So, Friday was pretty uneventful. The weather had turned overnight, which meant that Stuart's plan of going up to Lanciole for a day's gardening work went out of the window and instead he spent the day in the apartment, continuing his work of plaster boarding around the bottom of the wall in the bedroom in readiness for plastering and painting next week. I, meanwhile, put in a solid day's work in front of the computer, and at the end of it all we took Reggie out for a soggy walk along the riverbank in Pescia before paying our weekly visits to the two supermarkets.
Saturday also started out damp and drizzly - after doing the rounds of the animals and the cold frames, I spent 40 minutes or so flinging kettlebells around in the damp before giving in and joining Stuart for a bowl of porridge for breakfast. The morning did bring a surprise of a more positive kind though: over the last week, we had come to the conclusion that Mrs Goose had stopped laying - but much to my amazement, when I half-heartedly opened up the nest-end of the goose house to have a cursory glance at what I knew would be an empty pile of straw, there, buried deep beneath the straw, was another egg, six days since she last laid!
After breakfast, we loaded Reggie and his lead into the car and headed out. Our first stop was Montecatini. Picking up a fresh tank of methane on the way, we arrived at the ipercoop shopping centre and headed straight to the café for a quick cup of coffee - my long anticipated cappuccino ginseng, which, yes, was worth the wait! We then headed to Decathlon. Over the last couple of months, my lovely, pretty pair of wellies (a Christmas/birthday gift from my sister a few years back, which feature in the photographs above) have rather rapidly started to spring leaks. At first, I blamed the poor dog, thinking he had been chewing them, but then I realised that was a little unfair (if not inconceivable) as I realised how much walking around in long brambles I had been doing in them - those dastardly brambles!!! In fact, I think it was probably a combination of the brambles and simple old age and over-use (they were very rarely used in the UK, but since arriving here have barely been off my feet). Anyway, over the last few days the leaks in the boots have reached the point at which I have started to get wet feet - not an ideal situation. Therefore we were going to see what Decathlon had to offer in the wellington boot department.
After trying 5 or 6 pairs of wellies, ranging in price from €20 to €60, I finally decided on a pair and we left the shop with the wellies and two new pairs of summer shorts. The wellies are functional - which I admit is what you really need in a wellington boot - but I will miss pulling on my pretty flowery ones every time I traipse out into the wet garden.
By the time we'd finished all of our shopping, time was ticking on - it was 12.30pm and Reggie hadn't yet had his walk. We therefore decided to leave Obi for another day (there were a few bits and pieces Stuart needed for his work in the apartment) and instead headed back through Pescia and up the valley to the refuge track.
We had a nice walk along the refuge track - the rain had pretty much dried up by this time - but with our stomachs rumbling, we didn't hang about. By the time we got home it was nearing 2pm, so we sat down to lunch straight away.
Just after we had finished lunching, we had a call from Sue - we had been planning to meet up with Sue, Chris and the boys at 'Naturalitas', a fete/exhibition/fair at the local agricultural school in Pescia, and Sue was calling to make arrangements. After putting the phone down, we got ourselves ready, gave Reggie a bone to keep him occupied for the afternoon, and headed back into Pescia.
We parked the car at the end of Chris and Sue's road and walked to the school from there. By this time, not only had the rain dried up but it was also starting to feel quite warm (and I was beginning to wish I hadn't brought a coat and a jumper!).
The school - which the Phillips's eldest son, Henry, attends - is effectively what would be known as an upper school in the UK, taking children from the age of 14, but it specialises in teaching agriculture. The school occupies a very grand building set on the hillside on the outskirts of Pescia with the most stunning vistas. We marvelled at what is must be like to go to school every day (indeed it's 6 days a week here in Italy) somewhere so beautiful, but we're fairly sure that, as teenagers (and teenagers used to living with views like this all around them, at that), the kids probably don't appreciate it as much as we oldies do!
By the time we started wandering around, the sun had broken through at it turned out to be a really warm afternoon - never mind wishing I hadn't brought a coat, we wished we'd put shorts on! It wasn't long before we found the Phillipses and spent a lovely afternoon wandering slowly around looking at plants, chickens, hand-made soaps, wine produced from the grapes grown at the school (needless to say, we sampled a few glasses of that), bee hives, agricultural machinery, and so on.
We bumped into Donatella, Alex, David and Sarah on several occasions, who were also doing the rounds of the show, and Sue and I bumped into our Italian teacher, Rita, Stuart had a chat with his friend from the agricultural machinery shop in Chiesina, and everywhere there were happy, smiling faces. It was a lovely atmosphere, very relaxed and laid back and with lots of things for us to look at.
We stayed there until 7.30pm, winding the day up with a lovely hour sitting on the school steps with Chris and Sue doing what the four of us do best: sipping wine, chatting, enjoying each other's company and enjoying our surroundings.
When Stuart and I finally left to walk back to the car, it was with: a hand-woven willow and olive basket, two bottles of wine made by the school, three bars of hand-made soap, a hand-made spoon rest, a caper plant, and a couple of enormous lemons given to us by two of the school's charming older students (aged 17-18), who had overheard us talking and wanted to practise their English and tell us about their hopes to travel to England and experience agricultural work in Britain.
We hurried back home to reassure Reggie that we hadn't abandoned him forever, to put the geese away, feed all the animals, close the cold frames (no need to water today after the morning's rain) and cook a simple dinner of half a soft-boiled goose egg plus a soft boiled chicken egg each (the Pepsi challenge!). After an hour of watching TV, we retired to bed at the end of a lovely day.
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