A (hot) evening to remember

There still hasn't been any let up in the searing heat, and while I have slowly cooked in the office, poor Stuart has spent two days this week working in the heat of the sun at Lanciole and today has worked all morning in Vellano - punishing work.

The heat has taken its toll on poor Reggie as well - on Monday he didn't get a walk because it was just too hot, and he spent the entire day lying on the kitchen floor tiles looking dozy. Come bed time, however, he found a sudden spurt of energy as it started to cool down slightly outside and was most put out at having to go to bed. He let us know in no uncertain terms that he was hot and uncomfortable in his crate - by whining continually. Eventually, at around 12.30am, Stuart stomped downstairs and dragged Reggie's crate from the office to the living room - which at least would give us peace of mind that he had less chance of disturbing our guests' sleep (the office - Reggie's usual bedroom - is above the bedroom in the apartment) even if we didn't get any peace ourselves. Much to our relief, after Stuart had taken the foam mattress out of the crate and put Reggie back to bed with a very firm hand, we didn't hear another peep from him all night.

You could hardly blame the poor puppy for whingeing though - we're all hot and irritable and he hadn't had any outlet for his energy all day. Anyway, first thing on Tuesday morning, getting the distinct impression from Stuart that Reggie was well and truly in the dog house again, I decided to take matters into my own hands and instead of heading to my usual exercise station I got Reggie harnessed up and set out on an hour-long walk up the road towards Vellano in the relative cool of the early (7am) morning. This was my first solo walk with Reggie, and I enjoyed it - I like to think that he did too. He still wasn't flavour of the month with Stuart when we got home, but at least I knew he'd had a good walk, which should (in theory) help with his behaviour through the day. In the event, our guests told us that they hadn't heard anything anyway!

Tuesday brought us some great news: the Phillipses were back in town! They decided to call in on us in the evening to catch up and take (re)possession of the (new) terrapin - so come 6.30pm the entire Phillips family arrived, looking fresh and relaxed from their holiday with tales of snorkelling, swimming, reading, visiting strange Croatian music festivals, and a wonderful-sounding stop-off in Venice on the way back home. It was great to see them all and to have a really good catch up. We had fessed up about the demise of the terrapin to Sue ahead of their arrival, and she had told Erik - who seemed happy enough with the replacement Terry/Terri, so that was a relief. In the end, a couple of drinks turned into an entire evening and sharing some dinner together - well, after three weeks away, we weren't going to let them escape that quickly!

Another benefit of the Phillips's visit was that Reggie got plenty of opportunity to gallivant around the garden in the cool(er) evening air while we all sat outside, and he even got some play time with Henry and Erik - so by the time we put him to bed, he was well and truly pooped and if he'd had a pillow I think he would have been asleep before his head hit it.

Yesterday it was Stuart's turn to take Reggie for a walk, although by the time they headed out it was mid-morning and already hotting up. We wanted to make sure he had a good walk yesterday as we knew we would be out in the evening, leaving him home alone - so the plan was for Stuart to take him down to the river in Pescia where he can run around off the lead and where there are plenty of opportunities for him to paddle and splash around in the shallow bits of the river to cool off. However, that plan fell through when Reggie refused to get in the car, so instead the pair of them walked up the road to Vellano again.

The rest of yesterday was taken up with work as usual for me, and for Stuart - his only non-working (as in working for someone else) day of the week this week - he headed out on errands to procure a new ball cock for our toilet (in an attempt to stop the cistern from constantly filling) and to collect our new mattress which was ready in Montecatini.

Before we knew it, though, it was time to prepare ourselves for going out and the animals for staying in, home alone. Many months ago, we spotted that Paolo Nutini was on the line-up for this year's Lucca Summer Music Festival, and Stuart's Mum and brother had kindly bought Stuart two tickets for his birthday. Stuart was kind enough to choose me to take with him, so we had a concert to get to! We'd discovered last week that David and Sarah also had tickets for the concert, so we'd arranged to go together and they were picking us up at 6pm.

We duly changed, fed the cats, made sure they were safely shut in the bedroom (in case Reggie were somehow to make it past the somewhat wobbly stair gate and up the stairs), and gave Reggie a juicy bone to get his teeth into before we escaped the house.

