Thursday, 22 May 2014

A house-warming gift and a productive morning

We start today's post with a warning (apology) for those with a sensitive disposition. I know that a lot of you who read this blog do so over breakfast, so you may want to avert your eyes from what is about to come - or maybe come back after you've finished your cornflakes.

As I returned to the house from my run along the drive this morning, I was somewhat taken aback to see that something had ahem... left us a present on the bottom of our steps. I'm not sure whether it had been there when I left the house (somewhat sleepily) half an hour earlier, or whether it had been deposited while I was out. It looked somewhat fresh.

Now, I umm'ed and ahh'ed over whether or not to document this gift pictorially, and in the end decided that, on the off chance that there are any animal scat (I believe that is the polite term for it) experts out there, I would. Although to save your breakfasts (why are you still reading? - I told you to go away and come back after you'd finished!), I kept the lens at a fair distance rather than going in for a close-up.

Not the sort of house-warming gift we were really after.

Intrigued by the little gift, Stuart eventually did some further investigation (with a stick) and found that the generous individual that had left it had a bit of a penchant for eating beetles. We thought maybe a badger, based on the beetly content, but Google reliably(?) informed us that badgers prefer to dig a hole for their gifts, whereas foxes like to leave them where they will easily be found. However, foxes usually enjoy a more varied diet including items that have fur - which can usually be seen in their er... leftovers. So perhaps it was Mr Fox who came and left the present in the early hours of the morning, perhaps not. We're thinking that we might need a series of web cams to find out what goes on outside our front door!

After that little excitement, it was time to start the day. Today, Stuart asked if I would like to accompany him on his latest materials-sourcing adventure. Thinking that there was other no reason for me to leave the house for the rest of the day, I decided it would be good to get out and so accepted his offer.

First stop: hardware shop in the centre of Pescia. We had originally spotted this shop on our first night in the area, when we spent an enjoyable couple of hours in the Enoteca (wine bar) directly across the road from it (see, it wasn't just for enjoying wine, it was for useful research purposes too). On the occasions we've been into town since then, however, the hardware shop has been closed (and, no, we haven't been back to the Enoteca - yet - either). This morning we were in luck, and once inside the door found ourselves in a small shop that seemed to sell almost anything you could possibly think of. The shop keeper was a charming elderly gentleman who was happy to tell us that the sponge float Stuart needed for his plastering was called a frattazza and, yes, of course he had one. We also noticed that there was a key-cutting service in the hardware shop and, thinking it would be a good idea to have more than two keys to the apartment, we asked if we could get a key cut. Off one of the young assistants went and by the time the shop keeper had rung the total up, his assistant was back with our two new keys. They cost us a grand total of 1 euro per key (and, yes, they work - we tried them when we got home).

Next stop was a second-hand furniture shop we'd spotted outside the commercial flower market in town - it looked like the sort of place that might take (and collect) items of unwanted furniture - heck, it looked like it could well have been the very place that a lot of the furniture we've inherited came from originally! We went in, and Stuart spoke to a young chap who said yes, they did take furniture and he would come and have a look later today!

Next on the list was a timber yard. Stuart had failed to find this a few days ago because he was following directions given to him by someone at another builder's merchant - and that someone had helpfully missed out one right turn. Stuart was more prepared this time, having looked the place up on the internet, and we easily found the place. I say 'easily', but you would NEVER find it if you didn't know it was there - it was tucked away up a residential cul de sac on the outskirts of the main town.

Anyway, pleased to have found it, we went in and Stuart and the lady in the office had a Google-Translate-off (he looking Italian words up using the translate app on his phone, she looking English words up on Google Translate on her computer) and eventually in part-Italian, part-English, we got to a point where she understood what we were after and we understood how much it cost. One of the guys in the timber yard quickly came out to cut the pieces of wood for us (they had to be small enough lengths to fit in our C2) and we were off!

