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.

Tick tock

Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock... that's the sound of the time counting down until our next apartment guests arrive - 20 days to be precise. It's nice to know that in 20 days' time the apartment will be pristine and looking more beautiful than ever before. In those 20 days, however, we have something of a mountain to climb.

The to-do list for the apartment alone now reads something like this:

• Fill and point in the beams
• Put kitchen cupboards back up
• Block up and plaster the tops of the walls
• Plasterboard, fill and sand the lower parts of the walls
• Re-point the section of stonework that will be exposed
• Clad a steel beam
• Fit new lights
• Re-make the shelves/repair damaged shelves
• Finish concreting in the gaps around the edge of the utility room 
• Put some sound-absorbent material down in the office to cut down noise from above
• Paint everywhere in the apartment
• Launder all soft furnishings
• Clean

On top of that we are trying to juggle getting our seedlings out into the veg beds before they all outgrow their pots in the polytunnel, sorting out the irrigation for the veg beds to keep the seedlings we've planted alive, trying to get the rain water collection system up and running before another dry summer, fighting the mile-a-minute grass to keep the terraces tidy, sorting out the roof of the tractor park before the something gets damaged by the weight of the rain pooling on top... and what seems like a million and one other pressing jobs. We seem very adept at adding tasks to our to-do list - for example, over the next 24 hours we need to build a new set of steps from the drive up to the section of terracing adjacent to the chicken enclosure. More on that later though.

The main theme of this week has been electrics. That and a lot of help from friends.

On Wednesday evening the state of our electrics was, well, a picture speaks a thousand words:

And this explains why we spent 27 hours from Wednesday evening through to Thursday without any electricity.

Stuart had originally decided to re-wire the somewhat crazy lighting system in the apartment (to give you some idea of how confusing it was, we have had some guests who, at the end of their week-long stay, have told us that they never managed to find the switch for the main light in the bedroom). This proved to be a little more tricky than he had at first envisaged, and while he was to-ing and fro-ing with circuit diagrams and scratching his head, he decided he might as well put in a new consumer unit as well, putting in separate units for the apartment and our part of the house. This makes a lot of sense as until now, the consumer unit for the whole building has been in our house, so if something tripped in the apartment, it had to be reset up here: not good if guests trip something when we’re not in! So, from deciding to put a new consumer unit in to realising that this was actually an even more complicated job than it seemed (which was already complicated enough) is how we ended up in the state shown in the picture above.

What do you do when you don't know a huge amount about electrics and you're in a fix? You call on the help of your electrician friend Paul, of course! Unfortunately, not only does Paul live in a different country, but this week he was also out of that country - working at an event in the Netherlands, in fact. Well, thank Crunchie for telephones and the internet (and in particular for being able to use data to access the internet on your mobile when your regular internet connection is down because you have no electricity). Through the magic of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, Paul and Stuart were able to exchange messages, and on receiving the SOS, Paul guided Stuart via countless messages through the whole process - enabling him to accomplish what he had set out to achieve and enabling us to restore electricity supply to the house. We owe you BIG TIME, Paul - there's a bottle of Prosecco or two with your name on them when you visit!

It's like Lego for grown-ups. Only with a greater element of danger.

Shiny and new. And connected.

There was also help from much geographically closer friends this week: as a group, David, Sarah, Donatella, Stuart and I have decided to start up our 'community days' again. Stuart and I were lucky enough to be first on the rota for a day's labour, so at 9am on Thursday morning it was all hands on deck. A few days previously, Stuart and I had perused our ever-growing, every-nagging, ever-stress-inducing to-do list and decided that the task we would ask for help with was clearing the area at the end of the driveway in preparation for the imminent arrival of 30+ bee hives.

As a team, therefore, the five of us spent 5 hours chopping, strimming, raking and burning, and by lunch time the two areas designated for bees - the 'dead deer head' clearing on one side of the drive and the flat area on the opposite side of the drive next to the gates - were looking beautifully clean and clear. We were really pleased with what we'd all achieved - it's definitely true that many hands make light work.

Donatella's dog, Ray, with the evidence of why we call it the 'dead deer head' clearing.

Given how pleased we were with the results of community day, it came as a blow when we realised on Friday that, with the way things look likely to pan out next week, we won't actually be able to use these two spots for the bee hives, and we need to find an alternative location. Unfortunately two things have come to fruition at the same time: the arrival of the bees (carefully planned to coincide with the blossoming of the acacia trees) and the long awaited start of much needed repair work on our drive. Angelo, the builder, has an excavator booked to arrive on Tuesday evening, with digging due to commence on Wednesday, followed by laying of new concrete, after which the drive must be a traffic-free zone for two days while the concrete dries. Clearly, the workmen don't want to be spending their day working up close to 30+ bee hives, so putting the bees in situ before the work starts is not an option. The problem with waiting until after the work has been done is that the acacia trees are already beginning to come into blossom, and a delay of another week is too long (the whole point of having the bees sited here is specifically so that they can collect acacia pollen).

