Two Blobs for the Price of One. First up: Organ stops, slugs, fires and murders, hospitals, family and a distinct lack of 2009 vintage

Juliet writes:

As Dame Shirley Bassey once sang: ‘Where do I begin?’ To which a rather smug Austrian nun disguised as Julie Andrews already knew the answer. I wont allude to any more cheesy songs, or go back that far in our adventures, but I’ll do my best to fill you in on the Tuscan grapevine.

If I remember rightly, last time I scribbled something down we were surrounded by packing boxes and traumatised cats. Ah, how little changes. In fairness, we have been exhausted. Totally stanco, distrutto and in pezze, as the locals say. So we’ve undertaken impressive amounts mooching about, eating cheese, watching films and half-heartedly cleaning the odd bit of stone or wood. I probably do us a disservice as I know that we haven’t really sat on our proverbials the whole time – it just feels like we are doing nothing compared to the frenetic pace of the last 18 months.

As I write, I have cotton buds jammed in my ears... not just the result of a nasty ear infection that has been bothering me for days, but also because – full trumpet fanfare and dancing girls with feathers and sparkly bits please – at last we have the plumbers in to install our radiators and there is much drilling/hammering (of previously smooth, lovely, painted walls, naturally). Although it’s still gloriously warm here in the sunshine during the day, the mornings and evenings in October onwards are decidedly crisp. Add to that the enormous holes/gaps in all our windows and doors and you have a very draughty cold house. Frankly, certain parts of my anatomy have been sticking out like organ stops for several weeks now. And I have become rather fed up with retiring to bed wearing thick pyjamas, two jumpers, long woolly socks, at least one cat and sometimes gloves and hat, while tightly grasping our impressive collection of hot water bottles (4) and trying to forget the cold by stringing them all together and pretending they are Matthew McFadden.

I digress. Anyway, I am delighted to report that – breaking news – the radiators are leaking cold water through our dining room ceiling on their first test. Hopefully by tonight we will have progressed to leaking hot water. That would be lovely.

Talking of water, we had another mild aqua crisis a few days ago. One morning I went to fill the morning coffee pot and something strangely brown came dribbling sorrowfully out of our lovely copper tap. Funny, I thought, must be local waterworks – it’s often brown-ish when it first comes back on again. So I made the espresso and life continued as normally as the Staveleys’ lives ever do for the rest of the day. We then watched the water supply slow to less than a few drips of gunk. Nevermind. It’ll be back on properly in the morning, she mused hopefully while brushing her teeth for the night. After a whole day of scooping water out of our dip pool for household use, P went to check on our neighbours supplies. All fine and watery there. Hmmmm. Our plumber Andrea was on holiday, of course. So we called up Gaia – the Italian equivalent of Thames Water, only a lot more complicated. Another day of pool water and sponge baths ensued, before a charming engineer arrived. After tinkering with the valves and pipes outside, he located the source of the problem with much glee. At which point it all goes a little blurry because my husband let out a soprano scream and I did a squeamish dance around the garden yelping in a shamefully girly way. If you are eating while reading this, I suggest you finish up or walk away from your plate now. The cause of the blockage was an enormous slug stuck in the valve, or more accurately by the time the engineer had finished, half a slug and lots of slimey bits of organ (do slugs even have organs?). Suffice to say, Peter and I had no dinner that evening and washed our teeth about 15 times. In bottled water.

As with everything in life, monumental cock-ups come in threes. Our internet has been playing further havoc, going AWOL more times than it’s been behaving. It is certainly a nuisance as far as trying to get anything productive done or make calls to our loved ones, but it has been nice in the evenings. We sit huddled by our almost working log fire (another story too boring to elaborate on) and think of ways to entertain ourselves... steady on, the filthy-minded among you! Some nights, it is board or card games. Sometimes just chatting about what we have done and what we still have to do. Sometimes we watch a film. But nicest of all is when my hubby – who has always had a velvety voice, sits and reads to me. Our book of the month is an old one of mine – The Fifty Most Amazing Crimes of The Last 100 Years, by Parrish & Crossland. As it’s antique, it covers the contemporary likes of Dr Crippen and Jack the Ripper with wonderfully entitled chapters such as The Green Bicycle Mystery and The Terrible Fate of Mrs Staunton. Oh, the stories of cads, swindlers, imposters, vagabonds and thieves. We are usually so engrossed in tales of treachery that we forget everything that is malfunctioning in our lives.