As we were heading homewards and passing Frateschi's builders yard (the one very close to us which has mysteriously been closed since we arrived), who should we spot as we zoomed past but Richard going in for something. We did a quick U-turn and went to say hello.

We found out a number of useful pieces of information from him. First, the builders yard has been closed because the main guy who runs it has been unwell and is currently recouperating. Secondly, the secret to getting anything (even though they are 'officially' closed), is to go early in the morning and to go in via a side entrance.

The more significant piece of information that we found out from Richard is that we now have a date for the meeting for the signing of the final contract (rogito) and completing the purchase of the house!! The meeting is set for 11am on Friday 6th June.

For some of you, that date might ring some bells...

OK, I won't keep you guessing, but will just say that when people ask 'how did you celebrate your second wedding anniversary?' the answer will be 'we bought a house in Italy'. (I'm sure it goes something like 1st anniversary is paper; 2nd anniversary is cotton - but maybe I got that wrong and 2nd anniversary is actually bricks and mortar [or stone and render]?).

So there you have it - a busy, busy morning!

When we got home we got all the furniture we want to be taken away and piled it up on the patio outside the apartment - this included things we've been storing in the wood shed, items from the apartment that we don't want to keep, and a few items from the house that we don't want to keep. By the time we'd finished lugging furniture around I was roasting (having gone out in the heat wearing completely inappropriate 'office attire' - long trousers and cardigan), and I was actually grateful (fleetingly) to retreat to the coolness of the office.

It was actually midday by the time I finally sat down to do some proper office work.

We lunched on the veranda, as usual, and while we were eating we spotted a snake (might have been a slow worm) making its way through the grass on the lawn. As soon as we saw it and went to reach for a camera, it turned on its heels (well, it would have done had it had any) and was gone in an instant.

A little while after lunch the man from the second-hand shop turned up in a van with his girlfriend/wife/female assistant. They took a look at all of the furniture, picked out a couple of pieces which they said they would not be able to take, then said they would pick the rest up in 5 hours. That's what we think they said anyway. We're waiting for them to come back any time now (if 5 hours is what they said!). The guy also said something about us going into the shop tomorrow to sort out the prices of items etc. Crikey, we'll be happy just to have them all taken off our hands, never mind being paid for them, but we won't say no to a few extra pennies!

Talking of pennies, I noticed this today:


Noooo! Make it stop!

Some of our friends will know that my husband has a problem with spending small change, and that before we moved over here we had a mountain of small change that needed counting and bagging (done courtesy of Kerys and Ben) and taking to the bank to be, well, banked. That ended up as amounting to well over £130. I think it might be starting again...

Anyway, back to today - we both spent a few hours working in the afternoon, then Stuart spent an infuriating hour or so attempting to get us a van to hire for the weekend. Our furniture is still (apparently) on schedule to be delivered on Saturday afternoon. The removal firm have advised that their enormous lorry will not be able to cope with our drive (nor our drive with it, for that matter), so the idea is that we hire a smaller truck and the furniture is offloaded and ferried along the drive in the smaller vehicle. Unfortunately, hiring a van/truck at 24h notice is easier said than done. Three places he tried cannot provide such a vehicle for the weekend, and while we thought it was all sewn up with a hire car company where we would get to pick up the van from Ikea car park, no less, the sales lady called back an hour later to say that they didn't actually have anything available for us.

Quite a problem - one that we hope we can resolve!

Finally, in laundry-related hornet news, the latest item of clothing to become infested with a hornet was one of Stuart's socks. This time I realised that the sock was buzzing as I took it off the washing line, so chose not to fold it with the rest of the washing... (The hornet was subsequently encouraged out of its cosy sock-house, so you can rest easy knowing that Stuart has a usable pair of socks once again.)

I'll leave you with some more photographs of our woodland/verge flowers. Oh, and the mysterious sun(?) lady in the rock outside the house (we know nothing about her):










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