'Twas the week before Christmas...

The theme for this week has definitely been one of completing chores - be they cleaning related, bill-paying related or Christmas postage related. Hopefully this means that we will get to relax next week!

Monday

Monday morning saw me escaping from the horrors of the weekend, leaving Stuart to check on the apartment and then get on with work on the shed while I drove into Pescia for a long overdue catch-up with Sue. I had a lovely morning, first catching up with both Chris and Sue and then walking into town with Sue for a 'posh' coffee (i.e. one made by someone else) and a catch-up on the last couple of weeks. It was great to have a proper chat with Sue and I left Pescia feeling happy and contented.

It wasn't long before I was back in Pescia - after a quick lunch, Stuart, Reggie and I all clambered into the car and headed into town for an afternoon of chores. First on the list was a 'quick' visit to the post office to post some parcels to the UK for Christmas. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the post office was quite empty when we arrived - it was the end of lunchtime, which is a quiet period for the post office. We took our ticket, deli-counter-style, waited to be called to the counter and were fairly soon being called forward by a lady who looked at our pile of parcels, consulted with her colleague before telling us we needed to go away and fill in two separate forms for each item.

We took the forms over to the tiny table (why on earth the tables in post offices and banks are quite so small I don't know) and began the painstaking task of filling out names and addresses on all the forms. Each form required both the sender's address (ours) and the delivery address, there were two forms for each parcel and five parcels - you do the maths! When we'd finally finished scribbling addresses we realised we would have to go back to the start of the whole process, take a new ticket and wait once again to be called to the counter. We duly took a ticket and waited... and waited. The lunchtime lull was over  by now, and streams of people were coming through the door. With only two of the 7 cashiers dealing with parcels (all the others were dealing with payment of bills and other forms of post office admin), the wait was long and tedious. What made it worse was the fact that we knew we would have to come back to the post office in a little while in order to pay some bills! (We needed to collect a bill from the geometra's office first, then head back to the post office to pay it.) As we sat and waited in the overheated room, the thought of having to come back and do it all again filled us with dread.

Our number was finally called, we took our parcels and forms to the counter and managed to get everything handed over and stamped. If the long wait hadn't been painful enough, the next painful part was being told what we would have to pay for the privilege of sending 5 small parcels to the UK. €86. Yes, I worked out that for the same price I could fly over to the UK and deliver them myself!!

We left the post office feeling as if we'd been robbed, but with relief that at least our parcels would be starting to make their way to the UK. Since we had by now been in the post office for almost an hour, with Reggie waiting patiently in the car, we decided to do the dog walk next. We duly got Reggie out of the car and took him along to the river where we enjoyed the feeling of fresh air after having sat in the hot post office for so long.

By the time we'd finished our walk, the geometra's office was open again, so we were able to pop in, have a quick chat with Andrea and collect the bill (an annual property tax, the deadline for which was in two days' time), before steeling ourselves to go back into the post office. Once again we sat waiting for our number to flash up on the screen - watching as other people who had come in after us were served before us. Clearly certain cashiers only deal with certain tasks, so the order in which people are seen is not strictly first-come-first-served and you can be sitting waiting for your number to come up watching tens of other people come and go in front of you while you wait.

Our number did eventually come up though, and after paying the electricity bill, the water bill and the property tax, we finally left the post office once again with the feeling of shock at how much money we'd just handed over!

Next we needed to head over to Enrico's garage in order to pay yet another bill - the bill for the repair of the car last week. On arriving, however, Enrico told Stuart that because the secretary wasn't there he couldn't give us the bill, so we will have to wait to pay that one.

By the time we were heading back up the hill darkness had already fallen - it felt as if the entire afternoon had been spent sitting in the post office and handing over large amounts of money! On the positive side, we had managed to tick off several things from what is now an extensive to-do list for this week.

Tuesday

The plan for Tuesday morning was to take a trip to Ikea to buy some replacement furniture for the apartment, so straight after breakfast we left Reggie home alone and headed in the direction of Pisa.

We'd joked that we could have taken Reggie with us to Ikea (of course in reality we wouldn't dream of it, not least because he would hate it even more than we do) and while we were there I counted 5 dogs accompanying their owners around the showroom on their shopping trips. They weren't even 'handbag' dogs either - at least two of them were almost as large as Reggie. I'm not sure I will ever stop finding it surprising to see dogs in shops!

After traipsing through the IKEA showroom to double check that the products we'd picked out online were suitable for our needs (we were glad we did as we changed our minds on two of the items), we found the pieces of furniture in the warehouse and handed over yet more large amounts of money - there seems to be a theme developing this week! We left the shop with a new chest of drawers, a new coffee table, new rug, doormat and door curtain for the apartment as well as two new desks for our office - with the shed coming close to completion, Stuart is finally starting to move tools out of the office, and with any luck, after Christmas we will be able to reclaim the office for its original intended purpose. The desks we are currently using are both hand-me-downs from the previous owners are neither comfortable nor well made, so we've been promising ourselves new desks for a while.

By the time we'd finished in IKEA and got back home again it was well into lunchtime, and with Samantha due at 2pm for my weekly Italian lesson, we hurriedly heated up some soup before tidying the house up.

Samantha was once again greeted by Reggie with a volley of barks, but like last week, he soon calmed down and he sat quietly on the sofa while I had my lesson.

While I had my lesson, Stuart continued organising in the shed until the light faded when we collected wood for the fire and retired indoors for the evening.

Wednesday

Wednesday started with an early dog walk along the river in Pescia before coming home to drop off Reggie and head up the hill to Vellano for our group Italian lesson. We dashed into the house, settled Reggie down and made a quick bathroom stop - but when I turned on the tap in the bathroom, nothing came out! After the plumbing traumas of the weekend, the idea of there being a problem with our water supply seemed like a practical joke! There wasn't time to worry about it there and then though, so we parked the problem for later, imagining that we would have to come home later to mess about with water pipes and searching for air blocks.

David and Sarah's house seemed blissfully clean, tidy, warm and plumbing-problem-free, a lovely oasis to escape to, and we had another great lesson with them and Johnny. Last week, we had hatched a plan between us to go out for lunch together today in celebration of Christmas. It was the closest thing we have come to a 'work Christmas do' since we moved here. We therefore finished our lesson with a prosecco aperitif at David & Sarah's before all heading down into the village to Manero's restaurant. Despite being the only people in there, we were treated to a feast of a meal: Tuscan antipasti (cured meats, cheese, fegattini bruschette (toasted bread topped with liver pate), fettunta (toasted bread brushed with garlic and drizzled in olive oil), beans with onions, marinated garlic, marinated artichokes, marinated anchovies and pappa al pomodoro), ravioli with artichokes, ravioli with ragu, pappardelle with wild boar sauce and THEN an enormous plate of assorted meats cooked on the grill. Of course we washed it all down with plenty of wine and we had a lovely couple of hours enjoying the company and the food and feeling in the Christmas spirit.

Magical views from Vellano

By the time we said our farewells to David and Sarah and to Johnny, it was getting on for 4pm, meaning that we had a very limited amount of daylight left in which to get to the bottom of our water problem. It was with enormous relief, therefore, that when we got into the house and tried the taps, we found water flowing freely! Whether it had been a temporary problem caused by an airblock earlier that had since released itself, whether the water supply had been interrupted by the roadworks down in the village, or whether Reggie had rolled up his sleeves and fixed the problem for us while we were out, we're not sure (we suspect the latter is the least likely...), we were just happy not to have to spend the next couple of hours chasing pipes down the hill and instead we lit the fire and decided to continue the Christmas cheer with a relaxed evening watching Christmas films.

Thursday

After having largely ignored anything house or apartment related yesterday (with the exception of another once-over of the floors in the morning with a mop and some bleach), we knew that today would be full-on. Instead of doing my usual early morning exercise routine, Stuart and I were both up early and out of the door by 8am, taking Reggie up the road for a lovely fresh early morning walk on the cava track.

We were home by just after 9am, so while Stuart washed up in our house, I headed down to the apartment to embark on yet more cleaning. By this point in time, we were fully confident that the floors were clean - they'd been mopped and bleached so many times you could eat your dinner off them - but with guests arriving tomorrow, the rest of the apartment needed its usual 'turnaround' clean, the furniture needed moving back in, and the new furniture needed assembling!

Thankfully, the cavalry arrived a little after 10am in the form of David and Sarah, who had some spare time today and had offered their help. So while Stuart and I cleaned off the pieces of furniture that had been outside for the last few days and moved them back inside, David and Sarah did battle with flat pack furniture.

Want some furniture building? Bring in the cavalry.

We stopped to eat a delicious lunch cooked by Stuart - pasta with mushrooms and blue cheese. It was such a beautiful day (handy when you're assembling furniture in the garden - the weather has at least been kind to us this week!), that we ate outside on the patio in the glorious, glorious sunshine.

