Days 27-30 - We're Jammin'

On Saturday Janine took us into Bagni di Lucca and showed us around.  Apparently there is a nice restaurant that does starter, main, dessert, glass of wine and a coffee for only 10 euros, so we’re going to check that out next weekend.  Janine and Holly fly to England this evening, leaving us here with Sam, their oldest child. I was tasked with driving them to the train station in their little Fiat Panda.

Having never driving a left hand drive car before I was somewhat nervous.  I had a practice driving up the mountain road on the way back from town and I can’t say I was any less worried by the time we reached the house….12k of twists and turns, blind corners along roads that only just fit two cars along didn’t do much to calm my nerves! But I managed to get them there that evening in one piece so all’s well that ends well!

The next day we pottered about being lazy, did the supermarket shop and then went and picked figs from down the hill.  Another first….I then made jam! It was really good, unlike the giant turkey drumsticks we had for dinner which I managed to undercook. :-(

The last few days have been spent making headway with the shelves we had assured Janine we could build for her…we may have no experience at carpentry but we weren’t going to let an insignificant detail like that stand in our way.  Progress is slow however as we are basically having to do everything by hand, 45 minutes for example to saw through a roof beam just to make one bracket and we need 12 of them! Throw in some wrong size screws and a sander which doesn’t actually seem to sand and you’ll start to see the problems we’re having.

Today is Friday and we’ve been working an extra hour or so each day this week so that we can have tomorrow off as the weather is meant to get better again.  (The last few days have been really overcast.)  We’re planning on catching the train to Lucca and then sampling what are meant to be “The Best Pizzas in Italy” according to a journalist.

If it’s been raining the day before you get to look down on the clouds as they form lower in the valley and then gradually rise up the mountain. Nick took this picture from the roof the other day, and shortly after he was actually inside the clouds!