On a winter's day...

This week is passing me by in a blur of mood swings, tiredness and chilly mornings.

It's fair to say that the cold weather has done the job of making me feel like Christmas is actually on the way now - that, and it has removed any doubt in my mind that we were right to have ordered the new double glazed windows!

Helen almost literally had to drag me out of bed this morning. I was half awake at the time Reggie called out for the toilet at 6.45am, and I was about to climb out of bed to do the rounds of the animals, but Helen groaned and jumped up before me. I quickly drifted off into a deep sleep again, so when she came to rouse me it was nearly 8.30am and the clock was ticking for us to get to the misericordia for the second round of blood tests. The cut-off time for blood tests is 9.30am and, if you were paying attention a few days ago you'll remember that the process for this is to go into the misericordia building with the form from the doctor, they then punch the details into a computer and give you another form in return, this one bearing a barcode, which you then need to take to the hospital on the other side of the river to shove it into a touchscreen machine that reads the details and tells you how much you owe it. Only once you have paid at the touchscreen machine and retrieved a receipt can you return to the misericordia for the actual business of the blood letting required.

So when I finally opened a tired eye and saw it was almost 8.30am, I was all ready to postpone the visit until tomorrow morning and go back to my sleep - but Helen not only managed to get me up but we got all of the above done before 9.25am, even managing a very quick cappuccino along the way and Reggie got his daily walk (around town) too.

So on Saturday morning I will be able to collect my results and find out my exact levels of:

uric acid, sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, cholesterol, creatine as well as glucose, nitrogen, gamma GT, GOT and GPT! (Bet you can't wait for the results blog post!)

When we got home, we both had breakfast and went into the office (along with Reggie). As yet, I hadn't felt capable of dealing with Christmas shopping or cards in any way, and today I thought I'd give it a whirl and started with trying to get some cards ordered online. I finished off a piece of artwork to use as a card and started producing the cards - that is until the website I was using refused to play ball an hour into ordering/uploading process. I could instantly feel this minor complication calling in the dark gloomy clouds of a mood change for the worse - that's how fragile it all is right now - and I caught myself visualising punching the computer screen so got up and walked away from it all. A frustrating waste of a couple of hours and still nothing achieved. My huffing and puffing was distracting Helen from her work so I decided to stay away from the office until my mood had changed for the better.

Sue phoned just as I walked out, and I think that the distraction saved me from my downward spiral, so after a brief chat I handed the phone to Helen and went and played outside with Reggie for a while.

It was lunchtime by the time Helen put the phone down, so we had lunch on the patio in the beautiful winter's sunshine - it really was a perfect winter's day, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and while it was still decidedly chilly in the shade, the warm sunshine bathed the patio (and made it marginally warmer outside than inside). The bright, sunny weather seemed to be doing wonders for my mood, so after lunch I stayed put, coming to the conclusion that there was very little urgent that needed doing around the house/land between now and Christmas.

Helen brought me a cup of tea and I sat reading a book on permaculture on my tablet, allowing myself to think towards the growing the season and warmer weather of next year.

I was soon distracted by a little bird or two flitting around in very close proximity to me. One was a robin, and the other was what I think was a juvenile black redstart - we've seen a few down by the river on our walks with Reggie but had never seen any before that.

I was wondering whether their presence was because Reggie has made the cats more scarce or whether it was just because winter is fast approaching and food is becoming scarce.

That thought led me to switch from my permaculture book to searching Pinterest for bird feeder ideas. I found quite a few different types, but nothing that I could make instantly with what I had available. I looked down from my tablet and saw a couple of old candle holders on the patio table - and a light bulb appeared above my head (metaphorically speaking, of course). An hour later, I'd made two free-standing bird feeders - hopefully rain- and cat-proof. If we get some feathered visitors I'll be posting some pictures!

Free-standing bird feeder! (I should have been on Blue Peter).

I still couldn't face the idea of fighting with my computer again, so instead I tidied up the area where the man cave had stood, and the old bread oven before it - you can just see the foundations of the oven itself in this photo:

You can just see the foundations of the old bread oven underneath the site of the former man cave.

After a while, Helen appeared, cold, in numerous layers of clothes, with lettuce in her hands - it was already nearly 5pm and time for the geese to go to bed.

Having got them into safety on only the second attempt, and having both cats safely in the house, we both went indoors so that I could light a fire and write a blog while Helen finished up with the work she had been in the middle of.

So it has been another unproductive day again really, but a step forward (albeit a small one) in my well being. Helen says that Alex, who lives near Vellano with the ever thoughtful and helpful Donatella, has very kindly offered to lend a hand with anything physical we might need doing to make up for my lack of output lately, but for now I think I really need to start focusing on festivities and tidying up rather than attempting more jobs, and with the biggest of the Man-from-Florence jobs out of the way (the demolition of the man cave), the other 'requirements' for his visit (should he come in the next week or so) ought to be a little less taxing. (Alex if you're reading this, I might well take you up on a bit of help in the new year though, got a couple of felled oaks in front of the house that need cutting and moving that will be much easier with two pairs of hands).

