Slow transition into autumn

September passed by in a blur of hard work, heat and visitors, and regretfully there was little time or, more importantly, energy left to put into writing blog posts.

A brief summary follows, along with some photos, with apologies for the brevity and lack of detail:

At the start of the month we had another visit from Stuart's Mum (Sheila) and her friend Yvonne - the third visit of the year for Sheila, and the second of the year for Yvonne. As usual, a good amount of gin was drunk, some sightseeing done, and plenty of laughter was had.

They were followed hot on the heels by the arrival of apartment guests Allen & Gisi who live in New York state and who first visited us three years ago. It was great to welcome them back again and, while they mainly did their own thing, we managed to catch up with them on a couple of the evenings that they were here, which was great - we very much enjoy their company.

Shortly after Allen & Gisi we welcomed back apartment guests Jon & Tina, who first came to stay with us back in April this year, but who are long-time visitors to the area and who enjoyed their April visit so much that they decided to return just 5 months later. Again, they did their own thing, but we caught up with them over a meal on a couple of occasions, the first cooked by us and the second very kindly cooked by them. Again, lovely people and good company!

Work was hard during September - Stuart working hard to finish the tiling of the kitchen floor he had laid in Pescia, while I had my head down the entire month working on preparations for the Virus Bulletin conference.

Towards the end of the month we spent a day laying concrete on the floor under our pergola. A long awaited job that we finally got around to working on! Initially we spent a day barrowing hard core round from the area at the back of the house (from the pile of rubble that originally came from the apartment bedroom ceiling/office floor), after which we were finally ready to start laying concrete.

Hardcore - the rubble has now travelled from the apartment ceiling, to the apartment floor, to the back of the house, and now to the pergola floor.

The area at the back of the house is looking tidier now that a lot of the rubble has been removed.

Having had offers of help with the laying of concrete from both David and Paul & Kathy, we didn't hesitate to take them up on the offer, and so it was that the 5 of us spent a day labouring - hard - Stuart doing the important task of spreading and levelling the concrete, which was being mixed and carried by David, Paul, Kathy and me. A long day's back-breaking work, but a huge accomplishment and we were (and are!) hugely grateful for the extra muscle power!

And so it begins!

The mixing team.

Mixing team. 

More mixing.

We mixed 75 bags of concrete - that's almost 2 tonnes.

Almost done.

A thing of beauty.

A flat and level pergola floor for the first time.

The weather in September ranged from super-hot to the odd cooler day, and notably, there happened the first time for a very long time that, while sitting at my desk working, I had to close the window to keep the heat in rather than to keep the heat out!

The first signs of autumn crept in.

Our fig tree was prolific this year.

And September's mushroom harvest was prolific!

Late cropping peaches.

Wild growing hops.

The river just outside Pescia was bone dry - the sign of a long and dry summer.

Nowhere for Reggie to splash in on his walk along the river.

A cooler evening but the warmth of the firepit made being outdoors comfortable.

And so there you have it, a woefully brief round-up of an entire month in just a few words and pictures. I can't promise to do better next time, but I do promise that I will try!

Hot and humid

Over recent weeks the intense heat of summer has continued, although we are now in a more changeable phase - hot weather but with regular thunderstorms, that sometimes bring torrential rain and other times just bang and crash and rumble but without so much as a drop of rain. The storms we've been having of late haven't been the sort that bring any relief from the intense temperature, but rather just make the air hot and damp - a bit like being in a sauna.

The intense heat has almost entirely put a halt on our work around the property. Every morning when it's a pleasant 21C I think "right, this afternoon I will do XYZ", but as the afternoon rolls around and the temperature is a searing 34C or similar, the will to even be outside for more than a couple of minutes completely disappears, let alone the motivation to do anything constructive. The sun doesn't start to disappear from our patio area until around 6.30pm, so until then we find ourselves hiding in the shade and even questioning the wisdom of our decision to buy a west-facing house!!