Which brings me – with a joyful liver and a tear in my eye – to the sorrowful Murder of The Tuscan Vineyard by Mr and Mrs P H Staveley. As you know, I spent several weeks in spring and some summer days fighting with the vines, hacking back the branches and tying it all up with wire, bits of string and prayers to Bacchus. Then, one is supposed to sit back and let nature take its course until the new leaves and baby grapes appear, when they need a good, regular drowning in organic copper sulphate to ward off all beasties. As we were somewhat distracted by kitchen unit assembly and haggling with builders, P didn’t get the chance to spray them more than once. So, two bugs later, our 2009 vintage consists of the finest Tuscan raisin juice. Still, at least we still have enough of the 08 to keep us dancing merrily until we can persuade someone local to help us clueless foreigners out next year.

Talking of clueless and foreign, my dear husband is now proud to claim he is on first name terms with the entire staff of Fivizzano Hospital. After getting a foreign body stuck in his thumb (probably a piece of splintered wood) that then turned septic, he has officially made it into double figures for hospital visits since our arrival 19 months ago. A quick slice of the knife helped no end, and best of all he promised the doctors something that I have been imploring him to do for over a year - to wear gardening gloves as soon as he steps outside.

Onto happier stuff, I feel. And family provided it in spades. The visit of P’s youngest son Ben and partner Di turned out to be the nicest 4 days we have spent for a long time. After a hellish journey getting here (10 feet off the runway at Pisa, diverted to Genoa and coach back to Pisa), they managed to unwind courtesy of a long and liquid dinner at Spino’s. As always, alcohol loosens people up and Peter and Ben had a heart-to-heart that was long overdue. This was promptly followed by lots of hugs, an amusing father-and-son duet on the bongos and far too much Phil Collins to be beneficial to anyone’s health. As a result, I think it’s fair to say that they are closer now than they have been in years and I am so happy for them both. And as I’ve known Ben since he was 11 and grew to love him fiercely, I have missed him tremendously these last few months, so I’m happy for me too! Di’s positive outlook, love, support and determination has turned Ben’s life around – they are very much in love despite 4 years of every type of challenge being thrown their way and we are so pleased and grateful that Ben has found someone so special. We spent a super few days doing the usual coast and city trips, although Lucca was particularly poignant for Di with her Italian grandmother, as her youngest son is named after the city. They are generous, fun, relaxed, enthusiastic, helpful and very easy company and we cannot wait for them to visit again xxx Even better, Di is a practical country girl, her eldest son is a landscape gardener, while Ben is skillful at everything from computers to painting, so we have an ulterior motive in getting them back here as soon as possible!

Extending the family visitations, P’s eldest (and wisest!) cousin Rosalyn and husband David happened to be holidaying nearby and popped to see us for a long lunch last week. It was a first for us to pick up guests from our local train station with no luggage! And what a lovely 4 hours we had together in the autumn sunshine, talking about family, life, love, opera, jewellery making (Rosalyn is a very talented silversmith) and alternative energy sources (David has written a paper on wave power). They are super company and we look forward to them returning for a longer visit, perhaps for the Puccini festival next year?

And on the subject of visits, I am hoping to return to Blighty to see my mum (long overdue) and catch up with friends next month. As many of you may have heard, the only snag (of course there is one, I’m Juliet Staveley!) is that my passport was nibbled by my friend’s puppy last time I returned and it’s no longer in an acceptable state. So, after realising that the Italian Consulate has stopped its passport services, followed by several long conversations with the UK Passport and Identity Service and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, I have established three things: (1) I could never be an international jet-setting spy (2) I always look like a criminal with a serious skin problem in passport photographs (3) the only ways I can get a replacement passport are to stuff lots of euros in an envelope addressed to Paris or do a dodgy postal application to the UK. I’ve opted for the latter, because I can only remember three words of French. And they are not printable.

Ciao per ora, cari amici XXXX

Oh, a quick wildlife report before we rush off to tend to a friend who had a bad car accident recently… P spotted a deer bounding in our garden yesterday afternoon, which was terribly exciting (although I fear it may have been frightened out of its natural territory by the hunting season – guns going off day and night here now!), our bats continue to do their nightly fly-past, we are being infested with pretty little bright green beetles who seem to think Villa dei Lecci is a great place to turn brown and die, and our semi-feral cats are a constant and alternating source of headache and amusement. In the chill of our radiator-free house, Stinky has curled up tight against me every night under the duvet (spoilt? Noooooo) and Weed sits on my lap by the fire as often as possible. Soppy, silly pair.

As to the global sensation '60th Birthday in Tuscany', read all about it below...

