The move to Tuscany : Melting...a poor excuse for such a delayed blog.

If, in our last update, things were really starting to feel like full-on summer, this time round we are in a permanent state of melting. Each day we find ourselves counting down the hours until the sun goes down when things will feel a little more comfortable, and spending most of the day hiding indoors away from the glaring heat of the sun. First thing in the morning and late in the evening the weather is nothing short of perfect, but from about 10am until the sun disappears behind the hill opposite us at 8pm, it's almost too much to bear - perfect for holiday makers, of course, but a struggle for those of us with every-day chores to get on with.

Going back a couple of weeks now, the weather was just bearable enough to get out and finish the last of the strimming (this time below the house) and to cut a lot of acacia saplings (that were threatening to turn the lowermost terraces into mini acacia forests).

We also spent a few hours walking the upper terraces along with a tape measure and a notepad and pencil, in order to measure up for fencing.

The jobs on let's call it our "long-range" to-do list have always included fencing in the terraces to keep wild animals at bay (or limit their ease of access). It's a large area and a job we know will be labour intensive, but keeping the boar and the deer off the terraces has always been the plan - especially as we hope to plant up more fruit trees.

In recent weeks the fencing job has risen to the top of our priorities. You might recall the demise of our poor little apple tree that we reported in our last update (at the hand/hooves/snout of a wild boar - which we had caught on camera in the car parking area a few days previously). Well, a few mornings later, I got up at the crack of dawn to let a restless Florence out, opened the front door, and both she and I did a double-take (and she did an about-turn and ran straight back in the house) as we were faced with a great big boar standing just 3 terraces up from the house. I was as startled as I was when we made eye contact, it did a little snort and scurried... all of two feet. I clapped my hands to try and scare it away, but it just moved about another two feet before digging at the ground, right in front of me. It finally sauntered off nonchalantly into the trees.

It was amazing to see a boar at such close range, but also quite worrying to know that it’s still roaming around on the terraces so close to the house - from the points of view of damage to the terraces, Reggie’s safety, and Reggie’s overnight barking activity.

In all, we will need about 300m of fencing (and posts). We will need to dig it into the ground to the best of our abilities (not always easy in our stony/tree-stumpy ground) in order to prevent digging under it, so we know that it will be A LOT of work.

Frateschi only had 6 fence posts (of the type we want) in stock when Stuart went down to ask about materials, and we are now in the August holiday period where most businesses (including the builder's merchant) are closed for a couple of weeks, so we plan to put an order in for the materials as soon as they reopen, and embark on the job when we have the materials and (we hope) some slightly less punishing weather.

Friday evening that week we were invited up to Vellano for dinner with David and Sarah, a courgette themed dinner we warned, it being the courgette and tomato glut time of year, which requires your effort and inventiveness to deal with fully...a lovely evening was had, started with courgette martinis too! Not forgetting the lunar eclipse, which we think we would have missed from our own house due to the hill to the south of us.

Saturday after lunch, feeling rather lacking in motivation we eventually decided to take tools around to the old quarry area to clear what is a pretty flat and level space of maybe 5x5 metres constructed quite some years ago we believe to aid the mules and quarry workers extracting the precious sandstone for sale which back then would have used a now lost mule track that follows the little river down to the Pescia river below us and just outside Pietrabuona.

The reasoning other than it being cool in the dense woods and near the cooling effects of the river water below, was that when we have our Pilates girls over in early September it could be a nice shady hideaway for Pilates sessions. Having cleared the floor area we decided to leave the trees currently growing on that patch of land as obviously they afford the much prized shade.

The following day, the hottest day of the year so far (40C), we had to clean the holiday house that we are managing for an acquaintance, Tom, in his absence as he had guests arriving the very next day. Dusting, vacuuming and cleaning bathrooms and toilets with the washing machine, the tumble dryer and the iron on, isn't really how we would plan to spend the hottest day of the year if given the choice, but between us we managed to get it done in a little over 3.5 hours...with just enough time to get back to our own house and for Stuart to head to Pisa to collect our own guests (Sheila and Ben) while I did another whip round of cleaning back at home.

[switching blog writer to Stuart...]

Monday morning I treated mum and Ben to breakfast at Vanity, Ben announcing that he really doesn't eat much breakfast and certainly not sweet things, soon realised why our favourite coffee bar was just that, inhaling his sfoglia pastry in record time, as he did on each of his subsequent visits. We then left the car at a 'gommista' in Pescia for a much needed new pair of front tyres, which left us just enough time for a walk into town, a second coffee, a hair cut for Ben and walk back to collect the car before lunchtime closure, not your average idea of holiday activities, but life here is rarely average and it's our life here that we share with visitors.

The reason for the visit to the gommista.

A flat tyre and a rodent inhabitant (not the reason for the flat tyre).

Tuesday was the celebration of Helen having completed a full 46 years on this spherical rock of ours, that's 16,790 orbits around the sun, quite an achievement...but nothing like my own recent achievement (in my modest opinion) of keeping a secret from her for something approaching three months!

Back in May I whisked mum and her friend Yvonne up to Castelvecchio to see our friend Kelly's amazing wall mural in her house, while there I took it upon myself to acquire a print that Helen passed favourable comment on when we were there together for the mural unveiling earlier in the year. This print I'd kept under the bed until this morning and was very well received, but I digress as this was not the surprise in question.