But of course, once the intensity of the heat is dialled down, the evenings here are perfect - a lovely temperature, not too hot but definitely not cold either - and as we sit in our comfy garden sofa-chairs taking in the view, we are often treated to amazing aerial displays by swifts that swoop low over the garden picking up the evening insects then high up into the sky, somehow managing to avoid crashing into each other. And once the light starts to fade, the swifts are replaced by bats that flit across the dusky sky doing the same thing. Once darkness proper has fallen we are often entertained by the various different owls we hear screeching, hooting and tu-whit tu-whoo-ing (we sometimes even wonder if someone is standing in the trees taking us for a ride doing an impression of an owl, such is the totally classic sound of some of the "tu-whit tu-whoo"s). Naturally, Reggie is not quite as enamoured with the owl noises, and it's never long before his bark overrides all other animal noises!

Summer evening sky.

So, all this is a long-winded way of saying that we haven't done much to report.

We've been busy socially - a Greek meal at our local circolo in celebration of Emanuele's birthday (along with our lovely apartment guests, Jenny and Gordon, and our friends Paul & Kathy and Andrea); a fabulously fun evening at the annual summer Sagra at the circolo in Vellano with our friends Paul & Kathy, Ludmila & James and later in the evening David & Sarah and Donatella too, complete with Irish music and dancing; a long-awaited catch up with our friends Samatha & Mario over dinner under the stars on their roof terrace; dinner followed by a dip in the hot (well, cold) tub at our friends Andrea & Begona's; a curry dinner at our house for our friends Serena & Gianni, as well as various other catch-ups with other friends. A busy time on the social front - somewhat tiring but in a most enjoyable way!

Hmm, the less said the better.

I also had a lovely birthday...

... a delicious fish meal with my lovely husband, the day off work, and an evening sharing a drink or two with our guests - perfect!

We haven't shirked work entirely, in fact quite the opposite - I've been busy at my computer, this being the busiest time of year for my work, spending around 7 hours a day at my desk. And Stuart has worked on our friend Dave's new website and both re-built a set of stairs and laid a new kitchen floor for our lovely friend Sue. While he slaved over the set of stairs on his own (a back-breaking job made harder by trying to do it during the biggest holiday week in Italy when all builders' merchants were closed and he had to trek to Obi and back many times over for materials), he knew from the outset that the kitchen floor would be a job that required some extra muscle. Ever ready for a challenge, I took the day off my office work so that I could join our friend David as a labourer on the project (David and me being the brawn), while Stuart (the brains) worked his magic laying and levelling the floor. By the end of a hard, hot, dusty, dirty days' work, David and I had mixed and carried 70 bags of concrete (a little under 2 tonnes), and Stuart had laid a perfect floor - a thing of beauty even before tiles have been laid! A tough day, but the change of scene, the great company and the finishing of a project by the end of the day all made it incredibly enjoyable and satisfying!

The master at work.

A thing of beauty!

"Team Kitchen Floor".

Sadly, the orto has really suffered this year, and over recent weeks the weeds have really taken hold - after Potato Gate (porcupines having eaten every single last one that we put in the ground) and Fennel/Onion Gate (voles having eaten 90% of the fennels and 60% of the onions), we rather lost our way in terms of motivation to keep things going. Not only that, but the very unseasonally cool and wet weather in May stunted the growth of a lot of the plants. As such, weeding hasn't been done, tomatoes haven't been tied up, and an overall air of neglect has taken its toll. It's all a bit disappointing but we are still harvesting tomatoes and have had amazing crops of beetroot and aubergine, both grown from seed. Encouragingly, the raised bed trial that Stuart set up a few months back has been a huge success and everything that he planted in it (he threw a bit of everything in, just to see how it fared: parsnips, kohlrabi, tomatoes, beetroot, spinach, basil, rocket, aubergines...) has seemed to thrive and do really well. So the plan for the winter is to create several more raised beds, which can't be reached by porcupines or voles! (We just have to hope that the deer don't become the next big problem!)

Rain drops on the sunflowers.

The sunflowers are loving the "wild" treatment of the orto!

The chickens have been suffering somewhat in the heat - while they are still laying routinely, there have been days when I've spotted them sitting under the olive tree with their beaks open and wings spread trying hard to keep cool. We decided to treat them to a chicken-spa in a bid to help them cope with the hot weather. We installed a mini-pergola for an added spot of shade in their enclosure, as well as a cooling mist-spray (a hose attached to the water pipe that sprays water into the air). They seemed a bit confused about the water spray at first, but soon started pecking around in the wet soil - whether they enjoy the cooling effects of the spray or just the bugs it brings up from the ground we're not sure, but they seem to like it either way!

