All tuckered out

So today's blog post was meant to be brought to you by my husband. I left him starting the blog in the living room while I went into the office to check emails and do a couple of things. When I went back in, this is what I found:

Ah. That'd be no blog writing tonight then...

This would partly be due to the couple of beers and glass of wine had with dinner, but far more to do with the fact that both Stuart and I had little to no sleep last night thanks to our new arrivals.

We left you hanging last night as we were waiting for the arrival of Lucca and Florence. We eventually managed to find out from the couriers (who had been unexpectedly delayed in Nice) that they were planning to book themselves into a hotel just off the autostrade in Altopascio and that they would be arriving at around 10pm. We therefore set off from the house at around 9.30pm.

It struck us as odd that this was actually the first time we have been out of the house after dark since we moved here! We've never, until now, driven down our drive in the dark or driven along most of the familiar roads after dark. We noticed how different things look at night time, and how both Pescia and some of the smaller hamlets and villages we pass through on the the way to Altopascio seemed to be buzzing with nightlife (not bars and clubs, you understand, but people meeting and greeting at trattorias, people sitting on the pavement outside gelaterias, cyclists meeting up for a chat and a coffee, older folk enjoying a drink outside a bar... and so on).

Anyway, with a quick emergency stop for a refuel (why does the low fuel indicator always decide to beep alarmingly at the most inconvenient times?!), we arrived at the hotel at 9.58pm. We couldn't see any sign of any UK-plated vehicles in the car park, or anything large enough to carry animals in it, so assumed we had arrived first, and sat and waited. We didn't have to wait long, as no more than four minutes later we spotted a white transit van slowing to turn into the hotel car park - with baited breath we waited until we could see a bit more and spotted the UK number plates. The excitement of knowing our little cats were in that van was giddying!

Once the van had parked up we went to meet its occupants - Julia and Martin. Julia headed  into the hotel to check in while Martin helped us with the cats and their luggage. It was quite surreal when he slid back the side door of the van to reveal a large bank of animal cages, only one of which was occupied and had two VERY familiar faces poking through the bars looking very inquisitive. My heart melted to see them!!

After handing over their luggage (a small bag of bits and pieces Mum and Dad had sent with them) and paperwork, Martin went into the back of the van to put the cats into their carry boxes. He did this alone (we've never managed to do it single-handed!) and we could hear him talking gently to the cats all the time - he was lovely with them, and he and Julia clearly both have a real affinity for animals. In a jiffy, the two cats were in their separate carry boxes and handed over to us for securing in our car.

We had a brief chat with Martin and Julia - they'd had a very long day and were keen to get some dinner and rest. The next morning they were due to drive to Ancona on the East coast of Italy to get a ferry to Greece, where they were due to collect some animals from Athens, some more from another mainland city in Greece, then one from one of the Greek islands before heading back through Europe and making their way to the UK. They clearly love animals, and I can see that reuniting animals safely with their families is a lovely thing to do, but I can't imagine having the enormous burden of responsibility of having to care for other people's beloved pets in transit in foreign countries. The thought of the responsibility makes me shudder!

Anyway, having expressed our gratitude and wished Martin and Julia a good evening and safe onwards journey, we got back in the car to greet these two in the back:

Initially, they turned their backs on us and did some fairly loud complaining, but after about five minutes they settled down and were very quiet (clearly 4 days in a transit van travelling through Europe has de-sensitised them!).

After about 20 minutes of driving, we were trundling down our drive in the dark - about halfway along we came across a female/young deer standing in the drive, which ran off up into the trees when the headlights shone on it. (That made two deer sightings for me in one day with my stag encounter earlier in the morning!)

The minute we got in the house (and secured the doors), we opened up the carry boxes and both cats walked straight out, bold as you like - no funny business with not wanting to leave the 'safety' of their boxes (as had been the case when we took them to Mum and Dad's initially), and no darting straight for the smallest, darkest, safest spot they could find. Instead, they seemed to take it all in their stride and tentatively started walking around sniffing every possible item and surface they came across.

It almost seemed as if they were happy to be with us and could maybe even recognise some familiar smells amongst the furniture and belongings.

It wasn't long before they ventured upstairs - that was a bit too much at first, and there were some plaintiful miaows when they got scared all alone up there, but all in all they seemed happy to explore.

Florence steps cautiously out.

Florence thinks about going upstairs.

Lucca chooses to start with just sniffing the stairs.

We decided it would be unfair to go straight to bed, so we stayed up with them until a little after midnight.

