It was a sombre morning this morning, as Mom, Kerys and Ben were due to fly home this afternoon - despite their arrival feeling like a month ago, their departure has come around too quickly!
Mom and I had an hour on the patio in the glorious morning sun, until duties beckoned - the kids needed waking up so they could shower and help finish the packing. Although the flight wasn't until 15:20, Mom had decided it would be a good idea to have an early arrival at the airport so that they could have a leisurely lunch before the flight.
So at 11.30am, we rallied, loaded the 182 bus, and everyone they said their goodbyes to Helen before I drove them down the drive for the last time. I really felt their end-of-holiday sadness, and at the same time felt truly privileged to know that I was coming back here.
An hour later we were parked and heading for the terminal. We found the departures screen but there wasn't yet a desk open for dropping bags so we headed back to the café downstairs for cappucinos. After that, and a brief look around the book shop, we went back up to departures and within minutes the desk opened so we made it to second in the queue. Once the bags had been dropped it was time for the Smith clan to negotiate security. That done, with lots of waves and choked back tears, I headed back to the car, hoping that their return journey would be much less eventful (and quicker) than the one out here.
I decided to come off the autostrada a junction early at Montecatini so that I could fill the methane tank - we had run out yesterday, and the 100km or so drive to the airport today had used nearly €20 of unleaded by my estimation, so I was keen to switch back to the more economical fuel!
I spent €16.60 filling the tank, so it can't have been quite as empty as it had been when we collected the car, but the rudimentary system for monitoring methane levels didn't fill me with confidence. So the scores on the doors for our 'Natural Power' bus are 270km for 16 (and a little bit) kg of methane at €1.02 per kg. It doesn't mean much when put like that, but it works out at 6 cents per kilometre. To put that into context, from my calculations, our little Citroen C2 (which ran at around 50-55mpg) cost us 8-10 cents per kilometre to run, so taking into consideration the size of our new car these are big savings. Very happy with that!
When I got home it was about 3pm so I had a bit of lunch and made a poor attempt at getting into some admin and paperwork. I wasn't hugely productive, but did achieve a little before Helen came downstairs at 5.30pm when her working day was over and it was time to head into Pescia for a bit of shopping.
We visited Lidl first for around half the items on the shopping list that were noticeably cheaper there than in Esselunga, then dropped in at the computer shop. I hadn't really expected it to be open (it was around 7.15pm), and certainly didn't expect the printer to be ready but - stop the presses - we actually left with a new printer!!
Next stop was the car spares shop to get a new bulb for one of the headlights, as I'd noticed last night we had one out (makes me wonder about the thoroughness of the biannual MOT here, which the car had supposedly just been through last week), then finally to Esselunga. Helen hadn't been to Esselunga for two weeks and hadn't missed the experience, I think that novelty has finally worn off.
Shopping done, it was time for Helen to take to the wheel of yet another new car, once again with the steering wheel on the 'wrong' side. I think she'll be glad to start getting used to this car, make friends with it and finally work towards being completely comfortable with the driving over here. It's a big step changing sides of the road, not to mention sides of the car and increasing the car size from a tiny C2 to that of a small van! She did great though.
When we got back we had to dash inside to unplug the phone, we'd had a Tweet from Sue who was very kindly on the phone to Telecom Italia trying to sort our phone line issue out. Apparently we'll be getting a visit from an engineer this week (that's assuming his policy about driveways is a little different from that of couriers and the postal service who have an aversion to venturing down them).
While Helen dashed inside to unplug the phone, I went to chat to our apartment guests and extend an invitation for them to join us on our patio for a drink after we'd all had our respective dinners. They seem like such a nice family, we would have been disappointed for the whole fortnight to pass without having a proper chat with them. We can't quite believe how lucky we've been with our first ever guests!
So, after unpacking the shopping and having a quick dinner, we settled down on the patio with a glass of wine to await our guests, with me writing the blog and Helen reading through a book of Tuscan recipes that I'd picked up at the airport.
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