We had a really lovely evening. Once in Lucca, we first went to find the box office to collect David & Sarah's tickets, before decamping to the courtyard of a quiet restaurant down a side street and relaxing over some shared pizzas and beers. Before we knew it (the surroundings were lovely, the food delicious, but the service a little on the slow side), the time was marching on for 9pm so we made our way back to the small square where the concerts are held.

The evening's performance started with a set by the Alabama Shakes. We'd only discovered their music a few months ago (knowing that they were on the same bill as Paolo Nutini, we'd got their album - actually another birthday present, from my parents to Stuart this time - to see what they were all about), and loved it straight away. Seeing them perform live was amazing - the lead singer has the most incredible (and powerful) voice and the most engaging stage presence, it was just brilliant. We were all transfixed, and by the time  the Alabama Shakes came to the end of their set, we agreed that Paolo Nutini actually had rather a lot to live up to!

There was a short wait while the stage was prepared for the main act, but before long the crowd were cheering and, bam, there was Paolo Nutini singing live on stage in front of us and maybe only about 3,000 other people! His concert was every bit as brilliant as we had expected, and what a treat to see and listen to such fantastic performances in the intimate venue of the Napoleon Square in Lucca, bats swooping overhead, gelato shops open around the perimeter and a wonderful happy atmosphere. Even at 11pm the temperature hadn't dropped below 30+C, which certainly made standing for 3+ hours something of a challenge, but for the ladies in the crowd the plus-side of this was that Paolo Nutini decided to strip off his shirt and perform in a vest. Can't say I blame him - as I slowly melted in the heat, I questioned my decision to wear a pair of linen trousers rather than sticking with shorts.

I really can't recommend the Lucca Music Festival highly enough - other acts that have been on this year or who are coming in the next week or two include: Bob Dylan, John Legend, Los Lobos, The Script, Billy Idol, Elton John, Lauryn Hill, Mark Knopfler, Robbie Williams, Lenny Kravitz and Snoop Dog (yes, Snoop Dog). All really big names who must be more accustomed to playing to tens of thousands of people in the huge stadiums around the world rather than the 3,000 or so in this lovely little square in this beautiful Tuscan city. It seems that the square is open to everyone throughout the afternoon of each concert, and if you time it right, you can be there to listen to the sound checks for each artist (indeed, when we arrived to go to the box office, the Alabama Shakes were just finishing up their sound check), and non-ticket holders only get asked to leave a little ahead of the time of the gates opening. Even during the concert itself, there were plenty of bars and restaurants on the perimeter of the square that were packed with people enjoying a meal with live entertainment. It certainly made us (well, me) consider going back in over the next few days to catch a bit of Elton, Robbie or Lenny from afar!

By the time Paolo had finished his 3rd(?) encore and left the stage for good, it was past midnight, so we hot-footed (literally, we were all roasting) it back to the car. None of this queuing to get out of a performance venue that you'd get in any of the huge stadiums, we were straight out and back to the car and on our way within 10 minutes. By the time David and Sarah dropped us off it was getting towards 1am. Poor David and Stuart were due to report for work in Vellano at 7am this morning, so it was a quick goodbye and thank you to them for a lovely evening and for driving us, before turning in for bed. Definitely an evening to remember.


===Goose news====
(As requested by Rose H, but others might also be wondering):
The news on the geese is that, well, there isn't really any news. Mrs G seems happy enough to get up, stretch her legs, have a splash about in the pool, a bite to eat and a drink of her own accord these days, so we have largely left them to their own devices. We do go up every day(ish) to check the nest, but so far the eggs are still eggs, no sign of the patter of tiny feet. Of course, it could well be that the eggs are all duds and there won't be any tiny feet, but we're continuing to monitor the situation for the time being.

How much sun is too much?

Summer has definitely arrived here now, it's like it had been waiting for the solstice to arrive and when it did it burst into full-on summer, and we're melting! It's been way above thirty for more days than I can remember now and these last few days it's been like an oven pre-heating to full: the last couple of days we've been hovering around 40 degrees, lovely of course, but not too conducive to hard work.

