Passata, prosecco and palio

As Friday saw me take a large couple of steps in a backwards direction with my thyroid-induced tiredness, I made the difficult decision to pull out of a trip to the Orrido di Botri gorge with Chris on Saturday, in which I had been meant to be playing the part of a "responsible adult" (smirk) on a team-building trip for the kids of Pescia Rugby Club. Fortunately, Chris managed to cajole another grown-up into gong along just in time - and come Saturday morning, there was relief all round that I had made the decision not to go, as Saturday proved to be even more of a struggle for me than Friday had been.

So instead of hopping across rocks and streams, it was the usual weekly trip to the supermarkets for me on Saturday morning, although we delayed it until lunchtime, partly because I hadn't managed to haul myself out of bed until late morning, but also because things are usually very, very much quieter in the shops at that time.

As it happened, Sue had run out of gas on Friday evening, and with Chris (and the car) at the gorge, she was stuck without being able to get a new bottle. Of course, we were only too happy to play the part of the cavalry and take her to the shop in town to swap the empty bottle for a new full one. Of course we followed that with a couple of cappuccinos - this time in a bar we'd not frequented before, in a quiet back street opposite the church of St Dorothy in the Ferraia district of Pescia. The change of coffee shop made a nice change, almost making us feel like we were on holiday as we admired the sunny view of a different part of Pescia. It's an odd thing here now that, because we have something of a routine and regular haunts, when we take even the smallest diversion from these - a different route somewhere or a different coffee shop - we instantly feel like we're on holiday and experiencing the place for the first time, it's quite magical!

After filling up on caffeine (something I was in dire need of again today), we dropped Sue home, reconnected the gas bottle then left her in peace so that we could head for the shops, it now being gone 1pm, the best time of day to deal with the supermarkets around here.

We were in and out of the nice quiet stores in no time at all, and heading home for a late lunch. By the time we sat down for our lunch it was almost 3pm and other than the shopping, we hadn't even started our to-do list yet for the day.

So, after lunch I tried to find the energy to tackle various jobs and failed miserably on all fronts with the exception of lying on the sofa while tackling the mind-numbing (not that my mind needed any more numbing at this point) task of comparing washing machines. While I lay on the sofa cursing at the screen and scratching my head, Helen made our first batch of passata using a heap of our latest crop of tomatoes. Having decided that our little freezer was now too full to take anything else, jarring was the only real option!

With three large jars of passata made, I joined Helen and we turned our attention to dinner. I lit the fire pit and candles and we enjoyed outdoor cooking on the camping stove on loan from Chris and Sue - it felt almost like having an outdoor kitchen, a glimpse of the future maybe? Seems like a long way off yet!

Outdoor cooking.

On Sunday I woke earlier than I had for the last couple of days, despite having gone to bed late - a good sign that my thyroid was playing ball? I hoped so, Helen deserved at least one good day from me this weekend.

After breakfast, we loaded Reggie into the car and headed to the cava so that he could have a good stretch of the legs. We made sure he had exactly that by tagging on an extra stretch to our normal walk. Reggie seemed to particularly enjoy this new stretch and spent most of the time charging off the track and in amongst the trees, absolutely in his element.

Once home, we tackled the task of ordering a new washing machine. We were unsuccessful on our first attempt - the only credit card we have between us is being rescinded by the helpful people at MasterCard in the next 30 days because they no longer honour cards registered outside the UK, and it seems that although the card isn't due to be cancelled for a few weeks yet, we are unable to make a purchase online with it. Next, we tried using a debit card, but this didn't work either. This left us a small thread of hope in the form of a button at the bottom of the payment page suggesting we pay by bank transfer "bonifico bancario", not an option we're used to for this kind of transaction, but we had no choice but to give it a go now.

Five minutes later, after filling in our address for the third time, we were presented with a receipt for our order and instructions on how to transfer the money to the vendor's bank account within the next 3 days. We duly did that by fumbling around with our internet banking, and it seemed that, after an hour of messing around, we had finally ordered a new washing machine - or at least we hope we have, the next week to nine days will tell! Needless to say, to use a farming metaphor, we're not counting our chickens.

We had hoped next to head up to Donatella's to say hello to her and her family at her birthday BBQ, but after the time it had taken us to mess about with ordering white goods, we had run out of time - we were due in Pescia for the Palio finale this afternoon, with the parade starting at 3pm and road closures due before that, which left too small a window to head up the valley. It was a huge disappointment, and even more so when Donatella later sent us photos of the amazing spread of food they were all enjoying!

Despite our disappointment at not being able to make the BBQ, we had a fantastic afternoon with Chris and Sue at the Palio.

The Palio was as loud and colourful as we remembered it from last year, and we followed the parade around the quarters of town for a couple of hours (stopping off at cafés for glasses of prosecco on the way) before eventually ending up at the main piazza where we were refused entry - well, not refused as such (despite the amount of prosecco consumed we weren't that rowdy), but this year the piazza had been fenced off and cashiers and security guards were stationed at every entry/exit point - something new to everyone. It turns out they were charging €3 to enter to watch the archery competition with which the Palio culminates each year. Not a lot of money, granted, and I'm sure it goes some way to paying for the tiered seating that is installed each year, and the brand new giant screen that had been erected to display the competition this year, but whether this happens again next year will remain to be seen - the Italians don't seem to take well to things being changed so if there is a subsequent onslaught of complaints I'm sure we will be back to the free entry of previous years.

Having seen plenty of the Palio already, and not wanting to pay to enter the packed main square, we decided to head back to the same quiet bar that we had coffee in yesterday for some wine and Prosecco until the event had finished. We had a lovely hour or so chatting until finally, darkness had fallen and all of a sudden there was a commotion - one of the members of the Ferraia rione came stomping back to the bar, shouting in disgust that they had been disqualified from the archery competition! Much shouting and gesticulating ensued until eventually everyone dissipated, us included, in our case to head back to Chris and Sue's for some dinner. We later learned that the Ferraia competitors had reportedly been bouncing on the grandstand (in celebration of their archer's excellent shot) when other archers were taking their shots... which led to accusations of cheating and even something of a punch up between archers with the Carabinieri getting involved to restrain them! One this is for sure: they do take this Palio very seriously, and I think we will be obliged to pay the entry fee if there is one next year to see the re-match!!

After some very welcome and delicious morsels of food cooked up by Sue, we eventually left for home a little before midnight to go and see if Reggie had destroyed the house in our lengthy absence (he hadn't) before all retiring to bed for a much needed sleep before the week commenced all too soon...