Now it's time for an evening of feeding the fire to keep us warm!

Double dose

Once again, our internet connection thwarted our attempts at blogging yesterday, so we bring you another double dose tonight.

Tuesday (Stuart):

Andrea, our geometra, was due today at 9.30am, this morning, and after hitting the wall last night just after 7pm, I still needed to pull up the wooden floor of the former man cave, remove the canopy from the apartment door and take down the satellite dish.

Getting up was not so easy this morning however - yesterday's epic destruction and tidy-up of the man cave would be a good effort for me on a normal day, never mind on the tail end of a hypothyroid episode - and both us delayed getting up until almost 8am this morning (that is after Helen had done a Reggie toilet trip at 6am).

Once I was up, I soon got the man cave floor up and moved the floor boards to the wood pile, then took down the canopy before Helen came out at 9.15am to help with the satellite dish.

Everything was all ready in good time for Andrea, who was quarter of an hour late, but that gave me time to play with Reggie on the lawn for a while.

Andrea got himself a good barking at by little Reggie, so we can safely say that the guard dog duties are going well - although when Andrea approached to say hello, Reggie ran and hid behind me! Still, the barking is a good start.

After Andrea had measured up inside the apartment and taken photos of the house on all its elevations, we had a brief chat about timings etc. before he departed, telling me he expected to have the amnesty document ready to sign on Thursday. He also told me that, contrary to what he said last week, I couldn't block up the rear door (the former door into the former man cave) until after the comune had approved the plan to do so - along with a plan for a new, legal ten metre square wood\tool shed. He said that getting the relevant permission would take around a month.

This left us with what was basically a shed door between us and the cold outside world now that the man cave on the other side of it had been demolished - which is good for neither thermal nor security purposes! There was nothing else for it, therefore, than to board it up. I was about to hop into the car to go and buy a sheet of plywood to do just that when I realised that I had an enormous pile of wood at my disposal (thanks to the demolition of the man cave) with which I could make something temporary. So that's exactly what I did - it meant having to scavenge wood that I'd already carried down to the wood pile once and bring it back up, but at least it was free.

By the time lunch arrived (toasted Tuscan bread with a spoonful of leftover lentil ragu from last night on top, topped off with a couple of Sue's fresh eggs, poached), I'd got the frame in the doorway and after lunch I fitted the cat flap and cut and fitted panelling to finish the outside.

On the inside, I removed the electrics that at 7pm last night I'd left stuck against the outside of the door, three sets of sockets, a fluorescent strip light and a pull cord light switch, then stuffed the cavity between the inner door and the outer closure with half of the old foam mattress (that used to be on the bed in the apartment downstairs) before screwing this door forever closed - well, that is until I get permission to block the whole thing up.

After a bit more tidying and yet another temporary bit of tarpaulin housing for a pile of stuff we couldn't home anywhere else, it was time to start gathering the tools I'd strewn about the place over the course of the day and pack them up indoors in time to head into town for Helen's Italian lesson.

While she usually goes into town by herself before picking up Sue and going to Rita's for their lesson, Sue is away at the moment and Reggie hadn't yet had a proper walk, so we went into town together and I walked Reggie around town while Helen had her one-on-one lesson.

I collected her at about quarter to seven, and we headed home to light the fire and cook some dinner to finish off what has been a much a colder and more productive day.

The internet connection reacted fairly well to having the satellite dish taken down and later put back up again - at least at first. While the internet came back on when I re-attached the satellite dish to the wall, it decided it had had enough for one day at around 4pm - so we spent yet another evening without an easy lifeline to the outside world!

(Oh, and the fairy lights that we stapled to the beams in aid of Christmas largely stopped working last night - after testing every bulb, the prognosis is a new set of lights! Not sure why, but it seems as if EVERYTHING has been breaking since getting here - looks like we need to add Christmas lights to the shopping list.)

Wednesday (Helen):

Reggie seemed to have a lie-in this morning and he didn't wake until about 7.15am, so it wasn't until then that I got around to taking him outside, feeding him and the cats and waking up the geese. It was a struggle to get out of bed this morning because the air felt SO cold, and when I opened up the front door there were signs of our first frost since arriving, with the thermometer reading 1.5C. Brrr.

As much as I wanted to escape back inside to the relative warmth of the house, I got out the kettlebells and turbo trainer and spent a while trying to work up a sweat in the cold air.

Once that was out of the way, I'd had breakfast and showered, and Stuart had tweaked the satellite dish to try and restore our connection to the outside world, we decided to head into town with Reggie to give him a walk and to do our last chicken-feeding duties at Sue's. We went to see the chickens first - only 4 eggs this morning, and they had eaten all of their food up, so we put plenty more grain into their feeder, topped up their water, and left the eggs in a crate on the doorstep ready for Chris and Sue's return later today.

