Plumbing progress(/disruption)

Monday

Looking at the weather forecast for the week, we could see that today, Monday, was set to be the only dry day of the week. I'm sure we must be heading towards some form of wet winter record considering the rainfall we've had here since Christmas. However, I've no doubt that my cunning plan to stop the rains will work without fail and the moment I direct the rainwater into our collection tanks in a week or two the sunshine will come, and along with it weeks of dry weather...

Despite the dry forecast for the day though, I had something of a full schedule.

Donatella had very kindly offered to come along with me to Colidretti, the local agricultural association, to help me finally get to the bottom of the rules, regulations and tax laws that apply now that I have registered for an agricultural tax code - and we had an appointment there at midday.

Before that though, I had told our guest, Laura, that I would drop her and her luggage to the train station so that she could finish her Italian adventure with a stop in Pisa before flying home, so at 09:30 I loaded both Laura and her bag into the car and headed down the valley.

After helping her with the purchase of a ticket and sending her on her way I headed to Maionchi - the place from which we'd bought the tractor (and strimmers) to retrieve my agricultural tax certificate. It felt as if I'd barely had the certificate in my hands more than a few minutes before handing it over to the guys at Maionchi so that they could complete the change of ownership documents for the tractor.

With documents in hand, I refuelled the car then headed home after picking up another stack of 50 plant pots for seed planting.

Shortly after getting home and sinking a coffee, Donatella arrived which pleased Reggie hugely, especially as she did so with a tennis ball for him to play with.

She had brought her chainsaw with her for sharpening, so with another coffee we dismantled the saw and put a nice sharp edge onto the chain's teeth before reassembling it and loading it back into her car then heading into Pescia.

After a short wait at Coldiretti were called into an office upstairs where we were met by two women, both of whom remembered me from my various other visits, and we soon settled into an hour-long discussion about the whys and wherefores of the agricultural tax scheme.

It was a detailed conversation that I won't bore you with, suffice to say that I felt very pleased when we left - I don't need to de-register, but I do need to present myself there along with my associated receipts and invoices every March, and I will need to pay the sum of €25 for them to apply my spending and sales to my tax code. It all seems too easy! It seems that Italy heavily supports small agricultural enterprises (of which we are now one, albeit one with little produce to speak of at the moment).

After a stop off in Esselunga we headed back to Numero 182, we cross-loaded Donatella's shopping into her car and she headed home.

After lunch, Helen and I loaded Reggie into the car to take him for a walk. We were planning to go to the Phillips household after our walk to make use of their landline (and hopefully even one of their Italian-fluent sons) to call the electricity board to ask whether they would come and cut down the last of the tricky 3-4 trees (which are intertwined with the electricity wires) down for us.

However, on finishing the walk we received a message from Chris, welcoming us to go up but warning us that the house was suffering from a particularly bad flu epidemic - so we opted to avoid them and instead headed home.

It was 5pm by now and whereas a few weeks back we'd be calling it a day due to fading light, there was still plenty of daylight left and so we went outside to work for an hour, Helen splitting wood and me taking the tractor up to the end of the driveway to collect the last of the acacia that was lying on the ground having been felled by the winds of last March - finally the tractor was going to get to test its metal and see if it was fit for purpose!

With flying colours (or red, at least) the tractor and I made a couple of trips along the driveway with the chainsaw and I loaded another hefty pile of wood to the car park ready for logging and splitting.

Tuesday

Tuesday was a Big Day as far as our new hot water system was concerned: Anton, the plumber, had said he would arrive to make a start with Angelo, the builder. Not only that, but our new dishwasher was due to be delivered, which felt like a landmark event in itself.

Sure enough, as I was finishing my breakfast Anton pulled up in his van and headed into the shed with two rolls of tubing and a heap of tools. Reggie was not best pleased at his arrival and kept trying to escape the house to terrorise Anton - who would rather the dog wasn't here, as he is clearly a little afraid of dogs, or at least of Reggie.