Mini pergola for shade

..and a mist-er.

Complete with rainbow.

We are about to welcome Sheila (Stuart's Mum) and Yvonne (her - and our - friend) back again for another week here - Yvonne's second visit this year and Sheila's third. So amongst office work and other chores there will no doubt be time made to catch up with them over a drink or two in the coming days - days which we hope will bring a little bit of respite in the temperature and start to see the beginnings of what we hope will be a fine autumn!

A step back in time?

The events of the last week have almost made us feel as if we have stepped back in time 4 years: we've had trouble with our internet supply; car troubles and a broken down tractor. While nothing insurmountable, general weariness left us feeling as if it was all quite a lot to contend with.

Of course, in these situations there is no alternative than to get on with things, and thankfully the internet issues were eventually sorted out (well, of a fashion), the car problem was fixed first with a jump start from a passing stranger (Stuart was stuck halfway between Pescia and Lucca when the car failed to start) and then a visit the following morning from the friendly mechanic from our local garage (who diagnosed a duff battery and duly replaced it with a new one). The tractor problem remains an open ticket, but at least doesn't impinge on daily life in quite the same way as other issues (at least, not until we need it...).

For me, this time of year has always been about work - not the satisfying physical outdoor type of work, but the computer-screen-staring, sedentary, office-based work. This year is somehow seems to be even more challenging than in previous years - 7 hours sitting in front of pages and pages of technical conference papers seems quite energy-sapping, which is not helped by the fact that for at least half of that time it's in a room that is plunged into darkness and it could as easily be night-time as daytime. The shutters-on-windows exercise that we started a month or so back (closing all the windows and shutters to keep the sunlight out in an attempt to make the house less oven-like) has been very successful, and even when temperatures hit 39.5C the other week, we still managed to keep the house (just!)below 30C. So it's worth it. But it does somewhat mess with the mind and natural body rhythms when you spend hours on end indoors in semi-darkness!

Of course, not all of our time has been spent indoors. We spent a week getting up at 6.30am every day in order to get the grass cut on the terraces. In the extreme heat, the last thing we feel like doing is cutting the grass on the terraces, and in theory, the heat (and dryness) should keep things from growing too fast and looking untidy. However, throw in the odd day of rain (thunderstorms), and lo and behold the grass shoots up and the weeds even more so. With visitors due to arrive, and the place looking unkempt, it was a task we simply had to tackle. Doing a couple of hours of strimming each morning before the day heated up (finishing by about 10.30am) proved to be a fairly efficient (and certainly more comfortable) way of operating, and after having repeated the exercise 5 days in a row we had finally got all the grass cut and looking much neater.

Aside from grass cutting we have tackled precious few outdoor jobs - a combination of heat, visitors, flu-like illness (Stuart), bursitis of the elbow (Stuart) and days of full-time office work (me) have pretty much put a halt on progress. We find ourselves almost counting down the days to the cooler weather of autumn and winter that will allow us to get back outdoors more comfortably and achieve a lot more.

Our most recent visitors were Stuart's daughter, Kerys, and her boyfriend, Nick. They arrived hot on the heels of Sheila's departure, giving us a brief two-day window in which to collect our thoughts and prepare for more guests. That proved to be a much needed window, as Stuart was struck down with a flu-like lurgy (left behind by our Kiwi helpers the previous week) and needed the time to rest.

Thankfully, while not 100% better, he was sufficiently recovered to spend some time taking Kerys and Nick out and about, taking them to Pescia, Montecarlo, Montecatini Terme, Montecatini Alto and Vinci (no, not all in the same day!). Kerys and Nick also took the opportunity of being here in Italy to take a whistle-stop trip to Rome. Having originally planned to spend one night in the city, after deciding to change mode of transport from the expensive fast train to the much cheaper but much slower bus from Florence (which was then delayed), they extended their stay to two nights to ensure that they had enough time to see everything they wanted to see. They came back to us exhausted but entirely satisfied with their trip - they loved Rome and all it had to offer.