Despite the searing temperatures we had a busy day lined up on Saturday and our guests Paddy and Catherine were leaving us after two weeks, promising to return at some point having had such a wonderful time. Once again, they were exemplary guests and we consider ourselves lucky to have met so many lovely people over these last 13 months.

So while they were busy packing downstairs, Helen, Reggie and I headed out for an early walk in the (slightly) cooler weather. Reggie is really finding this heat hard work and just barking at deer brings him out into a full-on pant so we planned an early walk instead of an early supermarket shop today and we were parking up in Sorana by 8.30am - what a morning it was, warming up but very pleasant and not a soul around.

We headed up through the centre of the village and took a path out the back of it which eventually winds up along a quiet road in dappled shade for countless switch-backs until we reached a point sufficiently far enough to turn back for the car before that got so hot it resembled a greenhouse.

We drove back down to the Forfora valley floor and stopped immediately at Sandrino's café - we'd noticed on the way up to Sorana that this café just a stone's throw from Sandrino's restaurant was open for business - it must surely be a seasonal thing as we've so often seen in closed, so we decided to stop for a quick coffee as it's a lovely quiet spot where we could leave the car in the shade and with all the doors and windows open.

A quick cappuccino each later, we hopped back into the car just as a group of a dozen or so riders on expensive-looking road bikes were turning up for refreshments of their own.

It wasn't long before we were back home and the house was already feeling cooler than the outside. It still wasn't yet 10am, so we hastily decided to head down to the veg terraces and do some weeding - which for Helen quickly turned into finishing off the second flight of tyre steps (a job she was convinced was no harder in the heat of the sun than the weeding despite it involving digging with a shovel!).

About an hour later, Paddy and Catherine called down to us having ventured into Reggie territory to to announce they were off so we came up to wish them a safe drive home and to thank them for being such great guests before waving them along the driveway.

After a little more work down in the veg garden we called time to stop for lunch. We almost resorted to eating lunch indoors such was the heat outside, EVEN under the umbrella.

After lunch and with our energy and enthusiasm thoroughly drained we procrastinated over what had to be done before our next guests arrived tomorrow lunchtime and eventually mustered up the motivation to face the supermarkets knowing that Saturday lunchtime is by far the quietest time to be in them around here as the Italians are all busy eating lunch.

True to form they were blissfully quiet, and we sped around both Lidl and Esselunga before heading back up to the house to unload and unpack.

*Quick change of writer (Stuart ran out of time)*

Next on our to-do list was to head out once again - this time we were heading in the direction of Montecatini. Our first stop was Obi. I (Helen) don't have a good relationship with Obi - almost the second we've walked through the door I think Stuart can see my face glaze over and I'm counting down the seconds until we can leave again. Today was different though. The bliss of stepping into an air-conditioned shop had us both wondering whether they would let us set up camp and sleep here overnight. Anyway, Stuart wanted to try and buy a compost bin to put down on the lower (veg) terraces - having spent some of Friday pulling out the peas and broad bean plants (not to mention all the weeding), he figured it would be a good idea to have a small compost bin down there rather than lugging things up to our main compost station or simply throwing it down the hill. We were sure we'd seen compost bins in Obi before, but on this occasion they eluded us. We ended up leaving having purchased nothing but a bottle of water and two cans of cold, cold Fanta from the vending machine in the lobby of the shop.

Next we drove to a small complex of shops on the outskirts of town to visit the pet shop 'Island of treasures'. To cut a long story short, we had been entrusted with the care of the Phillipses terrapin while they were away on holiday and just 4 short days after they left, said terrapin had shuffled off this mortal coil. We needed to get a replacement but had put it off for as long as possible so as not to have the same thing happen again (I don't think it was anything we had done/not done). However, with their 3-week holiday quickly coming to an end, we needed to take action and we knew we'd seen a sign in the window of the pet shop saying that they sold aquatic animals.

We pulled up to find the shop looking most dark and unpromising and were bracing ourselves for our second wasted journey of the afternoon, but on leaping out of the car to read the notice on the door, I reported back that it was merely shut for lunch and would be open again at 4pm - in half an hour. After killing a bit of time wandering around the enormous Superdrug-but-nicer style shop next door, we decided to get a drink somewhere. The enoteca on the same complex as the pet shop proved to be closed, so we got in the car and drove down the road. Every single bar or coffee shop we passed was closed. We thought we'd entered some sort of bizarre twilight zone where you couldn't get a drink or a sandwich anywhere ... because it was lunchtime. Anyway, by the time we'd given up looking, it was almost 4pm so we went back to the pet shop.

