Trouble at Mill once more

Saturday morning MrFF opened the bedroom shutters and announced we would start our olive harvest.  Quick cup of Yorkshire tea with a bowl of muesli and we were picking by 8.30 am.  We stopped mid morning for cappuccini and croissant then worked on till 6.30 pm,  we had more than 80 kilos with 10 more trees still to pick so that was great.  Sunday we had the same early start with rather less enthusiasm as we were quite tired from the previous days efforts.

We finished early afternoon, tidied up, had some lunch then MrFF packed the crates of olives into the car and went off to the mill.  Unfortunately so did many others and he was queued for a good two hours before he could unload.  He phoned to let me know he was waiting then started shouting and sounding the car horn as an Italian with a trailer full of olives had jumped the queue when MrFF was slow to move.  Then I heard an Italian voice and suggested he phone me back when he’d sorted the situation.  He got his place back, it was fine. Tranquillo.

 

He weighed in 119 kilos of olives, not a bad result and the mill would phone us when the oil was ready.

Late Monday afternoon we got the call collect our oil at 7.30 pm.  We were there on time and waited until 8.50.  We received 15.3 litres of oil which we were told by other customers was very good quality, it was clean without the foamy scum and dark green. But last year we picked around 80 kg and received 15 litres, it doesn’t make sense to produce so much more and receive the same amount of oil. Even the taste of our delicious new oil didn’t take away our disappointment and confusion.  

Of course 15 litres of oil is more than enough for our needs, if we had more we’d give it away or use it for cooking as it got older, it doesn’t matter that we don’t have more. But we had expectations that we’d done well, we’d worked hard and spent a lot of hours waiting at mill.  Tomorrow it’s my birthday and I’ll be 75, I could say I’m getting too old for this oil business but our lovely 92 year old neighbour Giovanni is here picking so I guess I have no excuse but to keep on and since he’s working on his own and has 200 trees, we have 30, we will probably offer his some help if he doesn’t think we might jinx his harvest too.