Busy bees

Last week was busy here at Numero 182 for a different kind of reason than of late: we played host to our good friend Sarah and her little boy Ollie, who we hadn't seen for over a year. It was absolutely great to see them both, and we enjoyed a busy week seeing our surroundings through the eyes of a three-year-old as well as having a long overdue and lovely catch-up with Sarah.

Sarah and Ollie were treated to the full Numero 182 experience: sunshine, wind, rain, hail, thunder, lightning, a power cut, lots of dog walking, gardening, egg collecting, a ride on a tractor, an evening in front of the fire pit, lunch at our friend Michelle's restaurant, a trip to a bee-keeping (apicoltura) shop, a ride on a funicular, ice cream and an afternoon in a play park!

The reason for the visit to the bee-keeping shop was that, on Thursday, we took delivery of our first ever swarm of bees. Our friend Mara had called the week before: a neighbour had found a swarm on the window of his house and had asked if she would take it. Since Mara and her bees are organically certified, she wasn't able to take the swarm for herself (as its origin was uncertain), but she offered to collect it and give it to us. We were thrilled at the opportunity, having written off the idea of having bees for this year, thinking we would likely have to wait until next spring to get our hive set up. Mara therefore arrived at 8am on a very wet and windy Thursday morning (apparently the perfect weather for moving bees) with the bees in a portable (polystyrene) hive. We placed the hive on the terraces to the left of the chicken enclosure, placed a brick on top of the lid to keep it secure, and left the bees to it.

Having taken delivery of the bees we decided we needed to make getting some proper equipment a priority, so Sarah, Ollie, Stuart and I bundled into the car for a wet drive over the hills into the next valley to find our local 'bee shop'. The shop was fascinating and a wonderful smell of beeswax permeated the air. Not only do they offer candles, honey, pollen and various honey-flavoured liqueurs for sale, but also the more practical items for which we had made the trip: smokers, gloves, protective hats and jackets, sheets of wax for the frames in the hive, wire for the frames, levers for getting the frames in and out of the hive, as well as a multitude of other items that, for now, are beyond our needs.

From next week, we will gradually introduce, one by one, frames from our hive into the temporary hive, and once the bees have made their cells and populated our frames, we will be able to transfer them into our hive. Mara has offered to come over next week to check the hive with us and give us a much needed lesson!

We saw Mara again on Saturday night as she and Franco had invited us to a party at their house in celebration of Franco's birthday, the birthday of their neighbour Sylvia, and Franco & Mara's wedding anniversary. It was a 'bring a snack' party, so we made humus and a satay dip, and went along at 5pm feeling somewhat apprehensive at the thought of a whole party in Italian! Needless to say, we had a really lovely time: Mara and Franco and all of their friends without exception are kind, warm, welcoming and - importantly - patient people, and they put up with our stilted Italian and made us feel truly part of the gathering. They even had us country dancing. Yes, us. Dancing.

We left Mara and Franco's, along with all the other guests, at around 10.45pm - utterly exhausted (it's hard work for the brain trying to concentrate to keep up and make oneself understood!), but happy to have enjoyed such a fun and friendly evening and met such lovely people.

We took a mini "holiday" on Sunday morning - having had a taste of different scenery while driving to the bee shop during the week, we decided to explore some previously unchartered (by us) territory. We drove to Collodi and then all the way along the valley in which it sits, as far as Bagni di Lucca. It was a gloriously sunny day, and for a couple of hours we really did almost feel as if we could have been on holiday - enjoying the sunshine and seeing new scenery for the first time.

Of course it was back down to earth once we got home: strimming, hedge cutting, weeding, watering, planting, and we made the discovery that, in a re-run of last year, something has stolen our potatoes again - something of a crushing disappointment.

There are yet more urgent tasks to turn our attentions to for the coming week - a return to more solid office working hours for me, as well as strimming that urgently needs doing (with our next guests due to arrive on Sunday, it'll take the best part of the week to get our terraces looking neat again), a problem with the septic tank to get to the bottom of, a sound-proof flooring to source for the office and utility room, a pergola to start building (with 30-31C forecast for the end of the week, we are quickly realising that we are in need of some shade!), plants to water and tend to, bees to inspect, a dog to walk, other people's gardening work for Stuart to do, and much more besides. Business as usual then.

...And relax

Finally, after months of hard work, on Friday afternoon we completed the renovation of the apartment ceiling project. With two hours to spare before guests arrived. We still can't quite believe it's finished.

