Another day with no connectivity (or car). Today's blog is brought to you courtesy of the free wifi at Franco's bar in Pescia...
Day 5: no internet, no car - getting boring.
I allowed myself a lie-in until 7am this morning - knowing that there was no point in rushing through my exercise and getting into the office, I enjoyed the extra 30 minutes of pressing the snooze button before finally getting up and getting my equipment out.
I ran through the usual animal tasks: I fed the cats, let Lucca out (poor Florence is still on strike, too frightened to come downstairs or go outside after having had two run-ins with Reggie over recent weeks), let Reggie out, fed Reggie, and went to let the geese out. However, as I reached the gate to the terraces and looked up, I saw two familiar white figures in the goose enclosure - either they had cunningly worked out how to let themselves out or... we had forgotten to put them in last night! I quickly surmised that it was the latter thanks to the fact that the door to their house was still propped open. I felt simultaneously guilty and quite pleased that they had made it through a night unscathed. We know from a couple of evenings recently when we've been out and not back before dark that they tend to go inside their house of their own accord eventually, although of course without the door being shut they are not actually safe from predators.
Anyway, since the geese didn't need letting out, I got straight on with my exercise. After I'd finished, I decided to give Sue a quick call and ask a huge favour: whether I could cycle down to theirs and hop on their wi-fi to attempt to download some work that I could then bring back and do offline. Of course she said yes, so after a bowl of cereal and a quick shower, I packed a rucksack and headed off on my mountain bike for the first time in many months.
The cycle into town was very enjoyable (the same could not be said for the return leg), and on arrival, Sue made me a coffee and left me with my tablet PC on the patio while she went about her own morning tasks. I managed to make contact with the office, and downloaded a couple of emails, but the tablet PC wasn't really up to the task and I didn't get as much from the morning as I had hoped. Lesson learned: the laptop would have been more useful (although heavier to carry on my back) - even that would only be useful up to a certain point though, as all of the software I use for work is on my desktop PC (and that definitely won't fit in a rucksack on my back!).
As the time marched on towards lunch time, Sue needed to go into town to collect Erik and Henry from school and suggested that I go with her and make a stop at the Vodafone shop in town to buy a dongle - it wouldn't solve all of our problems, but it would serve as a temporary stop gap and ease the situation slightly. Agreeing that it was a good idea, I left my bike at their house and climbed into their little green Fiat with Sue. We headed straight for the Vodafone shop - which was closed. Plan B was to try the computer shop - but it too was closed. Tomorrow (2nd June) is a bank holiday in Italy (Festa della Republica), and quite a few businesses seem to have closed today in order to make the most of the day off tomorrow. We admitted defeat as it was time to collect Erik from his school, followed by Henry from his, and after a quick stop at the bakery on the way, we headed back to their house where I left them to their afternoon and picked up my bike to cycle home.
I am ashamed to say that I had to get off my bike and walk for the last couple of uphill bends in the road - I was utterly puffed out and didn't even manage to catch my breath until I got back to the house. I think I need to work on my hill climbs!
By the time I got home it was nearing 2pm and Stuart was just making us some egg sandwiches for lunch. We ate them in the shade of the garden umbrella - today really was punishingly hot and my cycle ride home hadn't helped with my temperature regulation.
After lunch, we got tools out and while Stuart went off up the terraces with the strimmer, I followed with the hedge cutters, attempting to do some damage limitation and cut back some of the re-growth of brambles, bracken and acacia that has happened on the far sides of the terraces.
I gave up at around 4.30pm, feeling wiped out, and Stuart carried on for another half-hour, leaving us with some beautifully cut terraces. Of course there's still more to do - where we had cleared last autumn and early this year there are piles of branches and bramble littering the terraces, which it's almost impossible to strim around, so we need to roll our sleeves up and collect up all the bits of branch and bramble. The problem, though, is what to do with it all - as of today (1st June) it is illegal to have bonfires in this area, due to the risk of forest fire. The ban on bonfires lasts all summer (for obvious reasons), so we won't be able to dispose of the clippings/branches/offcuts in that manner, at least not until the autumn.
We eventually both retired to the patio with a glass of water (no, that's not a typo, we gave the wine a miss this time) and chased the umbrella around on its pole, trying to angle it so that it would deliver us some shade - even at 6pm, the heat was relentless.
We have a new set of guests arriving in the apartment tomorrow, so tomorrow will be all about preparing for their arrival and making sure Reggie has a nice long walk in the morning.
Day 6: Did I mention this was getting tedious?
This morning I allowed myself a lie-in until 6.45am - it would have been a little longer but for the fact that both Lucca and Florence were getting impatient for their breakfast and making sure that I knew about it. I ran through all of the animal-related tasks this morning, including letting the geese out as we had made a point of remembering to put them away last night.
After exercising and showering, we sat down to a breakfast in the early morning sunshine on the patio, and as time went on the heat of the sun grew more intense. We therefore cleared the breakfast bowls away, harnessed Reggie up and set off along the drive for a walk - we wanted to give him a good walk today to attempt to tire him out a little so that he might(?) be a little calmer when our guests arrive this evening. This time we decided to go down the road again, but to go a little further along the main road, until we reached the turn-off to Medicina, Fibialla, San Quirico etc. We figured that, it being a bank holiday, the roads would be quiet today, and certainly free from large lorries visiting the paper mills. We were right about there being no big lorries on the roads today, but we'd forgotten to figure in the hoardes of bank holiday cyclists - from individuals, pairs and threesomes, all the way up to groups of up to 20 at a time. Today, Reggie quite quickly mastered the not-lunging-at-cars trick, but cyclists and motorbikes were another matter altogether. He seemed very upset by two-wheeled modes of transport and lunged at them with full vigour.
We walked along the main San Quirico road for a while until we reached a footpath sign for Fibialla and a mill, we decided to try following the footpath just to try and find the mill, which was supposed to only be 190m away. The footpath took us right through someone's back yard and past two small horse paddocks. It being a hot morning, the horses were in their shelters, but one poked its nose out to have a look - and frightened the life out of Reggie. His first experience of a horse had him growling and barking, even though it was at a safe distance from him. We couldn't find the mill (to be honest, we didn't try too hard and soon gave up because we were all hot), so headed back down the road towards Pietrabuona. As we waited to let traffic past at the turning onto the main road, a familiar pick-up truck drew up - it was Franco and Maura, who stopped to say hello and to tell us that they've just bought a house in the woods, from which they can see our house! It was nice to see them and hopefully we will see them again soon when they are settled in their house. They pulled away, heading into town for a visit to the vet with their little dog, leaving us wondering where their house is!
We carried on up the road towards home, and as we passed the house in the bottom the old man who lives there was just coming out of his door. Of course, that made Reggie jump a mile, but Stuart stopped to introduce himself and us. We chatted to him for a little while, during which he told us that he could hear Reggie barking from his house (we apologised, but he didn't seem too bothered), and then he went on to tell us that he had lived here during the war when the Germans were in the valley (clearly he has been here all his life). We think he said that a German officer once slept in his house. Amazing to think of what he must have seen, the terror of what took place in some of these villages and in Pescia itself. He seemed a very friendly chap, and we were pleased to have FINALLY met one of our near neighbours!
By the time we got home, it was 11.30am, so Stuart set about mowing the lawns and strimming the edges while I sat down to the computer to start some off-line work.
We stopped our respective tasks for a lunch of tomato bruschette with mozarella in the sunshine, before returning to our chores. I decided to help Stuart in the apartment so we knew we'd get it done in time for our arrivals, so the pair of us headed down to dust, vacuum, clean the bathroom and kitchen, change the linens and generally make sure the place was ship-shape. With that all finished by about 3.15pm, I returned to my office work while Stuart set about making a salad and some platters of cold meats and cheese for our guests - with it being a bank holiday today, we'd offered to get them some food in to tide them over until they can get to the shops tomorrow. After that, Stuart made some quinoa salad for our own dinner and did the washing up. I clocked off at about 6pm and we anxiously awaited the arrival of our guests. We knew in advance that they weren't dog fans, so were planning to put Reggie in his crate with a bone so that they could at least arrive in peace and steel themselves for the inevitable onslaught of barking later on. We knew they would be arriving roughly between 6pm and 7pm, but we didn't want to peak too soon and put Reggie in his crate unnecessarily early. As it was, we almost missed our chance completely. We were all out in the garden when I heard the crunch of tyres on gravel. Thankfully, Reggie didn't hear it and wasn't in view of the driveway so Stuart was able to cajole him indoors with the promise of a bone - had he either seen or heard the arrival we would have had no chance of distracting his attention. We welcomed Keith and Jacqui and showed them to the apartment then left them to their evening. Not really sure what to do with ourselves, we settled for an early dinner in the sunshine on the patio - dinner finished before 7pm must be some kind of record for us! It wasn't long after we'd finished that we started to hear the unmistakable whine from Reggie's cage. He'd clearly got all of the best bits off the bone and now that it was no longer quite such an absorbing pastime, he was eager to get out. We duly came indoors ourselves and let him out of his crate, ready to settle down to an evening of maybe watching a film.
