The move to Tuscany : A close to perfect day...

So last night we ended up watching 'The Prestige' on the 'TV' (computer screen) - I, for one, got quite confused over the plot line and was still mulling it over and asking Stuart about it this afternoon, trying to work out what had actually happened (in my defence, it was rather late at night and I'd had a couple of glasses of wine...) - and we ended up not going to bed until gone midnight. Although we didn't properly 'wake' until 9am this morning, at least one of us had a fitful night's sleep - too hot, worrying about creepy crawlies, etc., as seems to have become the norm for me ever since we arrived here. I guess one day I'll get used to it, but in the meantime, I'm thankful that at least Stuart seems to be well rested.

Anyway, when we did get up, there was a stunning blue sky and sunshine to greet us - not a bad start to a Sunday, not bad at all:

Cornflakes, coffee and sunshine.

Over breakfast we decided that a trip to Obi was in order - in all the excitement of buying pots of herbs, tomatoes, aubergines and courgettes yesterday, we had overlooked the fact that we didn't actually have any suitable compost in which to grow our bounties, and while the general rule over here is that most shops are closed on Sundays (and very civilised a rule that is too), Obi was one place we knew would actually be open on a Sunday - and would sell us the items we needed.

We hopped into the car and set off in the direction of Montecatini Terme. The turning towards Montecatini Terme takes us initially left over the river and through a part of Pescia that we really haven't discovered yet - it's a little like being in a completely different town, and one that's full of interesting old buildings and little alleyways. We decided that we really must make a point to come into town and explore this part on foot, as it seems like there is a lot more here for us to discover.

As we were scooting through the unknown-to-us part of town on our way out, we spotted a courtyard full of people dressed in mediaeval costume having some sort of archery competition and passed more people dressed from a bygone era carrying bows and arrows on our way out of town - all these things seem to be going on that we don't know about!! Hopefully, the more we settle in, the more we will find out about this sort of activity. (Although I can't guarantee that we will actually want to join in with the dressing-in-costume activity - but you never know. Never say never...)

As we progressed along our route towards Montecatini Terme, we came across a junction which, with flashbacks to yesterday, was being controlled by a couple of policemen who were directing traffic. This time, instead of an onslaught of Ferraris, we met a whole flock(?) of Vespas - we had obviously come across some sort of scooter rally! Sadly, our route didn't coincide with that of the scooters for long enough to get any pictures, but we briefly enjoyed the spectacle of scooter after scooter 'whizzing' (pootling?) past us.

When we finally got to Obi, we found our bags of compost, managed to find some washers with which to mend the strimmer, and picked up a couple of bolts to fix the shed door (since we forced our way into our own house way back at day one, Stuart has been securing the shed door by screwing and unscrewing it using his power tools on a daily basis).

I forced myself to take the driver's seat on the way back home - the drive was a little trickier than the others I've attempted since we got here, but I still managed (just) to get us home safely.

Once home, the rest of the day was spent toiling on the flower bed immediately outside the house - weeding, turning the soil, strimming the bank behind it, and finally planting up our herbs and veg (mint, sage, thyme, lavender, courgettes, tomato, pepper and aubergine).

While the day was physically hard - made harder by a very, very warm sun beating down on us all day - we both found it an enjoyable and relatively relaxing day. It was certainly very satisfying, and over a glass of wine after we'd put the tools away, we agreed that today has been a close to perfect day.