Casalino perhaps

This is a view across the valley from the house. Very pretty with the snow. I think this is a little hamlet called casalino.

I spent a bit of time in the big Coop at Bibbiena - my loyalty card works there for the points but not the discounts - because now we are in Arezzo province.

I puzzled over wheel sizes as I thought to buy some snow chains in case the weather gets bad. In the end I went to a car parts place where they had my size, made by Thule, for €50 for a pair.

I really should do a dry run in the light and without snow with regard to fitting them. But hey. I'll probably one night be shivering in freezing snow-ploughed snow with a weak torch beam and the instructions.

Then I worked on the pond that I have been draining. It is all overgrown with a great matt of clumpy grass that weights like a lot of wet woollen fleeces. It awful to undo other people's projects that never quite worked. And in places the pond must have been three or four feet deep. But now it is busting down a high retaining wall that will be all hell to pay if it collapses.

The temperature was dropping quickly as the sun left the valley and I scurried home over the Consumer at minus 1.

Sometimes it is a bit relentless but there is enough variety to drop one relentless job and take up another at least. And with the log burner roaring in the house it was cheery for my lunch.

I've taken to listening to Radio 4 on my phone as I work. A truly cross-cultural experience.