In theory, tomorrow should be the day we get our car back. Neither of us are counting our chickens though! The data facility on Stuart's mobile phone, which has been tiding us over as a means to (painfully slowly) access emails and internet and Facebook Messenger, decided it would also stop working this afternoon, so we are feeling well and truly disconnected. We are waiting for an email from the car dealership to let us know when the car is ready and, ironically, an email from Italia Wi-Fi to let us know when the internet problem has been fixed and how to get it back up and running again. Of course, it only being Tuesday, we're not expecting to hear from Italia Wi-Fi just yet as they've promised us that we'll be reconnected by the END of the week (oh and they've said they will give us a month's free usage for the inconvenience caused - £85 to make up for a week of lost work and potential lost bookings, but at least it's something I suppose), but you never know. The irony is in the fact that they are corresponding with all their clients - who don't have any internet service - by email. How is that meant to work?!
Anyway, maybe tomorrow the data on the mobile will work again, and there will be a flurry of good-news emails. I live in hope.
Wednesday, 3 June 2015
Monday, 1 June 2015
Feeling disconnected!
Day 1: No car, no internet - haven't we been here before?!
Today almost felt like we had got stuck in some cruel time warp and were re-living the 'challenges' of last year. In fact the challenges haven't stopped coming at all, but they have at least tended to come one at a time over recent months rather than all piling up together.
After having dropped the car off at the dealership yesterday and kindly being driven home by the ever helpful Chris, Stuart received an email from them to say that it would take them a week to fix it. Really? A WEEK? So it seems that we will be without our car until at least next Wednesday. Tuesday is a bank holiday here, so I'm preparing myself for the possibility that that might prolong things still further. We're both fed up about it, having only just got the car back after they had it for 6 days last time, but there's not a lot we can do about it other than get on with things as best we can (scrounging lifts to the supermarket, settling for walks up and down the road with Reggie, and accepting that we won't be able to go anywhere or buy in any materials we might need for the next week).
I got up today and went to do my exercise for the first time in a few days - I'd like to say it felt good to get back into it, but it really only felt good when it was over! As I set my equipment up at the back of the house it was strange to see an entirely empty car park. We have been used to there being two cars there recently, and even three cars over the last couple of days.
I came back in to find Stuart in bed with his tablet PC saying that he was struggling to log onto the internet. Oh dear. I had briefly booted up my PC when I first got up but on finding that it wasn't loading web pages straight away, I had hurried outdoors to exercise, thinking it would just be a case of the computer taking a while to warm up and get going properly (a bit like me). The fact that Stuart was struggling to connect as well didn't bode well, and indeed when he got up and came downstairs to investigate the worst was confirmed: we had no internet. On this occasion the problem was a little different (and more perplexing) than usual though - all the lights were flashing on the router, my computer could even see that there was wi-fi available, but nothing would connect. Stuart tried the usual tricks of rebooting the router and even tweaking the satellite dish, but to no avail. He sent an email (via the data capacity on his mobile) to Brad at Italia Wi-Fi and we both resigned ourselves to a day of being incommunicado.
Luckily, I had a couple of bits of work I could do offline, so I set about doing that while Stuart went down to the lower terraces to roll out some more ground cover before starting to tinker with irrigation pipes.
It seems like summer has returned today (which is such a shame for our friends the Richardsons, who missed out on a good dose of sunshine last week), and we ate lunch in the blazing sun on the patio before Stuart attempted a few more tweaks to the satellite/router/modem set-up as advised by Brad (again no joy) and then returned to his pipework while I headed back to the office, all the while worrying about what work I might be missing out on doing and what the folk back in the office would think about my silence.
By the time 5pm rolled around, I had exhausted the offline work that I could do, so I changed and headed outside to see how Stuart was getting on. He had laid out all of the irrigation pipes and was just playing around with the timer device - it seems we have our irrigation successfully installed (on the mains - the next step will be to set up the water collection tanks and switch to using rainwater).
While Stuart finished up with the pipework, I used the 4 tyres that we had found at the bins in Vellano the other week to continue one of the flights of steps up/down the lower terraces, filling each tyre in with the earth dug out from the bank. That kept me busy for an hour, after which we both retreated to the patio for a drink in the warm evening sunshine.
We are waiting for a response from Italia Wi-Fi at the moment, but if there's no internet tomorrow, I won't be able to do any paid work and will have to start the weekend early. Admittedly that does sound good, but I live with a constant nagging worry about earning enough money for our keep, and enforced downtime is actually less restful than one might imagine! (Not that I plan to rest if I do have to take the day off working - I will, of course, be joining Stuart on the terraces).
Day 2: Role reversal
This morning, Stuart told me that he thought we would have working internet if not this morning then at some point today - it seemed that the problem lay with some software that required a login (for which we had referred to Brad at Italia Wi-Fi), so we just had to wait for an email to arrive with the necessary details.
After my morning's exercise, and after breakfast, there was no word from Italia Wi-Fi, so we set off for the day's dog walk. Taking advantage of the relatively cool morning air, we set off up the road with Reggie in the direction of Vellano. We made it a little further along the road than we had done on previous walks, but with Reggie's treat bag running perilously low we decided to do an about turn and head back again.
Once home, we tried the internet again, but with no response from Italia Wi-Fi, there was no change. I therefore changed into my work clothes and, while Stuart settled down in front of his PC to do some accounts, I headed off up the drive with the strimmer. Like everywhere else, the warm weather interspersed with rainy days has taken its toll on the driveway - or rather it has acted as grow-faster juice on all the grass, brambles, bracken and other vegetation - and it was in dire need of some tidying.
After an hour or so's strimming in the intense heat of the day it was time to take a break for lunch. We sat on the patio with our egg sandwiches and the umbrella up to shade us from the sun. Once lunch was over it was time to head back to work though; I'd barely managed a third of the drive so far, and Stuart had more spreadsheets to work on, so I headed off with the strimmer while Stuart headed back into the office - something of a role reversal!
I spent the next couple of hours working my way slowly down the drive, strimming both down the middle and along each of the banks. It was a gruelling chore, my shoulders ached, my hands ached and I kept getting hit by flying stones, twigs and bits of gravel. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the satisfaction of transforming the drive from overgrown to trimmed, and by 4.30pm I had finally finished. Since Stuart was still busy at his desk, I next decided to test out the black paint we'd bought to cover the water collection tanks. One of the problems many people seem to experience with these tanks is algal growth. We had considered the idea of wrapping the tanks in black plastic, but in the end decided instead to try what seemed like a quicker and easier method: paint. I therefore headed out with my can of black spray paint to see what I could do. Feeling rather like a graffitti artist, I shook the can and started spraying. It actually worked rather well, although if we are to use this method to cover all six tanks we are going to need a whole load more cans of paint - one can wasn't even enough for one tank.
While I was graffitting my way over the tank, Stuart came out to inspect my progress - he had finally finished in the office for the day. After giving his approval both to my work on the drive and my painting skills, we retired to the patio to sit in the sunshine and enjoy a glass of wine. It felt good to know that I had done something constructive today, despite our internet woes, and I know that Stuart was pleased to have finished wading his way through a couple of months' worth of paperwork. Nevertheless, the lack of connectivity is deeply frustrating - it's isolating as well as being detrimental to our finances due to my inability to work, and we risk losing bookings on the apartment - Mr Satellite had better pull his finger out PDQ!
Day 3: Getting beyond a joke!
Today we awoke for the third day in a row with neither car nor internet. At least we know where the car is and why it's there! After having had no response from Italia Wi-Fi yesterday, Stuart decided to try and call their supplier this morning (Italia Wi-Fi is just a distributor), but failed to find any contact details for them. He therefore got back on Brad's case and eventually got a response, along with a number of activation codes for the software that was requesting it - none of which worked. It eventually all became clear that the provider had been subject to a malware attack (ironic, right?), but the "good news", we were told, was that "after working tirelessly for the last two weeks [they] think [they] have now found the point of entry where the systems were attacked." Even better, their "top engineers" are confident it will take a maximum of one week to clear all of the remaining problems and bring all accounts back online. WAIT. ONE WEEK?????!!! They estimate the all accounts will be back online and fully working by Thursday 4th June. That will be exactly a week since ours stopped working. To say that we are unimpressed would be the understatement of the year. We rely on our internet for my work, for taking bookings in the apartment, and for communicating with the outside world. A week's radio silence just isn't acceptible - but, as with the car, our hands are tied.
Anyhow, back to today. The morning started for me with a shopping trip into Pescia with the ever helpful Sue who arrived at 9.30am to pick up both me and my five bags of rubbish for taking to the bins for recycling. After our trips around both Esselunga and Lidl, we stopped for a well earned coffee and proper catch up in the little coffee shack in San Francesco quarter before heading back up the hill. While I'd been out, Stuart had not only been communicating with Italia Wi-Fi about the internet, but had also hung the washing out to dry and fixed the security lights (a fuse had blown).
