Midweek, or is it?

I'm completely out of the loop this week and have no idea what day it is. The fact that Monday was the day Mom, Kerys and Ben left threw things out, making Tuesday felt like Monday, I then lost half of Tuesday (yesterday) to feeling under the weather, so that didn't feel like a work day either, tomorrow is Helen's birthday and she is planning to take most of the day off, so that will feel like Saturday, and Friday is bound to feel like a Monday, and then when the weekend finally does arrive I have no idea what I'll be feeling like!

It was a bit of a late start for me today - with Helen's office having moved back downstairs and still no working alarm clock beside my bed, I slept on uninterrupted until I woke naturally - which turned out to be 9am. I think I must have needed, it but was quite surprised nonetheless, as bedtime was early last night.

Helen managed to put in a solid 55-minute performance on the turbo trainer today so she obviously benefited from the early night too.

By the time I'd tied up the last loose ends from yesterday's attempted afternoon of paperwork this morning, it was 11:30am. I wanted to try and get another car key cut, as having only one transponder key makes me nervous (should we lose that it won't be cheap to get fixed!).

I therefore headed into town to visit the little hardware shop before it closed for lunch, as I'd previously spotted a sign in the door saying they cut immobiliser keys. I had gone in twice last week for the same purpose, but was told I needed to speak to the young guy that worked there (who hadn't been there at the time).

This time, however, he was there. He dragged me behind the counter into an enormous tardis of a warehouse - I've no idea how it all fits into the space the shop occupies between two streets! When we reached the key cutting machine it was clear why the other guys in the shop didn't want to touch it - it was electronic and looked very complicated. He stuck the key in and switched it on, but the display read 'non duplicata' (or words to that effect). That set him off jabbering in Italian at a right old canter, the majority of which I didn't catch - so when, as we arrived back in the shop, he asked 'capisci?' and I responded 'si!, I was telling a bit more than a white lie. I did, however, glean that I would need to go to Fiat, or possibly AutoPippi in town in order to get the key cut (either way, it is going to be more expensive than the little hardware shop). He also mentioned the document that shows transfer of ownership of a vehicle - it seems you can't have car keys cut unless you can prove that you own the car, and we won't be able to get that document until we have our residency - another ball we need to take control of.

So, after buying some new editing pens for my wife, it was time to head home for lunch - nothing exciting: fresh tomatoes, two types of Italian cheese and toasted bread drizzled in peppery olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt (who am I kidding? it was lovely!).

After lunch, I left Helen to her work and went outside to sort through a pile of old doors and windows that had been collected and left here by the previous owners. I'm planning to re-build the man cave, as its flimsy construction doesn't fill us with utmost confidence from a security point of view. We've been told by numerous people that the crime rate is very low around here, but nevertheless we think it would be prudent to make a few upgrades if only for peace of mind.

So after all of that, and finding a good door amongst the pile and removing the lock so that I can try to find a replacement, it was time to put a bit more research into our Big Geese Plan (that is the Big Plan for Geese, not the plan for over-size pantomime geese). We'd always planned on keeping chickens here, but once the idea of geese was presented to us, it all seemed to make sense: they make very good guard dogs for when we're not here, will give us a supply of LARGE eggs (albeit fewer than chickens would, and for only 6-7 months of the year), and will weed and keep the grass down wherever we allow them to roam.

It's not a quick or easy decision though: geese will make mess, they will make noise, and they will need to live somewhere predator-proof. On top of that, we can expect them to be around for up to 20 years! So plenty of research needs to be done before we make the leap, but we are both quite keen on the idea, and as a result I am now a signed up member of 'BackYard Chickens', a website and vast forum dedicated to the keeping of birds of the edible and laying variety, so watch this space!

First I sign up to a twitchers' forum and now one for poultry keepers!

By 5.30pm, Helen had completed her day's work (or so she thought), and we retired to the terrace for an hour or so. We could hear our apartment guests starting to pack up their car as they are leaving tomorrow - we both feel very sad for them that their holiday is over, and will be sorry to see them go. They've been perfect guests in every way, they seem to have had a fantastic time, and although we get the impression they enjoy exploring new places when they travel, we would love to have them pay us another visit.

Eventually we both went indoors - me to make a start on blogging, and Helen to make a start on dinner (which tonight is going to be cabbage and pancetta flavoured) and to finished some tweaks to the work she was doing earlier so she can at least take most of the day off tomorrow as planned without any worries.

Smells like dinner is almost ready, so that's me done for this evening.