After battling with Reggie for a while and finally getting him to settle on the sofa, all went pear-shaped when Angelo arrived and tried to come into the house with a huge drill to start making holes in these old stone walls of ours. This was a step too far for poor Reggie, who lost his mind at this point so we had to resort to putting him in the boot of the car for the rest of the morning so the guys could crack on.

I spent the rest of the morning chasing around after the plumbers, fetching stuff and slowly emptying the shed compartments the further along they got. It soon became clear that any hopes of of taking Reggie out of the way for a walk would be dashed, although on the plus side we had the 300-litre tank plumbed in and hooked up to the control kit and it had all been done very tidily, albeit a little close to the new cat exit hole - it was bound to happen, but worry not, Florence has tested the escape route and all is well despite her rather saggy nether regions.

As promised, a courier arrived a little before midday with the dishwasher. With both Anton and Angelo and their respective cars here, I had to go to the end of the drive in the car to collect the dishwasher from the courier, but the fact that it was here was enough for us! We also had a surprise delivery by courier this afternoon. We couldn't think of anything we were expecting, and when we opened up the box we found an amazing array of goodies including colouring books, artists pens, amazing scented candles and the most delicious chocolates - all sent to us by our incredibly thoughtful friend Jeannette, all the way from Seattle. I think the parcel arrived just in time to stop Helen from either having a nervous breakdown or leaving home thanks to the level of noise and disruption being created by the plumbers!

Wednesday

A sudden change in weather was forecast for Wednesday - a dry day, albeit a brief window in the otherwise decidedly English weather, which meant a quick change of plan.

It seemed like a great opportunity to paint rainwater collection tanks 4,5 and 6, and while they were drying to set some roof tiles on the newly repointed wall behind them.

David had offered to lend a hand again this week for a couple of hours, so he charged down the hill to join me in the glorious dry weather.

After a quick coffee we dragged the last three tanks onto the car park area, extracted the plastic tanks from their cages, set up a 'spray booth' and got to work turning white into black with the aid of nine cans of spray paint.

An hour and a half later, and with sore fingertips from spraying (we have a new-found respect for Banksy and his sort), we had all three tanks painted with two cans of paint to spare so after unloading the 24 aged roof tiles out of the car, Dave and I went indoors for a pre-lunch beer.

After a beer, David left us to our lunch, after which Helen went back to work and I headed out to walk Reggie - who desperately needed to get some tension out of his system after the plumber-induced stresses of yesterday, which he did along the river out at the chicken run.

After getting Reggie home and indoors, Helen and I headed out for an hour or so of work. While Helen split some more logs, I set those 24 roof tiles with a bucket full of mortar.

As the sun dipped we headed indoors to light the fire for the evening and to make dinner while we talked over the prospect of another day of doing battle with the plumbers and the dog - not a happy prospect and far from conducive to work for poor Helen, who is really suffering in this equation, possibly even more so than Reggie.

Thursday

After a plumberless day yesterday, Anton was back again after breakfast, this time with his Dad in tow to help out. Needless to say, Reggie was back in the boot of the car quite soon after and that's where he had to stay for the morning - it was going to be a long day!

I was now left twiddling my thumbs - I can't get on with much myself until all the plumbing work is finished as not only will I be in the way, but Anton hasn't yet reached the point where he has stopped making holes and mess all over the place, so it will be a while before I can start repairing walls and plasterwork.

After some thought, I decided to take the opportunity of a dog-free house to empty the kitchen sideboard so that I could add wheels to the bottom of it instead of it being raised on temporary blocks of wood.

The wheels will give us the flexibility to create a little extra space when we have visitors here and sitting at the table - it's a tight squeeze in this multi-function room of ours and we have to make the most of every inch. Making the room more flexible with furniture that moves feels like a small but beneficial step - besides which, in the the spirit of re-purposing, I had four heavy-duty castor wheels with brakes on that once provided me with a moveable spot board for when I was plastering on my stilts (a pre-Italian adventure activity), which have been sitting outside in all weathers for months feeling unloved and without a purpose.

