Despite feeling tired though, I had a lot on my mind - a list of things I knew we needed to do today (and now I think about it, only one of which we've managed to do), so in the end I got up again and padded downstairs to write out a to-do list, check my email and attempt to watch some TV quietly with Reggie on the sofa.
At 9.30am, I heard stirring from upstairs, so went up to find Stuart awake, but looking miserable. Nevertheless, he hauled himself out of bed to get dressed and have some breakfast while I had a shower. After we'd both had breakfast and washed up, I made a shopping list then we headed out to take Reggie for a walk, followed by some supermarket shopping.
Today, we parked up near Chris and Sue's again but this time walked away from town, down the quiet lane that leads to the private road that takes you to San Lorenzo. We walked to San Lorenzo, then did an about-turn and walked back again. Reggie met another large puppy on the way back - 9 months old, apparently. I couldn't say what breed of dog it was, but it was clearly one that was going to be a large dog when fully grown as he was already considerably bigger than Reggie. Reggie and the puppy barked and sniffed each other excitedly and looked like they wanted to play - that was until Reggie had had enough and came running back to me for safety. It's nice to know that, in general, when he meets other dogs he is interested in them and doesn't appear to be scared or aggressive, although we have yet to let him play freely.
After our walk, we headed to Esselunga for the drudgery of the weekly shop then straight back home for lunch.
The afternoon was spent with yet more upheaval. We received an email from Andrea late on Friday: in order for him to submit the paperwork to the comune regarding the 'amnesty' for the non-regulation windows and non-regulation painting of the house (i.e. in order for us to pay the €2k fine), he needs to come here and take some photographs of all sides of the house - which he plans to do on Tuesday morning. The sting here (it seems there's always a sting) is that before he takes the photos, we need to have removed the canopy above the apartment door, the satellite dish (yep, that's no internet once again) AND dismantled and removed the woodshed and man cave.
I could cry. Well, in fact I did cry - we are in the midst of a tough run of days here, and this seemed like another unfair hurdle to have to face at a difficult time.
Anyway, the upshot was that, after lunch, Stuart took himself off into the man cave and started banging and crashing around and began bringing tools, bikes, garden furniture and various other inhabitants of the man cave into the office.
In order to fit all of the contents of the man cave (or the more valuable items at least) into the office, Stuart removed the bed. Our poor cats who were just getting used to the office being their 'safe' place have yet again been displaced. We have attempted to make them a cosy safe haven in the spare room upstairs, moving their food bowls up there as well as their litter tray (which, up until now, lived in the man cave - as the man cave is shortly to be no more, we have had to re-home it on the upstairs landing), but they didn't look impressed and went and hid under our bed instead.
After a while of trying to keep Reggie out of Stuart's way, I offered to help move the less important items from the man cave into the former rubbish shed, and spent an hour or so going back and forth from man cave to rubbish shed with half-used pots of paint, paint brushes and rollers, pieces of garden furniture and so on, with Reggie running back and forth with me each time.
By late afternoon, the man cave was half emptied, so Stuart called time on the removals.
My office now looks like this, with still more to come:
He then turned his attention to trying to 'Christmas-up' our house despite the fact that I know he couldn't feel less like doing it. I think that we have pretty much decided (reluctantly) that we won't have a Christmas tree this year - what with the whirlwind that is Reggie in the house and precious little spare space, I think that a tree might end up causing more grief than it's worth, and with the mood in the house decidedly fragile at the moment, the potential for a Christmas tree to quite literally end in tears is fairly high. Nevertheless, the box of decorations has come out (it had to - it was living in the man cave), and we have re-purposed the Christmas tree lights as ceiling beam lights instead. The effect is quite beautiful, and I've a feeling I may not want to take them down after Christmas!
The challenge now is to work out how else we can decorate the house for Christmas with decorations that are Reggie-proof.
Once all that was done, Stuart turned his attention to cooking up a batch of very delicious mulled wine before starting to prepare vegetable fajitas for dinner. I can even hear Christmas music from in the other room. I think he's trying to force us into the Christmas spirit as it doesn't seem to be coming naturally to either of us this year. Aside from the stresses and concerns that we have going on at the moment, both health wise and Man from Florence/comune/regulations wise, there is the simple fact that Christmas in this country is an alien concept to us. Yes, there are beautiful Christmas lights, lovely Christmassy displays in the shop windows, Christmas trees all over town, Christmas concerts being advertised, Christmas lights in people's windows and so on, but somehow it just doesn't feel the same as the build up to Christmas in the place where we have grown up with and always known it. Maybe the feeling will come over the next couple of weeks - we're hoping so!
Tomorrow is a bank holiday in Italy (the feast of the immaculate conception), so we're unlikely to do much outside of the house tomorrow other than take Reggie for a walk and visit Sue's chickens, but I guess that there is no bank holiday rest for those have to earn a living doing freelance work or for those who have a wood shed and man cave to clear out and dismantle ...
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