The world’s first two-week long birthday: a post-bash analysis

(TO SEE A SLIDESHOW OF THE BIG EVENT, PLEASE GO TO TOP OF THIS PAGE. CLICK ON IT FOR BIGGER PICS. OR COPY AND PASTE BELOW LINK)

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/peterstaveley/BIRTHDAYBASH#

Juliet writes:

As you may recall, it was a certain someone’s important birthday back in June when we had no loo or sanity and his official party in September marked our first big gathering at Lecci. I think that such a special marker deserves its own little (who am I kidding?) report.

Ten dear friends, for their sins, were coming all the way from Blighty to help celebrate P’s sexagenarianism. But first there was much to do before we could comfortably house this group of reprobates. Thank goodness that dear Peter and Dee Highton came a few days early and didn’t seem to mind enrolling in courses such as ‘Wardrobes of Mass Destruction’, ‘How to build an Italian electric fan with no instructions’ and ‘Just how many balloons can you blow up in one hour?’ After flapping mildly for several days, the main event was everything we had hoped for when we first talked about our Italian dream many years ago. A night under stars, candles and lanterns lighting up the table for 12 and listening to the sound of crickets, opera and each other for hours. The menu – gracefully executed by many obliging hands - was brushette with various fresh toppings, wild mushroom and saffron risotto, seabass with Mediterranean veg and rosemary potatoes and limoncello semifreddo with blueberries. Not forgetting the lashings of prosecco to wash it all down with plus a good slug of our 2008 vintage (after the nicer stuff had sufficiently furred up the tastebuds). I think the alcohol lent a light-hearted sense of danger and fun to the absence of proper lighting and only half an outdoor staircase, but others may disagree.

The present-opening ceremony was squeezed in between tripping up in the dark and the blind wine tasting (sorry Horstead!). The birthday boy was ever so lucky to receive lashings of fine champagne, some fabulous bongos from Charlie and Jen, many beautiful old books for our library collection, along with the poshest book mark we’ve ever seen and, also from the Billingtons, a gorgeous antique spirit level. It has pride of place on our not particularly level hall table. You are all very thoughtful, clever and generous… on behalf of hubby, grazie mille!

Over the weekend, we managed to relax and yet pack in quite a bit of stuff. To shake off the birthday dinner from the night before, some of us took part in a tennis tournament, organised by Rob and ably judged by anyone who got to the umpire’s chair first. Athletic ability ranged from Gina ‘The thrasher’ Billington down to Hopalong Staveley Minor (me), but we all seemed to enjoy ourselves and felt an ounce of smugness that we had burned enough calories to enjoy the evening meal. That was taken at our favourite mountain restaurant 20 mins away. The owner is rare among Italians in that he is quite the most miserable and grumpy dwarf you could meet, but the food is delicious, local, cheap and of the same proportions as a Tudor banquet. More importantly, the company was superb and I will always remember Rob’s spookily accurate Tommy Cooper impersonation, Highton’s surgical procedures with a knife and bread roll, El Reado’s memories of golfing holidays, Dee’s ventriloquist dummy act and a damp tablecloth from all the tears of laughter.

On Sunday, the Dirty Dozen pootled off to the seaside. Our dear friend Alessandro owns the most stunning restaurant at Vernazza in the Cinque Terre - literally carved into the cliff side with the glistening Med, curious seagulls and a smattering of sailing boats as a view, it seemed like the perfect spot for yet another birthday feast. When I booked I mentioned in passing that it was Peter’s birthday… not only did we get the front balcony all to ourselves but he also presented P with a cake decorated with 60, which he prompted turned upside-down to reveal my dear hubby’s true mental age!

Sadly, half the gang left on the Monday morning, but we were lucky to have the Billingtons and the Endacott/Watts stay on with us. Particular credit must go to Jen, who did a sterling job of continuing the celebrations despite a stinking cold and hacking cough. The latter pair and ourselves even squeezed in a quick trip to Florence, (been there, done that, seen the duomo, smelled the drains, let’s go).

After more goodbyes on the Thursday, we spent a day or two nursing livers and stomachs before shooting off to dine with another party pairing who had gone off to galavant in Lucca and the Cinque Terre for a few days. Room 5 (we met Penny and Peter in Sri Lanka but they will be forever known by their hotel room number) showed us round their fabulous little self catering apartment before escorting us off to a gorgeous lunch by the sea and a short but very, very steep walk. It’s super having other people play the tour guides for a change!

All in all, it ended up being nearly a fortnight of laughter and alcohol poisoning. Heaven.

We await my 40th with much anticipation :o)