Thankfully, it didn't take us too long to find another suitable spot for the bee hives: the area of terracing adjacent to the chicken enclosure, which we cleared in the autumn. The area is perfect for the hives, the only problem being access: there is none, other than scrambling up the bank, which clearly isn't going to be viable for installing 30+ bee hives. We explained the situation to Alain, who came to visit us on Saturday to assess the suitability of the new spot and approved. The problem now is that we need to create a set of steps from the drive to the terraces - and we need to do it in the next 24 hours as Alain needs to bring the bees either tomorrow or Tuesday as after that the drive will be out of action until the weekend!

Plan B for the bees.

As gutted as we are by the fact that we all spent so much time and effort clearing the area at the end of the drive, we can only look on the bright side and say that it wasn't for nothing. For a while we have been trying to find a suitable location for another wood storage area, so that we can stockpile and store wood a year ahead of needing it, and the newly cleared and cleaned up areas at the end of the drive will be perfect for this. So, while it's frustrating to feel as if we squandered all of our help from community day on a task that hadn't yet even made it to the bottom of our priority list (especially when we have so many other pressing tasks) and it's frustrating that we've also added a task to our urgent to-do list, all is not entirely lost.

Over the weekend, we have pushed hard on the jobs in the apartment, with Stuart tying up the electrics and starting to build up the walls, me staining the new beams, and in-filling the gaps between the beams and the ceiling with bits of broken tile and mortar (I had to question myself going to the rubble pile and bringing bits of rubble back into the apartment, but at that point I realised how fortunate it was that we had a ready-made pile of pieces of cotto to use for infill).

We've been flat out pretty much all weekend - with a short break for a visit from our friends Mara and Franco this afternoon for a quick catchup and a tour of our projects.

With 20 days to go and counting, we expect to be flat our for the foreseeable future. No matter how busy we are though, we can never fail to appreciate our beautiful surroundings, even when it's been raining and thundering for most of the day:

Sunshine, rain, clouds, mist, thunder.

Relaxation.. swiftly followed by frustration and anxiety! (What were we thinking?!)

This week started out with some relaxation in celebration of Stuart's birthday, but that was swiftly followed by frustration and anxiety about the tremendous amount of work there is to do and the number of urgent jobs on our to-do list. It comes as something of a disappointment that, almost two years in, we are still fire-fighting (in the figurative sense), with urgent jobs jostling up and down on our to-do list vying for our immediate attention! We also recognise the importance of allowing ourselves some down-time, time to rest, to enjoy our surroundings and look after ourselves - but that does become difficult when there's a nagging long list of chores on our mind.

We are hopeful (ha!) that by this time next year things will be more straightforward. The major complication and additional stress at the moment is the renovation of the apartment ceiling - a huge undertaking that shouldn't need to be done again for a very long time, and we don't think there can be (m)any more nasty surprises lurking around the place to try and trip us up. We have a deadline for the completion of the apartment ceiling as we have guests coming in just under 4 weeks' time. The idea of the apartment ever looking pristine and beautiful again is a fair stretch of the imagination at the moment, but we know that it will and that in fact it will be far more beautiful than ever before, with the traditional chestnut beams and cotto tiles exposed in the bedroom and even an exposed section of the original stone wall (which will have been repointed). Progress on the apartment has stalled a little this week though - it's frustrating how easily these things can be sent off-course - partly because we took Monday off to celebrate Stuart's birthday, partly because Stuart has recommenced some of his gardening work this week. Throw in a couple of Italian lessons and a tricky problem with trying to decipher and understand lighting circuit diagrams (we are now at the point where Stuart needs to sort out the electrics and lighting in the walls/ceiling of the apartment before we can move forward with any more of the restoration) and we have a week without progress! 

In an attempt to galvanise our efforts we have started both getting up a little earlier, and continuing to work outdoors until later in the evening so that we can attempt to fit more into the day. I have taken on the responsibility for strimming the terraces while Stuart concentrates on other tasks - at the moment the grass and everything else in between seems to grow before our very eyes, and strimming seems a little like painting the Forth Bridge. We're also becoming painfully aware that the more terraces we clear... the more strimming and maintenance there is to do. The terraces that we cleared over autumn/winter are already starting to be reclaimed by nature (bramble, bracken), so we need to take action quickly to put a stop to that!