We headed straight to the aquatic section at the back of the shop (after picking up a few more ham bones for Reggie, that is) and found a tank containing 4 lively looking terrapins. We managed to grab the attention of a sales assistant who was only too pleased to come and help us. Unfortunately, each of the terrapins in the tank appeared to be female - there wasn't much we could do about that though, and would just have to hope that Erik would be OK with Terry v2 actually being a Terri. The lady bagged Terri v2 up , we paid and then headed home with me holding the bag trying not to let Terri2 get too seasick along the way.

After thoroughly cleaning out the tank, Terri2 was introduced to her new home - and promptly went and hid under the nearest stone. We decided to leave her to get used to her new surroundings while we went down to the apartment to start our cleaning and turnaround process.

A good 2 hours of dusting, vacuuming, bathroom cleaning, linen changing, appliance checking and floor mopping later, we collapsed on the terrace for a well earned glass of wine. By this time the sun had gone off the patio and the temperature had cooled to a much more pleasant 28C, so we sat and took in our surroundings for a while before it was time to wash up, cook dinner, water the plants and check on the geese.

For those interested in the Heath-Robinson-style cardboard shutters: we still haven't been able to get the bedroom below 27-28C. I'm sure they still do some good though - cutting out the sunlight can only be helpful on days like these.


SUN-day.
Yes, Sunday really lived up to its name and it was yet another scorcher. I was out of bed at 8am and dragging the lawn mower from its station under the canopy to the lawn. After a good 45 minutes or so mowing the lawn, I went indoors to fetch the strimmer to neaten up the edges of the lawns. I didn't get very far though, before the cord snapped and I needed to resort to asking Stuart for help. By this time he was just getting up and dressed, and not only did he fix the cord but he finished the strimming job while I did a bit of weeding and dead-heading of the plants in the guest area.

With our gardening duties the final task to tick off the list for getting the apartment ready for our next guests, we were free to sit down to a late breakfast and ponder what to do with the rest of the morning. We decided to go and check on the Phillipses chickens - but since it was nearing 11am by now, the weather had really started heating up, so instead of taking Reggie with us for a walk, we left him at the house and dashed into Pescia to check on the chickens before coming home again.

It wasn't long after lunch that we received a text message from our guests to say that they were about half an hour away, and true to their word, they were pulling up in the car park about 30 minutes later. We greeted them and showed them the apartment before leaving them to unpack and settle in. Meanwhile, on a hot, hot, Sunday what better to do than go and get an ice cream? We offered Reggie the opportunity, but he couldn't be swayed, he was just too hot to show the slightest enthusiasm in going for walkies even when we tried to tempt him with the promise of an ice cream. So once again we left him at home and headed into Pescia, where we each enjoyed a delicious ice cream at La Barachina before coming back home to rescue Reggie.

We had invited our guests up for a drink with us in the evening, so in preparation for that, we made a bowl of three-bean dip with some carrot sticks and cucumber sticks all fresh from the garden. While we were at it, we also made an enormous bowl of carrot and beetroot quinoa salad for our dinner and even some egg mayo sandwiches for Stuart's lunch tomorrow. Talk about getting ahead of the game!

Come 5pm, we decided to try Reggie with a walk one more time - he hadn't been for a walk since Saturday morning and despite being so hot he was also being quite barky so we felt he might need to expend some energy. It was a little less hot by now, and we decided we would head up the road to the cava footpath where it's shady and always a degree or two cooler. This time we eventually managed to get Reggie to put his harness on, but he refused point blank to get into the car. He did a half-hearted hop into the back of the boot but it just seemed too much effort for him to make the final leap into his crate. We didn't want to push it with him, so instead started wandering slowly up the drive. We made it a little way along the road towards Vellano with him - he seemed happy enough once we got going, but we didn't want to overdo it, so turned back quite soon. He really does seem to have mastered the art of ignoring cars on the road - even when we were passed by several loud rally cars on their way back from an event that must have been taking place earlier in the day, he was unfazed.

