Toasty Tuesday!

I awoke this morning before Helen, which could only mean one of two things: either the migraine fairy had visited during the night and left her with the mother of all migraines or... she was actually sleeping properly for the first time and playing catch-up. I lay as still as I could for as long as I could so as not to disturb her either way, but after about 15 minutes was starting to lose my mind. Sleep would not return to me, so as covertly as I could, I reached for my e-reader to dive into a few more pages of  Twelve Years a Slave. This soon woke Helen, but she rested for another half an hour before I dared ask the question 'how did you sleep?' This was met, at last, with a thumbs up! A proper night's sleep at last!

 

The usual routine then ensued (who am I kidding, still no proper routine as such, but something is definitely emerging), and after breakfast we both headed to our respective work places for a couple of hours.

 

We'd had a call from the bank yesterday - entirely in Italian, but I managed to deduce that they wanted us to go in and sign the contracts for our ATM cards. We agreed to go in and do that this morning, so off we went at around 11 to tackle another meeting... In Italian. We not only needed to ask to sign the contracts, but we wanted to know the balance of Helen's account to make sure that the 'lost' Euro transfer from last week had become a 'found' transfer, so to speak. So, armed with a few extra words courtesy of Google Translate, we entered through the fingerprint recognition airlock capsule (I kid you not)! It seems the norm over here to have these glass cylinders by which everyone has to enter and leave the bank - a strictly one in, one out policy, and on entering it locks you in until you have had your fingerprint electronically scanned.

 

Fortunately, it was quiet in the bank this morning, so we went straight in and straight to a cashier, where we successfully signed the contracts (about six or seven times each!), and then cobbled a sentence together which got us the balance of Helen's account scribbled down on a piece of paper (although the bank teller looked a little confused as to why we would want to know such information!). Job done!.

 

Confidence boosted after another small victory and feeling like we could take on the world (funny how such mundane tasks can have such a profound effect just by changing the language), we headed to the phone shop again, this to time to ask a) how to find out our own phone numbers b) how to check for credit balance and c) how to get the internet working on the phones. This was no mean feat, and we weren't as well prepared for this encounter as for the one at the bank, as it was non-critical and I can only seem to fit a small amount of new words into the grey matter each day, so IF it quickly went pear-shaped, then plan B was to apologise, turn on our heels and quickly leave, making sure we were better prepared next time.

 

As it turned out, today we conquer the world!! We got a printout each showing our phone numbers (not sure why we were not furnished with them in the first place, but where's the fun in that?), were told that dialling 414 would give us our credit balance (albeit via a pre-recorded message in... you guessed it! Italian!), and we left our phones with the man at the shop for the afternoon so that he could configure our settings for the sum of €20 per phone (at least I think that's what he said - it was either that or "'for €20 each I will look through all your photos and then post some inappropriate content on Facebook, posing as you, and finally I will sort your internet settings five minute before you come back to collect your phones").

 

Either way, we left our phones with virtual strangers and headed for the safety of the house before anything could tarnish our day - but not before buying a large bag of tomatoes, as we had mozzarella and a pot of basil to introduce them to before eating the lot for lunch.

 

After a very pleasant but scorchingly hot lunch break on the veranda, Helen headed back indoors and I decided to go and have a play at plastering my new little wall. I say 'play' because when we arrived at the house, one of the potentially slightly more useful items we inherited was a bag-and-a-half of something which looked to me like sand, but after Googling its name and translating the page, it appeared to be an all-in-one bag of mortar not only for plastering, but also wall building and laying stone steps or even marble! Supposedly, not only could it do all of this, but it could do it with reinforcing fibres for extra strength, and was particularly good at doing what it did in earthquake zones too - pretty impressive for something that definitely looked like a bag of sand. After a rummage, I did indeed find fibres, but it still seemed heavy on the sand front so I decided a small mix to begin with was the wise move, and poured the 'sand' into the water. It was only when I put the bag down that I noticed that, covering my steel toe caps and the floor next to the bucket was a pile of something decidedly un-sand-like. On closer inspection of the bag, I realised that there was an inner pocket/section on one side which contained the cement and lime mixture - makes sense really, as any moisture in the sand if premixed would start setting the binder. It's a great idea, and we have nothing like that back in the UK, although I'm not sure how the price compares. The only down side to this though, is that if you want to mix any less than a full bag, the quantities have been measured to the correct ratio, so it's not the most convenient to use in parts. There was nothing else for it, therefore, but to empty each substance out separately and divide it as required.

 

I eventually got onto actual plastering, and you can rest easily this evening, safe in the knowledge that it isn't anywhere as easy to use as gypsum! I got the hang of it soon enough though, and got most of one side of the wall plastered with its first coat before it was time for us to head back into town to collect our phones.

 

After a quick spin through rush hour (ha! no such thing around here with their crazy working hours),and €40 lighter, we have working phones - or at least they worked until we got back home where the surrounding lumps of rock render them useless, but at least we have them working now for when we do need them when out and about. I've been lost without the translator app on my phone.

 

Back at home after a satisfying day, we decided to soak up the late afternoon's sunshine with peanuts and fizzy water - that's right folks, no wine ... or beer for that matter! One part of our routine that we do seem to have managed to get back to is restricting our wine and beer consumption to weekends only (well, we've managed it for two days at least), although it's hard in this sunshine not to take cork out of a chilled white or the top off a beer, but I'm sure it'll feel normal soon enough.

 

After half an hour in the sun we decided that strimming the somewhat overgrown lawn would be useful. Helen opted to have a whirl at it - after all, we're both living this dream, and she needs to know how to do these things too. She quickly changed into her trusty old trainers while I changed the metal blade for the grass strimming coil, fitted her up with harness and visor, yanked the motor into life and off she went to the smell of petrol - I'm very proud of her for rolling up her sleeves and getting stuck in!

 

 

The lawn looks a little like it's had a fight with a very disgruntled/inebriated hairdresser.

 

Half an hour later, we had a tidy (well, tidier) lawn again, and I now have a wife that wants a mower. I have to agree that a mower would be quicker and much neater for this piece of grass - the strimmer has its place amongst the scrub and down the driveway, but you can't really get a tidy finish without a proper mower.

 

So here I am, clacking away on my tablet writing this post. The sun has just dropped behind the mountain opposite and the temperature is dropping, so I'm heading inside to pod peas for our pea, mint (from the garden) and feta risotto.

 

I'll leave you with a couple of pictures of some of the flowers growing along the side of our drive. Ciao for now!