The surprise in question was a hand knitted 'maglia' that I'd had made by the wife of Nerone, those that own the local restaurant in Pietrabuona.

It was one of the occasions I had been to collect a couple of pizzas for dinner back in Spring I saw that Franca (Mrs Nerone) was knitting a type of poncho for want of a better word, for the waitress that works there, I commented on how nice it was and that it was exactly the kind of thing my wife would wear, what could possibly be a better compliment I thought. Ten minutes later as I left with pizza, I had done so having asked for one for Helen's birthday some months later in August.

What followed were various trips to Pescia to buy wool, return wool as there was insufficient, buy a different colour of wool as they didn't have enough of the original colour, the smuggling of a jumper of Helen's to the restaurant for sizing purposes, the failed smuggling of it back into the house and lies to cover up it's presence in the boot of the car, the taking of Helen to collect pizza partway through the project for the purpose of sizing in person by the keen eye of Franca and then returning the excess wool after completion. As we approached the big day I decided what better way to present said gift than to book a table for dinner and then Franca could present her masterpiece herself.

Yet another secret to keep to myself!

I had invited our friends to join in the fun, created a secret WhatsApp group to make arrangements and booked a table for fifteen people!

Almost daily I put my foot in it but somehow managed to get the birthday girl to the restaurant with both secrets in tact! And after only a thump in the arm once she realized what I'd done behind her back, we settled into a very enjoyable and Italian paced evening among good friends and being as we often are, the last table to leave!

Thursday evening we headed up to Vellano, it was Midway through the summer grilled meat festival in the village at the Circolo at which David, Sarah and Donatella rank among the forty odd helpers that make the evenings possible for the often in excess of 250 people that turn up each evening.

This particular evening the aforementioned helpers had booked off to partake in the salt cod which was only on offer two nights of the entire 11, so we all descended onto a large table for the evening, Donatella with her three guests, us with mum and Ben, David and Sarah and Paul and Kathy.

It was another fun evening on a balmy summers night topped off with an amazing band called 'the talking ties' a talented group of three musicians with a guest singer for the evening, playing a huge selection of swing style songs, some familiar some not, some in English some in Italian, and they all seemed able to sing and play each other's instruments as the took turns to dance among the public, some of whom seemed to have arrived as followers of the band and accomplished dancers...I was transfixed for the entire two hours of them playing until we left around midnight, at which point the band were still in full swing!

Along with the local folky band Manolo Strimpelli, whom we've seen twice, I would go out specifically to see the talking ties' again in future.

The fun continued unabated Friday, well once Helen had got a solid shift of work under her belt that morning, we all piled into the car and headed over to Vinci, a third or even fourth visit for Helen and me but the first for mum and Ben.

After a short wait in the ticket queue we headed to the main museum but stopping for a light lunch in the bar at the foot of the tower right in the centre of the old part of town, a tourist trap of course but reasonable food and good prices all the same.

After we toured the museum with it's many working scale models we climbed the tower, something included in the ticket price but something up until now Helen and I hadn't done before, due to the time of year we've visited.

It was a typically Italian tower experience, narrow winding stairs with only the larger corner steps suitable for passing places but as always the views make the climb worthwhile, not to mention the stuff breeze we found up there on an otherwise sweltering summer day.

We got home early evening with an hour to make ourselves presentable before heading down to our Circolo to meet Paul and Kathy for the Greek fundraising dinner Emanuele and Betty had organised in aid of the huge forest fires around Athens that has devastated the country this summer.

It being a lovely warm greek themed evening, we were all sat outside under the sky rather than their covered patio and were served by Alessandro, his girlfriend and their friend Faliero, the three teens that make up part of the furniture down at the Circolo, they had either decided or been coerced to try their hands at helping out by waiting tables, and a fine job they did too.

It all made for a nice relaxed evening, we ate well and we ate plenty of garlic in various forms, and after the last few nights, it was thankfully a comparatively light meal.

Saturday was mum's birthday, it was all happening in August! Although having a change of guests in the apartment, celebrations were on hold until lunch and after we had cleaned downstairs.

Helen and I rose early to do the cleaning so that mum wouldn't have to lift even a duster on her special day and as such had finished and closed the doors by one o'clock, just in time to head out for a birthday lunch at Da Carla's in the cooler part of the valley.

We had been told that the workers lunch was available on Saturday, it wasn't, but what was, was the 'tourist menu' which was a workers lunch in steroids! A bewildering choice of pasta dishes and main courses to choose from...having had the menu repeated twice to aid translation we ordered and settled into a very enjoyable feed in their large covered garden, very relaxing and just the right amount of food, all of it delicious and for a very respectable €15 per head including wine.

That paved the way for a lazy afternoon while waiting for our next set of guests to arrive...this time all the way from Edinburgh.

We finished off the weekend without any restaurants or festas, started with our usual trip to Vanity for breakfast, picked up a few items at the supermarket then went to Sandrinos bar for a couple of drinks and a slice of pizza by way of lunch under the shade of one of their large umbrellas.

Back home I whisked away a couple of hours with yet more shed organising and tidying, Helen built the last two sets of shelving and now have the three sheds in very good order, all that remains is to rehang the doors on new heavier weight hinges and plug all the rodent entry points to avoid any more mess and damage.