Moving house, telecom and esselunga!

A lot to catch up on!!!!

We finally moved house on the 1st February! It then, only, took another two weeks to get telecom in, which I have heard is a bit of a record. So I have no excuse from the 19th February onwards for not writing here.

What it does tell me though is that I really am living here, not just visiting! My time has gone on shopping, getting things from Ikea for the house, sorting out ballet classes for my daughter and generally getting to know the area of San Frediano where we now live!

The house is beautiful. We are the first tenants after its recent restoration so everything from the paint on the walls to the showers and beds, is brand new! It really doesn't feel like being in a rental. There is enough furniture, but not so much I can't put in my own stuff - when it eventually arrives that is!

The view out of the windows is beautiful too! I look out onto a large lawn as I write this, surrounded by a high wall and trees. What is unusual is that it is all ours - we don't share this space with anyone else. The nearest dwelling is about 5mins walk away in the grounds. There are alot of other apartments and houses in here but you wouldn't know it! There aren't too many places like this in San Frediano.

Moving in was fun - we needed two taxi's to get us and our stuff here! Then, as the address is new, the taxi's flew past and ended up having to reverse back down a one way street to get back to where they should be! As you can imagine much use of car horns was made by the traffic behind us! Especially as when the taxi's did stop one of them decide it would be good to park in such a way that the whole street was blocked to everything except scooters and smartcars. Not popular!

It was great to finally be in and on our own. My most vivid memory of moving in is waking up the next morning to sun streaming in through french windows and birds singing - and that was it - no other sound at all! We are off a very busy square, but the only way to hear it is to stand on the street or look over a high wall at the back of the house, otherwise you could almost be in the countryside it is that quiet. It is such a relief after Piazza Pitti.

Now we feel settled in. I have had my first Esselunga delivery - what a farce! As the property hasn't been lived in for over a year no-one knows where it is! I stood outside waiting for the van and stood watching as it flew past! One thing I can say is Crocs maybe ugly, but they are great for running in! Finally my shopping arrived. I have to pay better attention to what I order, I should have known 59c for a litre of juice was low - I got 4 small cartons instead! But I will be doing it again - no more carrying huge packs of water home!

We also had our first post - a parcel and a letter - we must be living here!