Fri 29 May - 'Pain is just a sensation leaving the body'

The Royal Wedding past us by.  Very weird to think of all the celebrations back home, gleaned from all the Twitter and Facebook posts, but life continued here as normal.   

We had such a good day.  A day of ticking off the boxes.  We were up super early.  Getting the hang of this crazy culture, we were actually at the shops before they opened.  We found KP's trail shoes, birthday presents for Sian, a telephone extension cable, computer printer, a couple of random CDs and all before 10am!  How cool is that?!  We even looked at vacuum cleaners and mini fridges and decided the expense wasn't worth it.  

We picked up a couple of marmalate cornetti's on the way home and we were back and having a belated breakfast, happy with the morning's booty, before the bells struck midday.

Enjoying a much needed dry day for once, I got the washing hung out and hit the field with wellies (to protect my legs from marauding snakes) and rake. KP followed close behind with the mower.  My snakes in the field suspicions were well and truly confirmed.  Yes, we have snakes, but also, yes, they are more afraid of us than we of them.  KP and his mower disturbed the biggest black snake ever, snoozing on yesterday's warm cut grass, but it scarpered.  Pronto.  

Our little helper

Determined to finish it today, I just raked and raked regardless of what might be lurking beneath the piled up grass.   My shoulders shrieked at me to stop and I had blisters on blisters, but I wouldn't stop.  Not a chance.  No way was I going back to this tomorrow.  I've had enough now.  I found myself chanting my old training mantra: "pain is just a sensation leaving your body", and all of a sudden it all made sense.  This is what I've been training for!  Not for racing, but for raking!  Of course.  Silly me, and I thought it was all for me to be an Ironman.  Doh.

Chill out zone

So I raked and KP mowed.  All afternoon.  But we did it!  At last.  Field cleared.  Sorted.  Done.  And KP rewarded himself by putting up the hammock and gloating as I cleared the last of the thankfully snake free piles of cut grass.  When done, we just couldn't stop looking at the finished product, the fruits of our labour.  In the words of Lilian Beckwith, it looked "bootiful just". 

"Bootiful just"

In just four weeks we have cleared the barns, stripped roofs and timbers of old tin, cleared a chicken run, cut an acre of knee high grass, decorated a bedroom, renovated a bathroom, made some good contacts, made good beginnings with the italian language and made many new friends.  And have had a shed load of fun doing it.  

Time to celebrate by soaking my work weary limbs in a deep hot bath.  Or, rather, six inches.  And that's being generous.  Shallow it may have been, but it was heaven. 

I got supper in the oven and we went into the village for our nightly Italian lesson in the bar, and weren't disappointed. 

Serramonacesca, from the newly cleared olive grove/camping spot