It isn’t all sunshine, lollypops and rainbows in Tuscany. Even when you’re on holiday. As we have long-term plans here, we have learn to actually live in Volterra, not simply be in holiday mode all the time. Secondly, as our social lives have expanded, we also have to accept that we will take days off from recording every little thing for social media.

These next couple of days represented a little bit of that life.

The first one, was a more casual trip to Vicopisano to meet up with Marie and Lorenzo, who maintain a series of properties you can rent to experience your own adventures in Tuscany (Authentic Tuscany), whilst at the same time live in their own killer medieval tower. The one problem with living in old buildings is that their walls are incredibly thick. Great for insulation in summer and winter, not so good for wifi signal. They had been missing signal in a guest bedroom and their back garden, so Niamh and I took along a reasonably powerful Wifi Extender. We use it ourselves for our own apartment and we can now get wifi coverage from the guest bedroom, all the way out to the terrace. Nifty. In fact, we now also have one in our house in Kilcullen too!

Anyway, I appreciate that it’s probably not the warmest (although it is to the touch!), or the prettiest house gift ever, but it is practical and works well. We found a place for it in the house, but some wiring work would have to be done. Outside, a socket would have to be set facing the garden, but once there, they were getting good speeds!

I didn’t take many shots for reasons of privacy, and relaxation. Lorenzo cooked up a magnificent artichoke carbonara. While we waited in the kitchen for that, we gorged on cheese and wine. There was a huge sprig of rosemary there too, so I showed them the little trick of spiking a bit of pecorino cheese with a needle of rosemary to create a little flavour-bomb. When lunch was ready, we headed out to the back garden and talked for several hours during and after we ate. It was a fabulous and fun day. Except for one little issue: I hadn’t brought a protected hat for my bald head. Volterra was at least 5-6 degrees cooler than Vicopisano when we left it, so I didn’t think I’d get sunburned. But I did… However, it was a small price to pay for good food and even better company!

We only thought to grab one snap in the carpark. It’s just me Niamh and Marie, as poor Lorenzo had to go to work.

When we got home we went to L’Antica Velathri Café for a quick drinkie, which I matched against a Disaronno back at the apartment. No more big food for us that evening!

The next day we had a couple of shopping missions. I did go out for a good long walk. The number of photos belies the length of the walk. I walked around the walls a bit, then down to the CoOp and finally took the long way back up. Why so few photos? Because I was filming, silly! You can see the video below.

Niamh wanted to buy some plaster so we (i.e. she) could shore up the a hole that formed due to a little leak from our neighbour’s balcony. The leak was fixed, thankfully. We had been given a large amount on a voucher by our company to compensate us for losing the staff canteen for a few years, while they carry on renovations – so I thought I’d treat myself to an XBox. We arrived in Poggibonsi and went to Trony – they had a stack of S-Series… I wanted an X-Series, so we hit up a local game store and got an X-Series there. Yay! Now we have a Sky TV server (miles better quality than the laptop I was using) and gaming machine.

Brico was shut for riposo, and we were hungry – so it was off to Insoo Sushi. I think the name/management of the place changed. It was ok before, but the food this day was merely so-so.

The fried rice and dumplings were ok, but the quality of the meats wasn’t great. Not the best meal… our search for a decent Asian continues. Aside: At the time of writing this, we have eaten in Haru Sushi in Ponsacco, which isn’t too bad at all and you get served by a little robot there.

Anyway, once done we went to Brico, but felt we needed to do more research in the type of stuff we needed, and so left without paint or plaster.

Here’s the video!

Back home again… patched up the XBox and tried out the ‘free’ game Forza 4… not my bag. We had a single course out for dinner. A single course includes dessert, am I right?