Slow (as predicted), but still some progress

When the alarm went off this morning we could hear the rain pouring down outside. I don't think it had stopped since last night. The sound of the rain and the coolness in the bedroom made us both want to hunker down for a while longer, but there's nothing like the thought of potentially having to clean up puppy poo to focus the mind into heaving yourself out of bed - so Helen did exactly that, first feeding the cats, then taking Reggie for his morning toilet trip then feeding him and releasing the geese. After all that, she got back on the turbo trainer for the first time in a couple of weeks.

By the time she got back in, I was still procrastinating under the duvet, knowing that there was no way I was going to be working on the fence in this weather. In between drifting in and out of sleep I considered what else I could do with the day, but each time I drifted back off to sleep before coming to any firm conclusions. Once Helen was out of the bathroom though, I had no more excuses and it was time to get up.

After breakfast, we both took Reggie for a walk along the drive and a bit of training. He has a good grasp of the whistle now and no words are needed to call him, just a toot on the whistle and he comes charging from one of us to the other, his ears pinned back in the wind and his lead dragging behind. He's much better with his training on home turf though, and still gets hugely distracted when out in the big wide world, but small steps for a small dog and overall we're happy with his progress in the short time we've had him.

After a play with his ball on the lawn, Reggie went into his crate and seemed to sleep for most of the morning, while Helen started work in the office. In the meantime I was trying to push on with the fencing in between showers - the persistent rain had turned to showers, but it was still slow going. However, as the morning crept on, the weather brightened and by lunchtime it was sunny enough for us to sit outside for an al fresco lunch. We were both feeling a bit weary from our last few weeks of activity and had a slow lunch, even following it up with coffee, Italian style.

When Helen went back to the office, I decided that I should turn my attention to some form of gate mechanism to keep Reggie out of the kitchen area and the office, where the cats now eat and sleep of an evening. I stumbled across the old 'secondary glazing' window panels in the woodshed (having kept hold of them just in case I could find a use for them). There were four pieces, which I joined all together with hinges, and then attached the whole lot to the end of the sideboard (which now forms the end of the kitchen island). The hinged pieces thus made a concertina-type arrangement that we can open fully against the island (sideboard) or stretch across to wall, closing off the kitchen and the cat flap and allowing the cats (hopefully) to feel a bit more secure and safe as they come and go. They have clearly been missing that feeling of security of late, which seems to have been causing them to stay away from the house more than usual, so hopefully with this in place they'll learn that they can come and go safely during the day.

Reggie/cat safety gate.

The cats have taken up residence in the office.

That done, I went back to fencing and before the light faded, managed to finish the run of fencing down in front of the apartment. When the church tower over in the village chimed 4pm, I knew that it wouldn't be long before the light would start fading, so I took Reggie out to play on the lawn and went back to work to see if he'd entertain himself outside while I replaced the wobbly trellis on our patio with a proper piece of new fence. Reggie did largely entertain himself - charging around and finding things to chew, including the teddy bear that we found here when we moved in. 'Casserole Ted' now has his stomach on the outside of his body, and think his days are numbered. In fact, the only reason he survived to tell the tale was that Lucca appeared on the steps down from the terraces and sat there, a couple of steps behind the fence, watching Reggie go absolutely nuts trying to get at him. You could have been forgiven for thinking that Lucca was watching a game of tennis, his little head rhythmically going from left to right watching Reggie: with the use of doggie treats, I would call Reggie away from Lucca and get him sitting at my feet - but he soon worked out that if he ran at Lucca and then came back to me when called, he'd get a treat. He did this repeatedly for three or four minutes and each time he was quieter until eventually he stopped all noise altogether, not even a growl. This was great progress and Lucca just sat and watched from the safety of behind the fence, so I figured it a healthy progression.

Shortly afterwards though, while Reggie was happily continuing to disembowel teddy, Lucca obviously felt confident enough to cross the fence and head indoors. I hadn't seen him do it, but Reggie clearly did - and chased him back across the fence. So, it looks like there's still plenty of work to do on the cat-dog relationship front.

When the light faded, Lucca came in without too much encouragement, which was a huge improvement over last night, and Florence was already indoors safely behind the Reggie screen.

With the geese fed and put to bed, we took Reggie out for a short walk around Pietrabuona before heading to Amanda's alimentari for some basics supplies and heading home whereupon, after feeding his face, Reggie crashed out and we got some peace at last.

So time for a fire and some dinner now and maybe, dare I say it an early night.