Over the past week we've had early morning starts and late night finishes, poor Reggie has missed out on walks (and even taken himself off on his own in protest on a couple of occasions, having worked out yet another escape route from the garden fencing), I've had to put my office work on hold, our diet has consisted almost entirely of pizza, and we've felt like the waking dead, but very gradually things have come together.

When Reggie takes himself off on his own and doesn't want to come back down the terraces, the only way to get him down is to carry him down. All 29kg of him...

Once again, we've had a tremendous amount of help from generous friends: on Wednesday, Paul and Kathy spent the entire day painting the freshly plastered walls in the apartment while we continued to do filling, sanding, boxing-in, grouting and other jobs that we'd hoped to have finished before painting day; on Thursday, David and Sarah put in a heroic effort cleaning everything: the living room/kitchen area hadn't been touched since the work started and not only was all the furniture piled up in there laden with half an inch of plaster/concrete/mortar dust, but the dust had worked its way into every nook and cranny imaginable. They cleaned like demons while we continued trying to tie up the last few niggling jobs, and they didn't leave until long after dark.

Friday morning saw us up early and bleary-eyed once again, and after a quick check over of things in the apartment, Stuart headed off to hit Obi in time for when it opened in order to buy the last few bits and pieces that we needed to finish things off (one more sheet of plasterboard, some LED light bulbs, a new curtain pole). While Stuart was out, I finished a little more painting and started the final clean-up of the areas that he wasn't going to be working in. 

We were almost tripped up at the final hurdle: after buying the necessary items from Obi, Stuart got back into the car to head home... only to find that it wouldn't start. After spending an hour in the Obi car park (like we had that to spare!), the car finally decided to play ball and Stuart was able to make it back to the house to rush through the last bits of work needed - under considerably more pressure than was planned!

Thankfully, we did finally get to a point where we couldn't do any more and while I dusted, vacuumed and swept my way out of the apartment, Stuart headed out for a tour of the valley's dustbin areas to dispose of the considerable amount of construction-related rubbish we'd piled up over the course of the last several weeks.

We finished at about 1.30pm, with guests due at 4pm, so after a quick lunch we made a dash to Esselunga, and before we'd even unpacked the shopping back at the house, the buzzer for our (now fully functioning) electric gates was ringing and our guests were arriving!

We greeted our guests as energetically as we could muster, complete in our paint-splattered work clothes that we hadn't yet had time to change out of. Thankfully, once again, we seem to have been blessed with a lovely set of people as guests - they were warm and friendly and seemed thrilled to be here. I think we were both in a bit of a state of shock at having finally finished the work, and certainly a tiredness-induced stupor, so goodness knows what they must have thought of us, but they seemed happy. 

I must admit that we were pretty pleased with the end result as well:

After settling our guests in, we gathered the energy to take Reggie for a long-awaited walk at the cava track above Vellano before finally collapsing on the sofa with a bottle of wine - too tired even to really know what to do with ourselves!

We had a blissfully long, undisturbed, stress-free night's sleep, a lie-in on Saturday morning, and spent the weekend taking things very easy. 

Saturday morning saw us taking Reggie for a good long run out in the woods between Vellano and Macchino, and in the afternoon, after paying a couple of overdue bills, we headed to Montecarlo for a quiet glass of wine, almost feeling as if we were there on holiday.

We invited our guests up for a drink on Saturday evening and spent a very enjoyable couple of hours getting to know them, while Reggie gradually worked up the courage to get close enough for a sniff or two. 

On Sunday morning we paid our first visit to our friend Michelle's new restaurant in Macchino for a quick cappuccino and catch-up with Michelle before taking Reggie for a walk, and then treated ourselves to lunch out in Montecarlo.

Reggie was pleased with the doggy bag we brought back from lunch!

It will be back to work as usual from now on, but the weekend has been blissfully free from paint/sawdust/concrete/mortar/plaster/wood stain and all the stresses of the last few weeks. All the hard work almost seems worthwhile just for the joy of having a weekend off where we don't feel obliged to do anything - something of a rarity for us.

So... coming soon will be a blog post on how to construct a Tuscan ceiling (step 1: don't do it - get someone else to do it for you...).

Progress

What a difference a week makes.

Last weekend we really struggled - it felt as if we were fighting a losing battle against our enormous list of tasks with a looming deadline and it was difficult to imagine a light at the end of the tunnel, but thanks to the support and encouragement of friends both near and far, as well as some incredibly generous and much appreciated practical help from friends close to us here, we turned a corner and tackled the week in full fighting mode. We still have some way to go, we're working flat out and can't afford to take our foot off the pedal, but we finally feel as if we might just get there.

Tiles on.

A huge help from kind and generous friends, letting us get on with work in the apartment while David & Sarah made sure our veg beds were ready for our seedlings to go out...

