The weekend started abruptly for us today - Lucca, bang on time, started his toe attack at 7:20am, although we resisted getting up until 7:45am, when Reggie chimed in from downstairs, so Helen got up to do the rounds of the animals. I soldiered on until 8:20am, but didn't dare to linger any later than that as we had a schedule to keep!
As we mentioned in a previous post, the Phillips family recently had the misfortune to misplace their car keys, and yesterday Sue had asked if she could tag along with us this morning for the supermarket run - of course! A friend in need... as they say.
So, working back from our midday lunch rendezvous with Alex and Donatella, we decided to meet Sue at Lidl at 9am. We found Sue loitering outside the shop, so we collected trolleys and commenced our respective supermarket dashes before reaching the long, queues for the ever undermanned tills. Fortunately, we'd beaten the worst of the crowds out today (we've never made it to the supermarket as early as this, and I doubt that we will be making a habit of it), so by 9.30am we were loading the car and heading to Esselunga for the second part of the weekly shop.
After a quick dash around and only half filling our trolley we checked out and escaped the car park just after 10am. Next on the list was to take Sue to 'the chicken man' so that she could pick up some more chicken feed - we needed goose food as well, so it was handy for us too. I have to say, I was rather disappointed by 'the chicken man's' lack of resemblance to a chicken - he hadn't even bothered renting a suit or pulling a rubber glove over his head, but his cheery manner and food offerings for feathered friends more than compensated for his lack of commitment and it's safe to say that we've found a new and much more local supplier for our goosey requirements, and maybe even to supply us with actual chickens later in the year. (We should mention here, that the poor guy does not actually call himself 'the chicken man', rather it's a term of reference used between us and the Phillipses.)
We dropped Sue and all of her shopping home then headed back up the valley to offload all of our own bags of shopping before scooping up Reggie to take him out for a walk - the poor pooch had only had three quarters of an hour out of his crate this morning before being stuck back in it for a couple of hours while we shopped.
We'd agreed that another walk up the track to the refuge 'Uso di Sotto' near San Quirico was in order so that Reggie could really stretch his legs before we yet again put him in his crate while we went out for lunch.
As we approached the spot in which we've parked the car on previous occasions, we noticed the telltale signs of a hunt in progress in the woods - a stack of abandoned four-wheel-drive vehicles with various empty dog cages attached to their tow bars. Some of the vehicles also had signs on their tail gates indicating that a wild boar hunt was in progress. This, of course, meant that we couldn't let Reggie off his lead today, but we still had a good walk up and down the track itself, and none of us got shot, which is always a bonus!
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| Reggie investigates a less luxurious doggie crate. |
When we got back to the car, it refused to start - the second time this has happened since we had it looked at in October. Fortunately, I'd parked with the nose of the car facing downhill, so we soon jump started it back into life and charged down the valley home.
After a quick change from wellies to less muddy shoes, and putting Reggie back into his crate along with a yummy growl-inducing pork leg bone, which would be bound to keep him happily occupied for an hour or two, we departed for Alex and Donatella's, taking with us a couple of bottles of wine and a humane mouse trap - yep, that's how us rural folk do socialising around here.
We arrived to a warm welcome with a toasty open fire and a glass of wine and spent a very enjoyable hour or so catching up on news, trials and tribulations, back stories and motivations until the fire had burnt down to embers, prompting Donatella to put a grill over it in order to toast bread, which was accompanied by a wonderful hearty farro and bean soup, a tasty bean dip made with rosemary, olives from one of Alex and Donatella's neighbours, and all of that was followed by a delicious sticky toffee pudding made without dairy, plus coffee and limoncello. We comfortably whiled away several happy hours chatting and eating until darkness threatened to fall - at which point we tore ourselves away in order to get home to rescue a dog that had been in his crate for over four and a half hours, and to leave our hosts to put away their chickens and rabbits before feeding their cats and dog and lighting their wood burner next door.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon - and we would have happily continued on into the evening, but animal responsibilities and duties called, so we left with a promise to return the favour very soon - after all, Alex has yet to meet Reggie! (Thanks again for a great afternoon and lovely lunch if you're reading!)
Once we got home, we whisked both cats indoors, released the hound (who in turn relieved himself of his seemingly very full bladder contents) then had a game of football with him while we collected wood for this evening's fire.
Dinner will be a light affair after our very satisfying lunch, so a very lazy evening in front of the TV is quite probably in order - although I think an episode of Inspector Montalbano (in Italian) will at least make it feel like we're not completely squandering our time.
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