Sue left us to our unpacking, after which we set about making some bean dip for lunch, which we ate in the sunshine on the patio.
After lunch, it was tempting to spend the afternoon soaking up the sunshine and reading a book, but instead, we each changed into work clothes and set about a couple of hours worth of outdoor work. I started by using up the rest of the can of spray paint on the water collection tank (it turns out that one can covers less than half of one tank...), then turned my attentions to weeding the flower beds in the guest garden. Meanwhile, Stuart planted more seedlings out, planted the caper plant we'd bought at the agricultural fete a few weeks ago, weeded, and tweaked the irrigation pipes on the vegetable terraces.
Come 4.30pm, it felt like time to call it a day, after all this was the weekend. We dragged the two sun loungers from the guest patio to our gravelled area (the area on which our pergola will stand - when we finally get approval to build it) and reclined on them with a beautiful view, a glass of chilled white wine and our books. We must have spent about an hour and a half just sitting in the sunshine reading - it felt both incredibly decadent and wonderfully relaxing, and felt all the better for knowing that we'd put a couple of hours' work in beforehand.
The sunshine stayed hot until about 6.45pm, at which point it started to cool just slightly, so I went indoors to cook a ligurian potato salad, which we ate at the patio while Reggie ran around barking at imaginary intruders (to be fair to him, I'm sure his super-sensitive ears could hear rustling and animal noises that our hearing couldn't pick up, but to all intents and purposes, to the human eyes and ears it appeared he was barking at nothing).
So, day 3 of having no internet and no car draws to a close, along with the prospect of potentially not having either of them back for another 4 days. Well, at least the sun is shining, the view is beautiful and the veg are growing.
Day 4:
Today we awoke to another beautiful morning of clear blue skies and sunshine. After Reggie allowed us a lie-in until 8am, we got up and ate a leisurely breakfast on the patio. At the time ticked on, we could feel the heat being turned up, so we decided not to delay Reggie's walk any longer - after not having had a walk yesterday, we owed him a good one today and so, with a full water bottle (for Reggie) and a full bag of treats (also for Reggie) in hand, we set off along the drive. Today, rather than walking up the road to Vellano we decided to turn left out of our drive and head down hill. We then took the fork in the road towards Sorana and headed along to Calamari, and right the way as far as Ponte di Sorana. Reggie started off as usual lunging at every car that passed us, but before long he stopped and sat patiently at the side of the road with us to wait for cars to pass - it seemed he had turned into the perfectly behaved dog, although I'm sure it was just temporary. We had a lovely walk - we loved seeing the scenery at a slower pace than we do when we zoom past in the car, and we enjoyed nosing at the paper mills, the closed up, abandoned looking dwellings as well as the beautifully kept houses with well manicured lawns and well tended flower beds. We did an about turn at Ponte di Sorana as we thought that Reggie had probably had more than enough of a walk for one day, and we slowly made our way home, getting back to the house just before midday.
After another leisurely lunch in the sunshine, we toyed with the idea of spending the afternoon relaxing in the sun with a book, but in the end our consciences got the better of us and we decided on another compromise - we decidede that, as we had done yesterday, we would work until around 4pm and then relax. So we both went and changed into work clothes and while Stuart finished the last of the insect screens for the living room window before heading down to the veg terrace to plant out more seedlings and do more weeding, I headed up to the terraces above the house with the strimmer, determined to get them looking neat and tidy. After my full-on day with the backpack strimmer on Friday, I seem to have made friends with it, and now find it a breeze to use - so there was no stopping me today. Well, I say 'no stopping', but in fact I had to traipse back down the terraces on four separate occasions to get Stuart to re-thread the cord that had either snapped or got stuck, and once to re-fuel, but come 4pm, the uppper terraces were looking a lot more presentable - there's still more that needs to be done, but with the prospect of not having any internet for the next few days, I figure that there's plenty of time to do that (that's for as long as we don't run out of fuel of course).
At 4pm, I gave up on strimming and started trying to hack away at the stubborn acacia stumps that were making the uppermost terraces look ragged and messy - Stuart, having finished with his seedlings, saw me struggling with the pruning saw and offered to come up with his chain saw. Needless to say, the chain saw made light work of the little tree stumps and before long we had some much neater looking terraces and a large pile of cut-off stumps, which we collected up in two crates and a bucket, with the plan being to use them in the fire pit over the course of the summer.
We eventually retired to the patio at about 4.45pm with a bottle of wine that we'd bought from one of the wineries we visited on our Montecarlo wine tour last weekend. Despite only costing €5, that's more than double what we would normally pay for a bottle of wine these days, and it tasted fantastic - all the better for having done a couple of hours of hard work.
We sat on the patio until around 7.20pm, at which point we decided it was time to come indoors and make preparations for dinner - despite the fact that it was still warmer outside than in. With the prospect of no internet in the foreseeable future, we are expecting to finalise some accounts tomorrow, look at our finances and make some decisions, and then maybe get back out on the terraces with the strimmer. Well, we have to make the most of a bad situation, don't we?!
Today almost felt like we had got stuck in some cruel time warp and were re-living the 'challenges' of last year. In fact the challenges haven't stopped coming at all, but they have at least tended to come one at a time over recent months rather than all piling up together.
After having dropped the car off at the dealership yesterday and kindly being driven home by the ever helpful Chris, Stuart received an email from them to say that it would take them a week to fix it. Really? A WEEK? So it seems that we will be without our car until at least next Wednesday. Tuesday is a bank holiday here, so I'm preparing myself for the possibility that that might prolong things still further. We're both fed up about it, having only just got the car back after they had it for 6 days last time, but there's not a lot we can do about it other than get on with things as best we can (scrounging lifts to the supermarket, settling for walks up and down the road with Reggie, and accepting that we won't be able to go anywhere or buy in any materials we might need for the next week).
I got up today and went to do my exercise for the first time in a few days - I'd like to say it felt good to get back into it, but it really only felt good when it was over! As I set my equipment up at the back of the house it was strange to see an entirely empty car park. We have been used to there being two cars there recently, and even three cars over the last couple of days.
I came back in to find Stuart in bed with his tablet PC saying that he was struggling to log onto the internet. Oh dear. I had briefly booted up my PC when I first got up but on finding that it wasn't loading web pages straight away, I had hurried outdoors to exercise, thinking it would just be a case of the computer taking a while to warm up and get going properly (a bit like me). The fact that Stuart was struggling to connect as well didn't bode well, and indeed when he got up and came downstairs to investigate the worst was confirmed: we had no internet. On this occasion the problem was a little different (and more perplexing) than usual though - all the lights were flashing on the router, my computer could even see that there was wi-fi available, but nothing would connect. Stuart tried the usual tricks of rebooting the router and even tweaking the satellite dish, but to no avail. He sent an email (via the data capacity on his mobile) to Brad at Italia Wi-Fi and we both resigned ourselves to a day of being incommunicado.
Luckily, I had a couple of bits of work I could do offline, so I set about doing that while Stuart went down to the lower terraces to roll out some more ground cover before starting to tinker with irrigation pipes.
It seems like summer has returned today (which is such a shame for our friends the Richardsons, who missed out on a good dose of sunshine last week), and we ate lunch in the blazing sun on the patio before Stuart attempted a few more tweaks to the satellite/router/modem set-up as advised by Brad (again no joy) and then returned to his pipework while I headed back to the office, all the while worrying about what work I might be missing out on doing and what the folk back in the office would think about my silence.
By the time 5pm rolled around, I had exhausted the offline work that I could do, so I changed and headed outside to see how Stuart was getting on. He had laid out all of the irrigation pipes and was just playing around with the timer device - it seems we have our irrigation successfully installed (on the mains - the next step will be to set up the water collection tanks and switch to using rainwater).
While Stuart finished up with the pipework, I used the 4 tyres that we had found at the bins in Vellano the other week to continue one of the flights of steps up/down the lower terraces, filling each tyre in with the earth dug out from the bank. That kept me busy for an hour, after which we both retreated to the patio for a drink in the warm evening sunshine.
We are waiting for a response from Italia Wi-Fi at the moment, but if there's no internet tomorrow, I won't be able to do any paid work and will have to start the weekend early. Admittedly that does sound good, but I live with a constant nagging worry about earning enough money for our keep, and enforced downtime is actually less restful than one might imagine! (Not that I plan to rest if I do have to take the day off working - I will, of course, be joining Stuart on the terraces).
Day 2: Role reversal
This morning, Stuart told me that he thought we would have working internet if not this morning then at some point today - it seemed that the problem lay with some software that required a login (for which we had referred to Brad at Italia Wi-Fi), so we just had to wait for an email to arrive with the necessary details.
After my morning's exercise, and after breakfast, there was no word from Italia Wi-Fi, so we set off for the day's dog walk. Taking advantage of the relatively cool morning air, we set off up the road with Reggie in the direction of Vellano. We made it a little further along the road than we had done on previous walks, but with Reggie's treat bag running perilously low we decided to do an about turn and head back again.
