A social afternoon and our first overnight visitor

Knowing that today was going to be a busy one, I set my alarm for 5.45am to try and cram an extra hour's work into the morning. I was on the turbo trainer by 6am, and showered and at my desk by 7.30am.

I tiptoed around, trying not to wake Stuart, who surfaced at around 8.30am. His first job of the day (after breakfast, checking emails, checking the dehumidifier in the apartment and collecting some rubbish to take to the bins) was to make a quick trip to Esselunga for some essentials (water, beer, cheese, bread, etc.) so that we would have enough in our cupboards to welcome our first overnight visitor later today.

When he got back, he headed straight down to the apartment to start work on unpacking and assembling some of the kitchen cupboard carcasses. Come lunch time, he'd made good progress, and we ate in the shade of the garden umbrella (as it proved to be another scorching hot sunny day).

Straight after lunch, we both got ourselves ready: Stuart preparing to head to try and find Florence airport to pick up Jeff, and me to go for an afternoon's socialising with Sue. Stuart dropped me at the bottom of Sue's drive and headed off into the distance to go and find Florence airport.

He returned, some 3 hours later, with Jeff in tow. I'd had the best afternoon. I can't tell you how lovely it was to sit and chat with someone easy to get along with, who's been through all of the same issues as we've been having, who has a very similar outlook on life to ours, and who is kind, friendly and generous. I'd been slightly apprehensive about going round, as you can never be quite sure how spending time with a new person is going to pan out, but I had a good feeling about it, and my instinct proved to be spot on. I look forward to seeing Sue again, and hopefully for the four of us to catch up once Chris has returned from a trip to the UK to do some work on their old house - there's certainly plenty of 'boy stuff' for Chris and Stuart to compare notes on and bond over, such as solar energy, olive pruning, septic tanks, water pumps...

When we finally left (after Stuart and Jeff had both had cups of tea and glasses of vin santo), Sue sent us on our way with a box of wine to try, and an enormous bag of home grown fruit and veg (tomatoes, pears, squash, cucumbers...).

We will eat like kings over the weekend!

As Sue and I chatted the afternoon away, the thunder rolled in and the rain pelted down. Again. I felt frustrated that it had been such a lovely morning, but now that Jeff was about to arrive the weather had turned and he wouldn't be able to see our lovely piece of Italy in its best weather. However, by the time they arrived in Pescia, the sky had cleared, the sun was back out again and you wouldn't even know it had been raining.

Stuart's trip to Florence airport sounded uneventful, and he and Jeff clearly found each other OK. However, they got a little stuck on leaving Florence and had to resort to plugging in Jeff's sat nav in order to find the autostrade. They then spent a good chunk of time sitting in traffic on said autostrade (while I was having a lovely relaxing afternoon drinking coffee (and vin santo)).

They made a brief stop in Pescia in an attempt to find the beer festival that has been running for the last week (it's been on for a week and poor Stuart hasn't managed to get to it yet - clearly he misses Dodge for such opportunities...). Sadly for them, they found that it only runs in the evenings, which is why they pitched up at Sue's ready for a cup of tea.

When we finally left Sue's we headed straight for home. Poor Jeff didn't even have a chance to put his suitcase inside the house before he was ordered to sit at the garden table and drink a beer (although to be fair, he didn't take much persuading on the beer front - the poor guy has had a day of travelling, I'm sure he needed one!).

Cheers! Great to see Jeff, to whom we are forever grateful for helping us out with our car conundrum.

We whiled away an hour or so, drinking a beer, showing Jeff the apartment and around the land, and Stuart has made a reservation for dinner at one of our local restaurants (in Sorana), so we will be heading there in an hour or so.

Sue has kindly offered to drive us to the car dealer tomorrow (that's assuming the car is ready to pick up!!), both so that Jeff can get on his way whenever he likes, and to avoid us having to hire a car just to go and collect a car.  

There are still a million things that (urgently) need doing, and lots of challenges for us to overcome, as well as uncertainties and potential problems waiting to happen, but catching up with old friends and making new ones is good for the soul.