Midnight drummer

So I suppose, technically, the day started for us at around the same time as it did for all clocks in the same time zone, or at least in the same valley: we were both woken in the early hours by what sounded like a drummer performing a drum roll on the landing outside the bedroom. It wasn't, of course, it was the Tuscan rain hammering on our roof window, but thankfully it didn't last long and we were both off to the land of nod again in no time.

 

I was almost alarmed when we both came to in the semi-darkness to realise it was 8 o'clock already! A 9-hour sleep is more than we are usually naturally capable of these days, but we've decided that the extra drain on brain power each day must be having an effect on our tiredness levels - so while Helen is slowly creeping towards being able to sleep normally, I'm sleeping like the dead once I'm unconscious, but waking earlier than is usual for me. I have to say I quite like it and hope it sticks - although when I do wake I feel like I've had too much to drink, which is somewhat annoying as we haven't touched a drop all week. Anyway, I should probably move on, as this post isn't even out of the bedroom yet and I've half filled the screen of my tablet.

 

Helen went out for some exercise again, while I opted to get up and start dealing with today's looming issue - that of sourcing a rental van for tomorrow. We touched on this in yesterday's blog, but here's the detail:

 

We always knew, after sending a picture of our new driveway to the removal company, that as part of the deal we would need to hire a van locally so that all of our goods could be cross-loaded onto it for the short journey from the road to the house - so that neither our driveway nor the large truck (or indeed both) would perish.

 

We finally received a copy of the removal firm's delivery schedule on Monday, which stated that we were due to receive our belongings on Saturday, but as we were third on the list of deliveries (the first of which was scheduled for Friday), we thought it churlish to blindly assume ours would be on time - especially since there had already been a hold up in the schedule, courtesy of the police. 

 

So we had a delivery schedule for Saturday afternoon, for which we needed to hire a van - so this meant we needed to collect the van either Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. But what if they ended up being late on Saturday? They would have a hell of a job here once they started, and if they ran out of stream and wanted to finish the job on Monday then we would need the van all day Monday too.

 

I'm getting ahead of myself. On Tuesday, I checked (after much Googling) the cost and availability of such a van rental, and after finding nothing in the local town, I found two places within a stone's throw from each other in nearby Monticatini Terme. Result! I emailed the little Italian company first, ideally wanting to spend our money with local companies - very honourable, you may think, but I soon went to Europcar for a quote after hearing nothing from the local firm all day (although that's perhaps no surprise if their internet is anything like ours). Anyway, having procured a quote from Europcar online, and confirmed availability, I parked the job until I could confirm that our furniture was definitely arriving on Saturday - otherwise we would have hired a van for three days for no reason.

 

So, back to the plot (if you're still with me). Yesterday morning I received confirmation from the removal firm that the delivery was 100% on schedule, so I promptly logged onto the Europcar website to book the van ... except now when I tried to book it, I was presented with big flashing graphics all over the site telling me that I couldn't possibly book anything online within less than 48h of the pick-up time!! Brilliant. (No, that's not the word I actually thought in my head.)

 

I decided to call Europcar and, after a confusing conversation in part-English, part-Italian, the central sales rep told me that since the Montecatini Terme office was now closed, she couldn't tell me whether they had any availability, so I would have to try calling again in the morning. Not happy with that, I continued my search. Everywhere I tried I hit a brick wall: online, everyone was saying the same thing about the timescale being too short, and on the phone, nobody had a van available. I did think I had struck gold after a lengthy call with Hertz (which included paying a deposit to book a van which was to be collected from IKEA in Pisa), but the sales rep later called back to say that, in fact, they had no vans available after all!

 

By this time it was late, my brain was addled and we were outside of Italian working hours, so there was nothing else for it but to wave the white flag and call it a night in the hope that when Europcar opened in the morning they would have a van for us... I duly phoned Europcar first thing this morning and... they didn't!! The only option left to us was local firm Rossirent - we had taken a look at their website yesterday evening, and got as far as the booking of a van, but since their website didn't seem all that well set up (or secure) for payments, we decided to leave Rossirent as a plan B for this morning, and do the deal by phone if necessary, rather than online. After a minute or two of battling on the phone in Italian, the woman on the other end passed the phone to Filippo, who said he could speak a little English. Between us, with me speaking part-English, part-Italian, and Filippo doing the same, just minutes later we had only gone and managed to get us a van booked!!! Woo Hoo!!

 

So, after conquering that enormous mountain we decided to take the rest of the day off and do some sightseeing in the sunshine.

 

No we didn't. We had work to get on with - besides which, there were still low clouds on the mountain tops and dampness everywhere, so Helen once again logged on in the office while I went to the apartment to continue my work down there.

 

 

Murky morning.

What no sunshine?!

It was around 10am that the people from the second-hand furniture shop returned to collect our pile of unwanted furniture. They never did return 'in 5 hours' yesterday, so not sure what happened there. Thankfully, the pile of furniture was positioned under the cover of a large fir tree so it was protected from the worst of last night's rain and remained remarkably dry. It was two different guys who came this time, and while chatting to them (in Italian) I managed to arrange for them to come back on Sunday morning to relieve us of the large pile of rubbish we have accumulated for a small fee. Result! The only way we have found to dispose of these things otherwise is to surreptitiously leave them by the communal bins a little bit at a time. We had visions of using the hired van to drive around in the middle of the night depositing bits and pieces at all of the different bins in the area... So it will be a huge relief to get rid of all of that rubbish - and one massive job out of the way.

 

After a subsequent couple of hours slapping white breathable paint around in the apartment bedroom (at which point I ran out of paint), it was time for lunch (which we had sitting on the veranda as usual, but not in sunshine today), and after lunch we decided we would both take a trip to Obi to source more paint and other useful bits.

 

It's amazing how much you can learn language-wise when you need to. We found breathable paint - all 14 litres of it - in a single can that nearly put my back out when I lifted it out of the trolley for the checkout lady to scan, a couple of tubes of something that resembled caulk (whatever it was it was in a variety of colours and was paintable), and some curtains to put across the new wardrobe construction.

 

 

Demonstration of how the new wardrobe will work (although those are not the curtains we bought).

 

 

Job done, and having spent one of my shiny new 200 euro notes (courtesy of Richard, who used them to pay me (yesterday) for the job I did with him back in April), we headed home in the by now hot sunshine. (Amazing how much the weather can turn around in the space of a few hours here.)

 

With most of the day spent, Helen went to finish her office work then set to work with a vacuum cleaner and a mop in an attempt to clean the house a little more before our furniture arrives. Meanwhile, I went back to the apartment with my tin of new paint to give it a second coat.

 

We called time about half past six and sat on the veranda with our first glass of wine since Sunday, and how sweet it was!

 

Not a cloud in the sky by evening.

We chatted the last hour or so of direct sunshine away, disturbed only by the large green lizard which seems to live not far from our veranda. Said lizard came flying out of the grassy bank and came to a skidding halt on the gravel. It made us laugh briefly - until we saw it was being chased by (look away now, Mom, and scroll down) a large snake which stopped just behind it. I dashed for the camera, but snakes seem to be able to detect even the slightest movement and it had gone before I'd even made it as far as the door - leaving the lizard somewhat traumatised. The shaky lizard went back to the edge of the grassy bank and it spent half an hour staring into the grass to make sure it was safe, finally disappearing at about the same time as the sun - which we also took as our cue to retire inside to make dinner and blog.

 

Lucky escape lizard.

 

Guess we'd better find out where this van needs collecting tomorrow.

 

Ciao for now!