Better out than in!

Stop it! (You know who you are!) There is a double meaning in the title, but that's not it, go to the corner of the class and put the hat on! The rest of you... read on.

 

So, it has been another hot day here in northern Tuscany. We have selected three different sources of weather info and jotted down each of their five-day forecasts so that we can see which to rely on for the future - not only for ourselves, but we thought a print-out of the weather for the week ahead would be a nice touch for guests... Unless, of course, it's rain every day, in which case we'll save the paper, and our guests will have to take it as it comes!

 

 

Our thermometer (thank you Wendy!!) is in a sheltered spot in direct sunlight, so the temperature it registers is a little higher than we've experienced out and about, nevertheless at times today the sun was SCORCHING hot.

 

I digress, so yet again Helen was up before me. I didn't even realise that she had got up this morning until I woke fully. It's much darker in our bedroom now that I've stapled some rather well fitting curtains (towels) to the window frames. I'll be more prompt about getting up once my alarm clock arrives - I have downloaded an app for my phone which produces a very nice night clock on my screen, but it seems that even with a fully charged phone battery, I have more staying power than it does once the lights have gone out.

 

Helen was already at the computer when I came downstairs complaining of tonsilitis, and there was a faint  smell of toast in the air. I say faint as the toaster here is USELESS. Neither of us has the patience to wait long enough for any colour to appear on the bread, and all we can aim for is enough crispiness that it at least sounds like toast when you spread butter on it. I say 'butter', but it wouldn't stand a chance against butter - I mean spread of some sort of vegetable base, obviously... (what do you mean there's no BERTOLLI over here, are the Brits eating it all?!).

 

So after I'd had my bowlful of cornflakes, we decided to head into town to try our luck with getting some Bancomat cards from the bank. Helen drove us into town and we ventured into the bank. We clearly timed it perfectly as at around 9.30am everywhere was quiet and we were able to go straight to a cashier in the bank without queuing. The cashier spoke some broken English and between her broken English and my broken Italian, about half an hour later we were leaving the bank with two Bancomat cards and their associated PINs! Success!!

 

When we got home I headed for the apartment and left Helen beavering away at the computer. I had a little more destruction work to do in the apartment and a shopping list to make - that was my plan for the day: I was going out to order materials to be delivered, as I can't possibly pick any up in a Citroen C2 (I'm missing my little van right now).

 

 

Evidence of destruction - what happened to our nice tidy patio area?!

 

After encouraging the water heater off the wall and dismantling the rest of the kitchen cupboards, I set about making a list - easy enough in English, but what followed was a lot of internet searching, along with Google translate and taking a few photos as back up. After a couple of short hours of a crash course in Italian for builders, I was confident I could get the job done. The only problem now was that because I'd been in bed for an hour longer than my wife, and it was nearly noon, she was about ready for lunch, and because the trip I was about to undertake was going to be anything but short, we decided that it was lunchtime - but then so had the rest of Italy, so going out at that point would only have led me to a load of closed doors and shutters anyway! It's all about getting into the local mindset (except we didn't have wine for lunch, and no, we didn't have beer either).

 

So after a lunch of cheese, salami, bread and tomatoes (that one was for you Carolyn) on the patio (must find the Italian for that word, never felt comfortable with that word back in England, seems even more out of place here), we both headed into the dingy cave to work on our respective computers - during which time we managed to spend an unforeseen and not inconsiderable sum of money on a satellite internet system, complete with lighting rod and surge protection. This should guarantee a minimum of 20 Meg download speed and 6 Meg upload - we decided that we couldn't make a viable business out of this place if we can't connect to the outside world, so the decision was out of our hands - besides which, we should be able to claim some of the cost against Helen's tax liability.

 

After a couple of hours of tapping away at the computers, we headed down the drive together for what is becoming a daily ritual to check the post. It's only a 160m walk so won't burn many calories, but it was nice in the dappled sunlight to warm up and chat. Today we found post from Mom that had been forwarded to her from Abingdon and from her to us. Judging by the post mark it had only taken three days to arrive from Birmingham -  I make that about... hmm... three weeks quicker than sending a postcard from here back to the UK!

 

By now I'd now lost all momentum to go shopping for materials - especially after drawing a blank when trying to call the local builders' merchant - who seems to have been closed all week. We decided instead to head out into civilisation and first acquire Italian SIM cads for our mobile phones, secondly find paper for the printer, thirdly try our newly acquired Bancomat cards in the ATM to see if they worked and check our balances, and fourthly, go to Mercatone Uno (an Italian equivalent of Ikea), 9km away, to order a new kitchen for the apartment.

 

A tick in all four boxes!! Well kind of. We were unable to translate the ATM menu quickly enough to work out which option to select before the card was spat out and we didn't want to push our luck by continuously feeding it into the machine and then losing it, so we settled for a video recording of the options on my mobile phone to translate back at the house (we did this over a glass of vino and an enormous packet of crisps - you can claim that one too, Carolyn, if you like).

 

 

No, we didn't eat all of the crisps in one sitting...

 

So that was our day - it didn't pan out quite as planned, but Helen felt better for having been out of the office, and we both felt hugely better for being out of the house - somehow dealing with the language and the difficulties that it would be all too easy to shy away from seems so much more rewarding. So there you have it - two instances of better out than in!

 

Finally, for all you nature lovers out there:

 

Mr snake woz here. Yikes!