Month: November 2020

2020

The problem with much of the first two weeks of our stay this time, is that because we were working, we either didn’t do too much that was interesting, or I don’t remember it!

I remember a few things about today, though. Firstly, we woke to this:

What a beautiful sight it was. It meant we could work again without messing around with phone data. However, before we got back to the grindstone, we got up earlier and headed off to the CoOp supermarket to grab some stuff for lunches and dinners. We didn’t take photos of that, but we took a couple of snaps from our terrace.

We worked, and I decided to head out to La Sosta dei Priori just a short walk away from the apartment (the stairs notwithstanding).

Once work was completed, we decided to have our first walk about town. I had purchased Sandmarc lenses for my iPhone 11 Pro, and wanted to try them out. Turns out I didn’t as the standard lenses on that phone were great – the wide lens being particilarly useful. I think I tried tagging on a 2x onto the iPhone’s 2x to give me a go at a 4x zoomed shot. Here’s a bunch of photos!

I haven’t a badgers what we had for dinner, and what else we did that evening – sorry! Later days will bring back more, less work-related, memories!

First full day – 23/08/2020

Payday!

Not that we were thinking too much about that. I got up and went to the local minimarket, to see that it had been bought out by Carrefour and renamed La Bottega. We needed to get something small for brekkie. I masked-up and wandered in, and the lady at the till recognised me immediately, and despite her also wearing a mask I knew she was grinning back at me. It had been 10 months since she saw me last.

“Bentornato!” she cried (“Welcome back!”), and it was another vindication of us having chosen the right town in which to buy a property.

We had breakfast and logged on to work. As we were parked all the way down in the free carpark, we wanted to ensure that we paid our stamps to be able to use the residents carparks. The estate agents also offer property upkeep facilities, and have always been very generous with their time in assisting some of our more tricky translation needs. They weren’t open ’til 10:00 (which is pretty much the opening time of many shops in Volterra), so when that time came, we had to break away from work for a short while to meet her. We went to the tabacchi (tabbaconists/newsagents), followed by the municipal police station on Piazza dei Priori, with Alice (the rep from the estate agents) in tow.

A couple of snaps on the way:

We spent about 20 minutes at the station, and then were walking out, when the nice policeman called out to us to pay the fee! All 3 of us, embarrassed, walked back in, and in fairness the dude behind the counter had a good laugh with us.

We walked back home, and sat at our respective laptops, and…. nothing. What had happened? There was no wireless signal. We tried our phones, and the TV – but nothing. I could feel my stress rise, as one of the chief things we set out to do was prove that we could work in Volterra (or anywhere with secure wifi, dammit!). But no – the internet was down. We rebooted the router, did a factory restore – no joy. We checked the bank to see if our bills had been paid – they were (they weren’t last year, until we set up a debit!).

The problem with stress for me is that it hugely exacerbates anxiety, and it was such a disappointment after a cracking start to the day. But there it was – our internet was down. We attempted to use our phones’ data, and had some success with that, so we did actually get some work done – but slowly.

We had lunch – I honestly can’t remember what – I was too stressed, anxious and tired. We continued on as best we could in the afternoon, but then we had to face facts and had to ring Alice again to see if she could arrange a repair for us. She wasn’t there. As it happens, she had gone to the agent’s office in Lajatico, as the internet was down. Not just in all Volterra, but even as far away as Pomerance (about 12km as the crow flies)… a disaster. There were no updates as to when it might be back up either.

We finished up work, and later went out to La Taverna della Terra di Mezzo for an evening meal. Due to both my mental state and my stomach acting up, I could only have 1 course – one of my favourite meals to have anywhere in Volterra: Zuppa Volterrana – it’s my favourite way to get my veggies! Terra di Mezzo do it best, and this season they were serving it freddo (cold) – well sort of at room temperature. It’s still the best there, but I found it hard to show my enthusiasm for poor Robbi (the owner), and I had to forgo my usual red wine – a recurring theme most of the time I was in Italy, sadly, thanks to gastritis.

We left, and to try to bolster my spirits, I took some snaps and grabbed a carton of gelato for L’Isola del Gusto.

The gelato, as always, was yummy, and to make matters slightly better, we found the internet had come back. It was a good 12 hours out – God knows how much business was lost as a result of a widespread outage of that length.

Anyway, I went to bed a little happier than I’d been an hour previously!

Flying out to Italy – 22/07/2020

Two things were bothering me about the trip:

We were facing issues travelling to Italy during Covid; and
Spending hours on end in a mask, whilst cooped up in an airport and in an aircraft with anxiety had me dreading the day – and going through security and temperature checks at both ends.