After lunch it was all hands on deck and between us we dusted, vacuumed, cleaned, moved furniture, hung new pictures, put up Christmas lights, decorated a mini Christmas tree and made the apartment look better than it ever has done! We are truly grateful to David and Sarah for rolling up their sleeves and spending their entire day helping us - and not only with the furniture assembly but also with cleaning. I'm pretty sure that had we not had their help, we would still have been waiting for floors to dry while puzzling over flat pack furniture in the cold and dark at gone 10pm!

The new 'gallery' in the apartment, showing watercolours of the 10 villages of our valley.

With the apartment looking ship shape and guest-ready, and having waved David and Sarah off on their way home, we retired upstairs to light the fire. Depressingly, our house was in need of at least as much cleaning (well, maybe less bleaching), but that would have to wait until the morning, so we settled down for a cosy evening by the fire, happy in the knowledge that the apartment is fresh as a daisy.

Friday

Friday morning was a bit of a struggle - after the mammoth efforts in the apartment over the last few days, the last thing we felt like doing was tackling the cleaning of our own house, but tackle it we must, with visitors arriving in just a handful of hours!

Straight after breakfast, we headed out for a quick coffee followed by a shorter than usual dog walk - we walked along the track from the San Lorenzo hotel to the edge of Pescia and back. Reggie probably felt a little short-changed after a walk that didn't afford him any time off the lead, but at least we knew he'd had some form of exercise and we promised him we'd make it up with a proper run around tomorrow.

Once we got home it was all hands on deck and we spent the next 3 hours dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, tidying and scrubbing - much to Reggie's amusement. As I was on my hands and knees trying to wipe the living room floor, Reggie came and sat right next to me, eye-balling me and trying to take the wet cloth out of my hands - not helpful! Thankfully we finished cleaning with about 2 minutes to spare - enough time to quickly change into normal clothes before running to the car.

We hadn't had enough time to make ourselves any lunch, so we stopped off at Amanda's shop and got Samantha to make us each a prosciutto and cheese sandwich, which we then ate in the car en route to Pisa.

In stark contrast to yesterday's beautiful blue skies and sunshine, today's weather was grey and damp, and as we drove along the autostrade you wouldn't even know there were majestic mountains in the distance - in fact, I wondered if our guests would think they'd arrived back in England again, such was the grey and dampness of the day.

Once we arrived at the airport we parked up and went to the arrivals hall to wait. Like trips to IKEA, trips to the airport always have me amazed by the number of people who bring their dogs into the crowded terminal - we counted four dogs with their owners waiting at the arrivals gates. I can't image Reggie enjoying that experience!

We waited for about 20 minutes before we spotted the familiar smiling faces of Paul, Marie and Sheila (Stuart's Mum) coming towards us - it was great to see them!

Anyone called Smith?

With the bags all loaded into the car, we headed straight home to reintroduce everyone to Reggie and to get started on the prosecco. Reggie was a little overwhelmed by the large number of people coming into his house and treated everyone to a round of barking, but quickly realised he knew Sheila and calmed down with her, concentrating his efforts then on just Paul and Marie. Clearly 12 months is too long for Reggie to remember people, but it wasn't long before he realised that Marie was definitely a friend, not a foe. True friendship with Paul was a step too far for one evening, and Reggie kept his distance, but he did at least give him enough benefit of the doubt to stop barking at him pretty soon.

Reggie gave this man a wide berth!

We spent the rest of the afternoon and the evening catching up with prosecco, roasted chestnuts and bread drizzled in olive oil before the boys embarked on cooking up a delicious vegetable chilli (helped heavily by Marie). After a lovely evening, we all retired to our respective beds for what we hoped would be a good night's sleep for our weary travellers so that they can start their holiday feeling refreshed tomorrow.

Not for the faint hearted (or weak of stomach)

After the events that unfolded on Friday afternoon, this weekend was all about the clean-up operation in the apartment.

Saturday

After a fitful night's sleep, disturbed by thoughts of deceased chickens and rivers of sewerage, we were up almost before it was light. The plan was to get out as soon as possible, walk Reggie, buy as many cleaning products as we could find, as well as rods for drain clearing, then get back home to tackle the apartment.

Of course, we couldn't head straight out as we still didn't have the car - Enrico had dropped it off at Amanda's on his way home at 8pm last night after having fixed the brake pump, but we'd decided on balance that we would rather leave it there and settle down by the fire for a relaxing evening - after all, Stuart had already done the walk up the hill twice!

Since Amanda doesn't open her shop until 8.30am, we waited until 8.10am before setting off. While we were waiting, Stuart went outside to check on the chickens and make sure none of the others were showing any signs of distress or illness. Shortly after he left the house, I heard Reggie kicking off very loudly, followed by Stuart coming back into the house saying 'did you hear it?!'. Other than Reggie kicking off, I hadn't heard anything, but I soon guessed that what had caused Reggie to react was that our cockerel (who we have named Cristoforo Colombo, or Colombo for short) had found his voice for the first time, and was practising his cock-a-doodle-doo!

Colombo finds his voice!

After last night's upsetting discovery, this put a smile on both our faces - and we were relieved to find that Colombo has a quite respectable-sounding cock-a-doodle-doo (some of the ones we've heard when out and about sound utterly ridiculous, so there was always a worry Colombo would embarrass us with his crowing).

When it got to 8.10am, we headed out, taking Reggie with us, which meant that he'd already had a 20-minute roadside walk before we even reached the car. After popping into Amanda's shop to collect the keys and have a quick chat with her, Samantha and their Mum, we headed off into Pescia - making a quick stop at Nerone's for cappuccino and a breakfast pastry, of course.

Saturday is market day and although it was still before 9am, we could see as we crossed over the bridge that the car park alongside the river was already full. Rather than take our chances with finding a free spot, we headed instead to the 'chicken run' walk and let Reggie run along the river bank and splash through the water. Since he'd already had a 20-minute walk along the road, we cut this one short before we reached the 'chicken house' so were able to do the whole thing without having to leash him, and by the time we got back to the car he seemed suitably wet and tired.

Next we headed in the direction of Montecatini. Our first stop was Maury's - a shop that sells all manner of household goods including cleaning products. I had plans to buy up their entire stock of disinfectant. We left the shop having bought a modest three bottles of disinfecting floor cleaner, two packets of jay cloths, two packets of washing up sponges, two packs of 2 pairs of rubber gloves, some squeegy mops, some firelighters and some cat food (the latter two purchases just in case we didn't get around to getting to the supermarket today).

The next stop was Obi for a drain clearing rod, a couple of mops and a tin of wood stain (for the shed). I scoured the shelves for hazmat suits, or even boiler suits, but they didn't have any such protective items - it seems that Obi will help you protect your eyes (goggles), your ears (ear defenders), your head (hard hats) and your nose (face masks), but nothing below the neck!

As we left the Obi car park Stuart asked if I'd like another coffee - whether it was that we both felt we needed all the help we could get with the day, in the form of another caffeine injection, or whether it was procrastination and putting off the inevitable for as long as possible I don't know, but we were soon pulling into the 'Delice' café, which we sometimes frequent at the end of our 'chicken run' walks.

Coffee dispatched, I remembered we needed to make one more stop - at the stationery shop to see if they had any suitable packaging materials for sending parcels to the UK. The shop was buzzing with people and was a veritable Aladdin's cave of stationery-type items - at least the best range of this type of fare that I have seen around here (it's all relative!).

Finally, it was time to take the ever patient Reggie back home. By the time we got home it was just gone 11.30, so we decided we would have an early lunch before tackling the mammoth task at hand. A couple of egg mayo sandwiches later, we could put it off no longer. I changed into an old pair of Stuart's work trousers (which, with several holes in them, were heading for the bin in any case), and we both donned our wellie boots.

The first task was to try and locate and clear the blockage in the pipe, of course - there was no point in cleaning up without sorting the problem out first. So, while Stuart fiddled with pipes and rods, I busied myself with taking the wrapping off the new mops, preparing some bowls of disinfectant for our feet when we left, and trying to work out how on earth to start the clean-up task.

Eventually, I could put it off no more and I headed into the apartment. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. Anyone remember the toilet scene in Trainspotting? Well, it really wasn't far off... maybe a little worse. (Just to reiterate to Paul & Marie and any other future guests: rest assured that by the time we have finished up in the apartment, it will have been cleaned to within an inch of its life and in all likelihood will be cleaner than it has EVER been before.)

It wasn't long before Stuart joined me, having managed to find and clear the blockage in the drain. His opening line was 'What can I do'? My response: 'Wake me up and tell me this is all just a hideous dream!!' Sadly it turned out to be real, so the next two hours were spent mopping, re-mopping, re-re-mopping and re-re-re-mopping.

You will be thankful to know that we didn't take any photographs of today's activities.

When we were finally happy with the state of things for stage 1 of the cleaning process, we closed up the apartment with the plan to return again tomorrow for yet more cleaning (as I said, it will be cleaned to within an inch of its life!) and turned our attention back to the pipes outside.

