One year on

Today, it is exactly a year since we spent our first night in our house here in our little piece of Tuscany.

For anyone not familiar with the beginning of our story here, or in need of a reminder, THIS is how we first entered the house (using power tools) and THIS is how we spent our first day as inhabitants.

That first night here, I cried myself to sleep - wondering what on earth we had done, too jumpy about the number of creepy crawlies to sleep, and desperately missing our carpeted, double-glazed, centrally heated, mains sewer-connected, mains gas-connected house in Abingdon. Thankfully, the next morning, when I woke up to find it was still sunny and that amazing view was still there, all my worries melted away and we both rolled up our sleeves to start the mammoth (and still ongoing) task of getting the place in order.

The last 12 months have seen plenty of challenges, frustrations, unforeseen obstacles, tears (lots of), freezing cold winter nights, fierce storms, power cuts, communication black-outs, illness and hard, back-breaking work, but also lots of fun, laughter, heaps of satisfaction, quality time with friends and family, the joy of making new friends, beautiful weather, stunning views and, of course, lots of prosecco.

We still have a mountain to climb - getting this place to how we want it, and even maintaining it in its current state is like trying to run up a down-escalator, but I think we've now reached a point where we can actually appreciate some of the things that we have achieved over the last year. It's taken us a long time to acknowledge that we've made any progress, and looking back over our old photographs has been a lesson in standing back and taking stock and allowing ourselves a gentle, cautious pat on the back.

We have our first paying guests (strangers, as opposed to friends/family) of the year arriving this evening for a 2.5-week stay in the apartment. We desperately hope that they will find the apartment to their liking and that they will enjoy the local area and scenery as much as we do. We also hope that Reggie won't terrorise them, but that's going to be harder to pull off! Having spent this morning supermarket shopping courtesy of a lift from the lovely Sue & Chris, and the rest of the day cleaning the apartment and cooking a meal for our guests, we are now about to open a bottle of bubbles and reflect on the last 12 months while awaiting their arrival.

Cheers!

In each of the photos below, 'then' is on the left (and varies in date, some from when we first arrived and others after we had done a little work) and 'now' is on the right.

Car-less and work shy

After the monumental struggle with tiredness I've had over the past couple of days (which Helen hinted at in yesterday's blog), I decided to try a less strenuous day today - not work shy exactly, but I chose the less physical tasks to tick off my list. That was not before another 12-hour sleep though - I was so tired after yesterday that I woke to find that I'd snored my wife into the spare room, something I haven't done for months and something I'm only liable to do if totally wiped out or have had one too many glasses of the hard stuff - last night was the former.

As it was just after 9am when I woke (yes, that means I was asleep at 9pm last night), the sun was already coming up over the hills behind the house and starting to warm the patio, so breakfast (for me at least) was outside. A beautiful start to the day. At 10am, Helen had a work call scheduled, so I decided to take Reggie out of earshot for a walk to the quarry track near Vellano.

Unusually, there were people up at the reservoir today - we normally don't see anyone but today a small group were felling trees around the reservoir. There was enough noise for Reggie to come close to me looking often for reassurance, but he was happy enough to have a growl at one guy standing much closer to us.

We got home an hour or so later just as Helen's conference call ended, and I sat on the patio with a mug of tea and my tablet PC to finally sort out my to-do list so that's its all in one place. I've been surviving lately with lists written on different scraps of paper, but that isn't organised enough for me and has genuinely caused me some sleepless nights as I've woken in the wee small hours wondering if I've got this, that and the other on any of my lists. The moral of this story is that I need to allow a little time to keep on top of my lists simply to clear my head. I don't think it's helped my mood much over the last few days either.

After clearing my head and sorting my 'master' list chronologically, I headed out in the car to a garden centre near town to grab a few shrubs to add some much needed colour to the outside of the house. We have heaps of lilac-coloured irises at the moment, but little else actually in flower. So, with the car loaded with lavender and four other plants (of types I couldn't identify but liked the look of), I got home in time for a later than normal lunch.

I was due to take the car to the mechanic over near Altopascio this afternoon, so lunch was brief - we'd soon be car-less and I needed to make sure we had everything we needed to finish off the apartment before our guests arrive on Saturday, so I rummaged around in the old shed and found the paint and even some rollers that hadn't been ruined by the rain pouring in through the holey roof so dragged them out and left them somewhere out of Reggie's way.