Once home, we tried the internet again, but with no response from Italia Wi-Fi, there was no change. I therefore changed into my work clothes and, while Stuart settled down in front of his PC to do some accounts, I headed off up the drive with the strimmer. Like everywhere else, the warm weather interspersed with rainy days has taken its toll on the driveway - or rather it has acted as grow-faster juice on all the grass, brambles, bracken and other vegetation - and it was in dire need of some tidying.
After an hour or so's strimming in the intense heat of the day it was time to take a break for lunch. We sat on the patio with our egg sandwiches and the umbrella up to shade us from the sun. Once lunch was over it was time to head back to work though; I'd barely managed a third of the drive so far, and Stuart had more spreadsheets to work on, so I headed off with the strimmer while Stuart headed back into the office - something of a role reversal!
I spent the next couple of hours working my way slowly down the drive, strimming both down the middle and along each of the banks. It was a gruelling chore, my shoulders ached, my hands ached and I kept getting hit by flying stones, twigs and bits of gravel. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the satisfaction of transforming the drive from overgrown to trimmed, and by 4.30pm I had finally finished. Since Stuart was still busy at his desk, I next decided to test out the black paint we'd bought to cover the water collection tanks. One of the problems many people seem to experience with these tanks is algal growth. We had considered the idea of wrapping the tanks in black plastic, but in the end decided instead to try what seemed like a quicker and easier method: paint. I therefore headed out with my can of black spray paint to see what I could do. Feeling rather like a graffitti artist, I shook the can and started spraying. It actually worked rather well, although if we are to use this method to cover all six tanks we are going to need a whole load more cans of paint - one can wasn't even enough for one tank.
While I was graffitting my way over the tank, Stuart came out to inspect my progress - he had finally finished in the office for the day. After giving his approval both to my work on the drive and my painting skills, we retired to the patio to sit in the sunshine and enjoy a glass of wine. It felt good to know that I had done something constructive today, despite our internet woes, and I know that Stuart was pleased to have finished wading his way through a couple of months' worth of paperwork. Nevertheless, the lack of connectivity is deeply frustrating - it's isolating as well as being detrimental to our finances due to my inability to work, and we risk losing bookings on the apartment - Mr Satellite had better pull his finger out PDQ!
Day 3: Getting beyond a joke!
Today we awoke for the third day in a row with neither car nor internet. At least we know where the car is and why it's there! After having had no response from Italia Wi-Fi yesterday, Stuart decided to try and call their supplier this morning (Italia Wi-Fi is just a distributor), but failed to find any contact details for them. He therefore got back on Brad's case and eventually got a response, along with a number of activation codes for the software that was requesting it - none of which worked. It eventually all became clear that the provider had been subject to a malware attack (ironic, right?), but the "good news", we were told, was that "after working tirelessly for the last two weeks [they] think [they] have now found the point of entry where the systems were attacked." Even better, their "top engineers" are confident it will take a maximum of one week to clear all of the remaining problems and bring all accounts back online. WAIT. ONE WEEK?????!!! They estimate the all accounts will be back online and fully working by Thursday 4th June. That will be exactly a week since ours stopped working. To say that we are unimpressed would be the understatement of the year. We rely on our internet for my work, for taking bookings in the apartment, and for communicating with the outside world. A week's radio silence just isn't acceptible - but, as with the car, our hands are tied.
Anyhow, back to today. The morning started for me with a shopping trip into Pescia with the ever helpful Sue who arrived at 9.30am to pick up both me and my five bags of rubbish for taking to the bins for recycling. After our trips around both Esselunga and Lidl, we stopped for a well earned coffee and proper catch up in the little coffee shack in San Francesco quarter before heading back up the hill. While I'd been out, Stuart had not only been communicating with Italia Wi-Fi about the internet, but had also hung the washing out to dry and fixed the security lights (a fuse had blown).
Sue left us to our unpacking, after which we set about making some bean dip for lunch, which we ate in the sunshine on the patio.
After lunch, it was tempting to spend the afternoon soaking up the sunshine and reading a book, but instead, we each changed into work clothes and set about a couple of hours worth of outdoor work. I started by using up the rest of the can of spray paint on the water collection tank (it turns out that one can covers less than half of one tank...), then turned my attentions to weeding the flower beds in the guest garden. Meanwhile, Stuart planted more seedlings out, planted the caper plant we'd bought at the agricultural fete a few weeks ago, weeded, and tweaked the irrigation pipes on the vegetable terraces.
Come 4.30pm, it felt like time to call it a day, after all this was the weekend. We dragged the two sun loungers from the guest patio to our gravelled area (the area on which our pergola will stand - when we finally get approval to build it) and reclined on them with a beautiful view, a glass of chilled white wine and our books. We must have spent about an hour and a half just sitting in the sunshine reading - it felt both incredibly decadent and wonderfully relaxing, and felt all the better for knowing that we'd put a couple of hours' work in beforehand.
The sunshine stayed hot until about 6.45pm, at which point it started to cool just slightly, so I went indoors to cook a ligurian potato salad, which we ate at the patio while Reggie ran around barking at imaginary intruders (to be fair to him, I'm sure his super-sensitive ears could hear rustling and animal noises that our hearing couldn't pick up, but to all intents and purposes, to the human eyes and ears it appeared he was barking at nothing).
So, day 3 of having no internet and no car draws to a close, along with the prospect of potentially not having either of them back for another 4 days. Well, at least the sun is shining, the view is beautiful and the veg are growing.
Day 4:
Today we awoke to another beautiful morning of clear blue skies and sunshine. After Reggie allowed us a lie-in until 8am, we got up and ate a leisurely breakfast on the patio. At the time ticked on, we could feel the heat being turned up, so we decided not to delay Reggie's walk any longer - after not having had a walk yesterday, we owed him a good one today and so, with a full water bottle (for Reggie) and a full bag of treats (also for Reggie) in hand, we set off along the drive. Today, rather than walking up the road to Vellano we decided to turn left out of our drive and head down hill. We then took the fork in the road towards Sorana and headed along to Calamari, and right the way as far as Ponte di Sorana. Reggie started off as usual lunging at every car that passed us, but before long he stopped and sat patiently at the side of the road with us to wait for cars to pass - it seemed he had turned into the perfectly behaved dog, although I'm sure it was just temporary. We had a lovely walk - we loved seeing the scenery at a slower pace than we do when we zoom past in the car, and we enjoyed nosing at the paper mills, the closed up, abandoned looking dwellings as well as the beautifully kept houses with well manicured lawns and well tended flower beds. We did an about turn at Ponte di Sorana as we thought that Reggie had probably had more than enough of a walk for one day, and we slowly made our way home, getting back to the house just before midday.
After another leisurely lunch in the sunshine, we toyed with the idea of spending the afternoon relaxing in the sun with a book, but in the end our consciences got the better of us and we decided on another compromise - we decidede that, as we had done yesterday, we would work until around 4pm and then relax. So we both went and changed into work clothes and while Stuart finished the last of the insect screens for the living room window before heading down to the veg terrace to plant out more seedlings and do more weeding, I headed up to the terraces above the house with the strimmer, determined to get them looking neat and tidy. After my full-on day with the backpack strimmer on Friday, I seem to have made friends with it, and now find it a breeze to use - so there was no stopping me today. Well, I say 'no stopping', but in fact I had to traipse back down the terraces on four separate occasions to get Stuart to re-thread the cord that had either snapped or got stuck, and once to re-fuel, but come 4pm, the uppper terraces were looking a lot more presentable - there's still more that needs to be done, but with the prospect of not having any internet for the next few days, I figure that there's plenty of time to do that (that's for as long as we don't run out of fuel of course).
At 4pm, I gave up on strimming and started trying to hack away at the stubborn acacia stumps that were making the uppermost terraces look ragged and messy - Stuart, having finished with his seedlings, saw me struggling with the pruning saw and offered to come up with his chain saw. Needless to say, the chain saw made light work of the little tree stumps and before long we had some much neater looking terraces and a large pile of cut-off stumps, which we collected up in two crates and a bucket, with the plan being to use them in the fire pit over the course of the summer.
We eventually retired to the patio at about 4.45pm with a bottle of wine that we'd bought from one of the wineries we visited on our Montecarlo wine tour last weekend. Despite only costing €5, that's more than double what we would normally pay for a bottle of wine these days, and it tasted fantastic - all the better for having done a couple of hours of hard work.
We sat on the patio until around 7.20pm, at which point we decided it was time to come indoors and make preparations for dinner - despite the fact that it was still warmer outside than in. With the prospect of no internet in the foreseeable future, we are expecting to finalise some accounts tomorrow, look at our finances and make some decisions, and then maybe get back out on the terraces with the strimmer. Well, we have to make the most of a bad situation, don't we?!
As day 5 dawns, I have made a mercy dash to Chris and Sue's to hop on their internet and post this update via my tablet pc You'll have to forgive typos and lack of photos for now - we'll add those in when we're back up and running!
