991 kgs of olives.

It has been an amazing two days of intensive olive picking with our new found friends in the condominium where we are living. In four days we between us harvested by hand 991 kilogrammes of olives - that is nearly a metric tonne - and a record for the condo. That is about 35 big crates of olives.

Later we all went to the olive mill to deliver the olives and watch then being turned into oil. At the end of the process we assembled many containers to collect the oil from the tap in the photo. Still we were missing nearly 50 litres of capacity so abundant was the flow from the thunderous machines. It took a last minute scramble and the loan of the big stainless steel flask in the photo to carry it all away.

In the end we came away with about 140 litres of beautiful Fiesolano extra virgin, cold pressed olive oil. It was one of the great moments of my life to stick a finder under the steady stream of oil and taste it with such a warm and generous and unfailingly funny group of neighbours.

The division of the oil took place in the condo garage with jugs and endless rounds of a little bit more for everyone. It was fantastic. We came away with a sixth of the product at over 20 litres - which beat the nearest harvest haul by masses.

The cost for the milling was about €200 but the oil made would cost in the region of €15 a litre. And we are set up for the year with the most wonderful oil.

The extras include the end of the harvesting when the big nets have been folded, one of the two hoppers of 'our' olives being downloaded into the mill, the tapping the oil as it flowed.

I'll say a little bit about the harvesting in the previous Blip which I'm just about to do.