Chris and Sue had been in touch this morning to offer to accompany me to the garage in order to give me a lift back home and save me cycling back from the garage, but it couldn't be until 5.30pm. After feeling as tired as I have been over the last couple of days I bit their hands off and told the car people not to expect me until 6pm.

After applying a final coat of filler to the walls in the apartment, I locked up and sat in the office with Helen for an hour and a half to tick of some small admin jobs on my list - small jobs, but ones that had been eating away at me for days now, so it was all in a good cause and it made me feel loads better.

At 4.30pm, I hopped in the car to head off and meet Chris so that we could drive to Altopascio in convoy. But of course, the car wouldn't start would it!! It was behaving like a cat that had got wind of an impending trip to the vet - if only it had a sofa to hide behind!

I abandoned the car and weeded for half an hour while trying to call Chris, who had been out playing rugby. When I got hold of him he said he would come up here anyway after a quick coffee, so I jumped into the car quickly to try it once more - and it started (caught by a surprise attack from behind, it didn't see me coming) - so I quickly headed down into town to meet Chris and left helen sanding in the apartment.

We dropped the car off with the mechanic and I managed to explain the three problems we were having well enough, but then couldn't understand what he asking me. I dragged Chris out of his car and into the conversation and as the mechanic was slowly explaining to Chris, I understood that all he wanted to know was when I needed the car back. A strange question, as he doesn't even know what's wrong with it yet, but anyway, he's agreed to look at it and to tell the dealer the scope of the problems by Monday and we'll take it from there.

When we got back to the house, Helen was busy barrowing piles of stone across the driveway and after a brief chat with Chris accompanied by loud barking from Reggie, he left us to our evening - which for me involved the third al fresco meal of the day. Helen had cooked a Ligurian potato salad while I was out, which was ready to eat before the sun went down and I couldn't resist a little glass of red to go with it. 

The next couple of days will see us car-less and busy getting the apartment finished off - and hoping we have everything we need to do so!

Hot & tired!

A year ago today, we were setting out on the biggest adventure of our lives. It would be another few days before we arrived at our new home in Tuscany, but the journey began 12 months ago today with a long day's driving from Bristol to Nuits Saint Georges. I wonder how we would have felt back then if we'd know that, one year on, we'd be owners of geese and a dog - I'm pretty sure you'd have been able to knock me over with a feather if you'd told me we'd have a dog!

Anyway, today started early, but not anywhere near as early as our journey did a year ago. Once again, it was a very mild morning and my exercise session felt harder in the warm air.

After a shower and breakfast, I settled down to work in the office while Stuart went down to the apartment to work on some of the things that still need doing.

The morning was uneventful - Stuart popped out for some plumbing supplies, while I carried on at my desk.

We stopped for lunch at around midday. Stuart seems to have been suffering over the last couple of days with exhaustion, irritability and a lack of energy, so I think that the early lunch was a must for him in a vain attempt to muster some energy.

After lunch, I went back to my computer for a couple more hours before going out to join Stuart and lend a hand where I could.

By this stage, he had abandoned work in the apartment and returned to his screen-building project. I could hear him rustling around in the trees on the lower terraces cutting and cleaning pieces of hazel, which he then brought up to the guest patio to add to the screen.

I made myself useful by carrying on with the hazel cutting on the lower terraces while Stuart worked on the screen, then did a range of other small jobs to help things along.

The day was hot. It was both sunny and fairly humid, which sapped what already little energy Stuart had, but we worked on until 5pm - by which time the screen had moved on a fair way. It looks really good and won't take long to finish off now, although whether or not that gets done before our guests arrive is another matter as the list of jobs to do before then is as long as our arms.

After tidying tools away, we retired to the patio to collapse and relax in the balmy evening. It was while we were sitting on the patio, Reggie pottering around us, that Reggie suddenly rushed to the fence and started barking his head off up the terraces, standing on his hind legs and desperately wishing he was tall enough to get over the fence. This is not an unusual occurrence, and it can be somewhat wearisome, but this time, as we both turned to say 'Reggie, quiet', we realised that there, standing on the top terrace looking down at the three of us was a deer! Needless to say, it turned and ran off to get away from all the noise, but Reggie continued barking for a good while, after which he sat staring up at the terraces just in case the intruder made a return visit.

