three new terracotta pots in order to pot on our three citrus trees. It's three years since we potted up the citrus trees, and with three years being the magic potting-on number, it was time to repeat it.

Having seen an advert for half-price pots at one of our regular garden shop haunts we went and found three suitable pots... which, of course, were from the new range and therefore not discounted, although having assumed they were, the lady who runs the shop knocked off €35 anyway as we are 'regular customers'!

Once home, we sorted some of our homemade compost and re-potted, fed and watered them, feeling optimistic of a harvest from the lemon this year as we now seem to have almost won the battle with the scale bugs we believe we inherited with that tree. The lime and orange trees we are just happy to have alive after the winter. Having been convinced just a couple of months ago that they had perished in the cold, at the point at which they suddenly re-sprouted they were probably not long for the chipper!

Reggie approves the new pots.

That evening, after meeting Kerys and Nick at the station after their day in Lucca, we took them for a quick spritz at our favourite cafe/bar, but advised them not to fill up on the range of snacks on offer for aperitivi as we had a restaurant meal out to come!

Spritz o' clock.

We decided to take them to Manero's in Vellano - when offered a choice of pizzeria or restaurant with antipasti and pasta, they opted for the latter, having eaten plenty of pizza on their days out. As usual we ate very well there indeed - luckily for us, David came to join us otherwise we may not have finished all the grilled meat we got served, amongst which was rabbit, a first for Nick, as was the sheep's cheese earlier on, and the marinated garlic cloves and chicken liver pate, typical of this part of the country. It was a great evening, and a lovely way to spend the last night of Kerys and Nick's visit.

The view from Manero's is always spectacular.

You get a good view of the stabilisation/drainage improvement works that are in progress beneath the village. 

And so it was that on Thursday morning I headed back to Pisa to deliver Kerys and Nick to the airport. It was a visit that felt all too brief, but with work commitments and university that was all they could squeeze in, so we hope they will be able to find time to come again soon.

Helen and I spent what was left of the week in the office and Mara and Franco's, respectively, as well as having the methane tanks of the car MOT'd - something that needs doing every four years and needed doing before the car's own MOT which was also shortly due to expire.

On Saturday morning after our regular stop for coffee, we headed to the Pescia flower market as the enterprise of flower and plant cultivation and sales was celebrating 90 years of activity today. The current market structure (the third in a line of three in Pescia over the years) is now the second largest in Europe.

We were clearly a little too early and there was a mixture of activity between clearing up after the morning's market and setting up for the day's activities.

Regardless, we spent 20 minutes or so talking to a local producer who told us all about the historical asparagus trade that ran in tandem with the flower business pre and post war but which now is all but gone from Pescia, surviving only in pockets around Chiesina Uzzanese.

There was also a small display of posters depicting the activity of the market over the years - it was interesting to see the market in its various guises over the years.

After seeing all there was to see we headed back up the valley for lunch and an afternoon of firewood cutting in a hope of finishing the stack ready for the winter, it will only be three and a half months until we need to start using the wood burner again so must not get complacent!

Sadly, we didn't finish the firewood but we know that with another afternoon of work like that, maybe next weekend, we'll be secure in the knowledge we'll be warm and toasty all winter and with a good supply of logs under cover should a hard winter sneak up on us.

Sunday we did very little after the frenetic activity of the day before, and it felt good to have such a laid back day - a bit of a rarity for us but did us good.

First thing on Monday morning I headed to the local Esso petrol station, having booked the car in for an MOT with them. I left the car there, having been told it should be ready by midday, and walked the 2km back to Pietrabuona to grab a coffee and pastry before deciding what to do next.

I had a check-out to do that morning at 10am at a holiday house we have recently started to manage on the road towards Medicina, as well as our own apartment to clean for guests that would be arriving that evening, and then of course there would be car to collect later, again on foot.

I decided to walk up to the house on the Medicina road to do the check-out. The shortest, which obviously also means steepest route was to head from bar Da Nerone up into the old part of the village and then drop out onto the Medicina road. It was 3km, but a fairly pleasant 3km, unlike the main road between Pietrabuona and Pescia which carries traffic all the way up to articulated lorries heading to and from the paper mills.

I arrived a little early to find the guests running late, had a pleasant chat with the guest, Tomas, while the rest of the family loaded the car ready for their return trip to Sweden. Once I'd completed my check-out checklist, I walked the 3.5km back home for a late lunch, arriving back just as the heavens opened with a blast of thunder and torrential rain.

After lunch, I mopped the apartment floors, Helen having finished the rest of the cleaning that morning while I was out strolling around the valley, then set off to pick up the car. I set off despite not having heard from the garage, but hoping all was OK and arrived shortly after they opened for the afternoon (and only a couple of minutes after having received a call from Flavio, the lad from the petrol station, to say that the car was, in fact, ready at midday but he hadn't been able to get through to me on my phone - I guess the wind had been blowing in the wrong direction again at home and taking the signal with it!).

As I entered the car park I was almost flatten by our friend and Italian teacher Johnny who had turned back in his car having just passed me on the road - he stopped to offer me a lift, not knowing that I had just arrived at my destination. After a brief chat and introducing myself to Johnny's friend and fellow rock hunter Mattia, they headed off in search of treasure while my treasure was awaiting me outside the garage - oh how I appreciated that little Panda after 14km on foot that day!

On Tuesday morning I headed up to the village of Marliana, up and over the top of the hill from Vellano, with David to cut grass all morning, and then spent the afternoon at Mara and Franco's finally fitting their new worktop so that the plumber could get on with finishing his second fix.

On Wednesday morning Helen and I had Johnny round for our weekly Italian lesson and he immersed us in the dubious world of past conditional i.e. 'I would have done it ...', feeling like after today we've kind of cracked conditional now and need to simply try and apply it in normal life - another big step.

After lunch, while Helen toiled away in front of her computer, I started the process of sieving compost and mulching the few veg beds we have with plants in this year (finally a bit of TLC for them!). It was no small task though, especially since the first compost bays are a 200m walk away up the drive, which clearly then necessitates a 200m walk back down the drive to the car park with the lovely 'black gold', followed by a descent with loaded buckets into the veg garden (and then back up again). It was 33 degrees and with my calves aching somewhat from Monday's walking I threw the towel in at half six that evening - a little earlier than planned but pleased to have done a few hours of solid graft.

And that almost brings us up to date. I'll leave you with a few wildlife updates.

For the first time since moving here, we have seen hoopoes in our area. We've seen them further south in Tuscany before, but never as far north as our area. They make a spectacular sight!

Our bedroom windowsill seems to have become a favourite dining spot for one of the local families of swifts - almost every day at around lunchtime, they land on the windowsill and parents bring the youngster food.

Not quite wild, but it's been a while since we posted a picture of our little tiger.

(This blog post covers the period 16-27 June 2018)