GETTING READY FOR OUR NEXT GUESTS IN TUSCANY

Here's Scott from a dog walk and Roberto is here, Giovanni's uncle who owns the land that our vegetable garden is on.Let's see what he thinks of it.He's very very happy with it.He says it's a work of art.He's actually come at the perfect time because everything is flowering and growing and all sorts of things to see.Today that our third group of guests for our Living Tuscany week arrive and I'm very excited and I've got lots and lots to do.

Thank you.

I need to do the vases of flowers.So we've got the dogs to walk We've got flowers to arrange, we've got a bed to make because we've got Pamela coming.Sky's friend is coming to join us for the week and she's going to help out.She's going to do some filming because she's a film student and she's just going to be around and just generally help.Unfortunately, dad's not here this week.He had stuff to do back in England but hopefully he'll be here again in September or October.

We've got to set dogs for a walk, we've got to do some shopping, we've got to pick Pamela up at the station at some point this afternoon, and probably other things that I should have probably written down on the list.So I'm going to get started with flowers.

We have a full day, not just today, every day.

Every day this next week, yes.So let's get started!Go!So there are my vases ready and I've started picking a few plants.Let's go see what's around the back.Now we've got lots of beautiful oleander in bloom at the moment but it is highly poisonous so I'm not going to put any of that in our vases.

It's going to stay on the trees where it is.Luckily we've got lots of lovely gaura so I'm going to help myself to loads of this which is really pretty.These fantastic things.Does anybody know what they are?Still got a lot of poppies but I know that they won't last at all so I'm going to leave them there.So this week's gonna be slightly different from the other weeks because it's all ladies.

I had a lot of single women applying to come and I thought it'd be nice to group them all together and have one week where it was just all ladies.So we've got a really good selection.We've got one lady from Puerto Rico, we've got two from New Zealand, one from Australia, one from Canada, one lady who lives in Florence.uh a couple two or three americans i think so it's going to be a really nice group of people i should think looking forward to meeting everybody pomegranate flowers these are decorative pomegranate so there's look there's one it's they're very small they're not really edible but wow that's pretty reformed on these it's so pretty look at it one of the problems finding stuff is that carlo keeps the garden in such good shape that there's nothing left to pick he sort of strimmed everything away Let's see up here, there might be some grasses I can use.So I wanted some yellow in the vases.I can't find any yellow flowers, so they're looking good though, especially with the pomegranate.

flowers in there so we're going to take them over I might find something yellow in Claire's garden okay so we're going to take the flowers over to Claire's now then do a dog walk then go to the supermarket and then I have to think I should have written a list we've just pulled over by the church because we just found some ginestre and I wanted some yellow flowers I don't know if the gynestron keeps the flower after it's been cut.

Let's do a test.I don't think this is considered stealing, no?They're just flowers.They're more beautiful like this.Good girls.

Right, let's go for a dog walk.We're picking.We're going to have these at home.We've got a few vases we can fill.Aren't they pretty?

Oh, you found some wild alliums.

Oh, wow.

Oh, I was looking for those.

I didn't see them.Pretty.Very pretty.I'm not going to put you through any more flower arranging but here's one that's going to go on this table here and I've got three tinyYou have to hold it like this, so it closes.

There's 8, but it's not better.No, not now.

Later.Lunch now and we've got ridiculous amounts of zucchinis.I have been taking them everywhere.I've taken some to the pub, I've taken a box full to the pub, I've given them to neighbours, I've given them to friends, I've been begging people to take them and there's more growing.I've got quite a few in the fridge so I'm going to do some stuffed zucchinis and I'm also going to do some little burger patties to go with them which have the filling that I've taken out of the zucchinis that I've stuffed and then I put it back into the burgers so I'm going to do that.I did it the other day and it was quite nice.

I'm going to cut the zucchini in half, long ways.With a teaspoon, you can just scoop out the middle bit.It's really easy.The insides of the zucchini is very, very watery, so you're going to want to try and squeeze some of the liquid out of that.Now you can put plaster on it.So really, you can put whatever you want in these.