As ever, it was lovely having them to stay and we look forward to their next visit.

Montecatini Terme.

Tettuccio spa.

No sooner had Kerys and Nick left than it was time for more guests, but this time ones we didn't already know - it feels as if this year has been very heavily focused on visits from family and friends, as well as returning guests (who are more or less friends too), so the arrival of completely new people in the apartment was quite a change.

As has so often been the case, our new guests Karen and Rich turned out to be great company, and we enjoyed spending a couple of evenings with them over a glass of wine or three. Not only that, but it turned out that Rich does wood working professionally, being a teacher of teachers! Having spotted Stuart's workshop and the lathe, he wasted no time in asking Stuart about it, and offering him some advice and a lesson - an amazing opportunity!

Too early for Christmas? 

Aside from guests we have been busy on the social front too - sometimes a little too busy, with seemingly non-stop late nights adding to overall weariness!

One evening we entertained Luciano, who is the gardener at the house we look after in Medicina, and his wife Monica. They are lovely people, very easy company, and absolute fonts of knowledge. The next evening we headed up to the very same house for a barbecue and social evening with Ludmila and James, who are currently renting the house for a year. Ludmila and James first visited us as guests last year, before deciding they loved the area so much they would like to return, but this time for a whole year. They have become great friends and are forever generous in their hospitality. On this occasion James even braved torrential rain, thunder and lightning to stand at the BBQ cooking for us while the rest of us waited in the dry indoors!

A week on, we headed up to Medicina itself, also with Ludmila and James, to a meal laid on by Stefano, the sheep farmer. Having known of Stefano for some time, it has only been relatively recently that we have met him on a few occasions and started to get to know him - another fascinating individual whose skills range from shepherding to cheese making, carpentry, music (drumming) and street artistry! During the summer he and his wife put on a number of meals up at their farm, where people from all around come to enjoy the delights that they cook, each week there being a different theme. This time around it was a pig roast, with more pork and sausages than 25 people could manage to eat - but there was also antipasti, cheeses to die for, fried chestnut flour donuts, lemon cake, plentiful wine, limoncello... All eaten at a large communal table under the stars, making it a truly social event - we met some interesting fellow diners and covered topics from food and drink to politics, and even managed to involve James and Ludmila when our fellow diners slowly revealed that they could speak a little English.

The following night we had an impromptu invitation to join our neighbours for dinner - we had popped in to see them briefly the previous morning as it had been a long while since we'd caught up with them.. and they promptly invited us for dinner along with Rosanna's brother, Marco and his wife Marcella, who had just got back from a holiday on the island of Elba. We've long coveted Rosanna and Valerio's outdoor kitchen and dining area from afar, and on this occasion we got to experience it close up as we dined outside, with Rosanna cooking fish, steaks and sausages on the outdoor grill. As ever with our neighbours, there was enough food to sink a battleship - we were relieved that we had decided to walk there, giving us a small chance to let it all go down at the end of the night before we got home, but we still felt full the following morning!!

At the beginning of a new week we hope for fewer challenges and the chance to have some earlier nights.

The orto is not very productive this year, but is still providing us with the odd crop or two.

Meanwhile, the fruit trees on our terraces have been more productive than ever before - peaches, apricots, plums, pears and almonds.

Two extra pairs of hands make light (but hot) work

Back at the start of our adventure here in Tuscany, we were helped enormously with some of the major jobs we had to do on the land by three different sets of visitors arranged via the "HelpX" scheme - travellers who do volunteer work in exchange for accommodation and food. We had been tipped off about the usefulness of this scheme by our friend Sue, and each of the sets of visitors we had here helped us move forward with things enormously - as well as enriching our lives in other ways; all were great company and even taught us a thing or two.

So when former HelpX-ers Tess and Nick (the pair of New Zealanders who, back in November 2014, among other things, built Reggie's fence and gates around the garden, helped toilet train Reggie and even helped us name him) contacted us to say that they had some close friends who were travelling around Europe in a campervan (just as they themselves had done 4.5 years ago) and who were interested in doing some HelpX-style work in exchange for somewhere to stay, we couldn't help but agree to take them on, and we eagerly awaited the arrival of Kristen and Grant.

