Well, we planned for 6 of us to head over to Tony's birthday weekend, but of course Covid got in the way and in the end it was poor Hawksey who had to unpack his side of the suitcase at the 11th hour and stay home with the C-bug.
Resulting in me having a slight panic attack at the prospect of having to drive 3 hours from Pisa airport to where we were staying, on my tod and with two large problems – Vodafone still being useless with my phone so NO DATA for navigating and also H having booked a MANUAL car – eek, the first time I've driven one of those in many many years!! So I hired a sat nav and put my big girl pants on – and got there in the end. Even somehow sensing that a car overtaking me 10kn from the hotel had Janine & Ross in it – my brain said 'wouldn't it be nice if that was them' – and most bizarrely it actually was!!!
Stayed at a lovely property with J&R and Clare & Andy, only slightly tainted by the Swiss German owners who took an instant dislike to the Englanders turning up with drinks and foodie bits to put in the fridge – we hadn't realised our 3 bed apartment didn't somehow have a fridge (well, you would expect one would you?!) and they were none too keen on sharing their one!
Bloody hot there, as well so the pool came into its own, only mishap was me being stung in the face by an angry wasp when I accidentally knocked the handle off the overhead brolly and a load of them came steaming out in a strop!
Had drinks in Anghiari, the town near Tony's Italian house on the fri eve and met up with Andy Howden & Caroline, the other AVers who'd made the trek to Italy. Then it was party night on the Sat – Tony (plus Karen, Mai and Lia) had really gone to town with all the plans, so there was everything from Italo-pop karaoke, to a drag queen, pool swimming, chatting & hobnobbing with the other 90 or so guests to food and drink galore.
A fab location for a fab eve and I think Tony had a great time, so that was all that mattered!
Sunday was a quieter day barring the 3.5 hour lunch for everyone at a local (huge!) restaurant – just the 5 courses with wine and vin santo to crack through. No wonder our dinner scoff barely got touched. But we did get to see the England women's footy – what a result!!! All the more enjoyable for being under a German speaker's roof, they didn't really pop by at all tat evening, I can't imagine why…
Back home late last night, to a recovered Mr H and to the beginning of a whole new world for us. See the next post!! x