With the help of my beautiful assistant, we laid the sideboard down on its side so that I could fit the wheels. I'm not sure what exactly this sideboard of ours is made from, but I suspect it is dark matter, or something from the beginning of the universe itself, it's so impossibly dense and weighty. It also smelled of chocolate when I drilled holes into the feet for the screws - I'm not sure what that means in terms of identification, but that's all I can tell you.

Before lunchtime arrived I had returned the chaos back into an ordered, functioning kitchen, albeit with a worktop/sideboard that is now an inch taller due to the wheels, which isn't going to be an issue for either Helen or me (in fact, it led me to wonder exactly who decided that all worktops should be 600mm high? What person was used to gauge this universal measurement? I've decided after today that it wasn't someone around the 6ft mark!).

After lunch, I decided after much deliberation that while the plumber and his Dad were out at lunch I would dash out to get some materials so that I could build a new spice cupboard (something way down on my list of things to do but about the only thing I could turn my hands to with the weather today and the plumbers in the house).

It wasn't long after arriving at OBI in Montecatini that Helen called with a backing track of 'angry, barky dog', saying that Anton had come back and now needed to be in the house rather than out in the shed, and Reggie of course was having none of it. I needed to get back quickly with the mobile dog kennel!

I got home to find Reggie with Helen and Samantha all in the apartment waiting to start the weekly Italian lesson with Reggie flitting between chewing a bone and barking at Anton, who he could hear making noise upstairs.

Well you can guess where poor Reggie ended up! I think he probably hates plumbers more than anything else in the world - I think maybe Helen feels the same, although as Anton spent the last half hour of his workday here on his hands and knees plumbing in the dishwasher for us, that could well turn things around as far as Helen is concerned.

Friday

After breakfast on Friday I had a message from David asking if he could give me a hand stacking rainwater tanks 4, 5 and 6 on top of tanks 1, 2 and 3 before the day's forecast rain arrived. Of course I jumped at the offer and responded with an emphatic 'yes!', after which it was boots on and outside to get the lower tanks ready by sealing the screw-top lids with silicone and then fitting a metre or so of pipe into the newly fitted elbows on the rear to allow air out.

With the lids on I hopped on top of the tanks to fit the first section of pipe, only to find that after almost a week the silicone hadn't set on the elbow joints I'd fitted. There was clearly a problem with it related to being left in unfavourable conditions over the winter.

I messaged Dave as quickly as I could in the hope of catching him before he left home, but to no avail, and he was soon here ready for lifting. However, no lifting was going to happen today, as I'd now unscrewed the lids (in case they dried) and would have to leave it like this until I could get a new tube of silicone. Instead, I suggested we take Reggie out for a walk, so after a quick coffee Dave and I headed in convoy back up the valley for a walk at the quarry.

After the walk, Reggie and I headed home for lunch. I was quite relieved to find there was no sign of Anton today - as much as it would be nice to get the work done as quickly as possible, I think a solid week of Anton being here would force Reggie to pack his bags and leave home (after having destroyed the car from the inside out), and quite possibly Helen as well.

After lunch, Helen went back to work and I took the chance to dash off to OBI for some bits of wood to build the spice rack/cupboard that I'd been planning for a while. The plan for the cupboard is that it will slide (on wheels) into the dead space alongside the fridge, thus freeing up some cupboard space.

After making three separate visits into the shop (they don't do trolleys big enough for what I needed and without an extra pair of hands I had no other choice than to keep going back in again) I headed home, leaving some very dark clouds behind me in the rear view mirror.

After a little while messing around indoors it was clear those clouds were headed off in a different direction and there were even a few faint glimpses of sunshine, so I headed outside to make a start on the cupboard.

An hour and a half later I'd all but got it finished, save for some dowelling bars across the front of each shelf to hold items in place.

Feeling very accomplished I headed indoors to find Helen having finished work and getting ready to head into Pescia with me to do the food shopping for the weekend. The supermarket is certainly a little busier on a Friday evening than in our usual Saturday lunchtime slot, but we think the sacrifice is worth it to free up the weekend for more fun tasks. Time will tell if the new habit will stick though!

With the shopping done, unloaded and put away, we were finally ready to sit down and start the weekend.