We wouldn't usually dream of seeking helpers to do physical outdoor work at this time of year, large projects being much better suited to the cooler autumn and winter months - but that's how things panned out so we decided that careful planning of what work we did and at what time of day we did it would be the way to manage things (I should say here that despite these guys coming to volunteer work, there's no way our consciences would have allowed us to sit back and watch them slave away on their own without us joining in too!). It was clear that a morning work schedule would be the way to go, avoiding the very hottest part of the day, but as for the project(s) to tackle with the extra help, that was a more difficult decision, and one that kept changing right up until the day before their arrival!

We had toyed with ideas including: getting the veg beds thoroughly weeded; finishing cutting, moving and stacking the last of the wood for the winter wood pile; clearing and building some steps down to the river at the edge of our land... but the job that forced its way to the top of the list, virtually shouting and waving at us, was putting in some new drainage channels across the car park and the end of the drive.

Our very first HelpX-er, Noah, helped Stuart put three drainage channels in at various strategic points along the drive back in October 2014 (you can read about it and see the photos here). These helped enormously by diverting rainwater away from the drive and down the side of the hill, thus leaving a lot more of the surface of the drive, well, on the drive, than would have been the case without them. A while later it was obvious that, while there was an improvement in the state of the drive, a lot of water was still building up and rushing down across the car park, so in 2017 Stuart and I then dug and constructed another, much longer channel across the drive. That too helped enormously, but it has gradually been becoming clear that another channel is really needed - in very heavy rain a veritable river builds up and gushes down across the car park and all the way down to the outside of the apartment, taking in (and soaking) a good chunk of the wood pile as it goes. The amount of detritus that was washed down the drive (and the amount of gravel from the drive that we found halfway down the hill) after last weekend's torrential rain was the unmistakable signal that "Project Drainage Channels (v3.0)" was what we should throw our extra labour at this week.

On the upper donkey track, the rain water had carved out a path that ran from the top of the track right to the bottom.

Kristen and Grant arrived in their trusty campervan just before lunchtime on Monday. Having spent the previous evening at an Elton John concert in Lucca (part of the Lucca Summer Music Festival), they confessed to feeling a little fragile, and since the heat of the day had already built up to furnace level and we didn't really feel like punishing ourselves too much either, we decided to put work plans on hold until the next morning, and instead, after lunch, spent an afternoon getting to know our guests and taking them on a brief tour of the property.

The scary campervan! - Reggie took an intense dislike to the camper and barked at it for 4 days in a row.

Turns out that Kristen and Grant are great company. Of course, we could have put money on that - knowing that they are close friends of Nick and Tess and knowing what great folk Nick and Tess are, and how much we enjoyed their company all those years ago. We had a very enjoyable evening (in fact the first of several during the week) chatting about our respective lives and adventures as well as putting the world to rights and pulling out our favourite soapboxes.

The next morning, it was full steam ahead. Except poor Grant had woken up feeling pretty rough and with a very sore throat. To his immense credit he rallied, and Kristen and Grant spent the morning first weeding and mulching the raspberry enclosure and then joining me and Stuart in starting to dig the first of the drainage channels.

Stuart and Grant headed off to Frateschi, first to buy the concrete channels, and then the bags of concrete we would need to complete the job, while Kristen and I picked and dug at the ground, trying to get the channel to the required depth and width.

It took Reggie a while to get used to Kristen and Grant, but he was happy to watch over the work from a safe distance.

By the end of day one (lunchtime) we had done the required digging and placed the concrete channels in the hole, with concreting to be done the following day.

During the afternoon, Stuart took Sheila into Pescia with him on some errands and then on to visit some friends of hers that just happened to be staying at a hotel in Montecatini Terme for the week (what are the chances?!), while I battled with heavy eyelids while trying to get on top of some office work, and our Kiwi helpers took the opportunity to catch up on sleep in a real bed, after 3 months of sleeping in a campervan.

The next morning the extra sleep seemed to have given Grant's immune system the boost it needed and while still not feeling 100%, he said he was feeling a lot better, so after breakfast together we all headed back out to the car park for round two of channel digging. This time, we dug a channel in which to place the large, enormously heavy old carved stone edging pieces that Stuart had brought back from a house in Castelvecchio where they were being thrown out last year. The plan is for these to form a neat and attractive edge to what will eventually (one day) be a tidy and shaded seating area around the back of the house. Clearly that day is still a long way off, but we've now at least made a start!