Stuart decided it would be best to dig the whole of the pipe out so that he can fit some inspection points in it - so that, should a similar situation arise in the future (hopefully not! and at least hopefully it wouldn't go unnoticed for so long!), it will be a lot easier to get rods down the drains to clear them. So while Stuart dug with a spade, I trowelled out the loose earth to uncover the pipes. It was while we were doing this that Stuart suddenly let out an exasperated, disbelieving sort of a noise (it might even have been a swear word...) - the piece of drain he had uncovered had an enormous hole in it which had clearly been there for a long while. How do we know this? Because it had been "fixed" by our predecessors. How? By laying a piece of rubber car mat on top of it. Yes, that just about sums up the quality of much of the work done by our predecessors here!

Looking on the bright side of things (when you are knee deep in drains and their contents [it wasn't really knee deep] it's a struggle to find a bright side, but you have to look for one!), by the time we have finished with this particular episode, we (Stuart) will have replaced broken pipes and fitted inspection points and we will have a much better, more robust system of drainage pipes between the house and the septic tank. What's more, we have realised that, if this was going to happen at all, it's a good thing we found it now, and not on Thursday (which is when we had originally planned day to go in and clean the apartment before the arrival of our Christmas guests the following day), it's a good thing this happened this year and not last year (all things considered, I think we would have struggled to cope with such a drama this time last year), and it's a good thing this happened in the winter and not in the height of summer!

We finally decided to call it a day with the drains when it became clear that the next job will be to rip up the old and install new - not a job to be doing late on a Saturday afternoon when builders' merchants and anywhere likely to sell the required parts are closed until Monday (been there, done that - remember the soil stack?!).

So, after thoroughly washing hands and boots, we headed indoors - Stuart tidied up a bit while I headed for a long, hot shower, then he headed back outside to fit the new bolts to the shed doors while he waited for Angelo and his plumber friend to come and talk through the quotes we have been given for our new solar/wood fuelled hot water system.

Once the guys had been and talked through the quotes, Stuart finally headed for a much needed shower before lighting the oven to roast some chestnuts and pouring a well deserved glass of wine.

Sunday 

It was a slightly slower start to the day this morning, although I still woke at 7.30am. When I looked out the window, I discovered that someone had stolen our view! A thick curtain of fog had descended on our hill and everything more than a few metres away had disappeared from sight.

It was going to be another busy and chore-filled day, so I got up to let the cats out and give Reggie his breakfast and was joined a little while later by Stuart. After breakfast, we put our coats on and headed out for Reggie's morning walk. We headed to the cava track and as we drove up the road we were surprised to emerge from the mists and find Vellano sitting in the clear while the clouds rolled around the hills and the valley beneath. The views were quite magical and from Vellano we could see across the valley to the little village of Aramo, another island in the mist.

We continued on to the quarry walked along the track, staying mainly out of the clouds but without any hope of a view of the valley today.

After our walk, we brought Reggie back to the house and picked up our shopping list before heading out to Pescia to do the supermarket shop. This must easily have been the single most expensive supermarket shop we have done since arriving here - dog food, cat food and cleaning products (yes more) seem to be the items that push the bill up, although we also stocked up on wine for next week and while the price of decent wine is a fraction of the price we were used to paying in the UK, the cost mounts up when you are buying it in bulk (what can I say: Sheila, Paul and Marie are arriving on Friday, we need to stock up!).

On our way home from the supermarket we made our regular Sunday morning stop at Amanda's shop to collect my homework from Samantha and to buy our lunch. Today we opted for portions of pork scaloppine in mushroom sauce, polpetini (pork meatballs) and involtini (rolls of pork stuffed with ham and cheese) - and of course, roast potatoes. Since the roast potatoes weren't quite ready, we stayed in the shop and chatted with Amanda, Samantha and their parents for a while until the potatoes were declared sufficiently abbronzato (bronzed) to come out of the oven.

We headed home with our goodies and popped them straight in the oven to heat up so that we could have another early-ish lunch before getting on with the dreaded task of continuing the clean-up in the apartment.

For some reason, despite knowing that the very worst of the clean-up operation was behind us, the thought of having to go back to the scene again filled us both with dread. I wished we had pushed on yesterday and finished the whole lot, but I knew that the way we'd decided to do it was more sensible. We therefore donned work clothes again and picked up our mops for yet more rounds of mopping. We came to the realisation today that some of the items of furniture from the apartment are, shall we say politely, "flood damaged" and will have to be replaced (this is a job for this week Paul & Marie, don't worry!), and in the end we realised it would all be a lot easier if we emptied the entire lot - both damaged and undamaged - out of the apartment to allow us more freedom of movement for the cleaning process. That is why there is now a pile of assorted furniture sitting on the guest patio underneath a tarpaulin, hoping that the rain eases up and that there are no strong winds to blow the protective tarpaulin off!

With the worst of the clean-up done yesterday, it was an altogether quicker cleaning session today (well, it was once we'd lugged all of the furniture outside), so we left floors drying and locked up with the plan to return in the morning for another check and once-over.

We retired to our house upstairs to light the fire, shower, change into comfy clothes and browse the IKEA website in search of replacement pieces of furniture - that will be a trip for early this week!

So, the weekend draws to a close - not a very restful or relaxing one, but we've made the most of the evenings with wine, Christmas music, a roaring fire and doing our very best to erase the memory of the disaster zone that we were dealing with downstairs. These things are indeed sent to try us!

It never rains but...

Quite an eventful week, all in all!

Monday

Monday arrived all too quickly, as it always does, and brought with it an all-day stint in the office not only for Helen but for me too - I could put off my admin and Christmas shopping no longer.

The morning was uneventful as a consequence, although I can tell you it was nice to get rid of months' worth of receipts and other related detritus knowing that I won't need to do the same again this side of 2016.

We both worked without the help of the gas heater until lunchtime, at which point I went to make a start on lunch, scrambled eggs on toast! With our own eggs of course.

As I was busy stirring eggs I heard a knock on the glass door immediately followed by Reggie going absolutely nuts at a face I didn't recognise.

I opened the door, letting Reggie out to have an up close and personal encounter and just about managed to hear that our visitor's name was Paul despite the volley of barks he was being greeted with.

Reggie was clearly not going to quieten down any time soon and when he REALLY wants to tell someone he doesn't like them, you can't lay your hands on him, he always stays a capture-proof distance away while barking at the target.

In the end I had to open the gate to driveway and let him feel like he was escaping and then run with him to the car. I opened the boot to put him in, as the car seems to be a place where he feels relatively secure and happy, but at that moment that was the last place he wanted to go, he had lost his mind and wanted blood, or so it seemed (I might be over exaggerating for dramatic effect, you'll never know).

I finally herded him into the car before he could realise there were chickens to go and harass and went back into the house to rejoin the conversation.

Paul, it turns out, has recently moved to a property near Castelvecchio and knows Carolyn, the Australian lady that we met a few months ago who now lives in the house near San Quirico that we viewed when we were house hunting.

On Carolyn's recommendation, Paul had made a visit to Amanda's shop and had got chatting to them and asked if they knew anyone that could give him Italian lessons. Of course, Samantha offered and told him that she currently gives Helen lessons, so he had come both to introduce himself and to ask Helen how she finds her lessons with Samantha.

We had a long chat covering all aspects of life in the valley, and of course bureaucracy, before Paul left us with his email address and to resume our lunch.

Lunch was a late affair as it was by now well past two in the afternoon, and when we went back to our desks in the afternoon the darkness of the evening crept up on us as we plugged away at our computers, both working and making a start on the dreaded Christmas shopping. Of course this meant we'd missed our chance to take poor Reggie out for a walk today - so we promised him we would take him for a good walk the next day.

Tuesday

Tuesday started mildly and with a little unexpected rain, but not so much that it stopped me loading a few tools into the car to head to Vellano - although the drizzle, combined with a migraine, was just enough to put a stop to Helen's outdoor exercise.

As I arrived at the house in Vellano, David was already there getting set up for us to pour another concrete step, which we did in very light drizzle and managed to get it trowelled smooth and covered just as the rain started falling with more serious intent.

We packed up the tools we didn't need and sat under the cover of the patio for a while to see if the shower was going to let up enough for us to have a fire to clear more of the terraces, but it showed no signs of stopping and after we'd eaten a clementine each we decided to call it a day and head to the Bistrot.

We bumped into Michelle and her dog Piff in the restaurant so we sat and had a coffee with her for an hour, and were joined for a little while by Ibrahim, one of the refugee guys, who we talked to about life and the status of his paperwork.

Ibrahim is a lovely guy and it was hard to hear how tough life is for him waiting around with nothing to do in a quiet mountain village for many months, flirting with depression and sleeping his young life away while he waits for his paperwork to be processed - seems like it is a tug of war between the refugees' appointed legal representative and the state until they eventually get their permission to move on and find work. It's heartbreaking to see these guys languishing like this but such is the state of immigration in Europe at the moment, a problem I'm sure is only going to get worse.