Well, the gods smiled on us, thankfully, as Italy at the time had just been announed to be on Ireland’s green list for travel (a far cry from the way things are over here and there currently, sadly). Secondly, I woke up feeling few symptoms! I worked a half-day, and then we drove to the airport.

I’ve never seen anything like the airport. It was downright spooky.

There was nobody around. Or almost nobody. The departures schedule on display took up one-and-a-half screens for the entire day. It was mad.

Anyway, our temperature wasn’t checked at Dublin, and we breezed through security. We grabbed something to eat, and hunkered down and waited for the flight. I wasn’t too bothered by my symptoms at all, thank goodness.

We got on the plane and waited. And waited… and waited some more. The aircraft wasn’t budging. Eventually, maybe the guts of an hour later, a member of Dublin’s Fire Brigade enters, wearing full PPE gear. Amazingly, a passenger down the back of the craft burst stitches he had, and had to be re-sewn up. Jesus!

The flight was smooth, and two-and-a-half hours later we floated a landing down into Pisa. Fabulous. In addition, we had no problems with the temperature check, and we were able to grab our baggage really quickly too.

We went to Sixt to rent our car (can’t recommend them highly enough – few hidden costs, good service and selection of cars), and drove to Volterra.

We had work the next day (work laptops enable us to work remotely), and so were mindful of the fact that we were in Volterra a bit after 23:00. Our bags rattled along the paved street, and turning towards Via Gramsci, I spotted Georgina (I apologise if that’s not your name!), and she spotted us while sweeping outside L’Isola del Gusto (best gelato in town – one of the best in Tuscany) and we waved at each other happily!

Trudging up the 76 steps proved not too difficult, as for weeks I had been climbing up and down our own stairs in the mornings before work as exercise. We set our laptops up to use wireless and then went to bed!

I Spent 4 weeks in Volterra in Summer – with Anxiety

The blog temporarily recommences!

Yes, back in late July 2020, Niamh and I spent 4 weeks over in Volterra; 2 of them working, 2 of them playing. However, this time I was not quite myself.

In very late April, I noticed a little diaphragm pain after a walk, but didn’t really think anything of it. Early Friday morning of that week, I woke with a burning sensation in my chest. It was alarming, but I shook it off after an hour or so and went back to sleep. It came back with a vengeance on Sunday night, along with tingling arms, sweats etc. It was the May bank holiday weekend, so my doctor was off on Monday. The symptoms stayed with me through Monday and Tuesday, so I called the doctor then and she agreed that I go for Covid testing at Tallaght stadium. I went next day, and got tested (well, that was weird!) – that day the symptoms had lessened, so I felt mostly ok. Then they came and went every second day, more or less. The problem with this was, when I was bad (sweats, tiredness, breathing issues had come too, limb and chest pain, general malaise, weakness in the legs) you couldn’t remember it every being good again, and when you were good you thought you’d shaken it off and wondered if it was really as bad as I remembered. Then it came back, and depressed you into the bargain.

Anyway, the results came back, and they were negative – the doctor proudly declared and was ready to hang-up. “Hang on,” I said. “Then what the hell is wrong with me?” She said maybe a chest infection, and asked me what I thought. I am no medical professional, so I went ahead with it. I was given weak anti-biotics and was told to phone if the symptoms worsened. I had just been treated for a chest infection a couple of months ago, and was for the first time in living memory on antibiotics, I thought myself hugely unlucky, as I feared I also had gastritis, and was supposed to get a breath test – but that was cancelled due to the emergency.

A week later, the symptoms came and went wreaking havoc with my nerves, so I called the GP again. Was put on to another doctor in the practice. He said that I should go to a Covid assessment centre. I’d never heard of these. Their existence seems to be kept quiet. Anyway, they were off on the edge of Naas, and a couple of PPE’d up doctors there give you a brief medical, take your very recent medical history and (without re-testing you), put their finger in the air and say whether or not they think you have Covid. Several crucial things happened here. In fairness to these doctors, they were probably on edge, and have to put up with potentially diseased people who could end them and/or their families – fair play to them for sticking their necks out.

