I want a goat.

Today has been a scorcher.

OK, I'm kidding. It has been hot, but not that hot - other than in between the glass at the window and the layer of secondary glazing in the office (which is where the sensor for that particular temperature gauge is located). Ironic, really, that it's that hot between the panes at the window, yet still Baltic in the actual room itself.

Anyway, today has felt hot and slightly more humid than of late - even the air felt hot and the sky was a bit less blue and it actually felt unbearable to sit outside for any length of time while wearing office clothes (i.e. long trousers).

The morning was fairly unremarkable - as usual, I sat down to my computer and Stuart went downstairs to the apartment. About half an hour later he announced he was going out to buy some more plaster and disappeared off down the drive. His shopping trip was successful and so he set about doing some more plastering downstairs.

After a brief stop for lunch...

Sunshine food.

... we got back to work in our respectively work areas. However, I soon realised that it was time for our regular daily post box check (around 2.30pm as the post seems to be delivered at some point between 1pm and 2.15pm - no early morning posties around here!). I popped into the apartment to pick up Stuart on my way out and we had our daily stroll through the woods along the drive to the gate.

On nearing the gate, we could see that something was in the post box today! We tried to temper our excitement, telling each other it would probably only be junk mail from the local supermarket.

Yep, there's definitely something in the post box today.

AND there's more inside!

Well, we were right about the junk mail from the local supermarket (and two letters for the previous occupants), but there were also not one but two parcels addressed to us in the unmistakable handwriting of my Mum.

There was also an entire colony of ants inside the post box - clearly some ants had decided that the nice, cool, dark interior of the post box would be the perfect place to set up home. Hmm. Not wanting either the postman or ourselves to get ants in our pants while delivering/retrieving our post, we thought we would return later in the day with some ant powder to er... move them on. For the time being, however, we simply left the 'door' of the post box open.

We went back to what Stuart is now calling the veranda to open our parcels and found inside them two books: one on Italian flora and fauna, and one on walks in northern Tuscany. Mum and Dad had very kindly sourced both books for us and posted them to us 5 days ago (not bad going, considering there's been a weekend in that time).

So much reading matter!

We looked up the different lizards we've seen, and some of the centipedes and beetles, and noted that there are a couple of walks in the walking book that are very local to us - not sure exactly when we'll next get a chance to go on a walk, but it's nice to have some pre-planned for a quieter (and cooler day).

After the excitement of opening our post, we each went back to our work for a while longer, until I had had enough of staring at a computer screen and felt it was time to go outside and warm up. After my modest success at tidying the lawn with the strimmer yesterday evening, I decided that today I would like to have a go at clearing the tier immediately above the house. We've decided that that would be the best place to put a vegetable plot as it's close to the house, quite flat and easily accessible.

Stuart had to refill the strimmer with fuel and fit the more robust blade back on before I could start. Frustratingly, and rather embarrassingly, he also had to start the darned thing for me. Try as I might, I just don't seem to have the strength to pull the starter cord with enough force to get the motor running. How pathetic! Even worse was that shortly after I started the strimmer got caught up in some long grass so I had to stop it to get it untangled... and then had to call Stuart back to re-start it again for me. Arggh! All those gym sessions back home clearly didn't pay off!

Once I was up and running for the second time, though, I managed to keep going for a fair while. It was hot, heavy, loud work. My head was banging, my arms aching and sweat pouring off me, and the undergrowth put up a strong fight against me and my strimmer! I eventually stopped when I came across a large pile of old roof tiles and bricks buried in the scrub (not good items to introduce a strimmer to), by which time I felt as if my head might explode in any case. All the while I was strimming, all I could think to myself was: 'this would be so much easier if we had a goat'.

I then set about raking up the cut grass (note: this would not have been necessary with a goat to do the cutting/eating work) - to reveal a somewhat cleared half-tier, a huge improvement on an hour previously, but which will still need another going over with the grass strimmer to get the grass to a more manageable height.

Steps up to tier.



At least you can actually see the tier now... but a goat would have done a much neater job.

As I was finishing, Stuart was also finishing his plastering for the day, so we packed the tools away and hopped in the car to go down to Esselunga for a supermarket shop. We only really needed more bottled water as we were dangerously close to running out, but decided that since we were making the trip there we'd do a bigger shop and get in some supplies for the weekend. Much to Stuart's excitement this meant that we allowed ourselves to buy beer, wine, cured meat and cheese as weekend treats - not to be touched before Friday night at the earliest though!

On our way back to the house we stopped at the gate, realising we'd forgotten to bring any ant powder out for the post box situation. However, on close inspection, it turned out that the ant colony had left the post box of their own accord. Maybe they heard us mentioning ant powder, or maybe they just didn't like having the door left open, but they had all upped and left by the time we got to check it.

We finished the day with a bowl of crisps and glass of fizzy water on the veranda, soaking up the warmth of the evening air, both feeling utterly exhausted and glad to know that tomorrow is Thursday - a step closer to the weekend!