It ended up taking close to an hour to drive there (via a very convoluted route), but when we eventually arrived, Rossirent turned out to be a very respectable hire firm, and we could see 'our' shiny van parked outside on the forecourt, all ready for us to take away.
We signed all the paperwork, had documents photocopied, checked the scrapes and dents on the van with the man from the hire firm, and were handed the keys!
So that was it - time to head for home, and time for my first ever 'solo' drive on the wrong side of the road. We set off, with Stuart driving the van in front, and me following nervously behind in the car - Stuart was under strict instructions not to leave me behind!!
For the most part, the drive was pretty easy - I got left behind at the very first set of traffic lights we came to, but Stuart managed to pull over and wait for me to catch up, and we took one wrong turning, requiring us both to do a quick 3-point turn to get back on track, but on the whole it was quite an easy drive. I say that, but I have to confess to being somewhat freaked out by the hoard of Lambrettis that came past.
Clearly, weekends over here are set aside for rallies of all different types - last Saturday it was Ferraris (as part of a bigger non-Ferrari-specific road race), last Sunday it was Vespas (or scooters of some sort) and today it was Lambrettis. In their hundreds. No kidding. Had I been in the passenger seat I would have been quite enthralled by the spectacle, but in the driver's seat I was merely alarmed, especially when there was a cyclist I needed to try and manoeuvre around while the opposite side of the road was awash with Lambrettis.
Stuart, being the more experienced wrong-side-of-the-road driver, however, was cool as a cucumber and even managed to whip his phone out and take a picture:
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| Lambrettis as far as the eye can see. (You can also see the cyclist I was about to have to manoeuvre around.) |
The nearer we got to Pescia, the more I found my white knuckle grip on the steering wheel relaxing, and once we were back onto more familiar roads and entered Pescia, I felt positively calm and confident. Before too long we were both trundling down the drive back at the house - my first solo drive completed without incident.
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| Look at that smart van! |
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| Three cheers for Rossirent! |
On arriving home, our next tasks were for Stuart to strim/tidy up an area at the very end of the drive which he thought would be a suitable place to go and park our car so that it would be out of the way while the furniture unloading process was going on, and for me to reacquaint myself with the mop and bucket - in a vain attempt to clean the place a little better before moving our things in.
The water came out black every time I emptied the mop bucket, and I know that the little cleaning I did has barely made any difference, but it makes me feel a little better to know that the floors have at least been shown a mop. I think that what is really required is to devote an entire day to cleaning each room in turn. Stuart agrees, but I'm not convinced that he's entirely on board with the idea - I can almost see his brain ticking over thinking of what other fun jobs he can do in his man cave while I am doing the cleaning...
We also decided that, with the Albanian (we think) guys (of second-hand-furniture fame) coming back tomorrow to get rid of our enormous pile of rubbish, we ought to go round both the house and the apartment and make sure that anything we don't want to keep is put on the rubbish pile ready for them to take away. We spent the next half hour or so finding various bits and pieces to throw on the rubbish pile - and, since that included both of the lights from our bedroom and various other pieces of furniture, it did cross our minds that, should there be any delay with our own furniture delivery, resulting in it not turning up as planned today, we would somewhat have left ourselves in the lurch!
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| Car boot sale? Anyone? |
Stuart also attempted to roll the dumped car forward a little to make more space for the van to turn around, but not only did we find various things growing inside when we opened the door, but the brakes had ceased, so he was unable to make it budge even an inch.
Soon it was time for lunch. Today was another day with brilliant blue skies and scorching sunshine (sorry, I know it's been hideously wet back in the UK), and we sat on the veranda with our lunch and a cold bottle of beer - well deserved after the morning's work.
Stuart had been keeping in touch with the removal guys on and off all day - they had initially expected to be with us a little after 2pm, but in the end they were delayed. Unbelievably, we were their third job of the day, the first having been more than 130 miles away, the second around 20 miles away - what a long and arduous day for them, with nothing more to look forward to in the evening than sleeping in the cab of their lorry.
Anyway, while we were waiting I decided to start trying to shift some of the stones and old roof tiles that had been dumped on the tier above the house - the same ones that stopped me in my tracks when trying to strim the tier a few days ago. I started moving some of them, but they just kept on coming - no sooner had I pulled one out of the undergrowth than a whole pile more of them peeked out from beneath the scrub. I reckon the whole of the old roof must have been up there.
Eventually, we had a call at around 5pm to say that the removal guys and their lorry were just down the road from us. Stuart offered to drive down to pick them up so they could decide whether or not it would be feasible to bring the lorry as far as the road at the end of the drive. The consensus was that it would not be possible. Our belongings were in the back part of a double-trailered lorry, a little like this:
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| Almost exactly like this, in fact, they've even labelled the picture with our name... |
Even though access to our house is easy, there are a couple of tight hairpin bends on the road before you reach it, and there was no way the lorry was getting around those! So, off they went in the van back to the parked lorry (which they'd parked at the spot where our communal bins are located, just down the road) and started cross-loading our things from the lorry to the van.
Soon, the first load arrived at the house - I couldn't wait to see what was inside! Well, that was until I realised that the first van load consisted almost entirely of Stuart's tools. Not impressed. Stuart was happy to see his ladders again though.
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| A happy reunion. |
The next few loads were much more exciting - kitchen bins (who'd have thought it possible to be excited about a kitchen bin, but seriously, after more than two weeks of living with a bin liner pegged to the edge of the kitchen worktop, a bin is like a luxury item), kitchen stools, clothes, TV, pictures, OUR BED, sofas... The guys even came back on one of their runs with a four-pack of cold Strongbow to share with us. Stuart could barely contain his excitement, having not seen any cider for weeks...
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| A happy, happy man. |
Eventually, after about 4 trips, and at around 7pm, the guys decided to call it a night - since they aren't allowed (by law) to drive the lorry on Sundays, they will have to stick around until Monday morning anyway, so they decided they would come back tomorrow morning to finish the job.
Stuart offered to run them into town in the van so that they could pick up some overnight food supplies from Esselunga and then take them for a quick beer to thank them for their hard work. So here I sit writing this post, surrounded by all of this stuff. The worrying thing is that this is only half of it - where is it all going to go???
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| There has to be a sofa or two under there somewhere! |
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| Where will it all go...? |
So tomorrow, we have: the removal firm coming back to do roughly 3 or 4 more vanloads, the Albanians(that's what we're calling them from now on) coming to remove the pile of rubbish, Brad (Mr Satellite) may be coming to install our satellite internet (otherwise he'll be here on Monday), and Michelle (ex-pat who lives in a village up the road) may pop in to say hello.
Just a nice, quiet relaxing Sunday then!
Right, I'm off to have my first night's sleep in MY OWN BED for well over a month. See you tomorrow.
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