1) I told them that I was an anxious person at times, but wasn’t clinically diagnosed; they gave me platitudes
2) I attempted to give them a medical history going back 6 months (chest infection, imagined heart issues, possible gastritis), but was cut across and asked about more immediate problems
3) They thought I actually had Covid, gave me a leaflet, asked me to isolate and sent me on my way

This was head-wrecking – why weren’t they testing people there? I went home an isolated and talked to a lady I knew who was getting over symptoms, who agreed that I had it. Again a week passed, and the symptoms came and (occasionally) went. Towards the end of another week, the symptoms still weren’t going away (after the purported 3 weeks), and I felt that my chest and heart were beginning to labour. I called my doctor and he sent me to Naas A&E. They were split between respiratory issues and non-respiratory. I was pretty much on my own, so I was seen pretty quickly. The doctor I got this time listened to everything I had to say (thank God), gave me a manual stomach exam and took bloods and gave me a chest x-ray. The results of the x-ray came back quickly and I was told that, despite having infection-like symptoms, my lungs were completely clear and my heart was ok. The bloods came back a couple of hours later, and everything came back clear (no issues with the heart or blood, kidneys etc.).

So again, what the hell did I have? He said, “Either you have clinical anxiety or are experiencing a major gastric event. Or both.” He gave me stronger anti-biotics, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs are pills with drastically reduce acid production in your stomach), pain killers and told me to get an endoscope down the throat, rather than have the breath test.

My GP got the results and told me I’d have to wait for the endoscope, as hospitals weren’t doing procedures until July. I asked him to set something up for me. I fixated on the results of that endoscope. It was a couple more weeks before I got call from the Beacon asking me if I could wait ’til July to be registered. I said yes, as I thought that I had to wait ’til July anyway. I experienced a few nasty mental-illess issues in the intervening period, and went and bought yearly subscriptions for Headspace and Calm on the iPhone. The former is excellent for beginner’s meditation; the latter is good for led meditations, and is a bit more spiritual, if that’s your thing. Also I experienced the following:

a) Waking up (presumably from a dream), in a panic attack. I didn’t know who I was for about 20 seconds but had a sensation that a group of people wanted me to do something. I saw Niamh, which grounded me as to who I was, but it was another couple of minutes before I calmed myself.
b) When going out for a walk I looked at people going by, kids playing etc. Normally I’d smile at seeing kids play, but the right chemicals weren’t firing off in my brain. They might as well have been stick figures. This happened a few times.
c) Sitting and watching Niamh. Knowing who she was, and that I loved her, but again the chemicals weren’t firing. I had to do some mindfulness stuff to calm myself again – but in truth I just wanted to go off somewhere and cry my guts out.
d) Insomnia (getting sleep maybe only 2 nights in the week). Thanks to Headspace, I was able to get something restful while just keeping my eyes closed.

Thankfully, most of these symptoms are gone – although insomnia is still an issue 2-3 times a week, and I also find it difficult to talk to people in work face-to-face, or drive/walk long distances without Niamh. I think this reduction in symptoms is because (sorry about all these bullet points!):

I had been taking CBT/Wellness-based counselling over Zoom – through my work’s Employee Assistance Programme, as well as using Headspace and Barry MacDonagh’s DARE book;
I read up on PPI drugs, and it would seem that, for some people, PPIs are the Devil’s piss – responsible for a huge range of side-effects, including mental issues. I arranged with my doctor to halve my dose (I’ve sinced halved it again) – note here: I may go back on these if my gastritis doesn’t ease up;
I was proactive and phoned the Beacon on a whim to see if they had a date for my exam. They called me back and said “How’s June 22nd?” I nearly leapt down the phone in an attempt to have carnal relations with the young lady on the other end. I gratefully accepted. In hindsight, I was a little mad at my GP for not fighting this fight for me.

I had the endoscope and then arranged for face-to-face counselling, on an accelerated basis – I’ve since had 18 weeks of it, and between that, the apps and CBT I’ve been slowly building resilience. The scope indicated that I had a little gastritis, so I still had to take the PPIs, but I quickly phased them out – I am not completely adverse to going back on them if my gastritis isn’t sorted. Biopsy results yielded nothing sinister, thank God.

So here I am with both anxiety and gastritis, but some good things are happening (last of the bullets):

I finished the second draft of my novel, and 3/4 of the way through the third!
My wife and family have amazing throughout all this;
Work has also been fantastic. They are allowing me to go to Volterra on July 22nd to work for a couple of weeks, followed by a 2-week holiday there… so a month in Italy – which I’m now (finally!) going to blog;
I have lost 50lbs during this time (I was quite overweight), while most sedentary workers have probably put on a few pounds! I have also proved that I can put the weight on, if I really need to.

My symptoms at the time of writing this are getting a full tummy on small meals, stress headaches, and feeling slightly breathless and having issues straying by myself too far from home. For a couple of months, I’ve been journalling my days, and have scored myself of Anxiety, Emotion, and Sleep Quality. The graphs of these, while seriously spikey, are trending in the right direction.

So, I’m going to blog (when I can) that month Niamh and I spent in Volterra between lockdowns – but I may be referring to anxiety from time to time. I hope you enjoy reading it.