With the channel dug for the stone pieces and the concrete channel pieces concreted in and the hole back-filled, it was time to call it a day again. After a late lunch, we decided to all head into town to give Kristen and Grant a whistle-stop tour of Pescia, a chance to eat ice creams, and a taste of the delights of aperitivi - we stopped at Franco's bar in the main Piazza for a glass of prosecco and a generous plate of nibbles.

On the final working day of our guests' stay with us, the plan was to dig a much shorter channel but a little further up the drive. Stuart and Grant went off to Frateschi once again to get the materials while Kristen and I started the digging - soon finding that the stonier part of the driveway was full of very large rocks and stones and nowhere near as easy to dig as the first channel! Nevertheless we persisted, and by the time Stuart and Grant had finished maneuvering the stone edging pieces into place we had dug the required channel, and then it was a relatively quick case of mixing concrete and laying in the concrete blocks.

After showers all round and lunch, Stuart headed off up the valley with Sheila and our guests to give them a quick tour of the local area, while I once again battled the tiredness and the heat at my desk.

Unfortunately, by Thursday afternoon Kristen had begun to feel the same symptoms as Grant had suffered with earlier in the week, so it was another quiet afternoon of napping for them after returning from the trip around the valley.

Friday was a no-work day for Kristen and Grant as they would be leaving us and heading for new adventures. They took advantage of their last morning in a four-walled abode to do some last-minute washing, tidying and cleaning of the campervan, and planning where to head to next.

We waved goodbye to our new friends on Friday afternoon, having thoroughly enjoyed their company as well as feeling delighted with the progress made with their help. Without their help we would never have tackled this project at this time of year (it would have been autumn or even winter before we even considered doing it), and it would have taken us at least twice as long, if not more. So we are very pleased indeed with what we've achieved in less than a week!

Friday was also Sheila's last full day of her current stay with us, and at the end of the day she had offered to take us for aperitivi. Our regular spot for aperitivi was closed for holidays this week, so we put some thought into where to go. Didn't take us long to remember that we'd seen our friends Amanda and Alessio had advertised that they would be doing a cocktail/aperitivi evening at their restaurant that night. So the choice was obvious!

We arrived a little early at the restaurant, so sat at the bar with a delicious mojito made by Amanda while we awaited the arrival of Chiara, the cocktail lady. Chiara has invented a concept of ready-made cocktails using fresh, local, seasonal ingredients, with a base of gin. There were six to choose from, all of which sounded delicious, and to go with each cocktail Alessio had conjured up a delicious finger food plate to match and complement the flavours.

Sheila and I both started with a lovely fresh-flavoured grapefruit-based cocktail - a flat collins - which was accompanied by an amazing dish of pieces of trout in the most incredibly fresh and zingy chill infused jelly. I quite literally cannot stop thinking about how delicious it was! Meanwhile, Stuart's choice of cocktail - a negroni - was equally flavourful and was accompanied by a delectable chicken liver pate. Other plates of food we tried included a DIY (in a fondue) pork tenderloin pieces with a grapefruit sauce; deep fried prawns with an incredible beetroot accompaniment, and delectable marinated mackerel pieces. Sheila and I also shared a strawberry-based gin sour before wobbling out of the bar feeling very content indeed!

Sadly for our friends, we were the only people who had come to the evening (at least at that time of the evening), but for us it made for a very enjoyable time as we sat at the bar and chatted with Amanda, Alessio and Chiara while sipping our drinks and tasting our treats - great drinks, great food and great company.

As I write this update, the Kiwi lurgy (or was it an Elton John lurgy?) has made its way round to Stuart - it seems to be a fast-moving and hard-hitting thing, so we keep our fingers crossed that Stuart will be able to shake it as quickly as Grant seemed to be able to, and that it doesn't spread to me or head back to England with Sheila. We have two days of relative down time now before the arrival on Tuesday of Stuart's daughter, Kerys, and her boyfriend Nick. It's certainly proving to be a busy summer!