After coffee and feeling much more sombre I headed home for lunch which, due to a work conference call for Helen, was almost as late as yesterday's.

After despatching bowls of hot zuppa tradizionale (vegetable soup made with beans and farro) along with crusty bread, fresh pressed olive oil and boiled eggs that needed using (the last of our shop bought eggs), we headed into Pesica to give Reggie the walk we'd promised him.

Today being a bank holiday (the celebration of the immaculate conception - which left us baffled as to how Jesus was conceived and delivered with the space of a month!), it was very quiet in town so we parked alongside the river and headed out of town along the usual stretch of river bank.

Part way down I thought I recognised a couple walking in our direction with a border collie, and as we got closer the lady started calling Reggie to her, 'vieni bello!'. It was the older couple that I had befriended so I was finally able to introduce Helen to them.

We chatted for a while as Reggie played with their dog until another couple approached, more our age and also known to our Italian friends, the lady was Hungarian but I think the guy was Italian, they had been in Pescia for 13 years, although their tiny handbag dog had only been with them for two years.

We all stood around chatting, mostly in Italian, for a while as the dogs played, Helen and I both on tenter hooks while trying to converse in Italian and hoping Reggie wouldn't squash or eat this tiny dog in its knitted pink jumper with sparkly jewels attached.

He didn't, thankfully, and she only yelped when her Hungarian owner accidentally trod on her.

A short while later, the others started leashing their dogs having spotted another dog and its owner coming our way. We followed suit as the dog was quite a size and we were being encouraged to by our new friends as they didn't recognise either the dog or the owner.

The guy also leashed his large dog as he approached, and he passed without incident although a few words were exchanged - not that I could pick up a single word he said, whether it was his missing tooth that made it hard or whether he was speaking with something of an accent I don't know, but it was one of those frustrating exchanges that makes us feel like we've gone right back to the start with our language learning.

After the short exchange we were approached by another couple, ALSO know by our Italian friends, so as they chatted, we talked to the other couple. By the time we'd all finished chatting the guy with the big dog was coming back our way, yet again I couldn't understand a word he said, which was made even harder by the very loud growling now coming from both Reggie and his dog, who were having a stand off, both at the end of their leads.

This soon put an end to things and the guy walked on by and we unleashed Reggie once the other dog was a safe distance away. Reggie, however, was now obviously agitated, and next he took exception to a guy walking past in a bright blue fleece and wanted to tell him exactly what he thought of him (or maybe his choice of clothing). As had happened with Paul yesterday, I couldn't get a hold of Reggie as he followed his guy along the river, barking at him, and when I gave chase to try and catch him I ended up flat on my backside, having slipped trying catch him.

Excitement over, we bade farewell to our new group of friends and each went off in separate directions us heading back towards Pescia and the others away from the town.

When we got home Helen went straight to work making the most of the vanishing daylight by varnishing the shed doors while I played with the CCTV camera we've bought!

Helen has often said how hard she finds it sometimes working in the office while I'm not here, not being able to see out of the house in a way that allows her to see if anyone is approaching. It is indeed a strange set-up in that there are no doors or windows in the house that face the drive, so the first you know of when someone is visited is when they appear from around the side of the house. I suggested the idea of our old flat screen TV with a camera attached to act as 'window'.

With the camera fixed to the wall, the TV set up in the office and Helen out of varnish, we tweaked the camera with Helen in front of the TV and me out on the ladder.

Just like having a little window...

That done, and declared an unqualified success, we retired indoors to light a fire and settle into the evening which involved me on the sofa writing some of this blog and Helen at the dining table having relocated her computer to benefit from the warmth of the wood burner in order to do some more of her own Christmas shopping.

Wednesday

Wednesday's schedule once again included a 09:30 Italian lesson with David and Sarah in Vellano so little happened prior to that other than Helen squeezing in some exercise and both of us having breakfast.

When we arrived, it turned out that David was absent, having double-booked himself with some work, which left just the four of us.

After a couple of coffees we got into this week's exercise of filling in blanks, this week concentrating on cardinal numbers, days, dates, months, and times. This is deceptively tricky, especially writing long numbers; millequatrocentonovantadue (1492) for example, you can see why I pass my cheque book to suppliers to fill it in for me, as while I feel pretty confident with speaking numbers now, the writing of them is a whole other matter!

Despite this the three of us seemed to get through the exercise fairly easily, which left us a whole heap of time in which Johnny offered us the option of moving onto the next lesson or having an attempt at a conversation. While I think all three of us would have felt MUCH less daunted by the next lesson than by having to attempt to string together comprehensible sentences in Italian, David's absence dictated we did exactly that, and after all clamming up with anxiety and being unable to suggest a solitary topic to start the ball rolling, Johnny kicked us off with 'do you like Christmas?', that was all needed for the three of us to chat away (with plenty of incorrect words, stumbling and stammering) unhindered until almost half 11.

A very fun lesson was had by all and we have arranged for the five of us to have a Christmas lunch get-together after next week's lesson.

Helen and I let Johnny leave the tiny car park first so as not to hold him up on the way down the hill (he's a much faster driver) then headed down through Pescia and out the other side of the town to see Enrico at the garage again - it appeared the car had a leak somewhere in the brake system as the break fluid tank was now empty and had been since Sunday (after having been refilled by Enrico on Friday), but today was our first chance to see him because of the bank holiday yesterday.

He seemed surprised to see us and I think he thought there must be a problem with something he'd fixed, so in a weird way he was probably happy to hear that it was a new problem.

After a bit of fiddling around, topping up the fluid reservoir and giving us the remaining bottle of fluid for safety, he booked the car in for Friday and sent us on our way.

It was now just gone midday and as another email from UPS had arrived last night telling me that our automatic chicken door was due to be delivered today to Frateschi, I wanted to check on the way home if it had arrived yet. The UPS website said the parcel had arrived in Florence (the last place it would be recorded before being delivered) at 8am today, and after the last attempt at delivery failed last week (as delivery was attempted at lunchtime when Frateschi was closed), causing the parcel to go all the way back to Cambridge, I wanted to do all I could to avoid this happening a second time as I was sure the vendor would be less understanding a second time!

We arrived as Paolo was whizzing around in his forklift trying to load a van before he closed for lunch, so I dashed in to check the pile of parcels inside but there was nothing yet for us, so it was back in the car and home for lunch and to check the UPS website for a status update.

As we put some eggs on to boil I checked the UPS website but there had been no update since this morning. I knew Frateschi would be closing up any minute so, after deliberating for a few minutes, I decided I needed to go and wait outside in case the delivery was attempted when the shop was closed. Grabbing some boiled eggs and a book I disappeared back down to the village to find Paolo still there but in the process of closing. I went in to ask about the parcel JUST in case he had put it somewhere else, but as I entered I spied a UPS parcel that hadn't been there ten minutes ago and sure enough it had my name on it - no need to sit in the car park peeling eggs!!

I made it home in time for lunch, after which we loaded Reggie into the car and headed back to Pescia for what we hoped would be a quiet walk along the river.

To make sure, we decided to cross the bridge and use the side of the river only ever used by dog walkers (no joggers or cyclists). We made it half way out of town before meeting anyone else, a lady with a tiny handbag dog and a 6-year-old male greyhound. Reggie and the greyhound hit it off immediately and they spent a few minutes running up and down the river bank, Reggie trying his best - but failing - to keep pace with the much older greyhound.

We then walked out as far as the path would allow before making a u-turn and heading back towards town just as the sky was brightening, Helen even needed to lose an item of outer clothing at this point, such was the increase in temperature.

Almost back in town we came across a familiar but not very friendly (towards Reggie at least) group of greyhounds and a large collie, we all leashed our dogs before we got too close and after a brief growl-off of a quite viscous nature, Reggie included, we crossed the bridge and hopped back into the car to head home.

By the time we were home there was only about an hour and a half's daylight left so while Helen went indoors to do some office work, I fetched more wood for the fire and tidied up a little before going indoors to light the fire.

As the evening wore on and the fire got to melting point we roasted some chestnuts, opened some wine and settled into a blog writing and yet more Christmas shopping before dinner.

Thursday

We had a clear plan for the morning today in order to maximise efficiency: breakfast, dog walk in Pescia, park in the square and do a little Christmas shopping before going home.

All went to plan until the parking in the square part - it was unusually busy in the square this morning and there were double parked cars along the length of it so we quickly shelved the idea of any shopping and instead went home, deciding to try again later in the day.

After lunch, I went out to make a start on fitting the new chicken door while Helen changed into outdoor attire to have a bonfire next to the chickens to burn the last of the remaining detritus we made last weekend.

By the time the daylight started to fade I had managed to reconstruct the side of the coop to make the opening smaller to accommodate the new sliding door, fitted the door, programmed the motor mechanism and stained the new bits of wood I'd used as well as changed the roosting bar in the coop from a metal one to a wooden one of a larger diameter for better comfort.

