Double dose

Once again, our internet connection thwarted our attempts at blogging yesterday, so we bring you another double dose tonight.

Tuesday (Stuart):

Andrea, our geometra, was due today at 9.30am, this morning, and after hitting the wall last night just after 7pm, I still needed to pull up the wooden floor of the former man cave, remove the canopy from the apartment door and take down the satellite dish.

Getting up was not so easy this morning however - yesterday's epic destruction and tidy-up of the man cave would be a good effort for me on a normal day, never mind on the tail end of a hypothyroid episode - and both us delayed getting up until almost 8am this morning (that is after Helen had done a Reggie toilet trip at 6am).

Once I was up, I soon got the man cave floor up and moved the floor boards to the wood pile, then took down the canopy before Helen came out at 9.15am to help with the satellite dish.

Everything was all ready in good time for Andrea, who was quarter of an hour late, but that gave me time to play with Reggie on the lawn for a while.

Andrea got himself a good barking at by little Reggie, so we can safely say that the guard dog duties are going well - although when Andrea approached to say hello, Reggie ran and hid behind me! Still, the barking is a good start.

After Andrea had measured up inside the apartment and taken photos of the house on all its elevations, we had a brief chat about timings etc. before he departed, telling me he expected to have the amnesty document ready to sign on Thursday. He also told me that, contrary to what he said last week, I couldn't block up the rear door (the former door into the former man cave) until after the comune had approved the plan to do so - along with a plan for a new, legal ten metre square wood\tool shed. He said that getting the relevant permission would take around a month.

This left us with what was basically a shed door between us and the cold outside world now that the man cave on the other side of it had been demolished - which is good for neither thermal nor security purposes! There was nothing else for it, therefore, than to board it up. I was about to hop into the car to go and buy a sheet of plywood to do just that when I realised that I had an enormous pile of wood at my disposal (thanks to the demolition of the man cave) with which I could make something temporary. So that's exactly what I did - it meant having to scavenge wood that I'd already carried down to the wood pile once and bring it back up, but at least it was free.

By the time lunch arrived (toasted Tuscan bread with a spoonful of leftover lentil ragu from last night on top, topped off with a couple of Sue's fresh eggs, poached), I'd got the frame in the doorway and after lunch I fitted the cat flap and cut and fitted panelling to finish the outside.

On the inside, I removed the electrics that at 7pm last night I'd left stuck against the outside of the door, three sets of sockets, a fluorescent strip light and a pull cord light switch, then stuffed the cavity between the inner door and the outer closure with half of the old foam mattress (that used to be on the bed in the apartment downstairs) before screwing this door forever closed - well, that is until I get permission to block the whole thing up.

After a bit more tidying and yet another temporary bit of tarpaulin housing for a pile of stuff we couldn't home anywhere else, it was time to start gathering the tools I'd strewn about the place over the course of the day and pack them up indoors in time to head into town for Helen's Italian lesson.

While she usually goes into town by herself before picking up Sue and going to Rita's for their lesson, Sue is away at the moment and Reggie hadn't yet had a proper walk, so we went into town together and I walked Reggie around town while Helen had her one-on-one lesson.

I collected her at about quarter to seven, and we headed home to light the fire and cook some dinner to finish off what has been a much a colder and more productive day.

The internet connection reacted fairly well to having the satellite dish taken down and later put back up again - at least at first. While the internet came back on when I re-attached the satellite dish to the wall, it decided it had had enough for one day at around 4pm - so we spent yet another evening without an easy lifeline to the outside world!

(Oh, and the fairy lights that we stapled to the beams in aid of Christmas largely stopped working last night - after testing every bulb, the prognosis is a new set of lights! Not sure why, but it seems as if EVERYTHING has been breaking since getting here - looks like we need to add Christmas lights to the shopping list.)

Wednesday (Helen):

Reggie seemed to have a lie-in this morning and he didn't wake until about 7.15am, so it wasn't until then that I got around to taking him outside, feeding him and the cats and waking up the geese. It was a struggle to get out of bed this morning because the air felt SO cold, and when I opened up the front door there were signs of our first frost since arriving, with the thermometer reading 1.5C. Brrr.

As much as I wanted to escape back inside to the relative warmth of the house, I got out the kettlebells and turbo trainer and spent a while trying to work up a sweat in the cold air.

Once that was out of the way, I'd had breakfast and showered, and Stuart had tweaked the satellite dish to try and restore our connection to the outside world, we decided to head into town with Reggie to give him a walk and to do our last chicken-feeding duties at Sue's. We went to see the chickens first - only 4 eggs this morning, and they had eaten all of their food up, so we put plenty more grain into their feeder, topped up their water, and left the eggs in a crate on the doorstep ready for Chris and Sue's return later today.

We then headed to the river for what is becoming Reggie's regular walk, before going back home again.

After having had a very positive day yesterday - it almost felt as if Stuart was himself again - we were both crestfallen to find that today things were back to the same as before, with Stuart tired, miserable and irritable. We'd both felt as if he'd turned a corner yesterday, so to say it was disappointing for him to relapse is an understatement.

After an early lunch, we headed to the doctor's waiting room just down the hill. This time I came prepared with some work to do - and was glad I had done as, once again, the doctor was an hour and fifteen minutes late arriving. Since we had been the first people to arrive (there were around 7 other people in the waiting room by the time the doctor arrived), we were seen first, which was a relief after well over an hour of sitting in a stifling hot waiting room. 

The doctor looked at the results of Stuart's blood test and pronounced them to be fine/good. This came as quite a shock to both of us, as what he has been experiencing for the last week or so has been almost identical to the symptoms he has displayed in the past when his thyroid has been playing up. So that left the question as to why he has been feeling so terrible. The doctor has arranged for another set of blood tests and told us to go back when we have the results. Another blood test will be tomorrow's first job then.

When we finally got home, I settled down to my computer to finish my afternoon's work, while Stuart brought more firewood in from outside and lit the fire. While Stuart tended the fire, I gradually lost all feeling in my fingers and toes, as it was so cold in the office. I feel a little like Michelin man with all the layers of clothing I wear on a daily basis - but I have had a tip from my friend Mary and will try wearing a woolly hat while I work, to see if that helps. It may look ridiculous, but my days of power dressing for work are long gone!

It took two of us to get the geese indoors this evening - Nick and Tess's ramps have been so successful that the geese have been happily moving between terraces (although they do still have a strong preference for the original one), and this evening they were on the lower terraces and refusing to move up to the house. Once Stuart came out to help, and we guided them from opposite directions with our poles, they virtually sprinted into their house, no messing about!

While I started on this blog post, Stuart rigged up a new set of Christmas lights - another set that we realised we had brought with us from the UK. They are neither as pretty nor as extensive as the other set was, but it's nice to have them on. I should also mention that, while Stuart was feeling more productive and in better spirits yesterday evening, he took it upon himself to 'draw' us a Christmas tree with baubles. If we can't have a real one, we can have a 'drawn' one! This is not the best photograph, but you get the general idea:

Now it's time now for me to go and warm up by the fire where Stuart and Reggie already have the best seats in the house.