Wednesday, 27 May 2015
Two day twister
Monday morning saw our lovely guests Diane and Ernest leave for the airport after a sixteen-day stay with us - a record that will take some beating! It was a sad moment for us - as it always is to witness the end of someone's holiday, and we'd really enjoyed having them around and socialising with them during their stay. As with many of our guests, we dearly hope they will come back to visit - so far, we've been incredibly lucky with our guests and it's genuinely been a privilege to meet them. Today's departures were no different, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Diane and Ernest left for the airport promptly on Monday morning, leaving me to turn the apartment around for our next arrivals who were due later the same day, It wasn't much of a turnaround though as the apartment had been left so clean that not a lot was needed from me and within an hour or so I was shutting the door and starting up the lawn mower.
That took me up until lunch time, after which I spent a couple of hours strimming to finish tidying the place up and improving the curb appeal, then headed for a much needed shower.
By the time I was clean and presentable it was almost four o'clock - when our friends the Richardsons were due to arrive. Bang on time (in fact slightly ahead of time), Ben, Virigina, Isabel and Erin rolled down the drive in their car, ready to stay with us for a couple of nights after having spent the best part of a week down near Arezzo for a family gathering.
It was really great to see them all - just over a year ago, they were kind enough to give us a roof over our heads and a bed to sleep in (not to mention feeding us delicious food) while we were homeless in between selling our house and driving over to Italy, and after having built up a fairly regular Friday evening get-together routine over the previous 12 months, we have missed their company over the last year. We were both struck by the changes we could see in the girls - when we left the UK, Erin wasn't even speaking, but now she's a confident little chatterbox like her older sister and a real delight (again, like her older sister).
We chatted for an hour or so over a beer before I headed into Pescia with the Richardsons to get pizza and ice cream for the girls while Helen stayed at the house with Reggie to welcome our new apartment guests. The Richardsons and I made a quick stop at Esselunga before heading home to put the girls to bed, and while Helen and I chatted with our new guests Sian and Simon (another really nice couple), Virginia cooked a delicious and uber-healthy dinner (the benefits of which were somewhat outweighed by the alcohol consumed over the course of the evening - after a year apart it was always bound to be a little enthusiastic this evening).
We all arose with Isabel's body clock the next day, so Helen and I speedily dressed and headed downstairs to deal with the animals before they could disturb Sian and Simon's peaceful sleep in the apartment below.
We coped well and slowly all arose and had breakfast out on the patio. Thankfully the weather was looking dry for the immediate future - which, sadly, was more than could be said for the Richardson family holiday that preceded it.
After breakfast, we all headed into Pescia to walk Reggie by the river. We parked at the bins near to Sue and Chris's and gradually made our way along the river until we crossed over to Lucky bar where we made a pit stop for toilets, ice cream, hot chocolates and so many cappuccinos that I wished I could have photographed the server's face each time he asked if we needed anything else.
With the time romping on for midday, and with small wet feet in the group courtesy of some enthusiastic paddling in the river, we headed back to the cars for a change of footwear before moving both cars to the Piazza near Franco's bar. Reggie once again refused to leave the car, so we left him in the safety of his crate with the rear door open where we could keep an eye on him(and vice versa) from the seating area outside Franco's.
We feasted on a superb lunch of breads, meats and cheeses (which included a three-milk cheese - goat's, sheep's and cow's - covered in fig jam and a delicious strong blue infused with fruits of the forest) before clambering back into the cars and heading for Lucca with a view to renting one of the ubiquitous four-wheeled bikes.
Once in Lucca, we managed to coax Reggie out of his crate without much effort, and all headed up to the wall. We walked around to the bike rental shop and it wasn't long before I'd handed over my ID card in exchange for a four wheeler into which the Richardsons climber before and heading up onto the wall for a couple of laps while Helen and I walked with Reggie.
Half an hour later the cycling family caught us up and we switched seating so that Ben and I could cycle the girls down to a large play park below, Helen and Virginia following closely behind with Reggie.
One thing I noticed today about Lucca, courtesy of operating a car-sized bike, is that there are a LOT of one-way streets combined with a general inclination to want you to circle around the inner city in an anti-clockwise direction. Needless to say, we arrived at the park quite some time after Helen, V and Reggie after having fought through crowds in narrow cobbled streets - all in the name of fun though, and soon enough Isabel and Erin were clambering over various climbing frames.
We finally called time on the day and headed back to the car to wend our way home - which we did, but not before Ben had helped me push our car around the underground car park so that Helen could bump start it. (Well, it wouldn't be the full experience if the car hadn't refused to start, would it?). When we did get home, Ben and V set to cooking dinner for the girls before their bath (yes, BATH - apparently our poor excuse for a water heater, which gave us nothing but tepid water over the winter can happily produce a bath in May as well as two showers?!!) while Helen and I nipped out for supplies for dinner. We then enjoyed a leisurely and somewhat alcohol fuelled evening safe in the knowledge that our guests downstairs had gone out for dinner at Da Carla near Sorana.
Tiredness got the better of all of us well before midnight, and we headed for bed. Everyone seemed to sleep well overnight - so well, in fact, that Helen and I lay in bed this morning not daring to get up for fear of waking the slumbering children - it was gone 7am before Isabel stirred, which seems to be something of a record. Once up, we all managed a breakfast together on the patio before the Richardsons sadly had to leave for the airport, shortly followed by me leaving for a day's strimming at Lanciole with Chris (extra labour for the day), and finally Sian and Simon checked out, heading to Pisa for a bit of sightseeing before their flight home, leaving Helen, Reggie and the cats all of a sudden alone.
We wish both the Richardsons and our guests Sian and Simon could have stayed longer but that's the way this particular cookie crumbled and it was weird to come home this evening (having yet again returned the car to the dealer) to find only Helen and the animals here.
Diane and Ernest left for the airport promptly on Monday morning, leaving me to turn the apartment around for our next arrivals who were due later the same day, It wasn't much of a turnaround though as the apartment had been left so clean that not a lot was needed from me and within an hour or so I was shutting the door and starting up the lawn mower.
That took me up until lunch time, after which I spent a couple of hours strimming to finish tidying the place up and improving the curb appeal, then headed for a much needed shower.
By the time I was clean and presentable it was almost four o'clock - when our friends the Richardsons were due to arrive. Bang on time (in fact slightly ahead of time), Ben, Virigina, Isabel and Erin rolled down the drive in their car, ready to stay with us for a couple of nights after having spent the best part of a week down near Arezzo for a family gathering.
It was really great to see them all - just over a year ago, they were kind enough to give us a roof over our heads and a bed to sleep in (not to mention feeding us delicious food) while we were homeless in between selling our house and driving over to Italy, and after having built up a fairly regular Friday evening get-together routine over the previous 12 months, we have missed their company over the last year. We were both struck by the changes we could see in the girls - when we left the UK, Erin wasn't even speaking, but now she's a confident little chatterbox like her older sister and a real delight (again, like her older sister).
We chatted for an hour or so over a beer before I headed into Pescia with the Richardsons to get pizza and ice cream for the girls while Helen stayed at the house with Reggie to welcome our new apartment guests. The Richardsons and I made a quick stop at Esselunga before heading home to put the girls to bed, and while Helen and I chatted with our new guests Sian and Simon (another really nice couple), Virginia cooked a delicious and uber-healthy dinner (the benefits of which were somewhat outweighed by the alcohol consumed over the course of the evening - after a year apart it was always bound to be a little enthusiastic this evening).
We all arose with Isabel's body clock the next day, so Helen and I speedily dressed and headed downstairs to deal with the animals before they could disturb Sian and Simon's peaceful sleep in the apartment below.
We coped well and slowly all arose and had breakfast out on the patio. Thankfully the weather was looking dry for the immediate future - which, sadly, was more than could be said for the Richardson family holiday that preceded it.
After breakfast, we all headed into Pescia to walk Reggie by the river. We parked at the bins near to Sue and Chris's and gradually made our way along the river until we crossed over to Lucky bar where we made a pit stop for toilets, ice cream, hot chocolates and so many cappuccinos that I wished I could have photographed the server's face each time he asked if we needed anything else.
With the time romping on for midday, and with small wet feet in the group courtesy of some enthusiastic paddling in the river, we headed back to the cars for a change of footwear before moving both cars to the Piazza near Franco's bar. Reggie once again refused to leave the car, so we left him in the safety of his crate with the rear door open where we could keep an eye on him(and vice versa) from the seating area outside Franco's.
 |
| We were relieved to find that Ben still loves his coffee - no change there. |
We feasted on a superb lunch of breads, meats and cheeses (which included a three-milk cheese - goat's, sheep's and cow's - covered in fig jam and a delicious strong blue infused with fruits of the forest) before clambering back into the cars and heading for Lucca with a view to renting one of the ubiquitous four-wheeled bikes.