With my tools packed up I went to see Helen was doing, but she was already done and watching the fire die down so very shortly we were Pescia bound again.

The square was looking very festive now, with the Christmas lights on, but it was still busy. Nevertheless, we were lucky to find a space just before we left the square again. With the parking meter fed, we headed off in search of Christmas cards and gifts and with some success returned as the ticket ran out just before six.

We went straight home to start the fire - this was the latest we had started a fire for weeks, I think, but it soon got toasty in the living room now that we know what we're doing with the wood burner. There's actually something very satisfying about those ten minutes or so of cold in the house as the fire warms up and the layers come off.

We spent the early part of the evening on the internet again updating the blog and doing a little more shopping before we settled into dinner and an hour of TV before bedtime approached.

Friday

Yet again, the car was going back to Amanda's husband, Enrico, this morning, this time to have the brake fluid pump replaced, so I left the house at 8:20 and arrived at the shop in the village to find Amanda just having opened. We chatted and Amanda gave me an espresso again - this time I said that I MUST pay, but her mum said that if she offers a coffee it's free, that's the rule!

As I was finishing my coffee our neighbour Paolo, who owns the house behind us, arrived, so the  three of us chatted for a little while although I find Paolo quite hard to understand - he struggles to slow his pace down and has quite a deep gruff voice, making things even more tricky. All that said I made a fair show of myself and managed to escape after my coffee leaving Paolo to buy whatever it was he came in for and walked on up the road towards home for breakfast.

With no car we had no plans but to be home all day, which gave me a rare opportunity to work on the shed while Helen got stuck into office work.

I wasn't sure how today was going to go - the next thing I needed to do was 'tweak' the shed doors so that they closed together nicely and level with each other. As my mitre saw has had a tough life since arriving here (during which time the cutting guide behind the blade has snapped in half), I can no longer do millimetre precise cuts (I have ordered a new one but as yet there is no sign of it) so this meant when screwing the framework for the doors together with bits of timber that hadn't been cut with precisely 90 degree cuts, the whole door ends up warped. This was the kind of job that could have me setting light to the whole shed, but with a good night's sleep under my belt, two coffees inside me, a clear blue sky above me and the sun threatening to bathe me in winter warmth any time soon, I was happy taking the job at the slow and thoughtful pace required. The job eventually involved me removing the cladding from all but the first door and adjusting the cuts on some of the framework timbers.

Happily, I had a productive and successful morning, and by the time lunchtime had arrived I had four of the six doors back in working order and shutting beautifully. This did mean that I hadn't thrown down my tools in a rage and gone to strim the terraces, but the strimming can wait.

After lunch and making the place presentable for Samantha's arrival, I headed back outside for a little more tinkering, but it wasn't long before an abrupt halt was called to both my work and my good mood.

Helen had been saying for the past few days that there was an unpleasant smell in the utility room, but neither of us had given much thought as to why. We keep all the vegetables picked from the garden in this small room, so it does sometimes has an odd whiff about it as some of them go past their best. However, having moved all of the garden produce out of there to deal with a mouse problem that has recently appeared, we could no longer dismiss the whiff so easily. Helen suggested we check the apartment for dreaded smells next, and it was this subsequent check that put the brakes on my work and good mood. Helen appeared around the corner telling me I needed to 'come and look at this' in a more than concerned tone, so I downed tools to inspect what I assumed was the source of the whiff.

Indeed it was (Paul and Marie, if you're reading, the place will be better than new before you arrive next week, we absolutely promise). The smell it seems, has been caused by a blockage somewhere in the drains between the house and the septic tank, causing the whole lot to 'back up' into the apartment bathroom and beyond.

Without a car there was nothing I could do right now so I shut the door firmly behind me and continued to work on the shed until Samantha arrived. When she arrived, we all spent a few minutes with Reggie to try and sort this little issue out, especially as today I couldn't take the easy option and take him out for a walk as we had no car.

He took treats from Samantha, of course, but wouldn't stop barking at her so we decided to head indoors and while Helen and Samantha sat at the table, Reggie eventually came and sat next to me on the sofa, calming down quickly and stopping barking. He occasionally hopped off the sofa to go and have a sneaky sniff of Samantha's feet and shins under the table, before re-joining me on the sofa.

He settled down so quickly that I was able to get up and get back to working on the shed, leaving Reggie indoors with the girls and I didn't hear another peep from him for the rest of the hour and  a half - which he spent dozing on the sofa while Samantha and Helen talked Italian verbs and prepositions. When the lesson was over and Samantha emerged to leave, I decided I should take the opportunity, as Helen has suggested, to get a lift with her to Frateschi so that I could buy whatever it was he had to help sort our blockage out.

It soon turned out he had nothing that could travel 20 metres down a 4-inch pipe taking in three 45 degree bends along the way as it descended down thee terraces, but we eventually hit upon the idea of adding two new inspection caps along the route so that I could the use a simple piece of metal to rod the pipe, so I headed off to the yard to have a poke around for the appropriate bits.

Confronted by racks and racks of the stuff, I soon doubted that I could remember the diameter of the pipe we had, I was sure it was 100mm... until I saw all these bits and pieces in front of me. I thought I'd call Helen and ask her to check it, except that wasn't going to be easy, yep, it was one of 'those' days.

I took my phone out of my pocket, or should I say Sarah's phone - my faithful old mobile died earlier this week and Sarah had kindly lent me her spare work phone until my new one arrives. Of course, I have no contact numbers stored on this phone - it was only last week I was thinking that I should commit Helen's new Italian mobile number to memory and now I wished I had done! Not to worry, I thought, our new Skype phone is now working happily and I definitely knew the number for that. It was only as said phone was ringing out unanswered that I realised I'd left the handset out on the patio table after speaking to my mum this afternoon. After three unanswered calls, Danielo arrived to help me out so I had no choice but to go with my guts and get 100mm fittings.

I eventually left the shop with said fittings, two new torches, some larger shelf brackets, three heavy bolts for the shed doors and three heavy padlocks to go with them as well as bolts and nuts to fit them all in a nice cardboard box. As I waited for the credit card machine to process my payment, I thought how happy I was with my productive trip to Frateschi ... until it dawned on me that I had a box full of stuff and no car, NO DAMN CAR! How many times was I going to say that today!?

There was nothing else for it but to trudge home up the hill with my box of goodies. As it got dark and cold I started to wonder what the onset of frostbite felt like...

By the time I got home daylight was fading rapidly, so I put all my tools away and collected firewood before going indoors while Helen went out with a torch to see a) whether the automatic chicken door had closed yet and b) whether all of the chickens were the correct side of it.

She soon came back to report that the good news was that the door had indeed closed, but the bad news was that there were only 3 hens snuggling up on the roosting bar with the cockerel - and having shone the torch around the enclosure she had made the upsetting discovery that there was a dead chicken in the enclosure. It never rains but it pours!

We soon realised that one of the white chickens seemed to have stopped laying over the last few days, and that this must have been THAT chicken. A quick re-read of the 'egg-binding' paragraph in the chicken-keeping book made us feel better that there was nothing we could have done to have stopped the poor chicken's demise (if that's what the cause was), so I went up to collect the recently departed chook and bag it up for tomorrow. So, instead of the planned terrace clearing, tomorrow now holds in store a fun filled day of chicken plucking, chicken post-mortem and butchering, as well as some very unpleasant plumbing and lots and lots of cleaning.

Now properly retired for the day Helen lit the fire and we settled down in front of our computers for a while to update the blog and do yet more Christmas shopping before dinner... of course with an obligatory glass of wine, happy weekend all!

A weekend of Christmas shopping or terrace clearing? (Place your bets...)

This weekend has mainly been about clearing and cleaning terraces, enjoying the opportunity to work together... and failing to finish our Christmas shopping. Let's concentrate on the positives though.

Saturday started promptly as Angelo had called on Friday night asking if, the following morning, he could collect the roofing blow torch he had lent me - he said he would be passing by at 8am. True to his word, Angelo arrived at 8am and he and I had a chat for about half an hour not only about my progress on the shed but also about olive picking, pruning and internet providers before he finally headed for work.

Having been reluctant to be caught by Angelo arriving in the middle of her exercise routine, Helen had given it a miss for the day, so instead as soon as Angelo had left we headed straight out to walk Reggie.

After a stop at what is now our regular haunt of Nerone's café bar to imbibe a frothy cappuccino and a sweet pastry each (breakfast), we headed into town and beyond to the 'chicken run' walk, knowing that town was bound to be busy already as it was market day.

We had a nice quiet walk along the river and Reggie, having missed out on his walk on Friday due to the lack of car, seemed to fully run off all his pent up energy. Indeed, at one point he came charging up behind us at full speed and, running between us, delivered a glancing blow to Helen's calf, resulting in her emitting a rather loud expletive - indeed, by this evening there was a decent sized bruise from the impact!

