21 days (happy new year!)

 (This blog post covers the period 18th December 2017 - 7 January 2018.)

Happy new year!

OK, so we have been slack with our blogging over recent weeks. Apologies to our regular readers, but we hope you will understand that with a tide of visitors to prepare for and look after over the festive period, and routines having gone out the window, something had to give! Now that we are back to something more approaching normality we hope to get back on track.

We had Stuart's Mum, Sheila, staying with us for two weeks over Christmas and New Year, and our dear friends Paul & Marie staying with us for the week over New Year as well. We also hosted our great friends David & Sarah for Christmas Day, so festivities were plentiful!

Aside from eating and drinking and making merry at home, we had a fair few mini-excursions and celebrations with friends and an altogether packed three weeks.

Stuart, Sheila and I put our crafting skills to the test in the days running up to Christmas and finally found a use for the baskets of corks that we have been accumulating over the years: cork Christmas wreaths. It took us a few attempts to find the rings (of polystyrene) on which to base our creations, but the Aladdin's cave that is Lemmi (a hardware/homeware/craftware shop in Borgo a Buggiano) came up trumps, and our visit there took us to a new coffee shop whose barista excelled herself with the festive cappuccinos she produced for us.

Festive cappuccini!

Once back at home we put the production line into action, with Sheila gamely impaling corks with cocktail sticks while Stuart and I got creative with assembling the wreaths. Poor Amanda and Samantha (two of the intended recipients of our craftwork) were baffled as to why, after having bought a box of 400 cocktail sticks from them in the morning, we were rushing back just a few hours later to buy some more (after all, who on earth needs 800 cocktail sticks in one day?!). In the end, we were pretty pleased with the results.

It's not Chritsmas without a crafting session.

Three down, two to go.

#1

#2

#3

#4

(Not sure where #5 got to!)

In the days running up to Christmas we introduced Sheila to our best Italian friends Mara & Franco, who generously entertained the three of us not once but twice at their home, with Franco cooking traditional chestnut pancakes (necci) for us and rolling out his best English phrases for the benefit of Sheila, who was suitably amused by his antics (not to mention being stuffed to the gills with the pancakes!).

Christmas Day itself started (after a morning walk with Reggie) with a visit to Amanda & Samantha and their parents, Julia & Vittorio, in the shop both to collect our bread and to deliver cork Christmas wreaths to them all, finally coming clean about why we'd needed so many cocktail sticks - they seemed pretty pleased with their gifts, but were even more bowled over by the Christmas jumpers we were all sporting (bought over from the UK courtesy of Sheila). They made us all line up for a Christmas jumper photo shoot, each of them snapping away on their phones, making us feel as if we were on some sort of bizarre Christmas red carpet! We left the shop promising Amanda that she could have Stuart's Christmas jumper (complete with flashing lights) when he had finished with it, in time for her to wear it next year.

A Christmas morning Reggie walk.

The rain started on Christmas Day around lunchtime, but with David & Sarah arriving to help us celebrate, our spirits were far from dampened. Together, we pulled together a feast fit for not one but several kings: a pear, walnut and gorgonzola salad, followed by roast turkey, roast venison, a pistachio and chestnut bake for the vegetarians, roast parsnips from David & Sarah's orto, roast potatoes from our orto, red cabbage, carrots, and sprouts with chestnuts, followed by a traditional panettone filled with chantilly and hazelnut creams - complete with mountain village scene on top - that Sarah & David had ordered from one of the local bakeries in Pescia.

Table all set.

A monster parsnip from David & Sarah's orto.

Let the eating begin.

Sweet treats: panettone with mountain village scene.

Mara and Franco called in on us on their way back home from Christmas lunch at Franco's parents' house in Vellano. With us having a rather late lunch and them having had a fairly early one, they arrived just as we had sat down to our main course, but they gamely sat and waited for us to eat, and we did so we introduced them to the concept of Christmas crackers and paper hats. We had a great couple of hours with them until it was time for them to head back home to check on poor Snoopy who'd been home alone all day.

Once Mara & Franco had gone, it was time to get serious with the board games: David & Sarah, Stuart and I sat down to a marathon session that included Personal Preference (a new one to us, but hilarious), Harry Potter Cluedo and Scrabble, all of which was accompanied by the mandatory (at Christmas time) picking at leftovers as well as a delicious selection of English cheeses brought over from the UK by Sarah, and of course plenty of bubbles and wine - the perfect way to end the evening.

With the weather pretty dismal from Christmas day onwards, and Sheila having been struck down with a bad cold, we were pretty much housebound for a few days after the 'big day', although we visited Paul & Kathy and Kathy's Mum, Gill, for a delicious post-Christmas meal of nasi goreng and a much appreciated change of scenery.

Come the end of the week it was time to prepare for the arrival of our guests for New Year, our great friends Paul & Marie. We collected them from the airport mid afternoon on the Saturday and, after giving them a chance to deposit their bags in the apartment and have a drink, we whisked them straight off out to San Quirico to the annual "fucarone" - a giant (seriously huge) bonfire in the centre of the village square, which is lit on the 30th December each year to celebrate the ending of the year (the celebrations also involving chestnut pancakes, mulled wine and sausage sandwiches). The bonfire was impressive for its size (some enormous lumps of wood) and careful construction, and intriguingly had been lit from the inside (you could tell they'd done this before). It was also a sight to behold being so close to objects that could easily catch fire: the large Christmas tree in the village square, the power lines running above it, the buildings all around the square and the people all standing so close to it (a very large percentage of whom were sporting the shiny acrylic puffer jackets so favoured among Italians at this time of year!). There were several marshals on guard though, who spent most of the evening throwing buckets of water onto the flagstones beneath the fire (which had been built on pallets to raise it off the ground).

