As is now our custom on Saturday we we're up and out of the house heading for the supermarkets before nine, having fed and released all of the animals...including ourselves.
Overnight the clouds had rolled in and so we drove down into a rather grey looking Pescia with very ominous looking clouds gathering further up the valley north of us in my rear view mirror.
In true whirlwind style we were in and out of the first supermarket in under forty minutes having left with a full trolley which largely contained vegetables (Helen, you can look forward to sprouts, a squash based Thai curry, and artichoke gnocchi amongst other things next week).
As we pulled into the car park of Esselunga we were greeted with a fuller car park than I've ever seen! So full was it (the car park is so huge it will never be short of spaces) that we had to park two rows further away than normal and it was still before ten in the morning, I stated it must be an overflow of people parking for the market in the centre of town...how wrong I was, the shop was busier than at Christmas, there was clearly something going on today that I was clearly oblivious to, at one point there was an actual five trolley traffic jam at the end of an isle that took sometime to clear, Mom managed to narrowly avoid the pile up with our trolley but I still got stuck in it and was last to leave even with trolley or basket, fortunately it was all without incident.
It was gone half ten before we escaped the shop, a good half hour later than we'd normally be leaving but despite that it was still good to have the task of shopping behind us and we drove back up the valley towards home facing ever greyer skies.
After quickly throwing the shopping bags indoors we headed back out to the refuge track near San Quirico to allow Reggie his usual romp around the woods before the precipitation started and as we got back into the car the rain finally started falling, by the time we were back at the house it was falling in earnest, right on cue according to the trusty weather app.
While I unpacked the shopping mom collected another four crates of firewood exclaiming 'it's no wonder you look so thin with this kind of daily routine!', we then sat down to our tasty bean dip with bread, carrots, celery and of course the ubiquitous cup of tea while the fire got going.
After lunch and with the fire slowly heating up I headed down to the apartment to do a bit more carpentry while mom got the vacuum going in the house and kept an eye on Reggie so that I could achieve something productive with my time downstairs.
Around half three I ran out of wood having made good progress and locked up the apartment before going upstairs to tinker with another little job for an hour, I won't go into detail as it really was a little job but not really worthy of mention, I only do so as it's one that my wife will be glad to see done so I will save it for a surprise tomorrow when she gets home.
Tools away, cats in, geese in, it was time to settle into a bottle of wine while dinner got underway, which tonight is a dinner of rare occurrence in this house but one that will have been chalked up twice already this year and that's beef for dinner along with some form of potato and kale.
So a very busy day and a productive one despite the weather's best efforts, while tomorrow promises more of the wet stuff the morning will be taken up with a return trip to Pisa airport to collect Helen, we've all missed her dearly and we're looking forward to celebrating her return with Aperol spritz, well maybe not immediately on her return as she lands mid-morning, some might say that would signify an alcohol problem.
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