Now I'm going to do a mix of tomato, feta cheese, pine nuts, red onion, egg to hold it all together, maybe a couple of olives.I'd normally put breadcrumbs in, and I'm gonna do two separate ones, one with and one without, because we've got one person eating with us today who doesn't eat gluten, and then I'll do the burgers.Two gluten -free ones, so those are there, and we're just gonna put those over this side for now.And then in these ones, I might add another olive and stick some breadcrumbs in.You can actually buy these ready stuffed in the supermarket here.I saw them this morning.

We've got so many zucchini, it would be silly to buy any.A matter of trying to find as much as possible to do with all the stuff that's growing and eat as much of it as we possibly can without getting bored with it.Those need to go in the oven at about 180 degrees for about 20 minutes, 30 minutes.And then I'm just sort of like, I just judge it by whether it looks cooked or not.Then for the burgers, I'm just going to add some minced meat, some of the zucchini, some more chopped onion, another egg to hold it all together.I think that's about it really.

Bit of salt.One thing we planned to do this spring, or even this winter, was replace the mosquito netting on all the windows and doors of the house, and we never got round to it.So flies and mosquitoes can still get in here.Must try and do it for next year.Okay, so I've made three redcurrant free.little burger buns and I've put them away so Pamela can have them later.

I've added some breadcrumbs because the breadcrumbs sort of soak up a bit of the liquid from the egg and the zucchini so I've just added some to this which will be a little easier to cook and seeing as we're having this now I can put these straight in the pan.So I'm just going to form them into little patties while Carlo plasters himself up.I've just been very distracted.I have been on my computer because somebody has cancelled for September.So I've just posted out just so I can get somebody else to come and take their place.and I've been finishing off the edit video for tomorrow which I thought I'd done and I hadn't and I forgot about lunch so I think that the zucchini are cooked so I'm just cooking up the little patties in the pan and then we'll eat!

So I've been to the station, I've picked up Pamela.I completely forgot to film anything but I was driving and I was on my own so I couldn't really.She's now having a chat with Carlo sitting out there.I was halfway through giving a house tour but then Sky phoned so I had a quick chat with Sky but I think I've actually got everything done that I need to do today.I've made the bedroom,up, I've done the flowers, I've picked up Pamela, I've made lunch, I've done the shopping, and I think now I've got about an hour and a half to sit and relax.

We're in the car, we're on our way to meet our eight new guests.Eight ladies, are you excited?Giovanni's very excited about meeting eight ladies on Wednesday.

No, it's not true, he's very calm.

We've left Pamela at home with Sky...No, with Holly and Indy.With Holly and Indy, and she's just going to settle in tonight and then join us in the morning before we go to Pico Pisano.Hopefully it won't be raining.Because the last two times we've gone to Pico Pizzaro, it's raining.Yeah, yeah.

It's gonna be a beautiful day.Morning.Last night we had the welcome dinner for our third retreat and we met everybody and yet again everybody is really really nice.We had lots of great conversations, everybody was just really easy to chat with and I've got a good feeling about this week.I'm really excited to see how it progresses and see which friendships are made and just get to know everybody a bit better.I'm sitting here in the garden at the moment.

It's quite early.It is actually not that early.It's half eight now.Pamela's still asleep upstairs and Carla has gone with Andy to get the minivan, which we need today.And I've just been checking everything in the garden here and we've got little baby melons growing.Look at this.

Let me show you.So basically we planted these melon plants in April outside and the instructions were that they should be plantedfor the first month and kept in a warm place inside the house and we planted them the day before we were going back to Positano so we thought well let's just shove them in the ground and hope for the best and it's worked so we put three plants in this bed here and they started to sort of climb around all over the place look down here baby melons there's one there one there and then i've spotted another one over here oh and there's tiny little ones here look look they're tiny little babies one there another one there little baby melons no you're not impressed are you and then there's a few more over here as well there's one where did i see one there's one down there other than melons we have had the peas ready so basically all along here we planted rows and rows of peas to climb up the fencing and they are now pretty much ready so we did the first harvest on day before yesterday Giovanni picked a whole load and took them away so they're his so we'll pick these ones when they're ready I'm gonna give them another maybe tomorrow actually it's actually quite good but yeah fresh peas yummy Anyway, I need to go and get ready for this morning.So I hope you enjoy getting ready with me and wish me luck for this week.I'll report back in as soon as I can.