The "focarone"in San Quirico.

Enormous lumps of wood,

Sparks flying perilously close to the power lines.

Mulled wine all round - cheers!

At the festa, we met up with Donatella, David & Sarah and Paul & Kathy, and once we had seen enough of the bonfire we all headed back to Paul & Kathy's for some delicious soups (so delicious I am still thinking about them more than a week later), cheese and drinks, as well as a good catch up with our friends and a chance for Paul & Marie to reacquaint themselves with everyone.

Our New Year's Eve festivities started with dropping in a David & Sarah's for pre-dinner drinks. David & Sarah had opted to stay in for New Year's Eve, while Donatella was heading to the Circolo in Vellano for the evening, and Paul & Kathy, Paul & Marie, Sheila, Stuart and I were all heading up to the village of Goraiolo for dinner at Locanda Zacco. It was lovely, therefore to have a quick drink where we got to see everyone before all heading our separate ways for the evening.

Paul very kindly drove all of us up to Goraiolo, but he might not have made the offer had he known what the weather would have in store - it was exactly the same as the only other time Stuart and I have eaten at Locanda Zacco (which was when my Mum & Dad were staying with us a couple of years ago): it was so foggy that at times we couldn't even see the edges of the road, let alone anything in front of us. Fog lights made the situation even worse, so we crawled along, collectively holding our breaths, inching our way slowly up to the village - poor Paul was then in the unenviable position of knowing that he had to drive back down again at the end of the evening, and I'm not sure we remembered to thank him enough for being the superstar pro-driver (thank you Paul!).

Thankfully, the perilous drive up the mountain proved to be well worth it and we had a fantastic evening - delicious food (and copious amounts of it), a lovely atmosphere and great entertainment.

Found it in the mist!

Happy new year!

Oh dear... who let the Brits in?!!

To blow away the cobwebs on New Year's Day, we had a bright and sunny walk along the river in Pescia - it was the first time we'd seen blue skies and sunshine for a little while, so it felt great to get outside and stretch our legs.

Beautiful coloured shrubs growing in the nurseries along the river.

Is that blue sky?

Enjoying the chance to get out in the sunshine.

In the days that followed new year, we managed to fit in a visit to Montecarlo, a barbecue (yes, in January), a meal out at our new favourite pizza restaurant, Come a Casa in Borgo a Buggiano (which caters for gluten-free diets without so much as raising an eyebrow), a roast dinner, lunch at our favourite coffee bar in Pescia, and even our own necci making, thanks to Franco having loaned his paddles to us (the necci, made by Stuart, were jolly good too - a very impressive first attempt!).

Montecarlo.

Barbecuing in January.

Necci paddles heating up.

Oiling the paddles with a half potato.

Batter on the paddle.

Cooking!

Of course, all festivities must eventually come to an end (you could almost hear the sound of our livers and digestive systems heaving a sigh of relief), and after Sheila left for the UK on 4th Jan, we then also had to take Paul & Marie back to the airport on the 6th. While we know it won't be long until Sheila is back with us in the spring, we also hope that Paul & Marie will be back here again soon.

We had tried out a new cross-country route to the airport when we went to collect Paul & Marie, as recommended (and thoughtfully programmed into a sat nav) by our local Paul (as opposed to the one we were collecting!). Having found the journey to be quick and - importantly - toll-free, we did the same route when we dropped them off at the airport. The new route was a little bit of a journey of discovery, as it heads across a part of the local area that we hadn't found before. On our way home from the airport, therefore, we made a quick stop to explore the interesting-looking village of Vicopisano.

Vicopisano is a fortified medieval village about 15km east of Pisa, which is mainly famous for its castle (Rocca Nuova) which was designed by Filippo Brunelleschi and built in 1434.

Vicopisano.

Once home, it was time to turn our attention to all the chores that accompany the end of the festive period/had been building up waiting for us to do: taking down Christmas decorations, doing laundry, checking on the chickens, tidying the house, and a variety of other tasks to bring us crashing back down to normality!

"When our visitors have all gone it will be nice to have the sofa to ourselves again", we thought... except someone appears to be sitting on the floor!

We finally managed get outdoors and do some work on Sunday for the first time in many weeks (both being visitor-free and having dry weather), and we spent a couple of hours chainsawing some of the wood in the quarry by the gates and moving it down to the woodpile - we are running slightly low on kindling-sized wood, so wanted to get some more under cover and drying in case we end up needing it in the coming months. It felt great to be out working in the great outdoors again, if only for a couple of hours, and I for one am looking forward to much more of it in the coming months.

Reorganised wood pile ready for more kindling.

Cutting up more kindling.

More kindling added to the wood pile to start to dry out.

We wish all our readers a healthy, happy and prosperous 2018, hoping that it brings you everything you hope for and more.

Helen, Stuart, Florence & Reggie.