I dragged myself out of bed, went downstairs and put a pot of coffee on while my computer booted up. About an hour later - and half an hour into my office work for the day, Stuart also came plodding down the stairs, surprised to see that it was raining out.
While I settled back to my work, he booted up the laptop to set about working on our website, our holidaylettings.co.uk listing, and other admin tasks.
I was quite surprised when even Stuart admitted to being cold in the office - and he got up from his desk to investigate the small wood burner that still exists in this room. I was a little dubious as to its safety/ability to work as I didn't think that the previous owners had used it. However, my doubts proved unfounded as Stuart quickly lit a fire which drew well and before long we could see little puffs of smoke floating past the window as the room heated up nicely. A great result!!!
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| Warmth! For free! |
By around 12pm I was getting a bit stir crazy so decided to walk to check the post. Our post box is situated on the gate all the way at the other end of the drive (well, you wouldn't expect the postman to have to walk/drive all the way to the house, would you?). Stuart decided to come with me to stretch his legs and we had a pleasant walk together (by this time the rain had dried up but it was still damp under foot). Once again, however, we were disappointed by a decidedly empty post box (we've checked it each day since we arrived). I was beginning to think that somebody must have been stealing our post ...
By the time we got back to the house it was nearing lunch time, so we powered down computers and took a break for lunch.
After lunch and a half hour or so more work, we decided we needed to go shopping to get some supplies and to go to the bank to request Bancomat cards for our accounts. Currently, although we have money in our Italian euro accounts, we don't have any easy way of withdrawing it or spending it in shops, so we are still either using the cash we brought over with us, or else spending on UK credit cards at goodness knows what additional expense for the currency conversion.
We got ourselves ready, hopped in the car, and as we drew to a stop at the end of the driveway, what could we see but a full post box!! Stuart urged me not to get too excited - but I could see a handwritten envelope through the gap in the post box! I rummaged around in my bag for the key and quickly jammed it into the lock to see what was inside. We had a sum total of: 4 letters addressed to Keith (grrr), one letter addressed to me from my bank in the UK, a doctor's letter that had been forwarded from our Abingdon address to Stuart's Mum's address in Birmingham, and then onto us in Italy, and... a hand-written envelope containing a 'welcome to your new home' card from Sarah and Dave. It felt lovely and ridiculously exciting to receive our first post over here!
So, after a successful trip to the supermarket we parked up in the main square in Pescia to go into the bank. It was 4pm. The bank was closed. We were somewhat bemused (not to mention frustrated) to find that the bank closes at 3.50pm - having only re-opened after its 1h 20m lunch closure at 2.50pm. In fact, on Friday afternoons it is only open from 2.50pm to 3.35pm.
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| The bank reopens for an hour after lunch - and on Fridays only for 45 mins - it hardly seems worth it! |
That's 8.30am to 1.30pm every week day morning; 2.50pm to 3.50pm Mon-Thurs afternoons and 2.50pm to 3.35pm Friday afternoons.
Oh well, at least we know now, so that's fine.
Feeling slightly deflated at not having been able to accomplish the banking task, we returned to the house with our shopping only to find that the Internet was being so frustratingly slow that we couldn't accomplish anything. I couldn't even log on to check my work emails as it was taking so long for it to connect that the secret-special-code generated by my RSA token would expire and be counted as invalid each time.
In the end, we conceded defeat and sat down with the pile of information and brochures that the previous owners left in the apartment for guests as a 'welcome pack' so that we could sort through it all and think about what we would want to put in such a 'welcome pack'.
In the interim, Stuart managed to get some contact details for a British guy who specialises in providing Internet upgrades (via satellite) in the area. We were surprised when he called us quite late into the evening on our landline (from his exercise bike in the gym - now that's dedication!) and things seem hopeful that we might be able to be provided with a better connection within the next couple of weeks. Until then we just have to put up with the slowness and unpredictability of it!
Tomorrow looks like it might be drier. Let's hope it's more productive too!
~ Helen
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