By the time we'd got back from our walk it was mid morning and we were both keen to make a start on continuing to clear the section of terracing to the left of the chicken enclosure in which Helen had spent Friday afternoon cutting the bramble.

In order to make the best use of our time, we decided not to delay the shopping until the usual lunchtime slot and instead to brave the throngs in Pescia. We were lucky to find a spot in the Lidl car park, which was rammed. The car park here is often busier than normal on a Saturday morning with cheeky folk using it as free parking before taking the short walk across the foot bridge to the market in the piazza, it was double trouble today however, as the sizeable free car park adjacent to Lidl is out of action for at least the next few weeks due to having become the home of a temporary fair ground!

Inside the shop, it was surprisingly quiet for the time of day (proof of just how few of the cars parked in the car park were actual customers of the shop!), which meant that when we bumped into David and Sarah, who were also doing an unusual Saturday shop, we could happily block an isle for a while while we chatted.

After following David and Sarah on to Esselunga to do the bulk of our shopping, we escaped the busy checkouts and headed home for lunch.

We had planned on using some of our fresh eggs to have scrambled eggs for lunch, but as the day was wearing on and the pastries we'd eaten for breakfast seemed like a distant memory (certainly if our rumbling stomachs were anything to go by), we abandoned the idea in favour of a quick tuna sandwich so that we could get food inside us and get outside to work without delay.

We spent the rest of the daylight hours cutting down trees in the aforementioned area of terracing and throwing them down onto the driveway so that, towards the end of the day, we could  'process' them - stripping the small branches off for kindling and piling up the trunks ready for cutting into smaller pieces with the chainsaw at a later date.

As darkness fell, we locked the chickens in for the night and headed indoors to light a fire and switch on the fairy lights before cooking dinner - but not before we roasted a tray of sweet chestnuts which we ate and washed down with a beer.

After dinner we decided we would dust off one of our Christmas films, the first one of the season. We decided to see which, if any, had been dubbed into Italian, thinking we could mix fun with an opportunity to educate ourselves a little too.

From our respectably sized collection it was VERY slim pickings, we had The Santa Clause, a collection of Simpsons Christmas specials and Scrooged, the Bill Murray classic (and one of my all time favourites). Helen quickly ruled out anything Simpsons-related and we settled on The Santa Clause.

We made it half way through the movie before tiredness got the better of us and we headed to bed at gone 11pm (that's late for us farmer folk).

Sunday is an exercise-free day - the one day Helen gives herself off her early morning routine - and therefore the only chance of a lie-in, although that's completely dependent on the animals. During the night, Lucca went through his usual routine, with Helen getting up to feed him at some point in the early hours before coming back to bed, and it was quite a while before he then asked to go out. When I say he 'asked', what I mean is that he noisily scratched the bedroom door for a while. However, on this occasion we won out in the battle of the wills and Lucca gave up before one of us gave in and so we slept through until just after 8am, when I got up to deal with the animals and left Helen in bed.

Helen managed to sleep for almost another hour, which she seemed to be thankful for, and after breakfast we headed out again with Reggie, first to Nerone (of course) for another pre-walk coffee.

Once the coffees had been dispatched, we headed up the Forfora valley towards Sorana, planning to do one of our regular walks from the back of Sorana into the woods. Along the way, however, we drove past an old abandoned mill which marks the start of a footpath towards Aramo and San Quirico. Feeling uncharacteristically spontaneous, we pulled over and decided to give it a try, having said for maybe the last 12 months 'we must try that walk'. It was good to finally have a go at it, although we had no idea how much time off the lead Reggie would get, we could only hope.

We walked between the mill buildings and took the very old stone path up the hill - and boy, did it go up the hill, it zig-zagged almost without let up for a kilometre, eventually passing by a couple of inhabited houses (how they got their cars there I'm not sure, but it certainly wasn't along the very old stone pathway we were now using!).

With the exception of the little stretch past the houses Reggie was off-leash the whole way, which meant he could get a good stretch of the legs.

We eventually hit a road of sorts so had to now leash him while we worked out, with the help of the GPS and its Italian maps, where we were. We knew that if we crossed the road and carried on up the stone path we'd soon be in San Quirico, but having climbed up for nearly an hour already, we decided this was a good point to turn back.

The views from up here were beautiful, and not ones we were used to really, we could see the western side of Sorana in the middle of the valley -which is terraced to a much greater extent than the other hillsides around here (and is probably largely covered in their famous beans through the summer).

When we initially pulled over to try this track, we imagined we would be walking to Aramo, not San Quirico, but we didn't see a single sign or opportunity to turn left in the direction of Aramo. It didn't matter, we had enjoyed a great walk with views to match, but we decided to try and look for the path branching towards Aramo on our descent so that we could try it on another occasion. With the help of the GPS we located the turning off point just by the mill close to the road. It was no surprise we'd missed it - there was no signpost and there was a small stream cutting across the path. It looked like until some years back there had been footbridge for crossing the stream, but, rather like the abandoned mill, the bridge was now half gone - it seemed to be constructed of two parallel RSJ beams with planks slotted in next to each other to create the footway, but half of the wood had long since rotted (or been taken). The stream looked passable with the right footwear though - something to bear in mind when we do try the path!

After loading Reggie into the car we headed to Amanda's to go and buy some lunch, pick up Helen's homework and drop off some of our eggs for Amanda, Samantha and their parents to try. After handing over the eggs and a quick chat, we left the shop with Helen's homework and with lunch in the form of scallopine of pork in mushroom sauce, a cold chicken salad and some roasted potatoes.

Lunch was delicious, as expected, and after polishing off our plates we left Reggie indoors with a ham bone and headed back to the terraces to start raking and burning - clearing up some of the mess we'd made yesterday! We spent the rest of the afternoon, raking, burning, cutting, clearing and enjoying the rare (of late) opportunity to work together.

As the daylight faded we called time on work after letting the fire die down and freeing a long-neglected olive tree from amongst the bramble before collecting firewood and heading indoors for showers and dinner.

Before.

End of play Saturday.

End of play Sunday.

A brief reprieve

As the weekend drew to a close, the forecast for the coming week promised a little loosening of winter's grip - the past week or so had been a taste of things to come, I'm sure, and as cold and wintry as anything last winter threw at us - but if this year's olive and chestnut harvests are anything to go by, then more of the same over the coming weeks will be most welcome.

Monday

I opted to stay in bed for an extra hour this morning, so for the first time in a week, Helen was up before me. This was not because I was had taken a turn for the worst, but because I'd arranged to meet Dave at the Bistrot for coffee at 9am so that afterwards he could let me into the place where we'd been working last week so that I could retrieve my large SDS chisel drill for today's work.

As 9am approached, I floated the idea of Helen joining us for coffee and maybe even taking Reggie for a walk afterwards - almost instantly the bait was taken and all three of us were heading up the valley.

The Bistrot is technically closed on Mondays, but one of its proprietors, Simone, was in there getting breakfast ready for the numerous Gambian/Sierra Leonean/Malian refugees that now reside in the rooms there, and since she now recognises me from my regular visits with Dave either before work for coffee or after work for beer/wine, she waved Helen and me in and promptly set to work making two cappuccini for us.

It wasn't long before Dave arrived and joined us, but today we didn't have time for a leisurely coffee so it was just a quick caffeine fix before collecting the drill and leaving Dave to cut wood while Helen, Reggie and I headed to the quarry for a walk.

There was a dampness in the air today, and a generous covering of cloud, so it felt colder at this time in the morning than it had done for days, despite there being no frost for the first time in nearly a week.

By the time we'd ascended the track to our usual turnaround spot though, Helen was one garment lighter and my hands were no longer stuffed in my pockets - and it continued to warm on the way back to the car.

When we got home, Helen headed into the office and I set to work chiselling off a strip of render above the shed roof so that I could then render the bitumen roof covering into the wall to complete the waterproofing.

I'd started this work yesterday with chisel and lump hammer, but it had taken me an hour to do a metre and with 7m to do in total, I'd given up in favour of waiting for a power tool to help speed the process. With the help of the aforementioned chisel drill I had not only completed the remaining six or so metres by lunch time but also cleaned up the mess in time for yet more egg mayo sandwiches made with our own eggs.

After lunch and while waiting for Frateschi to re-open at half two, I busied myself with a little tidying in the vicinity of the shed in the hope of pushing it slowly in the direction of tidy. I even managed to give Helen back her small piece of flat outside bike space so that she no longer needs to exercise in the shed itself.

As 3.30pm approached I could procrastinate no longer and headed to see Paolo for the all important leather gloves I needed. The gloves would provide me with enough heat protection so that with one hand I could operate the gas torch to heat the bitumen, and with the other, gloved hand, I could press the molten bitumen to the wall - not a complicated process but a potentially dangerous one, hence my procrastination.

With gloves procured and gas torch connected to a gas bottle, it was time to climb back onto the roof to dice with a potentially firey death!

