Tag Archives: villa

Bugs and other thingies

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Something for our visitors to remember – Tuscany has bugs and crawlies. As well as endowing Tuscany with beautiful countryside and light that artists would die for, God also provided Tuscany with its fair share of things that crawl, fly, jump and hop.

Those of you who know Jean know she’s not great with things that crawl, fly, jump or hop. In fact it’s not unknown for her to do a funny little dance accompanied by a high pitched scream when some poor creature makes an appearance on the floor or stupidly flies in the door. And that was in relatively bug free New Zealand.

Here things are much more exciting. By category:

Flying things

Apart from the usual pesky flies, we have humming birds (which look like giant wasps) and hornets which actually are giant wasps and make a sound not unlike a weed-eater when they approach the cottage. We have mosquitoess (only starting to appear) and sandflies (not dangerous to humans but they can carry some nasty dog diseases) and numerous other things that flit past the cottage each day.

Crawling things

This is a big category. We have millipedes and centipedes and the odd earwig. We have spiders of all shapes and sizes although Jean’s jandal is doing an excellent job of keeping the local population under control.

Two Geckos meet on our terrace.

Geckos are everywhere at present and find the brick terrace ideal for sunning themselves. We have one particular gecko which seems to spend the most time sunning himself on our terrace and who seems to call our place home. He has lost half his tail and defends our front door heroically from any other geckos that dare to show up.

There is another class of crawling thing which we’ll call “don’t know what it is but crickey it runs fast” and there are a lot of these.

A passing Gecko poses for a photo.

We haven’t seen any scorpions yet but it’s early days.

Jumping things

We have a resident cottage frog which traverses the verandah each evening going from somewhere to somewhere else. Although he is classed under “jumping things” he seems to spend most of his time walking.

Hopping things

To be honest we haven’t spotted any hopping things as yet but I’m sure they are out there.

Fighting back

Never let it be said we are quitters. We have armed ourselves with the latest in bug protection to fight back. We have a bug zapper for the verandah, mosquito deterrents for inside and out, magic stickers for the windows that kill flies, an old fashioned fly swap and, of course, Jean’s deadly jandal.

Bring it on I say.

Ten minutes down the road

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Having explored as far afield as Radda in Chianti north of Siena and Buonconvento in the south, yesterday we strayed closer to home in Monteroni D’Arbia. This small hamlet is only 10 minutes from the cottage and is the centre of our small district.

We first visited on market day about 3 weeks ago when the main shopping area was filled with stalls selling everything from clothes to meat to household appliances. Every day of the week there is a market in another local town and, rather than them just being a tourist attraction, they are an important part of local life both economically and socially.

We attracted quite a bit of attention walking around, possibly because of our inherent elegance, but more likely because we had the girls with us. Daisy will, as you know gentle reader, take on any dog she sees be it Doberman or Chihuahua so our walk through the market involved a ballet of side steps and distractions as we spotted any oncoming dogs.

Without the market Monteroni D’Arbia is still a delightful place to walk and browse the local shops. It’s not a picture postcard Tuscan village but rather a good honest working town. We stopped for a drink in the cafe on the main road and Jean shopped for plants and containers for our front verandah over the summer. Once again our mix of bad Italian, sign language and the good nature of the locals triumphed and we returned home with everything we wanted – including takeout pizza and beer for dinner.

All up, a good day.

Daisy is getting old

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Daisy had her 14th birthday in January.  This would make her about 85 in human years and like any elderly person she is slowing down.  Things that were easy for her a year ago are now a challenge.  A walk around the property in the evening wears her out, her back legs seem to have a mind of their own occasionally, and when she does the head to tail shake on the tiled floor often she ends up flat on her stomach with legs splayed.

Admirably she take all this in her stride and soldiers on.

She is still her cantankerous, independent, stubborn old self.  She dutifully protects the cottage from any potential intruders including Mrs Patrizia and Fabiana when they deliver our fresh laundry or simply call in for a chat.

Daisy sleeping

Lately Daisy has struggled to jump up onto the bed at night and will grudgingly accept a helping hand up when it’s offered.  If no help is forthcoming being Daisy she simply finds somewhere else to sleep – in this case on my neatly folded clothes on the shelf just inside the bedroom door.

What’s the travel accessory you should never leave home without?

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I used to think it was noise cancelling headphones.  But I was wrong.  Headphones might be good for the luxury traveller taking short jaunts to foreign climes but for us long term, hard core, down to earth travellers the perfect companion is a Leatherman Blast.

My "must have" travel accessory.

I was given the aforementioned tool for my 50th birthday – thank you Charmaine, Mike and James – and it has proved invaluable.  It can cut, screw, saw or slice pretty much anything.  Whether it’s mundane tasks like tightening a screw on a wobbly pot handle or more exotic uses like an ice pick to de-ice a dodgy fridge, it’s ideal.

Recently it was put to use erecting some temporary wire fencing around our terrace to give Daisy and Poppie some indoor/outdoor flow without the chance of them doing a runner.

Mission accomplished thanks largely to the Blast.

One warning, if you bring something like this on holiday don’t pack it in your hand luggage.  The 4 inch knife blade might be a bit tough to explain to those nice gentlemen from Homelands Security.

Poppie meets the new fence.

Wednesday Sunset

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Sunset from our cottage

Another of those no reason posts really – other than this was the sunset last night from the verandah of our cottage.

Our place.

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In the last post about our home for the next six months I may have given the impression that it is small – and it is.  But, at the end of the day, it’s what we were expecting.

Of course it only took a week for Jean to perform a “tardis” like transformation on the place.  Two furniture shifts later and with a little interior decoration our place now feels like – our place.

There’s a list of stuff we’ll get over the next few weeks ranging from decent wine glasses (those of you who have rented a villa previously will remember the thimble sized wine glasses that inevitably are found in the cupboard) to more coat hangers and various kitchen tools and, as mentioned previously, that barbecue.

As predicted, the weather has warmed up – 26 degrees today – the front verandah has become the major living area in the mornings and afternoons.  Maybe we need to get a bigger table out there – something else to add to the list.