Once in Lucca, we managed to coax Reggie out of his crate without much effort, and all headed up to the wall. We walked around to the bike rental shop and it wasn't long before I'd handed over my ID card in exchange for a four wheeler into which the Richardsons climber before and heading up onto the wall for a couple of laps while Helen and I walked with Reggie.
 |
| A bicycle made for four. |
Half an hour later the cycling family caught us up and we switched seating so that Ben and I could cycle the girls down to a large play park below, Helen and Virginia following closely behind with Reggie.
One thing I noticed today about Lucca, courtesy of operating a car-sized bike, is that there are a LOT of one-way streets combined with a general inclination to want you to circle around the inner city in an anti-clockwise direction. Needless to say, we arrived at the park quite some time after Helen, V and Reggie after having fought through crowds in narrow cobbled streets - all in the name of fun though, and soon enough Isabel and Erin were clambering over various climbing frames.
We finally called time on the day and headed back to the car to wend our way home - which we did, but not before Ben had helped me push our car around the underground car park so that Helen could bump start it. (Well, it wouldn't be the full experience if the car hadn't refused to start, would it?). When we did get home, Ben and V set to cooking dinner for the girls before their bath (yes, BATH - apparently our poor excuse for a water heater, which gave us nothing but tepid water over the winter can happily produce a bath in May as well as two showers?!!) while Helen and I nipped out for supplies for dinner. We then enjoyed a leisurely and somewhat alcohol fuelled evening safe in the knowledge that our guests downstairs had gone out for dinner at Da Carla near Sorana.
Tiredness got the better of all of us well before midnight, and we headed for bed. Everyone seemed to sleep well overnight - so well, in fact, that Helen and I lay in bed this morning not daring to get up for fear of waking the slumbering children - it was gone 7am before Isabel stirred, which seems to be something of a record. Once up, we all managed a breakfast together on the patio before the Richardsons sadly had to leave for the airport, shortly followed by me leaving for a day's strimming at Lanciole with Chris (extra labour for the day), and finally Sian and Simon checked out, heading to Pisa for a bit of sightseeing before their flight home, leaving Helen, Reggie and the cats all of a sudden alone.
We wish both the Richardsons and our guests Sian and Simon could have stayed longer but that's the way this particular cookie crumbled and it was weird to come home this evening (having yet again returned the car to the dealer) to find only Helen and the animals here.
Monday, 25 May 2015
All about friends
Sunday was all about friends: preparing for a visit on Monday from our friends Virginia, Ben, Isabel and Erin; relaxing and enjoying delicious food with our friends Chris, Sue, Henry and Erik; and a nightcap with our new friends (I hope they won't mind us calling them that - we certainly became very fond of our guests Diane and Ernest, such good company and great guests) on their last night here.
First things first though: after breakfast we took Reggie for another run around along the cava track. Although we'd done the same walk yesterday, the difference was that today it was dry! Unfortunately it wasn't exactly dry underfoot, but Reggie enjoyed splashing through the puddles and thundering through the mud at top speed.
Walk done, it was time to whizz up a bean dip for later and then get to work on cleaning and tidying the house, putting fresh linen on the beds and attempting to make our house a little more presentable. By 2pm, we'd just about got on top of things so we sat down for a quick bit of bread and cheese to tide us over until later.
We then loaded Reggie, his bed, his bowls, the bean dip and some bottles of wine into the car before heading to Pescia. First stop was Esselunga to pick up some carrots for the dip, then it was round to Chris and Sue's for an afternoon of food, wine, laughter, and sunshine. Oh and barking.
Reggie gave everyone a bit of a bark when we first arrived (a bit on the rude side, seeing as it was their house and they live there), but soon settled down and even spent a while doing some clicker training with Henry. Chris and Sue's terrace is close to the edge of town, with beautiful views of the roofs and church towers of Pescia. It is also a wonderful spot for listening to the romantic sound of the ringing of the town's church bells calling people to church - if you like the sound of bells, that is. It turns out that Reggie is not a fan. Each time they struck up (it being a Sunday afternoon, this was not a one-off occurrence), Reggie struck up with his own volley of barking and wouldn't let up until they did. He also did a fair bit of snooping around the place and made himself very unpopular with the Phillips's neighbour, by barking at her as she stood on her own doorstep. That aside, he spent most of the afternoon being well behaved...
We started our afternoon with drinks and dips outside on the patio, retreated indoors for a brief interlude when some spots of rain started to fall, before later moving back outside and feasting on delicious honeyed chicken with potato salad and a heavenly tiramisu. Needless to say, both wine and conversation flowed freely and we had a lovely relaxing afternoon. Before we knew it, the light was starting to fade and, it being a school night, we stuck to our word and left the Phillipses to prepare for the week ahead while we headed back home to put the geese to bed in the near-dark.
After putting the geese away, we knocked on the door of the apartment - we'd seen Diane and Ernest on our way out earlier and we knew they wanted some advice on getting back to the airport in the morning, so we popped our heads in just to see how their day had been. Ever the gracious hosts (even though it should have been the other way around), they invited us in and offered us a glass of wine, and we spent another hour or so chatting with them before leaving them with a set of airport directions and promising to be up and about in time to see them off in the morning.
We finally took ourselves off to bed just before 11pm - not the early night we'd planned, but we'd had a busy but thoroughly enjoyable weekend.
First things first though: after breakfast we took Reggie for another run around along the cava track. Although we'd done the same walk yesterday, the difference was that today it was dry! Unfortunately it wasn't exactly dry underfoot, but Reggie enjoyed splashing through the puddles and thundering through the mud at top speed.
Walk done, it was time to whizz up a bean dip for later and then get to work on cleaning and tidying the house, putting fresh linen on the beds and attempting to make our house a little more presentable. By 2pm, we'd just about got on top of things so we sat down for a quick bit of bread and cheese to tide us over until later.
We then loaded Reggie, his bed, his bowls, the bean dip and some bottles of wine into the car before heading to Pescia. First stop was Esselunga to pick up some carrots for the dip, then it was round to Chris and Sue's for an afternoon of food, wine, laughter, and sunshine. Oh and barking.
Reggie gave everyone a bit of a bark when we first arrived (a bit on the rude side, seeing as it was their house and they live there), but soon settled down and even spent a while doing some clicker training with Henry. Chris and Sue's terrace is close to the edge of town, with beautiful views of the roofs and church towers of Pescia. It is also a wonderful spot for listening to the romantic sound of the ringing of the town's church bells calling people to church - if you like the sound of bells, that is. It turns out that Reggie is not a fan. Each time they struck up (it being a Sunday afternoon, this was not a one-off occurrence), Reggie struck up with his own volley of barking and wouldn't let up until they did. He also did a fair bit of snooping around the place and made himself very unpopular with the Phillips's neighbour, by barking at her as she stood on her own doorstep. That aside, he spent most of the afternoon being well behaved...
We started our afternoon with drinks and dips outside on the patio, retreated indoors for a brief interlude when some spots of rain started to fall, before later moving back outside and feasting on delicious honeyed chicken with potato salad and a heavenly tiramisu. Needless to say, both wine and conversation flowed freely and we had a lovely relaxing afternoon. Before we knew it, the light was starting to fade and, it being a school night, we stuck to our word and left the Phillipses to prepare for the week ahead while we headed back home to put the geese to bed in the near-dark.
After putting the geese away, we knocked on the door of the apartment - we'd seen Diane and Ernest on our way out earlier and we knew they wanted some advice on getting back to the airport in the morning, so we popped our heads in just to see how their day had been. Ever the gracious hosts (even though it should have been the other way around), they invited us in and offered us a glass of wine, and we spent another hour or so chatting with them before leaving them with a set of airport directions and promising to be up and about in time to see them off in the morning.
We finally took ourselves off to bed just before 11pm - not the early night we'd planned, but we'd had a busy but thoroughly enjoyable weekend.
Sunday, 24 May 2015
We heard (about it) on the grapevine
After last night's late night, it was something of a struggle to heave myself out of bed at 7am this morning, but with Reggie's whining ramping up downstairs, there was little choice in the matter. By the time Stuart was stirring, I had started to wake up a little and was raring to go shopping (OK, that's an exaggeration - I just wanted to go, to get it over and done with).
So, rather later than usual, we headed into town and hit the supermarkets. The car parks in both shops were packed, and the shops themselves pretty heaving - it was only about 45 minutes later than we would usually go shopping on a Saturday, and we were shocked at the difference it seemed to make.
Once we'd done both shops and loaded the car, we drove back up the valley, making a stop at Da Nerone for what felt like a well deserved cappuccino on the way.
After unloading the car, we headed straight back out to take Reggie for a good run around at the cava. Just as we headed out again, the rain started pitter-pattering on the windscreen and got steadily heavier as we drove up the road. We had a damp walk at the cava, but Reggie didn't mind in the least and bounded around joyfully on the quiet track.