With this tool - which at the pull of a trigger felt like it was emitting the equivalent of a solar flare - I worked my way quickly along the roof line, glueing the roof material to the wall with a fair amount of ease. It very soon became clear why Angelo, my trusty Albanian builder friend, had insisted when he lent me said burner that I buy 'the white leather gloves from Frateschi', as the glove quickly became covered in molten bitumen.

As I finished the job, feeling more than a smattering of achievement, David arrived with his chainsaw in need of a chain sharpening session.

It was now past four and my work for the day was done, so Dave and I sat on the patio and bonded over chain sharpening while Helen, who had recently headed up to the upper terraces to continue with a bit of clearing, carried on throwing ash poles down to lower terraces.

As five o'clock approached and daylight faded we headed up to join Helen so that Dave could have a look around the newly cleared terraces before all heading down to the house.

I had yet again today promised myself I would head to Coldiretti - the local agricultural organisation - this evening to once and for try and sort out the agricultural tax code I needed to secure the purchase of the tractor. So with Helen in tow, and Dave heading home, we dashed into Pescia knowing that their office hours ended at quarter to six.

We headed straight upstairs upon arrival, having been told that is where Elena (the lady we needed) worked, and were soon ushered into a tiny office where there were now five of us: three Italian women and us two.

I explained our situation as best I could before handed over print-outs of emails from both the tractor vendor and our accountant. After a furious volley (in speed, not temper) of Italian words came our way, we were ushered into a different tiny office, but this time by just one woman, where we sat down and listened to her reeling off a load more unrecognisable words and phrases. She seemed very nice and very friendly, but she didn't seem to make much allowance for our limited grasp of the language! We managed to establish - we think - that it was safe to proceed with registration for an agricultural tax code (without it causing us unwanted tax bills), but that we must keep an eye on the new budget this December and that we need a 'spesometro', whatever the hell that is! Google Translate certainly doesn't know.

Anyway, after much signing and photocopying, we were told we could collect the tax code and card displaying it on Wednesday morning - a result of sorts, we just need to break the news to our ever cautious accountants now so that they can manage things appropriately.

So, a busy but productive start to the week which we ended in front of yet another roaring fire with a glass of wine and some Italian homework for Helen while I bashed out this post.

Tuesday

We were both up with the alarm on Tuesday morning, and while I dashed around on the animal rounds Helen got herself sorted for exercise in a much, much milder temperature than of late. After my initial brief burst of activity, I settled on the sofa with the dog to get stuck into our copy of 'Beekeeping for Dummies' and left Helen to the really strenuous stuff.

For those who didn't catch my interesting fact of the day on Twitter or Facebook, I learned from the book that the word 'Honeymoon' (apparently) comes from a time when newlyweds spent a full cycle of the moon drinking mead in the belief that it would bring them a baby boy.

As Helen came back into the house she suggested that we head stright out to walk Reggie, as doing just that yesterday seemed to have made for a much more chilled doggy during the day. Keen to try and emulate the same again, we did just that, stopping at Nerone in the village for a quick cappuccino each.

It felt oddly cooler and damper as we descended into Pescia - not that Reggie cared, we're yet to find temperature at which he finds it too cold to splash around in the river. After our usual walk to the railway bridge and back with nothing to report we got back into the car and headed home as the cathedral bells rang out ten o'clock.

Nursing something of a sickening shoulder muscle injury (after Reggie did his best to dislocate it on the way out earlier, trying to get to Lucca) I had lost almost all my enthusiasm to do anything manual and was feeling more than a little grumpy about it so decided I'd do nothing until I'd had another coffee. However, Helen, having decided the temperatures in the office required her to have a hot drink, beat me to the stove and offered me a cup of tea, which I gladly accepted and stayed put on the sofa a while longer.

This wasn't just any cup of tea, this was leaf tea. I don't remember the last time I had leaf tea and if this is the difference between leaf and bag then I'm a convert, this was the BEST cup of tea I'd had in... well a longer time than I could remember (thank you Jennie and Pete for the tea leaves). A very exceptional cup of  'Assam Superb' later, I was feeling more up to the day and decided I need to head out for a bit of shopping. Not the ridiculous black-Friday sort that I've been seeing so much about - not a whiff of such madness over here you'll be pleased to hear - but to get some more materials, but before that I needed to book the car into a garage: after Reggie almost dislocated my shoulder this morning, I then found that the rear door of the car wouldn't open, so I couldn't even get him into the car.

The car door has been a bit flaky for some time, but a few clicks on the remote key normally sorts it -not today though, and true human nature we'd kept ignoring the problem until it was too late. So when Helen came out after locking up the house on our way to walk Reggie, she found me sat on the rear bumper nursing a sore shoulder while Reggie stood there sniffing the air and Florence sat on the chopping block just 3m away, still as a statue, Reggie didn't notice her at all - his nose is definitely better than his eyes!

Getting back on track: I headed into Pescia to try and book an appointment at the garage I've towed Chris and Sue's Panda to on three occasions now - one of the guys in there is very friendly and speaks a good deal of English, so thought I'd give this a go. However, as I pulled into the car park it was as busy as ever in there, and it was clear there was no guarantee I'd get to speak to this particular guy. When one of the other mechanics walked past me and could do no more than look at me when I greeted him with a cheery 'buongiorno', I had a moment of clarity, hopped straight back into the car and headed a bit further out of town to see Enrico, Amanda's husband.

Enrico's car park area was also full, but he spotted me immediately and we exchanged pleasantries before I told him and demonstrated to him the problems I needed fixing: #1 the rear door, #2 the driver window no longer stays in its rails so requires one hand to operate the button and one hand to hold the window in its rails as it ascends (not the end of the world, but not easy as you're trying to exit a toll both on the motorway!).

With the car booked in for Friday and Enrico telling me to leave the car at Amanda's shop in the village for him to collect (much more convenient than Pescia), I headed off to the wood yard to buy what I hoped would be the last of the wood needed for the shed.

In a fit of spontaneity I pulled into the hardware store on the Lucca road as I don't often pass this way so thought I'd see what kind of lockable bolts he might have in stock for the shed doors.
I know we've talked about this place before, but you really would have to see this place to believe it. I walked into the section of the shop that houses the pet food, ironmongery, kitchen items, work gloves and gardening stuff (told you it was madness) and had a rummage around to see what locks and bolts he had. It turned out that he had a vast array - some looked like he'd bought them 10 or more years ago, and if this is the way he's always displayed his stock it's not a surprise! Imagine what it would look like if an ironmonger decided to set up a stall at a car boot sale but arrived late, just as the gates were opening, and his pitch was just a few pitches before than that of another ironmonger - in a panic he empties all of his stock into a heap on the table. That's what I was having to deal with, but to his credit, he must have the best selection of ironmongery in the area.

My problem was that I had left the house not knowing what the Italian for a bolt was. I knew that a bolt that goes into a nut is a 'bullone', but there was no way it was going to be that easy. I started to panic, knowing I'd been in this area all alone for a while and that someone was bound to come and ask me what I wanted so I grabbed a pair of new work gloves and continued to fumble around.

Sure enough, a lady did come and ask what I needed, I told her just gloves today and followed her back to the till to pay my €4. If nothing else, my little detour has put this place on my ironmongery map for the future, I just need to make sure I know exactly what I'm going for next time.

With that done, I pulled into the wood yard to buy another four long thick planks of pine with which to construct the interior walls of the shed. One of the guys who now recognises me asked what I needed and disappeared on his fork lift to get them while I went in to see Elena to pay for them.

It was a nice easy exchange today, with no need for a diagram or calculator to work out meterage, which I'm sure poor Elena was relieved about, and I was heading home just before noon.

I arrived home on the stroke of noon and Helen suggested we have an early lunch. It was now colder in the house than out, so hot soup was the order of the day, although I snuck in a couple of boiled eggs to accompany mine in an honest attempt to help rid the fridge of the shop-bought eggs which, with the home produced eggs piling up, were rapidly starting to look like they might be going to waste.

After a warming and hearty lunch I headed outside to work on the shed while Helen went back to the office to finish some work.

I spent the rest of the afternoon (or at least until 3.30pm) working on the interior shed walls -  the walls that will divide the shed into three sections, which will give us loads more wall space to store stuff.

After a while, Helen came out into the now very warm sunshine and headed off up the terraces again with a lighter and fire lighters, more bramble was going to burn this afternoon!

When 3.30pm approached I downed my tools and headed out to the Esso garage on the way into Pescia. On the way home earlier, buoyed as I was by making an appointment with Enrico to give the car some much needed TLC, I had pulled into the petrol station to ask for an oil change. Yep, you read me right, it's not uncommon here for petrol stations to offer other services. I was asked to come back this afternoon at half three for the oil change, which is what I did.

A minute after I'd arrived, the car was up on the ramps and I was taking in the view that we normally drive past at speed, looking at one of the houses that we viewed back in 2013 before settling in the one I currently write this blog from.

We looked at the white house back in 2013. Had we moved there, we would have been neighbours with the Phillipses!