Of course our seedlings have been thriving in the warmth of the polytunnel, to the point of some of them (mainly the beans and zucchini) almost outgrowing their pots, so we decided to dedicate the latter part of Saturday (after a morning dog walk, supermarket trip, trip to the garden centre, then a few hours strimming and puzzling over the electrics in the apartment) to digging some new beds for climbing beans and preparing some of the old beds for more things to be planted out. Once again we were frustrated by our slow progress - we knuckled down and spent the day grafting, yet by the end of the day we felt we had only underlined how much more work there is to do!

We were lucky enough to be given a car load (literally!) of plants this week: raspberries, a raspberry and blackberry hybrid, a grapevine, irises, sage, peonies, camellia, and several redcurrants. We were contacted by Claudia, our neighbour Mara's friend, who we had met last weekend when we went to see Mara and Franco and their bees. Claudia (a charming friendly German lady who has lived in Italy for over 20 years and lives just outside Pescia with her Italian husband and three delightful young girls) has a passion for plants and growing, but is slightly limited with space and wanted to pass some plants on to us in the hopes that we will be able to accommodate and nurture them. We were expecting to come away with a couple of raspberry plants and maybe one or two others but we literally came home with an entire car-ful of greenery. We had a bit of a panic over where to put everything (not having planned to fit all these things in) but eventually managed to get almost everything safely in the ground - so now we just hope that it all survives the transfer of homes and ownership.

We had a brief visit from our almost-next-door neighbours on Friday afternoon. We have met Valerio before, but this time he was accompanied by his wife - they had decided to take a stroll together and decided to come and visit. Of course Reggie did his best to try and drown out any conversation with barking, but our generous neighbours didn't seem to mind too much as they wandered round the garden admiring our view and plants.

It must have been the week for visitors as Stuart also met an old chap on our driveway. On asking if he could help him, the man shrugged and said no thanks... it seems he was on a hunt for mushrooms. However, Stuart engaged him in conversation and found out that he had grown up in the village - Stuart asked him if our house and land had always been as it is now, to which the man replied 'no!', telling him that it used to be a vineyard... Which is a bit of a turn-up for the books. Of course, this is only the story from one man and the conversation took place in stilted Italian, so we can't be 100% certain, but it's certainly very possible given that we have found vines growing on several of the terraces that we have cleared (both above and below the house) and that we have found a couple of large iron barrel hoops in the undergrowth - the sort that would have gone around large wine barrels.

We ended the week with a visit to the local agricultural school for its annual agricultural fete, 'Naturalitas'. We went to the same event last year with our friends the Phillipses and had a lovely time wandering around all the stalls, tasting the wine and buying plants (and willow baskets and soaps). This year, it seemed as if everyone we know in Italy was going to be at the fete and had asked us if we were going. We arranged to meet up with our neighbours, Mara and Franco, at the fete, and told everyone else that we would see them there - and indeed we did! We spent most of the time with Mara and Franco, but also ran into Claudia, Massimo and their girls, as well as Mara's friends Sylvia and Fabio who we'd met back in January and our 'actual' neighbours Valerio and Roseanna. We also spent some time with our friends Paul and Kathy from Castelvecchio, and David, Sarah and Donatella. To almost complete the set, we bumped into Sue and her friend just as we were leaving the fete. What a difference a year makes - when we went last year we had a lovely time wandering around with Chris and Sue (and we bumped into Donatella, Alex, David and Sarah, who we didn't know then quite as well as we do now) and marvelled at how many people they seemed to know and were awed by how many people they spoke to in Italian. This year, we once again came away with a warm fuzzy feeling, this time happy to know so many friendly faces and thrilled to have spent a large part of the afternoon conversing in Italian. Far from perfect Italian, of course, but it's an incredible feeling be able to laugh and share jokes with our neighbours and their friends in another language. They are, of course, very patient and forgiving of our mistakes, and it's only because we feel comfortable and relaxed in their company that we are able to do this (put me in front of the surly man in the post office and I will clam up, unable to recall a single word of Italian). We are hoping that Mara and Franco will be able to spare the time to come over to our house very soon so that we can show them some of what we are doing here and start to repay some of their kind hospitality. 

A birthday barbeque.

Pepper, courgette and grilled cheese bruschette.

Birthday beer.

Birthday boy.

This is how sweet chestnut trees begin their journey! Self seeding on our driveway.

Literally a car-ful of plants!

The camellia in its new home.

We hope to train the grape over the archway of the gate.

If you live in the UK... this was the day you had snow this week. Sorry.

20C already at 10am.

Spring is in full swing. Mid to high 20sC and terraces to strim.

The potatoes are thriving on the home-produced compost.

Beans planted out!

We never tire of this view.