Stuart surfaced a little after 9am looking tired and decided he didn't feel up to the trip into town to collect his blood test results. We should be able to collect them on Monday morning anyway, so we parked that job until then.
In the middle of the morning, I popped down to the post office in the village - I had 4 parcels to send to the UK, plus a parcel to send to Perugia (the old 'LNB' from the satellite dish, which Brad has asked us to return), a letter to send to the electricity company and a bill to pay (for refuse collection). Things didn't look promising when I arrived and parked the car to see people milling around on the pavement - the post office is so tiny that when the queue exceeds three people, it spills out onto the pavement. Anyway, the parcels (Christmas presents for family) were late enough as it was, so I decided to wait it out and duly joined the end of the 6-people-long queue. I waited and I waited. Several times I thought I'd made up my mind that I'd had enough and was going to go home and come back another time, but just as I'd had that thought, it would look as if the person currently being served was finishing up their business so I decided to hang on. Eventually, after about 20 minutes of waiting, I got to the front of the queue.
The man behind the counter said something to me that I didn't understand, and I felt flustered and ignorant. He repeated it, and I thought he was saying something along the lines of 'the parcels are too big' - and telling me I couldn't post them. Just as I started to feel a lump in my throat and tears rising, he beckoned me to go over to the door through to the back of the post office to pass the parcels through to him. He then started shuffling pieces of paperwork, thrust a form at me to fill in for the parcel that was going to Perugia, and started shouting out the costs for each of the parcels going to the UK. I was flustered but it seemed that my parcels were actually going to be sent after all. Once we'd sorted all of that out, and he'd charged me the €64 (yes, €64) for the postage, I reminded him that I had a bill to pay as well - he'd snatched the bill from me with everything else right at the start and covered it with other pieces of paperwork, so I struggled to get my point across, (in completely rubbish and probably incomprehensible Italian), but pointing at it helped and before long I was leaving the post office with a much lighter purse and feeling a mixture of relief that I'd managed to accomplish what I set out to achieve, along with frustration and disappointment that I'd failed to communicate clearly or understand what was being said. Every time I think I'm making some progress on the language front, I find myself in a situation where I simply don't understand what's being said and my mind goes blank.
Anyway, by the time I got home Stuart was feeling a bit brighter so we had a cup of tea (hot squash for me) while we waited for the washing machine to finish (on a couple of occasions recently there has been a suspicious smell of hot rubber coming from the washing machine so I don't dare leave it going while we are away from the house), then headed out in the direction of Montecatini, with Reggie in tow.
Our first stop was the pet shop - we got Reggie out to come inside with us, but he really doesn't like going into the big, brightly lit shop, so Stuart waited outside with him while I went in. I wanted to see if they had anything at all that would help with calming the cats in this stressful period of getting used to the big barky monster in their house. Over the last week or so we've been giving them some 'Zylkene' - a supplement recommended by vets in the UK that is a milk derivative and which has seemingly magical cat (and dog) calming properties. We'd used it prior to their journey over here and when they first arrived to help them settle in, and it seemed to have some positive effects. However, we only had a little of what we brought over from the UK left - which has now run out, and although I've ordered a new packet, the estimated delivery date for that isn't until 29th December. With not only Reggie to contend with, but another dog coming for Christmas (Granville and Marie's pug, Nero), I wanted to try and find out if there was anything we could give the cats in the interim to help them feel calmer - or even anything like the 'Feliway' plug-ins that we've used in the past that are also meant to help in stressful situations. The pet shop, however, had nothing.
Our next stop was the ipercoop shopping centre, where we dashed in for a cappucino and a pastry - by this time it was 3pm and we hadn't had any lunch, so that filled the gap. Finally, we headed to Decathlon, our goal being to buy some warm clothes - in particular shoes. Since the weather finally decided to turn wintry (and even when it's milder, but wet), we have both realised that we are ill equipped for living this lifestyle in terms of footwear. If we are taking Reggie out for a walk along the river, then my lovely wellies (a Christmas present from my sister a couple of years ago) are ideal, and I am truly getting the most out of them. Likewise, Stuart has wellies and work boots. If, however, we are simply going to the shops or for a walk around town, the only vaguely wintry shoes I had available were a pair of Converse boots (neither warm nor waterproof) or else my old work boots - with heels. I can't even imagine an occasion on which wearing high heeled boots will be appropriate at the moment! Similarly, Stuart felt he didn't have appropriate footwear for this weather.
We therefore went straight to the shoes in Decathlon and I picked out a pair of wool-lined boots, while Stuart found a pair of woolly-topped shoes. We also picked up a warm top and a pair of warm leggings for me. Purchases paid for, we headed back to the car and set off for home - today has been a wet and grey day, so the light was starting to fade even earlier than usual, so we hurried home to get the cats indoors and put the geese to bed before it got properly dark.
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| Warm footwear! |
By the time the cats and geese were safely tucked up for the night, it was around 5pm and we were due at Chris and Sue's at 7-7.30pm. We'd decided we would walk Reggie beforehand, so were aiming to go out a little after 6pm. We therefore decided to watch an hour's programme on TV, and since we were going out, decided it wasn't worth lighting the fire. Boy, it was a chilly hour!
While we were sitting watching TV, with Reggie snuggled up with us on the sofa, chewing on toys, clothes, arms etc., something fell from his mouth - he lost his first tooth (or the first that we know about anyway)! Wow. Thankfully there is no tooth fairy for puppies though. I'm not sure the tooth fairy could afford to pay out for all of those teeth!
With apologies for those who are squeamish, or eating breakfast...
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| Puppy's first tooth! |
When 6pm rolled around, we packed a bag for Reggie. Reggie had been invited to spend the evening at Chris and Sue's (and bring us along with him), so we packed a few toys, some chews, a towel, his water bowl and dinner bowl, some dinner and his lead then set off into town.
We parked the car at Chris and Sue's then headed with Reggie into town. We did a fairly large circuit of the town, taking in the pretty Christmas lights.
After that, we headed back to Chris and Sue's. Reggie looked confused when we opened up the boot of the car and instead of asking him to jump in and get in his crate, Stuart lifted the crate out of the boot. What on earth was going on? We then headed up the hill, laden with doggie paraphernalia, to be greeted by the Phillipses. Reggie was very uncertain about going inside the strange house with strange people inside, but eventually came in once he realised that Stuart and I were going in. Henry and Erik were heading out for their own evening's socialising, so Reggie just had Chris and Sue to get used to over the course of the evening.
We had a wonderful evening, as ever with the Phillipses. Sue fed us delicious home made curries and plied us with mulled wine and prosecco. It was lovely to spend an evening relaxing in great company and having a good catch up and lots of laughs. It was also lovely to spend an evening in a really warm house! Chris has promised us a master class in fire lighting/building/maintaining, so hopefully we too will be able to keep our house toasty warm!
As usual, time flew by, and come 1.30am it was time to take our sleepy puppy home - he had been an absolute angel all night, on his best behaviour, and we were proud of him!
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