40 minutes later I was taking the car off the ramp. On a roll, I decided I'd treat the car to new wipers as there hasn't been any blade on them since we got the car (not sure what that say about the MOT process over here, us having been given the car just after it had passed its MOT).

€132 later, after an oil and filter change, with three new wipers fitted and a free magic tree thrown in, I was heading home, feeling pleased with myself for making the normally unmoveable attendant belly-laugh after telling her the car currently smelled like dog and that the free magic tree would make it much better.

It was getting dark as I got home, which afforded me only a little more tinkering with shed doors while Helen put the bonfire out and collected three more eggs from the chickens - two white, one brown, which meant there was still only one red chicken laying.

Wednesday

Wednesday had two Italian lessons in store, but only one for me and that was our usual group session in Vellano with David, Sarah and Johnny (the very patient teacher).

As the group lesson was arranged for half nine in the morning this week, I gave up on the idea of trying to do anything even vaguely productive beforehand so had a lazy start to the day with my head buried in my bee-keeping book.

Soon enough we were off to Vellano for coffee, biscuits (Helen's home made ginger biscuits) and of course a lot of head scratching.

Johnny had prepared a lesson of reading and translating this week based on a piece about the Italian saying 'parla come mangi' (which literally means 'talk like you eat'). The saying is used when someone else is using too big a vocabulary, or making something more complicated than it needs to be, and its meaning is along the lines of "speak more simply!" Of course EVERY Italian uses too big a vocabulary as we're concerned (at the moment), so maybe this phrase will come in use, or maybe I'll use it once and earn myself a poke in the eye...

Anyway, as well as it being a good lesson it was also interesting to learn about eating habits of the Italians, so it was in no small dose a lesson in culture also, I hope Johnny has more of these lined up for us.

The lesson went on for almost two hours and it was almost midday when we got home so we set about making lunch straight away so that we could both attempt a little work before Samantha arrived around 2pm for Helen's one-to-one lesson.

After Reggie had shown a very encouraging level of interest in Samantha last weekend (albeit from the boot of the car, through hardened safety glass), we were hoping for a better reception for her this week. Reggie, of course, had other ideas and although he was happy taking treats from her, his barking was headache-inducing.

Soon I had him loaded into the car to go for a walk and leave the girls in peace. We drove through Pescia to the usual parking spot for the 'chicken run' walk, it being a suitably long walk to cover the duration of the lesson.

We had a slightly longer than usual walk along the river as the weather was so beautiful - it could have been the early morning of a midsummer's day had I not known better, and I was soon wishing I had shorts on, there was a very gentle breeze with a coolness to it but the sun had a deep warmth to it without being hot.

After getting back to the car, having managed to keep Reggie's chicken count at zero today, we crossed the road to the agricultural merchant as I wanted to buy a couple of large 'feed' bins for the chickens.

New feed bins in place.

That done, we headed homewards, stopping at Frateschi to collect the automatic chicken door that I'd ordered an which UPS told me (via email) was going to be delivered there today. However, when I arrived, there a parcel from Amazon waiting for me instead. Confused, I took it and left after a brief chat with Paolo about a 'simple life', or our idea of it, and went home wondering where the parcel was. It was only 4.30pm, so there was still a little delivery time left, but it seems most couriers are done with their deliveries around here by that time of day.

Once I was home and the fire was lit, we were taken by an unexpected wave of festive spirit which saw us playing one of the many versions of 'The Best Christmas Album in the World' and stapling fairy lights to our ancient chestnut beams while drinking Prosecco.

We had a lovely impromptu evening, even managing an hour of UK TV downloaded earlier that day now that we have upgraded our internet package to the top tier.

Thursday

On Thursday morning I was off to Vellano to work with David again. I was up with Helen at 7.30am, as has started to seem usual over these last two weeks, so I should have had plenty of time to get my gear organised and loaded before leaving, but as it happened I spent most of the hour looking into where the UPS parcel containing our chicken shed door had got to - only to find that a delivery had been "attempted", failed, apparently, and it was now heading back to the UK arriving first in Bologna this morning!

I hurriedly emailed the seller to see if they could intervene before throwing some breakfast down me, finishing only as David arrived, so Reggie got the last bit in the bowl and I threw a load of stuff in the car hoping that I'd remembered everything, I HATE rushing like that!

First off it was back to Frateschi to buy more concrete and steel for the step building we were going to do today, and then off up to Vellano where step building ensued before we finished the morning felling some accacia trees.

After our obligatory post-work glass of vino in the Bistrot, I left David talking to one of the African guys in there and headed home for lunch.

The day was wearing on and after a late lunch we decided we would take the dog for a walk in Pescia and hope to catch the people at Coldiretti to get my agricultural tax code finally.

As Helen logged off work for the day I dashed up to take the opportunity to shut the chickens in as they all were indoors. I also did the daily egg check as Helen hadn't made it up there yet today and discovered that today we had the gift of FOUR eggs!! Two of each colour, which means the final hen has started laying at last - all we need now is for the cockerel to start crowing (or do we?!).

We arrived in town and walked Reggie along the busy bit of river, which thankfully was relatively quiet at this time so Reggie only needed leashing a couple of brief times for joggers to pass by.

After the walk we headed over to Coldiretti in the hopes of collecting my tax code from them. Sure enough the lights were on as we parked and we went in and climbed to stairs to see Elena who called us straight in, took our €40 and gave us an invoice for the payment and a few sheets of paper which included the magic tax code! FINALLY!

Not content with such success we parked at the bus terminus and walked into the pet shop in town to buy a new lead for Reggie, me having 'misplaced' his other after a walk this week. It may well be in the car, but as the back door wasn't working and the seats were folded down it was hard to check the car properly so until such time as the door was fixed, we were considering the old lead lost forever.

Having acquired a nice new red lead and a couple of rawhide bones for Reggie we went back to the car where we saw Mada, one of the Gambians from Vellano, waiting for the next and last bus to Vellano, so we offered him a lift home. Mada hopped in the back with Reggie, who didn't make the slightest of complaints, and we wended our way back up the valley, first to Vellano to drop Mada 'home', then it was home for us to get the fire started for the evening and to cook dinner which involved our very first home-grown cabbage, a monster it was too, it'll give us two iron filled meals.

Friday

It was a darker than usual start to the day today, so neither of us much felt like getting out of bed,but of course we did. As I went out to release the chickens I noticed it was a much cooler morning than the last couple of days, but still not quite cold enough to produce a frost - although I suspect it was on a knife edge and that one degree lower could have made the difference.

As Helen exercised outside I kept Reggie company inside for a while until I had to leave just before half eight to take the car to the village so that I could leave it at Amanda's for her husband Enrico to collect on his way to work.

We all seemed a little bleary eyed in the shop this morning. Samantha arrived as I did and unloaded a crate of Sicilian oranges, and as I walked in I think my bleary eyed-ness showed and Amanda kindly offered me a coffee, which I immediately accepted.

It was nice and quiet in there, Mum and Dad were also in the kitchen, so we all chatted for a while as I sipped my espresso and I left with a smile on my face despite needing to walk the 20 minutes back home.

Once home Helen and I had breakfast and coffee (my second of the day), after which I headed outside to start putting some shelves up. I haven't quite finished the shed, but a lot of the detritus that needs to go into it and that is currently taking up space in the office is of little consequence so can be moved into the shed without any concern. So that was how my day went - a lot of organising, a job I love doing, knowing that with every improvement I make I am making myself more efficient. I clearly have a low level of OCD to enjoy such tasks but there's no point hiding it and those that know me well would expect nothing less.

We stopped for lunch at almost two in the afternoon. I had no idea it was gone noon, such was the fun I was having laying organising screws and nails, but when Helen called my in for a steaming bowl of vegetable soup I soon realised I was hungry.

After lunch Helen came outside but not to join the organising. Instead, she decided to take her hedge trimmers for a work out and make a start on clearing the section of terracing next to the chicken enclosure. We originally named this section of land "Goose Island 2" when Helen cleared a small section of it last autumn when we thought we'd need to move and hide the geese (and their house) for our inspection by Mr. Florence. As it happened, we didn't move the geese and so any further work in this area stopped as we kept clearing further up the terraces. However, having now reached a sensible level over the last week we decided to concentrate on clearing and tidying the full width of the entire terraced area from the house to where we have cleared to so far.

As darkness descended and Helen's second tank of fuel ran out we packed up, shut the chickens in for the night and headed indoors to start a fire and to find out if we were to expect our car back this evening.

I decided that, as easy as it would be to call Amanda to see if Enrico had told her over their lunch if the car was going to be ready, I would brave it and call the garage directly and ask to speak to Enrico.

Enrico in fact answered the phone. He told me he was just finishing the car and that he would be bringing it to Amanda's this evening around 19:15 so I promised to go and see him Monday to pay him and we bade each other farewell. feeling quite pleased with myself we sat in front of the fire to drink a beer, well, what else was I going to do with a couple of hours to kill!?