Cool as a cucumber.

Our guests duly came up for a glass of wine at 6.30pm - which turned into a few glasses of wine and some quinoa salad. Once again, we seem to have landed some really lovely people as our guests and we had a thoroughly enjoyable evening finding out a bit about them and telling them our story. This is an aspect of hosting that we never imagined when we were planning our move here - I think we imagined that having people to stay in the apartment would be a bit strange, but that it was part of the plan and something we needed to do. What has really surprised us is that we both love having people to stay in the apartment. We really enjoy meeting and getting to know new people and it's also a nice feeling to know that there are people in the apartment, it's a little like having neighbours!

So that was a lovely way to round off a busy weekend, with another busy week ahead.

Melting...

I know, I know, where has the blog been for the last couple of days? If you're in the UK, you're probably hot and bothered and just waiting for the weather to break (or has it broken already?). It's the same here. Except hotter. We're already melting and the forecast doesn't dip below 33C for at least the next 10 days - we're expecting 38C tomorrow. Nice if you have a pool. Nice if you have air con. We have neither.

We have been dreaming up ways and means of attempting to keep cool though. (When I say 'keep cool' I mean 'minimise the heat' - there has been no 'cool' here for many days, and even in my dark and dingy office the temperature is hitting 27-28C. The idea of me having sat here at my computer in the winter wearing a woolly hat, scarf, fingerless mittens, a slanket, two pairs of socks and slippers, while clutching two hot water bottles, seems utterly ridiculous and I can hardly bare to think about it).

I think we last updated you on Tuesday. We didn't do much worthy of note on Wednesday - office work, terrace work, dog walking, chicken checking. Yesterday we had our friends David and Sarah over for lunch. We've known David and Sarah from something of a distance for a while now - they are very good friends of Alex and Donatella and moved over here last autumn. We have met them on several occasions now, and always enjoyed their company, but other than a coffee shared a few weeks ago, we'd never really had the opportunity to spend a significant period of time with them and get to know them well. I think that the tragedy that has befallen our little community has given us pause to think about a lot of things - and, as I've said here before, if there is anything remotely positive we can take from Alex's death then we're going to grab it with both hands. We'd been meaning to get together with David and Sarah anyway, but I think we now feel that it's even more important to connect with people and not let other things get in the way of forming and firming friendships - it's so easy for 'life' to get in the way of things here: you have so many great plans for doing this, that and the other, but then your car breaks, your internet breaks, your water breaks, you have to go into town to meet with the geometra, you have to spend a day strimming your terraces, you have to spend a day strimming someone else's terraces, etc. etc. and before you know it, you haven't done what you said you would do.

So anyway, we invited David and Sarah for lunch yesterday, they came, and we had a thoroughly enjoyable lunch and afternoon (and into early evening - I've no idea where the time went!). We were really pleased that we finally got around to having them over and spending some time with them, they are another set of like-minded people facing the same issues and challenges and with the same joys and frustrations. It's always good to get to know people with whom you share the same values, interests and outlook, not to mention people whose company you enjoy. We feel blessed with the close group of friends we have landed here.

For those who are interested, we feasted on quinoa salad made with tomatoes, salad ricotta (which is like feta), toasted pumpkin seeds, home-grown cucumber and home-grown mint; lentil ragu served as a dip, made with home-grown onions and home-grown courgettes; three-bean dip pimped with a jar of roasted peppers; carrot, raisin and chickpea salad and some of David and Sarah's amazing home-baked sour dough bread. We're told that the sour dough wasn't at its best, the starter-mixture dough having taken exception to the heat, but it tasted pretty good to us!

The heat was intense, but in the first of our trying-to-make-it-as-bearable-as-possible schemes, I had made sure that the garden umbrella went up long before the sun even hit the patio in the morning to at least make sure that the table wasn't hot enough to fry an egg on it (which is often the case when it has been in the sun), and Stuart hatched a plan to tie the corners of the umbrella canopy to the table - to avoid the wind blowing it off-course, in the process creating a rather fetching hot-air-balloon effect:

(You might notice here that the table is now in full sunshine, with the umbrella doing little to help - this photo was taken at around 5pm in the afternoon, but at lunchtime the umbrella was doing its job properly.)