When we got home after our walk it was lunchtime, but it definitely wasn't an al fresco lunch day today. We sat indoors, and after lunch it took us quite some determination to muster up the enthusiasm to go out again - it was a grey, damp day and although it wasn't really cold, it was the sort of day that makes you want to light the fire, snuggle up on the sofa and watch a film. Nevertheless, come 3.30pm, we both pulled ourselves together, grabbed coats and shoes and got ready to head out. Reggie got a bone to keep him entertained for the afternoon and we headed for Montecarlo.
Montecarlo is the only real wine-producing area in our locality - and the wines are good. We'd learned a few months ago (through Rita, my Italian teacher) that every May, there is a wine festival in Montecarlo. The set-up is that you go to the town to pay your €8 fee, for which you get a map of the vineyards, a wine glass, a pen (for writing notes) and a form on which to collect stamps from each of the wineries you visit (there is a prize if you manage to get around all 14 of them over the two days of the event). There are also buses to bus people around the different vineyards. Each vineyard offers tastings of its wines, as well as local meats, cheeses, bread and olive oils.
We decided that we weren't going to take it too seriously and, since we had driven there, we gave the wine bus a miss and instead drove around just 4 of the 14 vineyards. Each one we visited had a different feel about it - the first was the most beautiful and inviting, the second was a little intimidating and unfriendly, the third the most friendly (we met a chap offering cured meats from his father's butchers shop, who as soon as we told him we lived in Pietrabuona gave us his phone number and invited us to go and dine with him!), and the fourth the most slick and professional. The wines were delicious and we could have happily walked away with bottles from each producer. In the end, we only bought two bottles from the first place we visited (at €5 per bottle, that's really pushing the boat out - more than twice the amount we usually pay for wine these days!), but there were some really stunning ones at all of them.
We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon and were very pleased we'd made the effort to go out when it would have been so easy to stay put and veg out on the sofa. It was a real reminder of previous holidays in Tuscany and gave us a warm glow (not just the alcohol) to know that we live here. Whereas in the UK we might have spent a Saturday afternoon going to one of our favourite local country pubs, here we spent it touring around 4 vineyards (it could have been more had we been more dedicated) for less than the price of a single glass of wine back in the UK (which is handy, since we now bring in less than half of what we did back in the UK)!
We decided to call it a day after our 4th tasting and wended our way home, where, keeping in the spirit of things, we opened the box of wine we'd bought from Toti (the restaurant) last night and laid out a spread of cheese, bread (including some delicious breads that Diane and Ernest had bought for us from the bakery side of Franco's bar in town) and olives and settled down to a relaxing evening on the sofa. One of the best Saturdays we've had in a long while.
So, rather later than usual, we headed into town and hit the supermarkets. The car parks in both shops were packed, and the shops themselves pretty heaving - it was only about 45 minutes later than we would usually go shopping on a Saturday, and we were shocked at the difference it seemed to make.
Once we'd done both shops and loaded the car, we drove back up the valley, making a stop at Da Nerone for what felt like a well deserved cappuccino on the way.
After unloading the car, we headed straight back out to take Reggie for a good run around at the cava. Just as we headed out again, the rain started pitter-pattering on the windscreen and got steadily heavier as we drove up the road. We had a damp walk at the cava, but Reggie didn't mind in the least and bounded around joyfully on the quiet track.
When we got home after our walk it was lunchtime, but it definitely wasn't an al fresco lunch day today. We sat indoors, and after lunch it took us quite some determination to muster up the enthusiasm to go out again - it was a grey, damp day and although it wasn't really cold, it was the sort of day that makes you want to light the fire, snuggle up on the sofa and watch a film. Nevertheless, come 3.30pm, we both pulled ourselves together, grabbed coats and shoes and got ready to head out. Reggie got a bone to keep him entertained for the afternoon and we headed for Montecarlo.
Montecarlo is the only real wine-producing area in our locality - and the wines are good. We'd learned a few months ago (through Rita, my Italian teacher) that every May, there is a wine festival in Montecarlo. The set-up is that you go to the town to pay your €8 fee, for which you get a map of the vineyards, a wine glass, a pen (for writing notes) and a form on which to collect stamps from each of the wineries you visit (there is a prize if you manage to get around all 14 of them over the two days of the event). There are also buses to bus people around the different vineyards. Each vineyard offers tastings of its wines, as well as local meats, cheeses, bread and olive oils.
We decided that we weren't going to take it too seriously and, since we had driven there, we gave the wine bus a miss and instead drove around just 4 of the 14 vineyards. Each one we visited had a different feel about it - the first was the most beautiful and inviting, the second was a little intimidating and unfriendly, the third the most friendly (we met a chap offering cured meats from his father's butchers shop, who as soon as we told him we lived in Pietrabuona gave us his phone number and invited us to go and dine with him!), and the fourth the most slick and professional. The wines were delicious and we could have happily walked away with bottles from each producer. In the end, we only bought two bottles from the first place we visited (at €5 per bottle, that's really pushing the boat out - more than twice the amount we usually pay for wine these days!), but there were some really stunning ones at all of them.
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| Wine nerd. Thankfully, everyone else had the same nosebag around their necks. |
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| Tronchetti vineyard. |
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| First stop, first purchase. |
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| Fattoria Del Greppo - beautiful view from their infinity pool. |
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| Last stop - Fattoria il Poggio |
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| Did the dogs get to this size by eating titbits fed to them by sozzled wine tasters? |
We thoroughly enjoyed our afternoon and were very pleased we'd made the effort to go out when it would have been so easy to stay put and veg out on the sofa. It was a real reminder of previous holidays in Tuscany and gave us a warm glow (not just the alcohol) to know that we live here. Whereas in the UK we might have spent a Saturday afternoon going to one of our favourite local country pubs, here we spent it touring around 4 vineyards (it could have been more had we been more dedicated) for less than the price of a single glass of wine back in the UK (which is handy, since we now bring in less than half of what we did back in the UK)!
We decided to call it a day after our 4th tasting and wended our way home, where, keeping in the spirit of things, we opened the box of wine we'd bought from Toti (the restaurant) last night and laid out a spread of cheese, bread (including some delicious breads that Diane and Ernest had bought for us from the bakery side of Franco's bar in town) and olives and settled down to a relaxing evening on the sofa. One of the best Saturdays we've had in a long while.
Saturday, 23 May 2015
Where is May going?
The month romps on despite any protests of ours. It's now only a few days until the Richardson family arrive to spend a couple of nights with us - it seems like a lifetime ago since we made those plans, way back when we were still in England.
Thursday was a fairly unremarkable day, hence the lack of blog post: Helen worked all day in the office while I made a dash up the valley to spend the day cutting grass while there was an unexpected break in the damp weather.
When I got home, we both headed into town to walk Reggie along the river, but this time along a stretch we've not tried before. We know that this part of the river is a regular walk for Donatella and Alex with their dog Ray, as it's a nice quiet stretch. Quiet was exactly how we found it - until the return leg when a woman approached with two dogs off the lead. One was clearly a big greyhound the other I couldn't tell you what it was, slightly smaller than Reggie, much skinnier, ginger and with pointy features. As this woman clearly wasn't going to put her dogs on the leash, we left Reggie off leash too. The greyhound came charging over to Reggie, and they chased each other briefly until the greyhound got a bit much for him - at which point the ginger dog came over all barks and the two of them hounded poor Reggie who ended up reversing into the river through the cover of reeds, barking at them both in the hopes they'd go away. It's the first time we've seen him put in his place - but even when we got control of the situation and walked our separate ways, Reggie couldn't help but take a look back with the fleeting thought of going back for some more.
After the excitement on the river, it was time to head home and start on dinner. We'd invited our guests, Diane and Ernest, up for dinner this evening to reciprocate the delicious meal they made for us last week. We didn't go in for anything complicated however: good old tomato bruschette and a roasted pepper and bean dip followed by garlic and thyme mushrooms in mascarpone with pasta and then some shop-bought torta della nonna for dessert. We enjoyed hearing about their discoveries over the last few days and made notes of many of the places they'd enjoyed - they are much better tourists than we have ever been, managing to stay out for entire days often into the evenings, and finding all sorts of things we've not seen. Indeed, they even found places of note in Montecatini Terme, a place we only ever mention when making a trip to the hardware store or pet shop - we really must try harder! We retired to bed after a very enjoyable evening at around half eleven, it was still a school night after all!
Friday saw a busy day, largely made up of shopping, which allowed me to tick a few things off my to-do list - so, despite not picking up any tools until almost five o'clock, the day felt like a huge success. After breakfast I headed into town to withdraw money from the bank in order to pay the geometra, bought a few items from the pharmacy, then headed over to Andrea's office to drop off his payment. Andrea wasn't in, but I gave the money to Alessia and asked her about yet another letter we've had from the Comune demanding we buy another €16 tax stamp for something or other. She kept the letter and told me that the Comune have already approved our plans (for the pergola, poly tunnel, solar panels, wooden shed and blocking up a door) and passed them on to the dreaded superintendent in Florence (I added the word 'dreaded' for effect). This seems like great news, but I can't help but feel that something is bound to crop up to knock us backwards again before this process is over - for now, though, we'll take the victory and stay optimistic.
