We got up reasonably early. I felt like I had been awake for hours, largely because in the early hours Daisy had decided to come and sleep on the corner of my inflatable bed. The beds are on the floor and so it felt like I was on some raft bobbing about in the Atlantic.
So today we went into Perugia to order a mattress. We had a bed that we bought from K & G before they headed home to Cornwall, and we had carried it, and various other bits and pieces, down from their second floor flat yesterday afternoon.
We had seen loads of mattresses before and had narrowed the field to one and so off we went. Mattresses here are memory foam or memory foam, or just foam. It seemed to me that with temperatures in the upper 30’s the last thing I wanted to sleep on was foam. Sprung versions are less common and more expensive and they feel they are offering you the customer something quite unique at 800 springs. A quick look at John Lewis’s website showed examples starting at 1000 and going up to twice that. We have wool and horse hair and cotton; the Italians have cotton, camel hair and bamboo. And foam.
So, on the way to order our mattress we decided to stop at a furniture store on the outskirts of Perugia. They had a sale on so we felt it worth a look as our mattress was costing over 1,000 euros and they might have had something a bit more reasonably priced. In fact they did, so an hour later and considerably poorer we left with a mattress that came complete with bed (with storage underneath), pillows, bed linen. (We also ordered a dining table for the kitchen.) So now we have the guest room sorted and intend to test out the mattress before ordering the other. So no bookings yet dear chums. The table will not arrive until September as EVERYTHING closes down in August. If you insist on coming down then you get the air beds so bring your sea sickness pills.
Lovely lunch at Burger and Fries of chicken salad for me and a Chianina beef burger for Jamie with Brie, figs and walnuts on a brioche bun with salad. They are so friendly there and we have become regulars over the past few months as the lighting store, kitchen designer, furniture shop and main supermarket are all hereabouts.
Last stop was the lighting store and our chum Michele who has been brilliant at sourcing our lights and suggesting cheaper alternatives to the Artemide and Flos designs that I love. Our light shades for the kitchen have been handmade locally in Citta del Castello and we look forward to seeing if they work as the ceiling in the kitchen is quite low and we were quite stuck for choice.
Home as the sun lowers over fields of jolly sunflowers and the stripes of golden straw now that the barley and wheat have been harvested. The views at this time of day are spectacular with the cypress trees and distant hills, a dark green, contrasting with the yellow flowers and terracotta farmhouses.
Time for an aperitif at Bar degli Artisti back in Citta della Pieve before going out this evening to the theatre. We have tickets for a concert with American soprano Aprilia Milo and so we will need a snack beforehand as the concert is due to start at 8:30 with dinner after (for members of the local music society). Although Jamie is suffering from post shopping exhaustion and a badly bruised wallet so dinner in our cool kitchen is still a possibility.
Sunflowers and Saffron 