Sarah and David left after a lovely afternoon at around 6pm - the time had just disappeared - by which point we were just too hot to contemplate doing anything more than flaking out on the sofa in the relative "cool" (around 27C) of the living room.

Yesterday was also a momentous day for our little Florence - for the second time in roughly a fortnight, she felt brave enough to go outside with her brother in the morning. However, unlike Lucca, who has adopted a habit of staying out for a couple of hours before asking to be let back in through the 'people' door at around lunch time, Florence was out all day.

Just like the last time she went out about 2 weeks ago (it's probably coming up to a couple of months since she was last in the habit of going out regularly, thanks to having been traumatised (and chased) by Barky Four-Paws), I had to go and search for her at the end of the day, and just like last time, she was hiding right in the thickest of thick undergrowth at the edge of the drive. I clambered up through all of it (collecting scratches and scrapes galore along the way) but failed to find her despite hearing her plaintive miaows. However, when about 20 minutes later I persuaded Stuart to come out with me to launch a two-pronged rescue mission. she came wandering out of the undergrowth of her own accord and we were able to usher her safely into the house while Barky Four-Paws was temporarily shut in the office.

Found her!

She seemed utterly exhausted after her day's adventure in the outside world and promptly flaked out on our bed with her brother similarly flaked out on the floor (apologies for the poor quality photo):

Just like last time, Florence has gone back to being on strike again today though – she has spent the day in the bottom of the wardrobe once again, curled up on a pile of clothes. We are wondering if going outside for a day is going to become a fortnightly ritual!

Today has been much the same as Wednesday - office work, weeding of vegetable beds and trying to cope with the heat. Reggie largely deals with the heat by staying indoors and lying on the relatively cool kitchen tiles, sometimes lying in wait next to the cat flap in the hopes that he might 'welcome' a feline into the house:

"If I wait here long enough..."

I tried feeding him chicken-flavoured ice cubes today as a treat to cool him down (we made a batch of chicken stock from the chicken we roasted at Easter, which we then froze in ice cube trays) - he seemed to enjoy them, but just gulped them down in the same way as he does with any food we give him, barely even chewing. In fact, he ate them so quickly that we wondered if he would have given himself an ice cream headache!

Stuart's next brainwave on the heat mitigation front was to fashion some temporary 'shutters' for our bedroom windows. Traditionally, most (all?) of the houses in this area had shutters at their windows. Indeed, our own house used to have shutters and still had some remaining when our predecessors first took possession of it. (Said shutters could still be found on the rubble pile outside the house when we first arrived.)

This was taken in 2007 (apparently the date on the photo is wrong...) when our predecessors first viewed the house.

The traditional secret to keeping cool in one of these old stone built houses is to close all of the windows first thing in the morning, keep the shutters closed all day, and then open the windows at night time to let the cooler air in. It seems to go against the grain to close the windows in the morning, but we've been doing this religiously, and it does really seem to help. A bit. Of course, our attempts to keep the rooms cool are somewhat thwarted by the fact that we have neither shutters nor curtains at any of our windows (we would love to reinstate the shutters one day - but that will likely involve yet more paperwork and permissions from the comune), and once the sun gets around and streams in, there is little we can do to stop the rooms heating up like an oven.

Stuart decided, therefore, to experiment with making some 'shutters' of our own. From cardboard. He duly measured the windows, cut some cardboard boxes up and used drawing pins to secure them at each of our upstairs windows:

The real test of the Heath Robinson shutters won't be until tomorrow, as Stuart didn't get around to doing this until after lunch, by which time the sun had already been beating into the bedroom for several hours. Nevertheless, when I went upstairs at around 5pm I found that the temperature in the bedroom was 28C - one degree lower than when Stuart had first gone up to install the 'shutters'. Things look promising!

Our current set of guests are due to leave tomorrow, and we have a new set arriving on Sunday, so most of the weekend will be spent getting the apartment ready and the outside area ship shape. Frustratingly, despite all the hot weather and lack of rain, the grass and weeds in and around the lawn have still grown long and ragged, so the lawn mower and strimmer will have to come out at some point tomorrow. With 38C forecast, we aren't relishing the thought. Maybe we'll just have to get up and do it in the middle of the night when it's cooler. Wish us luck!

