After having a couple of very welcome hours staring at the TV last night (I say TV, I mean computer as we're currently unable to get the TV to work...) watching an old episode of 'Scrubs' followed by 'Hancock' (we opted for the latter figuring it would need minimal brain power - sorry Will Smith), we headed to bed and were asleep well before 11pm and didn't wake until 9am! Boy, did we need that!
For me, a very lazy morning ensued: breakfast, followed by catching up on social media and emails, then generally sitting around enjoying not doing very much. Helen, on the other hand, seems to have found some quite green fingers and couldn't help but do a bit more weeding - nothing too strenuous today though, and by the time we'd showered and got ready to face the day it was lunchtime already. Nothing exciting to eat (sorry Carolyn), but what we did eat was consumed on the veranda in the warmth, albeit a little cooler today.
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| Helen would like to point out that until our stuff arrives from the UK next weekend she has a limited selection of clothes to choose from, and as such, her style leaves a little to be desired. (Besides which, we are farmers now and live in the country, so no-one sees us, right?) |
After lunch, we had a vague plan of driving around the local area to find some form of garden/plant centre/shop, and on the way around making a note of any other places that might be of use to us in the future - all the kinds of places you're blind to when here as a holidaymaker, such as bathroom and tile shops, lawnmower and strimmer shops, clothes shops and so on. So, after emailing a few pictures of some of our inherited flora to Helen's dad for identification (handy knowing a botanist when you decide to move house and plonk yourselves in the middle of a wood), we set off in the car.
Very close to where we live is Collodi, a small town famous for being the birthplace of the creator of Pinnochio. We thought that, as part of our research of the area, we should at least take a peek as there is some form of 'park' there - when I say 'park', don't think somewhere green and serene with trees and benches, but more along the lines of Drayton Manor without the roller coasters. I'm guessing, of course, as we didn't stop to go inside, but as soon as we turned into the town we were faced with an array of tacky souvenir shops and coach after coach lined up outside the entrance to the park. Through the open car windows drifted the sound of kids screaming, yelling and shouting from somewhere behind the walls of Pinocchio Park - while it may be somewhere to take some of our younger visitors at some point, today we couldn't get away quickly enough.
After this minor detour we ended up on the road to one of our favourite destinations in these parts - a small hilltop town called Monte Carlo... no, not that one, Italy has one too (in fact it probably has more than one). This charming little town is famous (around these parts at least) for its wine, and we've spent many a happy hour or two having a glass of the stuff at wine bars there on our previous visits to the area. Anyway, no stopping for wine today, so we drove through in order to get back to the road we wanted to be on - it was a bit early in our search for such a detour, but the drive up to the town is quiet and has some of the best views around here - the Appuane mountains in the distance and the wide expanse of the Luccese plains and their vineyards in the foreground.
As we approached the town walls, we noticed there was some sort of car rally going on, and the road we wanted to take was closed so we were directed off - along another road we'd never driven before. As we drove along, we were flummoxed by the fact that at every junction we reached there were people in high vis jackets (or marshalls, I suppose you'd call them) diverting traffic, and the further we drove, the bigger this 'rally' seemed to be. As we were diverted again down a quiet country lane, we passed two groups of locals picnicing on the verge on either side of the road (it seems that Italians have a different idea of what a picnic involves as one group we saw were sitting at a wooden dining table, with wooden chairs, real glasses and cutlery and even napkins!).
Still baffled, we ended up driving through a town, with the streets lined with people who looked as if they were waiting to see something pass. We started to get a little suspicious when we were passed by a Ferrari and a lady on the pavement waved enthusiastically at it. And then we saw another one, and another, and another... it was around now that we started our Ferrari counter, as shiny Ferrari after shiny Ferrari drove past in the opposite direction, each bearing a number and emblazoned with various other flags and branding. I think we lost count at 32, but they kept coming, as did the spectators (often over here, it seems as if people are waiting for something to pass by but in fact they are simply enjoying the national passtime of standing around chatting, or just sitting by the roadside watching life go by - on this occasion it was obvious what they were out for).
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| I spy with my little eye, something beginning with F... |
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| I spy with my little eye, something else beginning with F... |
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| I spy with my little eye... oh forget it. |
More on the cars shortly, but for now, back to our shopping trip: we finally found a garden/plant centre as we headed back in the general direction of Pescia.
It was just what we were looking for. Pescia is known as the city of flowers (it's famous for its flower market), and cut flowers, along with other plants/shrubs/trees, are its major export (so much so that you don't have to drive very far to see hundreds of olive trees under a poly roof, or the same just down the road with flowers under it). The problem is that all of these places feel like trade-only places - I'm sure they aren't, but when in a foreign country things sometimes just feel different, or else you perceive them completely incorrectly. Indeed, when a man standing in the centre of aforementioned garden centre with a coffee capsule machine in front of him (no, ladies, it wasn't George Clooney) asked me something in Italian, I naturally assumed, despite his poor effort at dressing himself this morning, that he was a salesman, and that he wanted me to buy a coffee machine. I promptly told him (or attempted to) that my wife and I already own a Nespresso machine, thank you very much, and left for the exit - at which point Helen explained that he was simply trying to offer me a free coffee! Weird. Next time I go back I shall have my order ready... (and will probably leave with a coffee machine).
So we hopped back into the car with a load of plants, all edible in some form, and Helen took the wheel to take us back to the supermarket in town. As we were about to enter Pescia we came to a roundabout with a police car parked on the chevrons, its driver wandering around in the lane ahead of us with a paddle and dozens of spectators lining the roundabout - not the slow, steady breaking into 'wrong side driving' we'd planned for Helen, but she coped admirably and got us off at the correct exit and heading for home. On the roundabout we noticed many signs for the '1000 Miglia', which, it turns out its a 500 mile classic car drive/race around Italy that happens in May each year, starting and ending in Brescia, in northwest Italy. We're still not sure what the shiny new Ferraris had to do with it, but it did finally explain all the marshalls, hay bails and detours - shame we missed the classic cars, but hopefully we will know in advance about next year's event.
After a quick trolley dash around Esselunga we headed home to find an email from Mike (Helen's Dad), who had not only given us a welcome report on how our cats are doing, but also identified our flowers for us (thanks Mike).
The iris that I thought was going to be the most interesting turned out to be completely eclipsed by the picture of the poppy that I almost didn't bother to send, turns out we have opium growing on our land! (Shhhhh...Nobody tell the Afghans!)
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| Iris. |
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| Opium poppy. |
So that's where our day ends today folks, looking forward to another restful evening on the sofa with a bottle of wine and another lie-in tomorrow, then we should be fighting fit for the week come.
Time now to cook dinner: a quinoa salad with fresh lemon segments, thinly sliced raw raddish, garlic, fresh broad beans and avocado (we know from experience that it's much, much nicer than it sounds!).
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