Warm weather returns!

The weather forecasters seem to have had trouble predicting the immediate future of late - each time we check the forecasts, the weather for the following three or four days has changed completely. I was therefore surprised when I got up at 7am this morning (to see if little Reggie still had a dry bed) to find that the temperature outside was very mild. Maybe today's forecast was going to be spot on after all: warm and partly cloudy.

Reggie's bed was indeed dry, but I think that 7am is his upper limit for time without a loo break. I put the lead on, and as soon as the door was opened he charged down the steps to the lawn - had he been fully grown, the way he took me unaware and slightly wrong footed this morning could easily have toppled me, but thankfully I gathered my composure in time to avoid a slapstick moment, he went to do his business then charged back to the house (this bit I was prepared for as it's his usual routine).

I fed the cats and let them out then released the geese and covered Reggie's cage with his sheet again in the hopes that he would have another snooze then climbed back into my own bed again. However, it seems that, while we've pushed Reggie's morning toilet trips out to a respectable time and done away with the 4am alarm calls, we've now got a situation whereby he's had enough of being in his cage by 7am and so instead of the usual couple of whimpers followed by peace and quiet, Helen and I lay there looking at the lovely chestnut beams and original tiles that make up our bedroom ceiling while Reggie took his whining to a whole new level - it was about as close to singing as I think he could get. It didn't take long before we both decided to get up and take him for a bleary eyed walk along the drive followed by a play session with his ball on the lawn before putting the espresso maker on the hob.

Reggie attempts to grow.

We abstained from breakfast though, as last night Nick and Tess had knocked on the door on their way into town to sample another of Mimmo's Cinghiale Bosco Burgers and offered us a breakfast of bacon and eggs - now that was an offer we couldn't refuse!!

We whiled away the early part of the morning quite pleasantly until they came upstairs clutching breakfast ingredients ready to cook. More coffee went on the stove and we drank mugs of coffee with perfectly poached eggs and bacon with toast - such a treat!

By the time Tess had washed up (both Tess and Nick are saintly in their constant insistence to attend to washing up duties), it was already 11am. Helen and I had a pile of possible jobs/errands/tasks to do today so had to prioritise, and Tess and Nick were planning to go and look around the antiques market in town before making a trip to Montecarlo.

We left the house with Reggie in the car and headed into town - we figured that, as the weather was so pleasant, we should take him for a walk along the river in Pescia, so we parked the car near to Chris and Sue's house and walked down to the river. Reggie seemed to love the grassy river banks (and the wall alongside it) but was still quite wary of the traffic in town. 

After a good half an hour, we piled back into the car and headed to the pet shop - we needed another clicker or two, some more treats for training, and some form of safety for him while in the car. Donatella had offered us their old seatbelt attachment that they no longer use for their dog, but we wanted to check out travel crates for longer journeys. By the time we all piled back into the car, we were stripping off coats and jumpers and almost wishing we'd worn shorts and t-shirts!

We took Reggie into the enormous store with us after firsyt making sure it was OK with the staff - we knew it would be, as we've seen many dogs in there before (trying clothes on!), never mind the number of dogs we've seen in OBI, Mercatone Uno, IKEA and the rest. At least if Reggie had an 'accident' inside we'd asked permission for his entrance so we felt more comfortable - although Helen did need to dash outside at one point as he started whimpering - but all he did when he got outside was bark at his own reflection in a car door.

We left with a new travel crate and a bag of other goodies then headed for a quick dash into OBI for some wood before heading home, Reggie sleeping in his new crate.

On the way home, we stopped off at Amanda's to grab something for lunch before she closed. I have no idea where she finds the time to cook all of the delicious stuff she sells, as well as run the shop. Despite it being half an hour before closing (and Amanda apologising for not having much left), we had a tempting choice of home-made lasagne, sausage and chicken kebab skewers, half a roast chicken, ragu, baby squid stuffed with seafood in a tomato and garlic sauce, or tripe.

We opted for the squid as it has been quite a while since we ate any seafood. We asked for a small amount of tripe too as we'd never tried it before and as since it's so popular (and traditional) here, we thought it must be worth trying at least once (despite it not really holding much appeal!). You'll be pleased to heat that we walked out without any tripe - instead, were gifted a portion of cioncia. Amanda told us we could try the tripe any time, as she often has it, but insisted that we try cioncia instead as she doesn't cook it all year round. Cioncia is a traditional dish of Pescia (we had no idea there were any dishes associated with the town) and is a beef stew but made only with meat from the cheeks and head. It looked amazingly rich, and she was keen for us to try it and let her know what we think.

We got home, feeling hungry as it was gone 2pm, only to find that no water would come out of any  of the taps in the house. Clearly, our day had been going too well! We decided to have some lunch before tackling the water situation, so sat on the patio and ate our squid stuffed with seafood in a tomato and garlic sauce along with toasted Tuscan bread, as advised by Amanda. It was delicious! A little while later, somebody else had a taste - and thought is was delicious too:

Lunch was over all too quickly - we had a water issue to sort out, after all. While Helen tended to the ever-needy Reggie, I took a small hand trowel to start tracing the water pipes outside to see if I could locate the problem. I could tell that the water was still coming up from the meter OK by turning the lever valve at the water storage tank outside - which meant that there was a problem somewhere between there and the house, but the pipe only appeared here and there for a few inches at a time.

Half an hour later, I'd got my head around the route of the pipe and figured out that there was an air lock in the system that was stopping the water in the main house (this all tallies with the strange squeaks in the pipes that our friend Q identified as dolphins in the water tank having morphed into the sort of noises made by either whales or walruses over the last week). I'm not fully sure as to how the plumbing works, but after a little while the air lock was obviously released and the water flow returned. So for now the disaster has been averted, but I suspect that the services of a plumber will be required at some point in the near future to look at the no doubt crazy DIY plumbing job here.

After that, Helen took the new post spade and set about digging some more fence post holes while I pulled on the chainsaw trousers to make a start on cutting up the pile of wood that was big for Tess to tackle with the chop saw last week.

As the fuel ran out in the chainsaw and the light faded, Helen helped stack the logs I'd cut then went to put the geese to bed while I herded the cats and tended to the dog before lighting the fire, writing the blog, helping cook lunch for tomorrow and soon trying the cow head stew (which I'm sure will taste much better than my description makes it sound!).

So a much better day today than yesterday - far more enjoyable and something more akin to the perfect balance we'd started to settle into. Tomorrow promises to be another warm day with a chance of more fencing progress and maybe even some wood splitting which I can't wait to get into again!