From Andrea's office, I headed out to the agricultural supplier to buy some ground control fabric to make a start on covering the lower terraces. This is an idea that makes complete sense long-term, and I didn't want to attempt it after running all the irrigation pipe over the terraces, so it was a matter of now or never. I opted for now and bought 150m of the stuff, hoping this would go a long way towards covering the four terraces over which our vegetable beds are spread.
On an absolute roll, I headed over to Montecatini Terme - not to see any of the grand spa buildings or the beautiful park that Diane and Ernest had told us about, but to buy another pay-as-you go SIM card for Helen's mobile phone. It seems that we now have a reliable mobile signal at the house and since this provider (Lycamobile) only requires a top up every 12 months, it seemed like a good idea for us both to run a phone.
By the time I came back through town, the tyre garage was closed for lunch - sourcing some more used tyres to complete the steps in the terraces was the only thing I hadn't managed to tick off from today's list, but having done already more than I'd hoped for, I headed home for lunch happy with my progress.
We sat indoors today and ate a bowl of roasted pepper hummus before heading out to walk Reggie. Today, we took him down to San Lorenzo, figuring we'd give him a try there with Donatella's balance lead and continue to work on his car training. Neither were particularly successful today, Reggie having something of a relapse and lunging at 3 of the 4 cars that passed us, but nothing could faze us, it was Friday afternoon and we were staring the weekend in the face! After our walk, we made a quick trip back to Gaustapaglia, the irrigation specialist, just to see if I could get the connectors I needed for linking the water tanks together. I had assumed that I would need to order them on the internet and either pay for postage or else hope that our friend Chris, who is due to visit from the UK next month, would bring them over for me, but I thought it was worth a try here first, and bingo! I walked out of the shop with everything I needed.
When we got home, Helen went indoors on my orders to lie down for an hour as a migraine was threatening so begrudgingly she sloped off to bed while I finally picked up some tools and made a start rolling out the ground fabric and cutting around everything growing. The task would have been easier prior to planting anything, but that way around we'd have long missed our planting window so it felt like a happy compromise and I was happy that the plants we do have in were still young, making the job that much easier. As 6.30pm approached, I'd finished 50m of the fabric - one third of what I'd bought - and it was clear that we'd be need quite a bit more of the stuff to finish the job.
I headed indoors to change at that point as we were going out for dinner with Alex, Donatella, David, Diane and Ernest to a restaurant called Toti. Alex and Dontella had told us about this place before, and months ago we'd said we'd try it together. Tonight, back by popular demand, the restaurant was putting on a vegan night. Being a vegan, Alex in particular was keen to support the evening. We were also intrigued to see the Italian take on meatless food, and our guests, who are non-meat eaters, needed little persuading to hop in the car with us for dinner and lend their support to the evening.
This is not a place you would stumble across on passing in the car - there is a small sign at the side of the main Lucca road urging you to turn left, but nothing more. We followed the sign for a few hundred metres and came upon a beautiful old building that we all remarked upon when we saw it - it turned out to be Toti. The restaurant is in the wine cellar of an old vineyard: the story goes that it's an old family concern but the wine production ceased years ago, with the place falling into a state of disrepair. Its latest owners (still from the same family) have taken the place on and are running the restaurant as a means of getting by while they get the vineyard up and running again. Vines have been planted (which will take a few years to bear fruit), and for now they buy in grapes from nearby Montecarlo and blend their own wines. Indeed, we walked away with a 10-litre box of red, for the princely sum of €2 per litre!
The dining room was beautiful, with a huge brick barrelled ceiling, stone walls and old wine barrels decorating the place. The photo here doesn't do it justice, but rest assured, future guests of ours will either be directed or dragged down there as a must! The restaurant's €10 weekday lunches are apparently the best around.
After a very enjoyable evening - which saw us almost first in at 7.30pm and almost last out at midnight - we paid our very reasonable €20 per head (for 4 courses, water, wine and coffee) and left for home.
We were pretty weary by the time we got home - we haven't stayed up that late in a long time! Nevertheless, we let Reggie out for half an hour before finally retiring to bed, Helen's alarm was set for half six again, as it always is on a Saturday, and we had shopping to do in the morning.
Wednesday, 20 May 2015
Rain vs irrigation
The weatherman(?) has forecast rain starting today and lasting for several days, and he (or she) certainly didn't get it wrong about today. With the exception of a short 10-minute blast mid-morning (just as Helen was dashing down to the apartment to reset the electricity, only to realise it was a power cut), it wasn't the fierce, barrel-filling type of rain but more of a general damp, showery sort of rain that makes it hard to decide whether to try and work outside or not (not that it stopped my ever determined wife from heading out at 6.30am with her bike).
Despite Reggie's barking, I drifted back to sleep again and didn't wake until Helen came back into the bedroom at 9am to see if I was still alive.
After breakfast, I left Helen in the office and headed out to an irrigation shop that Alex had told me about in Pescia. I've spent the last few days working out our options for locating the six water-collection tanks that we're now the proud owners of and the height above the first vegetable beds we need them to be in order for there to be sufficient pressure to run drip irrigation. After posting a query on the extremely useful Permies internet forum (thanks again, Alex, for pointing me in the right direction), I was given some useful information on PSI, amongst other things. Apparently, every foot of height gives you 0.44 PSI of pressure - not much, but if we can build a platform against the first bank in front of the house just low enough to catch the rain water from the four-inch pipe that is already disposing of the rain water from the front of the roof, then we will have about 12ft, or just over 5PSI or 0.35 bar, which is just just enough (in theory) to run a low-pressure gravity-fed system, so little wiggle room in the design.
Anyway, off I went to Gaustapaglia with a couple of diagrams, a list of what I thought I needed and my pressure calculations to see what happened. I was a little daunted by this particular task - completely technical in nature and it involved going into one of those hidden away places that only men dare to enter. I figured if all went pear-shaped I could run away in the direction of OBI to poke around at their over-priced offerings (although from what I'd seen, they were missing half of what I needed). Either way, I was expecting to need to supplement my acquisitions with some Internet purchases.
I was greeted by a friendly old chap who took my drawing and fired a lot of questions my way. He was clearly very knowledgeable about the subject of irrigation, and over the course of the next 20 minutes, during which he kept disappearing off and returning with the next part of the puzzle, we assembled a full order list of bits and pieces, all of which they had in stock - even the bits I was expecting to have to order. This was a triumph in many ways, not only was my Italian just about holding up to the task, but we were saving time on waiting for orders that couriers wouldn't deliver and saving postage from the UK. This made my day, and I left leaving them to collate the order for collection this afternoon.
I got home at 12.30pm, the exact time we were supposed to be arriving at Alex and Donatella's for lunch, so we raced up the valley and arrived just at the skies were trying to clear. This afforded us the opportunity to walk around their vegetable garden to see their progress - despite the huge setbacks they've had this year, they're already way ahead of us! It's inspiring to see what we might be able to achieve with some time and effort, although it's still hard to believe we'll have that kind of food available to us here from our terraces despite things starting to grow in our vegetable beds.
After a good look around, we headed indoors to find the dining room table laden with delectable delights: hummus, baba ganoush, farro salad, carrot salad, chickpea salad, olives, sliced garlic (which I forgot to try!!), pappa al pomodoro and lovely fresh bread. Right up our street. They'd really pulled out all the stops for us and I fear we've got into some kind of cooking battle now, in which I think we'll be waving the white flag of surrender very soon!
We enjoyed a very relaxed four-hour lunch finished with delicious vegan ganache, strawberries and soya ice cream. We could have stayed longer, having only just got onto talking politics and philosophy by the time we had to leave, were it not for Reggie being at home in his crate and me needing to collect the irrigation.
After a dash through Pescia "rush hour" (pah!) and having a demo of the connections, I left with 120 metres of drip-line irrigation pipe with built-in emitters that will deliver up to 2 litres per hour, per emitter, spaced at 30 cm (the optimum for vegetable growing supposedly); 25 metres of hose to run down the terrace that will link all of the irrigation pipe together; a pile of T connectors each with a tap so that we can turn off individual beds if needed (apparently onions don't like too much water, who knew?); a low pressure timer to automate the whole process so that not only can we concentrate on other things of an evening but we can go away for a few days if we need/want to (did I mention we've booked a little three-day trip away to a farm in Tuscany with Reggie?); a filter to stop the irrigation pipe clogging; and some end caps. So, all being well, on Friday we should (I say that with probably far too much optimism than is sensible) have a working irrigation system that should mean we are running at maximum efficiency with regards to water usage and labour.
If that wasn't enough for one day, when I got home I picked up Helen (who had gone back to her computer to do a little more work) and Reggie and headed back into town for a walk along the track to San Lorenzo and back - a successful walk where he tried to attack far fewer passing cars than he simply watched go by. By the time we got home it was nearing 8pm so time to feed Reggie and the cats, write a blog, put the geese away and settle down for the evening.
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