So we now know that we definitely have deer on the terraces once again. We guess that there is also something else visiting the lower terraces as yesterday, for the second time, we found that something has been digging up and eating our potatoes. The damage was less severe this time - just 4 plants dug up and eaten as opposed to the 20+ last time - but still very frustrating. One thing is for sure though, Reggie was in the clear. The poor dog took the blame for the last round of potato devastation (despite my protests that it was unlikely to be him as potatoes are toxic to dogs and he hadn't been ill), so this time he was acquitted of the charge. Unfortunately that makes it a more difficult problem to solve though - it's easy enough (relatively speaking) to stop Reggie going down to the veg beds unattended, but not so easy to stop local wildlife digging things up. Especially when you appear to have a faulty electric fence that doesn't kick out enough power (one of the many things that need sorting out)!

A few other niggles that add complications to our enormous to-do list are: yesterday we received yet another bill from Telecom Italia in the previous owner's name (the transfer of accounts should have been made by the geometra shortly after we arrived, 12 months ago, and even after several delays, we understood that the transfer had  been made several months ago). This means that we are being billed (yet again) for services we haven't been using and don't want (it turns out we are still paying for internet through the phone line, and still paying for various packages that the previous owners had but which we didn't want) - the upshot of which is that we are being billed €118 for a telephone line that hasn't even worked since early February! Now, the fact that the line isn't working is kind of our fault for not having reported the problem yet - it's one of those tasks that keeps getting moved from one to-do list to the next - but still, I wasn't expecting a bill for €118 for a phone line that hasn't been used! Stuart has been in touch with Andrea about the latest bill, so we await to see what happens next. Next on the list are a toilet with a faulty flush, the tap on the bottom of the water butt in the goose island being blocked and not letting any water out, oh and ... our car is due to go back to the dealership tomorrow to try and get to the bottom of all of its problems. Despite asking to borrow a car as a replacement, they have simply said that we will need to leave the car with their mechanic 'for some days'. Bl**dy brilliant!!

You can be assured that there are plenty more niggles and frustrations that I've left off this list (did I mention that we still haven't had the contract for the purchase of our house from the notaio? that we still haven't had the ownership documents for the car? and that Reggie has lost his tag so we need to get a replacement engraved?), and that there is an even longer list of things to do that are less frustrating but equally important and pressing.

We never imagined it would be easy here though, and who are we to complain when we live in such a beautiful place, we only need to walk out of the front door and look around at our amazing view, the trees and the terraces to feel grateful for being here.

In store for tomorrow are: supermarket and garden centre shopping to try and get everything we need for our visitors' arrival before we are left vehicle-less (and hopefully to tide us over until we can get the car back); Stuart taking the car to Porcari (and cycling back); and more work in the apartment (if there's any time in the day left by then!). Early to bed tonight then.

The tidy-up begins

We awoke this morning to the distinct feeling of summer in the air. It was already mild when I was getting my exercise equipment out and seeing to the animals and the forecast was for the temperature to climb today.

After breakfast, I settled down at my desk to do a few hours' work while Stuart busied himself outside in the car park and guest patio area. By the time lunch time rolled around, he had already set up some temporary screening to hide the rubble pile on the extension site, created a new flowerbed along the side of it, and made a start on the screen for the guest patio.

We ate our lunch in the hot, hot sunshine on the patio. The days of us feeling the need to put the umbrella up to hide from the heat of the sun can't be far away now!

After lunch, I changed into work clothes and went to help out. Between digging soil to fill the flower bed, weeding, picking and bagging up rubbish from the extension site and helping with the screen, the afternoon slipped away quickly.

We were both quite jaded by late afternoon after working in the heat, but pleased with progress.

We took Reggie out for a short stroll through Sorana then came home to sit on the patio and relax for half an hour before starting the rounds of vegetable watering, cooking dinner, putting the geese away etc. This evening was the first of the year that stayed really warm until darkness fell - we were able to eat dinner outside and it still felt warmer outside than in even at 9pm. We're looking forward to many more balmy evenings!

Cats 2: Mice 0: Smiths 0

When we went to bed last night, Florence had rather suspiciously positioned herself next to the sideboard in the kitchen, her eyes trained on the small area underneath the sink. We suspected we knew what this meant, but too tired to investigate, we retired to bed.

