It had to end sometime.

I got up alone and took a stroll around the town. Volterra tipped its cap to me by finally having clouds down in the valleys below, giving the smaller colline (hills) the appearance of islands floating in a milky sea.

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For lunch, we went to Ombra Della Sera, right beside Terra di Mezzo – which was closed. This is the serious restaurant of the two – they also own the pizzeria near us too – our favourite one. Sadly, although we’d tried several times, the pizzeria was closed, even beyond the dates it said it would be – for pretty much the last week of our holidays, if not longer.

Anyway, the food we had there was quite good – not our favourite, but it was fine. I had the Zuppa Alla Volterrana (che sorpresa!), which was great – and pici with meat sauce (not as nice as the last time I had it). Niamh had eggplant parmigiana, and ravioli with a different meat sauce!

Best of all, I stopped off at Isola del Gusto for a bit of award-winning you-know-what.

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And then… well… I guess we went home… and moped, and packed, and got depressed. We drove back to Sixt (recommended!), who did nothing about the scratch on our rental that was news to us – it went all the way along the side, but wasn’t deep – finger paint would do the trick. We had to walk the full length of the outside of Pisa airport before we finally found the new entrance (for Covid). Inside was all bustle…

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We flew home, and my anxiety wasn’t at me much… until I got into bed at midnight and got no sleep… only to have to hit work at 07:00. It was the beginning of an extremely harsh 3 weeks for me, anxiety wise. Next time it won’t affect me so badly. But also next time, we won’t hop back into work immediately after coming home!

I have to say again that the people where I work have been incredibly patient, and have handled my situation with due care and empathy. Even though I have had some very bad days, I have not taken another sick day off (since the ones I took when they told me I had Covid!).

I will always be grateful for what they did for me.

And Volterra, here’s looking at you, kid. We’ll be back, vaccine willing, in time for the autumn season in 2021!