Feeling hot, hot, hot.

I understand that there is a bit of a heatwave going on in the UK at the moment. Believe me, we feel your joy-mixed-with-discomfort. This (below) is our current 10-day forecast. As we said in the last post, some like it hot (and it seems we have even hotter yet to come)!

It was another work day here for both of us. I waved Stuart off to Lanciole again this morning, feeling worried about his well-being. He looked and sounded utterly shattered after having done a full day's strimming in the heat there yesterday, and to say he wasn't looking forward to going back for more would be an epic understatement. Nevertheless, he slumped off to the car this morning, fully kitted out in long jogging bottoms, gaiters and safety boots (as if it wasn't already hot enough).

Thankfully, he managed to get away from Lanciole part-way through the afternoon - but instead of relaxing when he got home, he went straight off to the goose enclosure to give it a much-needed strim before heading off to the woodpile with his chainsaw for yet more hard graft. By the time he threw the towel in, a towel was what he really did need - there wasn't an inch of him or any of his clothes that wasn't drenched in sweat.

After a cold shower (cold water was all that was available never mind the fact that he probably didn't want a hot shower anyway), he retired to the patio with a chilled beer, and not long afterwards I joined him before heading off for a mammoth watering-and-weeding session on the veg terraces - which in turn had me dripping in sweat!

Tonight, we will be feasting on a courgette & pancetta risotto made with home-grown courgettes and the first of our home-grown onions (planted by Mum and Dad back in March). Yum!

Courgettes and cucumbers.

One day's harvest.

Prosecco with cucumber and mint. Our new house cocktail.

Onions!

This little lady hasn't made much of an appearance lately, but she still appears from her hiding spot in the wardrobe for her dinner every evening and a cuddle before bedtime.

Some like it hot

We owe you a bit of a catch-up today, so here goes.

We didn't do much worthy of note on Friday, it was a work day in the office for me (punctuated with a lovely phone call from Allison at lunchtime), and Stuart did various chores around the place, including picking up another set of used tyres so that we can get on with completing the steps in the middle of the terraces and so that we can finally make a flight of steps for easy access to the lowest of the veg terraces, rather than having to scramble around the side through the ever-re-growing bramble and bracken.

At the end of the day we took Reggie out for a walk in the evening sunshine alongside the river in Pescia.

Saturday was a busy day.

We started the day with a trek around the supermarket. We went first to Lidl, but on driving around the car park and finding no spaces whatsoever, as well as some utterly crazy Italian parking that had pretty much blocked in the people in the real spaces, we decided we would head to Esselunga and do all our shopping in one hit. The reason for the more-crazy-than-usual parking situation was that a lot of the parking spaces in town were out of action today, as the town was preparing for 'Nottambula', a kind of festival that was due to take place in the evening. More on that later. Anyway, we dragged ourselves and our trolley around a very busy Esselunga (we hadn't managed to get out of the house until mid-morning, so we'd well and truly missed the quiet morning slot) and once we'd finished we headed to the Phillips house to do our two-daily check on the chickens. By the time we'd filled up their food and water containers, collected the eggs and driven back up the road it was nearing 12.30pm, so we ate lunch straight away, in the shade of the garden umbrella.

After lunch, it was well and truly too hot to give Reggie a walk, so that would have to wait until the early evening. Instead, Stuart and I donned our work clothes and headed out to the drive, hedge trimmers (his & hers) in hands.

The end of the driveway in particular has become very overgrown recently - in fact, you couldn't even see the house number properly - so we wanted to tackle that. It really needs strimming for a proper, neat finish, but it was so overgrown that it needed an initial trim with hedge cutters first. We therefore headed straight to the end of the drive and started cutting, gradually working our way back down towards the house. By the time we'd finished, the drive certainly looked a lot wider, with brambles and other vegetation cut back. It still needs going over with a strimmer to really tidy it up, but it's a good start.

With the temperature in the the 30sC, we were both drenched in sweat by the time we'd finished, so we each had a quick shower and changed before heading out with Reggie for the walk we'd promised him. We took him up to the cava track, and he had a good run around.

