Last week Tuesday evening I headed down to Walton to drop off Mia with Greg and Kim for a few days as Uns, Ellen and I were off to Italy for James and Fede's wedding. Due to the heat or something, the trains were all massively delayed so it took me ages to get down to Walton, so landed up only briefly seeing Greg at the station for a quick handover before heading back home again.

On Thursday morning we had an insanely early 4am start to get a taxi over to Liverpool Street Station in time to catch the train to Stansted Airport and get our flight out to Pisa. After arriving into Pisa, we picked up our car and decided to drive over to the Leaning Tower of Pisa for a few touristy photos. Well, except for Ellen who preferred to nap during the visit :)

After the Tower we continued our drive towards Colleoli, set in the heart of the countryside of Tuscany. After checking into our accommodation, we spent the afternoon around the resort and later that evening took a walk down to I Tigli for dinner with all of the wedding crowd on James' side. After a good dinner of antipasti and pizzas, followed by some limoncello, we made our way back to the apartment for the night.

On Friday morning, after a drive to the local supermarket to get a few supplies for ourselves, we sat outside the apartment for lunch and then chilled out near the pool for a few hours. The wedding didn't start until 16h00 that afternoon, which gave us a good bit of the day to relax beforehand.

Once we we all dressed and ready for the wedding, we headed over to the church which wasn't far from our place. The ceremony and church was lovely, followed by drinks, canapés and some live music in the gardens of Agriturismo Ristorante Colleoli for the afternoon, with stunning views overlooking the valley. James had organised a babysitter for us that evening, so after putting Ellen down for the night we headed back to the venue in time for dinner, speeches, cutting of the cake and some dancing before calling it a night. Great wedding, excellent food and fantastic venue, certainly a good afternoon and night out!

On Saturday midday we walked down to the venue for the lunch but got mixed up with times so landed up missing the main lunch but got chatting to Tommy instead, which kept us busy for a good few hours! Never short of a bit of chat with him :) After catching up with everyone after their lunch and lying under the trees with Ellen for a while, we headed over to the pool area for a swim and chilled out by the apartment. That evening we decided to head back to I Tigli for pizza for dinner and watch the sunset from the balcony.

On Sunday, after checking out, we drove over to the village of Palaia for coffee at one of the street side cafes, before continuing onto Lari for lunch at Bar Osteria Bacco Perbacco which was recommended to us. They have an awesome outdoor seating area under the trees and natural leaf awning, overlooking some of the vineyards and hills in the distance.

After a good lunch there, we took a scenic drive around before making our way to the airport, in good time for our flight back to London. However, after noticing our flight, which was initially delayed by an hour, was then rescheduled for six hours later, we managed to leave the departure gates and somehow Una spotted the baby feeding room which we had to ourselves and managed to settle in there for the evening, which was a lot better than waiting around at the departure gate, and helped Ellen get a good sleep there too!

Eventually we took off almost seven hours later than scheduled, arriving into Stansted after 2am and after waiting for our bags and getting a taxi home, walked in the front door at 04h15... slightly later than planned! Obviously I didn't go into work usual time yesterday, had a bit of a sleep in and headed through around midday. After a relatively early night last night, hopefully back on track again today :)