We slept well until the early hours of the morning: come 3am, there were the sounds of cats tearing around upstairs, across our bedroom floor, out to the landing, back into our bedroom, knocking their food bowls over, scratching around underneath the chest of drawers and generally causing chaos. We both woke and sleepily said to each other "there must be another mouse in the house", but neither of us had the energy to get up and investigate. Things eventually calmed down again, and we managed to get back to sleep until around 8am - by which point both cats were snuggled sleepily on the bed but Reggie started up whining from downstairs.

I got up to let Reggie out, after which Stuart also got up and saw to the geese. It was only later in the day that Lucca (who'd been outside) came in, ran straight up the stairs and started sniffing around the laundry basket. No sooner had I moved the laundry basket an inch than Lucca ran behind it and sprinted off into the spare room and started growling - he had a mouse in his mouth. I eventually managed to herd him out of the house, where he dealt with his prey accordingly. Two mice, two nights in a row is a bit of a concern - we suspect they may be coming in through a tiny gap next to the water pipes that come into the kitchen (which would explain Florence's station when we went to bed last night), then scaling the wall and popping up through a small hole in the mortar at the bottom of the wall at the top of the stairs, which is positioned directly behind the laundry basket. So a new job for Stuart's urgent to-do list is to fill the hole that allows them to come in from outside!

Anyway, despite a disturbed night's sleep, it was lovely to wake up to the sort of morning that feels like it promises lots of warm weather. It was overcast, with clouds hanging low over the hills opposite us, but still warm enough to eat our bowls of cereal outside while listening to the screech of tyres on the road. The Valdienievole rally was already up and going by 8am, and after checking the race schedule, we pottered along the drive after our breakfast to see what we could see.

We were a little put out to find a large number of people camped out on our land. Lots were standing on the end of our drive, some sitting on blankets, a race marshal had parked his car on the end of our drive, a couple of chaps had hung their coats on our gates, and one had even parked himself inside our gates, seated on our pile of firewood.

Trying as hard as we could to keep a lid on our 'an Englishman's home is his castle' tendencies, we bade a strained 'buon giorno' to the people clustered at our gates and joined them for 15 minutes to watch the rally cars zoom around our hairpin bend.

It was good fun for a couple of minutes, but we soon worked out that watching a rally from a single point is actually really dull. There's no racing involved in a circuit like this - it's simply a matter of each car being timed, so all you see is one car after another screeching around the corner. A race like this would actually be far more interesting viewed on the TV. Having said that, there were hair-raising moments when a couple of cars almost lost their back end as they slowed to go round the corner, but all in all, it was a lot of noise and not a great deal of excitement.

Anyway, it kept us engaged for 15 minutes, during which we took a load of photos, then retreated back down the drive to our house where there were far more interesting things to do and see. There were three main stages to the rally today - the one in the morning, one in the early afternoon and one later in the afternoon, but the short period we spent at the gates this morning was enough to convince us that there was little need for us to drop everything and go and watch any more of the race.

Once we got back to the house, we each changed into work clothes and while I dug some paving slabs into the grass across the guest lawn, Stuart finished up digging some post holes for a screen that we're planning to erect around the guest patio to hide the view of the car park and machinery storage area. When I'd finished with my paving slabs, I helped with the fence posts, and by lunch time we'd concreted 5 fence posts in, ready for the screen to be made this week.

Lunch was a delicious salad of potato, salmon, broad bean, rocket and horseradish, with the salmon char grilled over the fire pit. Last night we had 'fire pit vegetable fajitas' (with the veg cooked in a wok over the fire pit) and today it was char grilled salmon via the same means - it seems we have found multiple uses for our washing machine drum fire pit!

We enjoyed our lunch with a glass of wine while there was also a lunchtime lull in the noise from the rally. After lunch had been cleared away, we got out the laptop and the camera and started a mammoth search of our archives. Next Saturday is the one-year anniversary of the first night we spent in our house here, and we plan to post a retrospective blog, looking back at how things were back then and how much things have changed. We spent most of the afternoon searching our blog archives and running around taking 'how things look today' photographs for comparison - all very interesting for us to look back at how far we've come.

When we finally ran out of steam on the blog archive front, we sat and simply enjoyed each other's company in the a balmy late afternoon while being treated to some spectacular cloud patterns in the sky, feeling very lucky to be where we are.

The week ahead will mainly be focused on finishing off the outstanding work in the apartment and tidying up outside, as this year's first set of paying guests (strangers) arrive on Saturday, so we're keen to get things ship shape before then.