We retired to bed, unsure how peaceful the night would be... and it turned out we were right to be dubious about the quality of sleep we could expect. Between our own heads buzzing at the thought that the cats were HERE with us in the house, and the cats themselves exploring, knocking things over, jumping on and off the bed, miaowing, jumping on and off the windowsills, etc. we barely slept. I felt as if I'd barely managed to grab as much as 5 minutes sleep all night and in the end I got up at 5.30am because I felt as if I could go one of two ways: either get up now, or fall deeply asleep and not wake until halfway through the morning.

I dressed as quietly as I could, and let myself out through the security door via the man-cave, set myself up on the turbo trainer and felt slightly pleased with myself to be starting my day's workout before 6am! It was only about 15 minutes later that Stuart also got up - the cats were transfixed by watching the birds through the bedroom windows but couldn't help but give a running commentary of miaows as they did so, thus making it impossible for Stuart to sleep. (All of the sights and sounds here are new to the cats, and the windows present a tantalising glimpse of what is out there: the windows are wide open to the fresh air, but as they are covered with anti-fly mesh, they stop animals, large and small, being able to get in or out!)

And so getting up at 5.30-6am after approximately 5 minutes sleep all night is how we both came to be so tired today (for the record, my eyelids are heavy and my bed is calling, but I felt duty bound to get this update out before heading for the land of nod!).

Of course, the cats had had a long, busy night (and to be fair, I imagine they haven't had much in the way of quality rest over the last few days with all of their travelling) and were completely tuckered out this morning:

Florence all tuckered out.

Lucca all tuckered out.

Our own day today consisted of attempting to do some work this morning - which was tough in equal measures due to extreme sleepiness (possibly caused by a poor night's sleep?!) and to wanting to follow the cats round the house watching them explore and seeing what they would do next.

Having been up so very early this morning, we were both ready for an early lunch, so snuck outside with our tomato bruschette in a military-style covert operation so as not to alert the cats to the fact that we were opening the door to the big outside world!

After lunch it was back to the office for some more work - Stuart was office-bound today as well, doing some of our long-overdue filing and fixing some issues with his computer.

I was grateful for the distraction when the phone rang at around 2pm and I answered it to hear the lovely sound of Allison's voice at the other end. We had a lovely, long chat and catch up. It was great to talk to her, to hear all her news and just to while the time away in the same way as we would if we were still sitting opposite each other at our desks.

Come 4.30pm, I'd really had enough for the day, and Stuart said his brain was feeling fried too, so we decided to head into town to do the supermarket shopping, visit the post office to attempt to claim a parcel that we think had been left there for Stuart, and probably also have a quick Friday night stop off at our new local, Bar Pulter.

We headed for the post office first. Stuart had received a phone call yesterday lunchtime, which he understood to be either the postman or a delivery person saying they had a package for him and asking him what he wanted them to do with it. He was unclear as to what the options were other than 'leave a the post office', so he opted for that one and was met with a 'va bene' from the person on the other end of the phone. However, there was no delivery card or anything like that, so it was simply a matter of asking if there was a parcel at the post office.

The man in the post office seemed friendly and helpful, but had nothing for us. We think he might have suggested we try another post office branch (we *think* there is another, smaller one in town), but he said quite a lot that we simply didn't understand. Another frustrating setback!

We decided to go to Bar Pulter next, and ease our worries with a sit down, relax and a beer. After a while, we decided that we couldn't really face the supermarket, and that we quite fancied a pizza for dinner, so when we finished our drinks we headed back to the car via a pizzeria and went home, hot pizzas on laps, in time to sit out on the patio and eat dinner BEFORE 7pm (that never seems to happen!).

It was after dinner that we came indoors for Stuart to start writing this blog post and I came to check on some emails... so this is where we ended up with Stuart AND both cats all tuckered out, and me feeling very much on the way to being in the same state.

As ever, I am thrilled that it is the weekend again - the sense of relief of not feeling pressured to do any paid work is wonderfully liberating. We have a number of potential activities planned - we need to go back to Mercatone Uno to find out where on earth the kitchen for the apartment is (which is starting to become a bit of a concern) and also to order some furniture for the apartment living room if it is going to have as long a lead time as the kitchen. We also know that there is something going on in town where Oscar Tintori (the lemon specialist) is having a lemon exhibition?/display?/demonstration? between 4pm and 10pm, and we know that in the nearby town of Collodi there are various events going on, including fireworks and music at 11pm (which sounds great in theory, but whether we manage to stay awake long enough to go out at that time is another matter!).

With all that in the offing, I'm heading to bed now.... I just hope the cats sleep through the night tonight!