Helen was up for animal duties at 6.30am this morning - Reggie seems to be able to make it through the night until the early morning, but we daren't push is further than around 6.30-7am, just in case. So after feeding the cats, taking Reggie for a toilet trip, letting the geese out and attempting to take Reggie for a walk (he wasn't interested at that point), she came in to lay the table up for people-breakfast. Once breakfast was done with, we all went out into the warming morning: I got Nick and Tess to turn their attention to fencing while Helen and I drove into Pescia to attempt to finally acquire my health card, having translated and filled in the form that Helen returned with last week after acquiring hers.
We went straight into the now familiar CUP - which once again was nice and quiet - and were soon seen by a friendly woman who spoke no English. I asked to register for my health card and shoved the form in her direction, hoping that this would be all that was needed. She asked a couple of questions and wanted to know what doctor I wanted to be registered with, then spent a while talking to her colleague about us and asked for Helen's work contract. She took one look at the first of about 20 pages and handed it back, happy, then printed out my temporary card, handed me the form showing my registration with the doctor, and that was that!
We popped into a café for a quick cappuccino before heading home to start work.
By the time we got back, Nick and Tess had dug the remaining post holes for the fence and had a wheelbarrow full of soil to dispose of. Nick suggested they take the soil into the goose enclosure and use it to form a solid earth ramp for the geese - to replace the plywood ramp which they seemed unlikely ever to use of their own accord.
Once they'd carried all the soil up and realised they were quite a way short of being able to make a ramp, they asked if they could cut into the top bank to make easier access to the top terrace so that they could then use the soil taken out to complete the lower ramp. Well, who was I to stand in their way?! It was certainly a job that needed doing, and it had been on my list of things to do for quit a while, but I couldn't see when I'd get around to doing it, so it was a perfect opportunity to have it done now - and a great job they made of it too. After they'd finished, we gave them some lettuce to try to tempt the geese up their lovely new ramp. It worked... eventually!
While this was happening, I started concreting in some fence posts (in between doggie toilet trips and helping move the geese around) until lunchtime arrived: we enjoyed a Ligurian-style salad of potatoes, green beans, mozarella and olives in heaps of pesto in the balmy late November sun.
After lunch, Nick and Tess turned their attention to post concreting while I turned my hand to log splitting until the sun went down.
After the guys went to the apartment for showers, Helen and I took an especially needy Reggie into town for a good walk - which seemed to do the trick and he spent most of the evening sleeping, only coming out to play for a couple of hours after we'd finished dinner, with the cats safely in bed.
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