...while Paul, Kathy and Donatella helped with the mammoth tidy-up of the outside area, perfecting our beautiful wood pile.

Work continued on the driveway, with now just the asphalt to be laid and the electrics to be fitted to work the gate.

A thing of beauty.

There's something in there I'm sure.

Where did it go?

Cutting tiles.

Block work all but finished.

Exposed piece of stone wall rendered.

A bonfire to clear more rubbish from the car park area.

Pointing in the beams.

Tiles sealed.

Render done.

First skimming done and beams stained.

Seedlings happily planted out with room to thrive, thanks to David & Sarah.

Tiles grouted.

... and the rest of our to-do list!

Tough going

If last week we were feeling up against it, this week that feeling has intensified. Tenfold. If that's even possible.

Having both spent the weekend working in the apartment, Monday saw an already tired Stuart frantically constructing a set of steps up to the newly designated bee area (the terraces to the left of the chicken enclosure) so that Alain, the bee man, could have easy access with his 30+ bee hives and do so to hit the start of the acacia flowering season and before the driveway became inaccessible on Wednesday morning. Stuart slogged it out all day on Monday, battling against ground riddled with big roots and even bigger rocks, and finished the day with a beautiful set of steps.

Despite his hard work though, Monday came and went with no bees, Tuesday came and went with no bees, and by 8.10am on Wednesday, the driveway was no longer passable: no bees. We're not really sure what happened - the acacia trees are now in full, glorious, heady-scented blossom, but Alain has not brought his bees. We are somewhat frustrated by the amount of time and energy we have put into preparing for the arrival of these bees - at a time when we are in very short supply of both. Perhaps it will all be put to good use next year.

On Wednesday morning we awoke to find a digger sitting on our drive - it must have been delivered on Tuesday night, but very quietly as neither we nor Reggie noticed!

By 8am on Wednesday, the workers were here, drinking coffee, and by 8.10am, there was an enormous hole in our drive.

The start of the work was accompanied by tempestuous weather - strong winds and torrential rain - but the workers carried on regardless, and by mid morning there was a large channel almost from the house to the gates.

The work was originally intended to be just a repair job - the section of our drive just as you enter our gate is in an appalling state. It seems that our generously proportioned driveway entrance is the ideal turning spot for the large lorries that tank up and down the valley to the paper mills. They aren't meant to come up as far as our house, but for drivers new to the area, the turn-off to the paper mills can sometimes be easy to miss - when they realise they've missed the turning. our driveway is the first spot they find that allows them suitable turning space. So, the idea was to repair the entrance to the drive, putting down a more solid material that will withstand all that is thrown at it. While we were discussing the driveway repair, we decided it would be a good time to put in electric gates - which will give us added security. So the channel being dug all along the driveway is for the electric cable to run from the gate to the house. In the meantime, our old gates have been taken away to be welded together, and when returned they will slide open and closed on a runner that will have been put in place.

Work on the driveway has continued every day since then (including Saturday). While progress is being made, it has severely impacted on our own productivity, and sanity. Reggie, of course, is extremely upset by the presence of builders and their machinery - and seems to be trying to bark himself into some kind of barking record book. On top of that, though, the builders seem to have questions or things to point out every 20 minutes or so, meaning that Stuart hasn't been able to concentrate on getting anything done while they are around. We've also had to make two separate trips to the bank to withdraw cash for payments, as well as trips to the geometra's office to sign paperwork for the permissions for the work to go ahead.

The pre-mixed concrete to repair the entrance was finally delivered late on Friday evening - although not enough was delivered to complete the repairs, so the main builder, Angelo, and his brother-in-law will be finishing it off on Monday by hand. After the concrete has been laid, we are required (by the comune) to put a layer of asphalt on top, supposedly to match what was already there. To lay asphalt, the weather conditions need to be both dry and warm - in fact, the hotter the better. Since the weather for the next few days is forecast to be a little mixed, we imagine that the asphalt might not be laid for a while yet, but we will be pleased just to have a usable drive again, and even more pleased once the gates are in place and working - which should happen within the next few days, we hope.

We are still woefully far behind in the apartment and despite us both putting in a night shift down there during the week and trying to throw our all at it over the weekend, the apartment still seems to very much be winning the battle of wills and draining us of all energy and enthusiasm. Stuart is finding it particularly tough going, and as much as I am ready and willing to throw myself into the work, I am sorely lacking in the level of skill and knowledge required for the majority of the work that needs doing - something that frustrates both of us. For the sake of our own health and sanity it may be time to draft in some paid help.