While Nick, Tess and Stuart ordered up two cinghiale burgers and two spicy sausage panini, I took Reggie off to the safety and quiet of the car. He jumped into the boot and settled himself down amongst the shopping bags, looking a little more comfortable than he had done outside - so I sat with him, and ate my spicy sausage panino while perched on the edge of the car boot. Stuart had ordered the cinghiale burger and offered me a taste - WOW. All four of us agreed that this was simply THE best burger we had ever tasted. Nick and Tess were so impressed that Nick ordered up a second round - in the end he plumped for a porchetta panino, but it was a close run thing between that and another cinghiale burger. Tess wondered if they could import Mimmo and his truck into New Zealand...
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| Ciao Mimmo! |
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| Is this the best burger in the world? |
Once all the pork products had been dispatched, we clambered back into the car feeling very satisfied and made our way back up the hill. Reggie took a little coaxing to come out of the car from his safe spot, but once he realised he was back home, he soon perked up. As we poured a glass of wine eat and tried Michelle's chestnut cake and shortbread biscuits, Reggie found his play mode again. He spent the next couple of hours collecting 'toys' and flitting from one toy to another - his pile of toys at the end of the evening comprised: two steel toe-capped boots (each dragged to his toy pile by the laces), one slipper, one purple pig toy (a real doggy toy), one rope toy (another real doggy toy), half an empty cereal packet, the brush from the dustpan and brush, and a stick from the pile of kindling. He had a great time playing and seemed to have forgotten the trauma of the scary porchetta van.
We finally all retired to bed after a pre-bed toilet trip for Reggie and hoped we could stretch out his overnight toilet trip to a little later in the morning.
Reggie was good as gold through the night, and Stuart managed to eke out his early hours toilet trip to 6.30am - progress! I got myself up at around 8am to take Reggie out for a short walk up and down the drive.
After breakfast, it was time for Reggie to experience true freedom - with the fencing and gates all beautifully finished yesterday, the coast was now clear (or rather secure) for Reggie to be allowed into the lawned area of the garden without his lead on - and to experience full on puppy play time without being yanked by his lead or having any restrictions.
He LOVED the garden. He ran joyfully round and round, skidded across the grass after the ball, did some big-dog barking, chased after us, chewed grass, played tug-of-war with the ivy trailing up the olive tree, and looked truly happy.
After about an hour's play time, he rehydrated with a cup of tea before coming back indoors for a rest:
Our weekends over the last month or so seem to have become somewhat more mundane than they used to feel - for the last several weeks running, after the anticipation of the weekend has come the disappointment of 1. no longer being able to indulge in a lie-in (thanks to having geese duties as well as dog duties) and more importantly, 2. having to fill our weekend days with chores such as supermarket shopping, cooking, washing and cleaning. Today was no different, and so it was that next on the agenda was to write a shopping list and then head into town for the weekly supermarket shop.
We crossed our fingers that Reggie's garden playtime would have been enough to quieten him down for a couple of hours and headed out, leaving him and the cats home alone for the first time.
Before heading out, we dropped off a map of the area with Nick and Tess, who were planning to do a bit of local exploring today, and maybe try out one of the restaurants in Sorana for lunch. Having been here for a week and a half this would be the first they had really seen of our valley, so we hoped they would enjoy it.
Our first stop in town was Atum, the tool shop. Stuart had ordered a reciprocating saw and a new blade for his chop saw - but neither of them had arrived yet (despite having been told last weekend that they would be ready to collect on Monday), so we went on our way and headed next into the main square. We went into Franco's, our favourite coffee shop, for a cappucino and some delicious pine nut biscotti to fortify us before hitting the supermarket.
The supermarket trip wasn't too bad really, and at 1pm it was as quiet as it gets on a Saturday - but it's never going to be one of our favourite pastimes and never top of our weekend wishlist!
With the shopping loaded into the car, we headed back up the hill to find out how Reggie had fared on his own. Of course, he was fine - although we took him straight outside for a toilet trip for good measure. We had a late lunch of leftover soups (having overestimated portion sizes of both Tuscan bean and leek and potato during the week) then took Reggie for another walk along the drive and another short play on the lawn.
By the time we'd done that, it was 3.30pm - the weather was gloomy (misty with low cloud), but not actually wet, and we knew there would be another hour and a half of daylight left. There was only one thing for it - try to eke something productive out of an otherwise unsatisfying day - so we both went and changed our clothes, Stuart mixed up a bucket of mortar, and we spent the next hour and a half doing some more re-pointing of the garden wall.
The bucket of mortar ran out just as the light was starting to fade, so we packed the tools away, I put the geese to bed, then we got the cats in and headed along the drive to stretch Reggie's legs again before settling for the evening.
Dinner tonight is vegetable fajitas, and maybe (who knows) we will even get an early night and chance to open a book before sleep! (Then again...!)
[With thanks to Nick Maskell for most of today's photos!]
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