STILL unpacking!!

We woke up to pouring rain this morning - not like the damp stuff we had one morning last week, but proper heavy rain. We heard it during the night so it must have been raining for a few hours - in fact, it was raining so hard we collected 2 inches of water in a bucket outside the front door.

2 whole inches!

So after a little catch up on social media and emails over breakfast, Helen went to the office and I had the task of working out where the last of our stuff was going to go. Most of what was left in boxes was stuff that really needed to go and live in the man cave, so there was nothing else for it but to have a proper sort out in there to make some space. My nice tidy cave of last week was ruined within an hour of our furniture arriving as all of my tools were first off the truck. In fact, my cave was so full that there was no room for our precious bikes in there on Sunday evening, so they had to stay outside overnight! I had a big job to do, but I do LOVE organising stuff.

The whole morning passed in a blur of tidying and, with every inch of space made, squeezing something from the living room into it. The rain that I had been so convinced was here to stay for the day (or even week) had stopped by mid-morning, which meant that I could throw some of the stuff on the patio to make life a little easier. It also meant that, when we stopped work for lunch at half past one (tomato bruschetta with some cheese on the side), we were able to eat outside - it was a touch breezy, and much cooler than recent days, but pleasant enough and pretty warm when the sun peeped out from behind the clouds and the wind dropped.

After messing around with my telescope for quarter of an hour (I say messing, but what I mean is reassembling and lining up the finder scope using the village below - including spotting people's laundered under garments hanging out to dry from their balconies), we went back to our respctive offices.

We missed today's opening hours of the council offices (commune) to enquire about what is needed to apply for residency status - as we mentioned yesterday, from what we've been told it involves a lot of form filling, some sending away of documents to be legally verified, and the translating of copies of documents into Italian, so it could take a while. We can't actually get our residency until we've completed the purchase of the house, but we thought it would be a good idea to get the ball rolling and start collecting the necessary bits of paperwork together as soon as possible. Until we have residency, we can't buy a car here. With the MOT on the Citroen due to run out at the end of July, we really need to get a new car here, then get the Citroen back to the UK and sold before the end of July - I'm sure the window will end up too small for comfort! Anyway, we'll see what tomorrow morning brings when we head down to the commune office.

Three hours after lunch, the man cave version 2 was complete. Playing in caves can be quite enjoyable, and I can see why Batman has one at his house - although the only method of transport we can fit into ours is pedal-powered.

Man cave 2, hoping there doesn't need to be another sequel.

 

What my cave will look like soon, without the car, or cape or space.

After a quick trip to the bins to dispose of the rubbish from the cave (the wood shed is too full of cardboard boxes to store anything else), I was ready to call it day at half past five. As I write this, the sun is still out, although it's quite cool and breezy up here on our hill.

So while Helen goes back to her cave (which is considerably less tidy than mine, and will stay that way until we acquire some shelving) to finish some work, I've collapsed on our sofa in an almost tidy living room to write this blog post nice and early. Hopefully that'll mean that the editor can get her hands on it in good time and it can be knocked into shape while I cook dinner tonight - pasta with pan-fried zucchini and peppers, possibly in a tomato sauce, or maybe a potato salad with green beans, black olives and plenty of pesto. Decisions, decisions! But no wine tonight, of course, it's a school night.

Talking of vegetables, we already have a pepper on the plant we bought recently, as well as five or six tiny yellow zucchini, two or three aubergines (which from here on in I'm going to call melanzane), and the tomatoes are flowering.

Our first pepper!

Teeny tiny zucchini, a yellow variety.

There is a melanzana in there, another first!

 

Tomorrow should hopefuly be a little more interesting, with a trip to the council office at least, and we're also aiming to get some storage solutions ordered from somewhere so that I can do even more organising and finish the last bits of unpacking and tidying.