It was getting on for 6.30pm by the time we got back, so after feeding Reggie and the cats, and making sure they were all safely separated from each other, we headed straight back out again. Last year we missed Nottambula as we were otherwise engaged, so despite feeling like we could happily stay at home for a quiet evening, we were determined we would go and see what it was all about this time around.

Nottambula is Pescia's version of a Notte Bianca (literally white night) - a kind of festival in which all the shops, bars and restaurants stay open all night, with lots of special meals laid on, special deals in all the shops, lots of live music, stalls and entertainment.

Knowing that most of the usual parking spots were out of action, we headed straight to Chris and Sue's to park there, and then walked back into the main square. It was still quite early in the evening at this point, and a lot of things were still being set up, but we could tell from the enormous main stage in the square that things would be buzzing later on in the evening.

We decided to call in at Bar Pulter for an aperol spritz to try and get ourselves into the right mood. We'd never seen Bar Pulter so busy - there were 3 or 4 additional staff on, and still they were rushed off their feet. We sat there a while, enjoying watching the world go by at a hectic pace, before paying up and moving on.

We wandered through the streets - which by now were starting to get busy - and headed over the bridge towards the cathedral. It was just as we were approaching another stage outside the cathedral, which was just about to burst into life with a performance from some dancers, that we spotted a figure we recognised: Alex's Dad, Byron, had come down from his apartment to watch the goings on, so we went to say hello and keep him company for a while. Byron has been a jazz singer all his life, so he is no stranger to live performance and the three of us watched the performances on the stage, which varied from dancing to singing acts, while enjoying a glass of wine from the café. It was good to see Byron as we know he is alone for much of the time and we can't help but want to offer him some friendship. He seemed to appreciate the company even though we only stayed for a couple of drinks - we left with the promise that we will see him again soon.

By the time we left, darkness was falling and it had gone 9pm, so we hurried back to the car and back to the house to rescue Reggie and to cook a very late dinner.

After a late night (well, late for us, and certainly later than usual) last night, we were lucky enough to be allowed a lie-in by all of the animals. The cats pestered for their breakfast as usual at 6.30am, but once I'd sprinkled some biscuits into their bowls, they were happy enough to settle back down again, and it wasn't until 8.30am that they started stirring again.

Over breakfast on the patio, we decided to go and walk Reggie as soon as possible as the day was already feeling hot. We also decided to drive further up the valley than we usually do (partly for a change of scene but also as we thought it might be a degree or two cooler up there), and to try a walk that my Mum and Dad had done back in March (or at least part of the walk).

We parked up just outside Lanciole and set off along a forest path, following directions written by Mum and Dad. By and large, the directions were very accurate and we didn't get lost, but we did realise that walking around these parts in March is a very different experience from walking around these parts in June - and we wished we had brought a machete, or at the very least some secateurs!

We battled our way through the undergrowth and finally came out onto a tarmac road which we followed to Croce a Veglia before following the road all the way back to Lanciole (there was no way we were going to fight with the undergrowth again on the way back!).

Not only was the temperature scorching but it was the longest walk we have ever taken Reggie on - we kept stopping to offer him drinks of water and eventually worked out that he would only drink out of the travel bowl if we put it down on the floor for him - if we held it for him he simply wasn't interested (talk about high maintenance!). It was a beautiful walk, and we look forward to coming back again and going a bit further - but next time we will leave out the overgrown section and park on the road that leads to Croce a Veglia!

We didn't get back to the car until 12.30pm (what is it they say about mad dogs and Englishmen in the midday sun?!) so headed straight back home to get Reggie - and ourselves - indoors out of the heat.

After some lunch, we both felt exhausted and overheated and couldn't face doing any outdoor work. In the end we both fell asleep on the sofa for an hour (how old are we?!). After that mini-siesta, we decided to go into town again with the sole purpose of eating ice cream.

We parked up just outside La Barrachina, bought our ice creams and sat on a bench eating ice cream and watching the world go by - ducks swimming up the river, children splashing around, people walking dogs.

And so there you have it - a hot, hot day, but then hot days are a good excuse for an ice cream, so who are we to complain?