Wildlife Wednesday

It was another chilly, frosty start to the day today, or so I was told by Helen who had been outside exercising in it at 7am. Having felt unusually tired last night I opted to recharge my batteries and sleep in a little so didn't wake until 8:40am when Helen came up with a cup of tea - how's that for service!?

After breakfast the sun was shining outside and the sky clear blue, so I went out to start my work for the day. For today, I temporarily switched my attention from planting to strimming as the grass on the terraces in the olive grove seemed to be growing even while I looked at it and it was getting so long I knew it would soon be difficult to strim - something I'd kick myself for, so a day invested in it would go a long way to making both me and the olive trees happy.

Before I could start on strimming, there was still a fair amount of clearing that needed to be done - this consisted of clearing of old piles of prunings from last year and new bigger piles from the last couple of weeks, so I headed off up the terraces with a pitch fork to start throwing it all down hill where I planned to light a bonfire later.

It was a perfect morning for working outside - a very gentle cool breeze and hot sun. I took my t-shirt off this morning to get some colour on my white bits. This caused quite a cry from Helen when I walked into the office to collect the strimmer at around 11:30am - she was cradling a hot water bottle and wrapped up in numerous woollen layers in front of her PC - what a difference between sedentary work inside and to physical work outside, it was like we were each living completely different days and quite weird to see her so cold when I was so hot.

Anyway, after an hour's strimming I had already had a visit from the fat white and rather rough-looking cat that occasionally shows up, although he didn't stick around long when I went towards him with a pitchfork (of course I had no intention of using it but just wanted to make him feel unwelcome, I really don't fancy either of our cats' chances against the feline version of 'The General' from Watership Down). Shortly after that I very nearly strimmed a grass snake which came at me from a clump of grass, I have no idea how it survived the episode but it did, and nonchalantly slithered past me to a terrace below. By then, it was time to down tools for a delicious egg mayonnaise sandwich on the patio in the sun. I do love a good egg mayo sandwich with sea salt and freshly ground pepper, and my wife makes a mean one.

After lunch Helen, joined me outside for an hour while she waited for a Skype meeting with the rest of the VB crew who had all gathered back in Abingdon, so while she went up to start cutting back anything the strimmer hadn't been able to get through, I started a fire.

Halfway through the afternoon Helen disappeared indoors for her call so I stopped work to let the fire die out and entertain the dog who otherwise would be bound to start barking while Helen was on the phone.

The door squeaked open an hour or so later, Helen's meeting having finished and as I'd slowed right down my day of work was over too and we decided to head out to do a bit of shopping and walk Reggie.

We've got Alex and Donatella coming for a bit of lunch tomorrow, which we're looking forward to, the last couple of times we've seen them it's only been over a quick cup of tea which is never long enough for a proper catch up. We therefore needed to take a trip to Esselunga for a few ingredients (an excellent excuse to get our weekly shopping out of the way nice and early as well - we're looking forward to not having to go on Saturday!), but not before making a quick visit to Montecatini for fuel, a visit to the pet shop and a visit to Obi. We realised a couple of days ago that Reggie has finally grown out of his first collar, so we needed to get him a new one with some urgency! He is now sporting a very nice think brown one with reflective stripes and looks very grown up. 

After we'd relieved Obi of a trolley load of various bits and pieces, we headed back to Pescia. As time was getting on by now, Helen decided to go and do the supermarket shopping by herself while I walked Reggie. So as Helen headed into Esselunga, Reggie and I headed off in the direction of the river.

By the time Helen had shopped, picked us up and we'd driven home, it was getting on for 8pm so it was all hands to the pump to house the geese, close the cold frames, water a few things, collect firewood, feed the animals, light the fire, write this blog post, prepare some dishes for tomorrow's lunch and make some dinner - all in a day's work.