It's only four days into the new year and we're already missing blog posts - sorry about that, but don't panic, this one won't be double length. The reason yesterday didn't get its own post is because of the cats, or at least that's how I'm trying to sell it, and here's why:
It was a cold night on Friday, and both cats insisted that they needed human body warmth in order to sleep well enough to fulfil their nap quota before going out hunting in the morning. This meant that Helen and I spent the entire night lying in some very awkward positions attempting to accommodate slumbering felines. To give Lucca his dues, he has been a regular on the bed over the last three months, and during his time sleeping with the grown-ups he has learned to sleep at the bottom of the bed in the centre - the best place for the least disturbance all round, and most of the time we don't even know he's there. Florence, on the other hand, is not so well versed in the bed-sharing etiquette. Our diminutive tabby just has to have contact - her preference is to sit/lie on top of you, or failing that she will settle for leaning up against you.
Under 'normal', dog-free circumstances, the cats would have been given short shrift and would have been made to leave us in peace, but for now, guilt has got the better of us and for as long as Reggie is terrorising them, we'll be humouring them at night. This is normally fine when it's just the one of them trying to bed share, but not so fine when they both decide they want to sleep on mum and dad's bed at the same time. Suffice to say that the night didn't go well. Helen at least slept a little better than I did, but I was still a little out of sorts from my sickness the day before, so that combined with Florence using me as a chaise longue meant I barely slept a wink. My lack of sleep had unpleasant ramifications, bringing back some dark mood clouds to our hill so, to cut this sorry story short, I did the only only thing that seems to work under these circumstances, which was to bury my head in a book all day and avoid anything and anyone even remotely challenging for fear of exploding - not a great day for any of us here, to put it mildly.
Thankfully, last night's sleep was a huge improvement - largely because I left Helen and the cats in our bed while I slept in the spare room. Despite turning the lights out at 11pm to ensure a good sleep, I didn't open my eyes again until 10am, so I guess I was still quite tired. Helen, meanwhile, had been up since 7.30am, fed and watered the animals, washed up, brought in more wood for the fire, lit a fire and done her best to keep Reggie quiet until I got up.
After a late breakfast, we decided to head out to the methane garage to refill the car, and then to take Reggie for a walk - it looked like a nice, sunny day and we decided to head somewhere different for today's walk.
After driving all the way out to Montecatini's methane station only to find it closed (their sign proudly states that they are always open and only closed only 25th Dec, 1st Jan and Easter), we headed back towards Pescia via a different route to try and catch another methane station before noon. Unfortunately, a momentary slip in concentration had us heading straight back to Montecatini on the autostrada. This accidental ten-minute drive in the wrong direction cost us the grand sum of €0.60, so to amuse myself I stuffed a €50 note into the toll machine to pay for it - receiving a pile of €5 notes and coins back in return. Well, at least I'd got some small change out of the situation - every cloud...
By now, we knew the other fuel stations would be closing for lunch (and you can't self-serve at methane stations), so we reluctantly headed back to Pescia, put some unleaded in the car, then back into our valley and towards San Quirico. We turned off the San Quirico road onto a quiet, single lane track that leads up to a refuge (Rifugio 'Uso di Sotto') - we'd walked this tree-lined track with Helen's Mum and Dad in October, so we knew it would be quiet and a good place for Reggie to run about.
We didn't walk his young legs very far, but he certainly made the most of being off his lead and had a great time galloping around at full tilt, occasionally losing grip on what was left of the snow and ice and skidding all over the place - he certainly used up a lot of energy on today's romp through the woods, it was lovely to see him so joyful and we didn't see or hear another soul while we were there.
By the time we got back to the car and then home again, it was nearly 2pm, so we had lunch: pork scallopine in tomato sauce with olives. Sadly we can't take the credit for it, as we had stopped at Amanda's for it on our way home.
By the time we'd finished lunch, it was a lovely day outside - clear blue skies and much warmer than it has been for many weeks. Yesterday, the weather forecast had said that today's temperatures were going hit 15°C - I'm not sure it got quite that high, but it was definitely very pleasant, so we decided to head outside to cut and split some more firewood to help replenish our now rather depleted stocks.
We spent a couple hours outside in the glorious afternoon - me cutting the wood with my trusty Stihl chainsaw and Helen making her first forays into wood-splitting with an axe. Despite giving me more than a couple of sideways glances of frustration during her first few attempts, she soon got the swing of it and by the time the sun started going down I think we'd added at least another four or five (cold) days' worth of wood to the pile.
As the daylight slowly faded, we put the geese to bed, played ball and tug of war with Reggie in the garden and put some bread crusts out onto the bird feeders before moving a large pile of wood indoors ready to light this evening's fire - the latest we've needed to light one for weeks. We haven't seen the last of winter by any stretch, I'm sure, but today's warm sunshine has been a welcome reprieve at least.
So this marks the end of the 'Christmas holiday' period and tomorrow it will be back to a routine of sorts again (whatever that means) - hopefully preceded by another good night's sleep!
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