The Tuscany Team

From left to right: Fabrizio, Frank, Sytse, Phil, Heidy, Dany, Dicky, Russell, Clint, Javier, Paolo, Debora, Michela and Laura.

Happy birthday Clint!

Paolo and Valentina ever so very kindly provided their company, wonderful cakes and Ferrari "spoon monkey" (Heidy's version of Spumanti) to celebrate Clint's birthday at the stroke of midnight. Sytse made a most eloquent reply to Clint's acceptance and I'm very sure a great time was had by all (despite the untimely World Cup demise of the All Blacks).

We were all treated to Dany's photos-with-music tribute to our time abroad, a fantastic effort of which everyone has requested a copy. Perhaps we will see something similar from this weekend?

Best wishes for a speedy recovery from the inevitable hangover go to Russ and Javier who disappeared (separately!) at some point mid-sentence during the evening. Bless.

Apologies to those who retired before Heidy's roaring log fire. And thanks to all for making the whole of Saturday a truly memorable one. I'm happy to have spent my weekend with such a nice bunch of good friends.

One last thought goes to those who couldn't make it to Tuscany. You were sorely missed and mercilessly talked about. ;-) Hopefully we will see some of you next time.

Party Photos

Spoon Monkey

Laura & Heidy

Javier & Frank

Michela & Fabrizio

Chuff me, I'm stuffed!

Claudio made a valiant attempt to kill off most of us with death by overeating this evening. Wave after wave of irresistable freshly cooked food arrived to the table accompanied by his pleading encouragement to eat more than any human should. The steak was particularly fantastic.

And just when we thought it had finished, now for the biscuits and pudding wine before we get into dessert, coffees etc. :-)

Argh! No wireless!!

Elated from England's victory and content from some measured wine tasting as demonstrated by Russell(!), we headed back up to Odina to prepare for dinner. We did think of finding somewhere to watch NZ versus France but we had the kick-off times all wrong. That means it'll be more extortionate roaming data rates for us to keep up with progress.

Gloria was there when we got back and she broke the news that the wireless router had been destroyed by a lightning surge. We've come done to the office (the old church) to plug directly into the ISDN router. This too is slow so most of the photos are going to have to wait a little longer.

This evening we're having dinner cooked for us in our villa by our own personal chef, Claudio. The preparations look fantastic and everyone is really looking forward to the spread. We got a few beers and bottles of wine to get through as well, a chore everyone seems to be happy to do. At €25 per person and including wine we think we may have a bit of a bargain on our hands.

Although the forecast said rain for today we've had nothing but a few spots. The temperature has been perfect for most and we all have our fingers crossed that tomorrow will be the same.

Anyway, back to business, go the All Blacks!!

They're wining again

So here we are at our second winery of the afternoon, Castello Di Meleto. Although the tour of Castello D'Albola was very interesting the guys are now just wanting to cut straight to the tasting and then down to catch the end of the rugby.

Come on England!

Welcome to Paradise

Odina. What a beautiful place! We're sitting out in the garden, enjoying the view (with laptops, of course) preparing photos for the blog.

As soon as the others get out of the shower we should be heading for the village for coffee & breakfast. Hopefully that's very soon, otherwise there'll be a mutiny :-) Todays schedule: wine tour #1, England vs Australia rugby world cup, wine tour #2 then All Blacks vs France, followed by dinner. Sounds hectic!