We then headed to the river for what is becoming Reggie's regular walk, before going back home again.

After having had a very positive day yesterday - it almost felt as if Stuart was himself again - we were both crestfallen to find that today things were back to the same as before, with Stuart tired, miserable and irritable. We'd both felt as if he'd turned a corner yesterday, so to say it was disappointing for him to relapse is an understatement.

After an early lunch, we headed to the doctor's waiting room just down the hill. This time I came prepared with some work to do - and was glad I had done as, once again, the doctor was an hour and fifteen minutes late arriving. Since we had been the first people to arrive (there were around 7 other people in the waiting room by the time the doctor arrived), we were seen first, which was a relief after well over an hour of sitting in a stifling hot waiting room. 

The doctor looked at the results of Stuart's blood test and pronounced them to be fine/good. This came as quite a shock to both of us, as what he has been experiencing for the last week or so has been almost identical to the symptoms he has displayed in the past when his thyroid has been playing up. So that left the question as to why he has been feeling so terrible. The doctor has arranged for another set of blood tests and told us to go back when we have the results. Another blood test will be tomorrow's first job then.

When we finally got home, I settled down to my computer to finish my afternoon's work, while Stuart brought more firewood in from outside and lit the fire. While Stuart tended the fire, I gradually lost all feeling in my fingers and toes, as it was so cold in the office. I feel a little like Michelin man with all the layers of clothing I wear on a daily basis - but I have had a tip from my friend Mary and will try wearing a woolly hat while I work, to see if that helps. It may look ridiculous, but my days of power dressing for work are long gone!

It took two of us to get the geese indoors this evening - Nick and Tess's ramps have been so successful that the geese have been happily moving between terraces (although they do still have a strong preference for the original one), and this evening they were on the lower terraces and refusing to move up to the house. Once Stuart came out to help, and we guided them from opposite directions with our poles, they virtually sprinted into their house, no messing about!

While I started on this blog post, Stuart rigged up a new set of Christmas lights - another set that we realised we had brought with us from the UK. They are neither as pretty nor as extensive as the other set was, but it's nice to have them on. I should also mention that, while Stuart was feeling more productive and in better spirits yesterday evening, he took it upon himself to 'draw' us a Christmas tree with baubles. If we can't have a real one, we can have a 'drawn' one! This is not the best photograph, but you get the general idea:

Now it's time now for me to go and warm up by the fire where Stuart and Reggie already have the best seats in the house.

Dismantling and disarray

This morning started cold and bright with all the usual animal rounds. We still haven't had a frost here yet, but this morning must it have been close - the thermometer on the wall by the front door (courtesy of Wendy) read just 4C when I came back in from letting the geese out and taking Reggie for his morning toilet duties, and it was a definite scarf-and-gloves morning.

By the time I was bringing Reggie back in, Stuart was already up and dressed. He looked tired, but this was the earliest he has managed to haul himself out of bed unprompted for several days. I went outside to do a quick 30 minutes with the turbo trainer before coming back into the relative warmth of the house (I say relative - without central heating it really is only relative). While I was getting showered and changed, the phone rang - it was Allison, who had a nice long chat with Stuart before he passed the phone over to me. It was lovely to catch up with her, a really nice start to the day.

After I'd had a quick bowl of cereal, we headed straight into town with Reggie. As is becoming our habit, we parked close to Chris and Sue's then headed for the river to give Reggie a good walk and run around. He enjoyed looking at the birds on the river.

After that, we headed into the main square to see whether we could pick up Stuart's blood test results - despite today being a bank holiday here (the feast of the immaculate conception), the misericordia was open and Stuart came out clutching an envelope containing the results.

Our final duty in town was to visit Sue's chickens. Today there were only 6 eggs for us to collect - productivity seems to be reducing as the week wears on!

By the time we got back home, it was close to 12pm. I settled down for an hour's work before lunch, while Stuart went back to the big man cave/wood shed clear our and tear down.

After lunch, we decided to experiment with moving Reggie's crate into the office. We figured that this way, I can keep him with me most of the day, while allowing the cats safe and less scary passage from outdoors to their new safe haven upstairs, without having to pass the barky monster in his crate. The jury is still out on whether this is going to work as a medium to long term solution, but for the afternoon the view from my desk looked something like this.

As the afternoon wore on, Reggie and I heard banging, drilling and more banging. Knowing that Stuart hasn't been feeling the best recently, I decided to put my office work on hold and see if I could help him with what has turned out to be a mammoth task.

My contribution was to take all the bits and pieces Stuart had earmarked for the rubbish shed down to the rubbish shed, so I spent the rest of the afternoon running up and down the garden steps moving all sorts of tools and bits and pieces to their new temporary home while Stuart continued with dismantling the shed:

We continued with the moving and dismantling until dark - when I retired indoors to feed the cats and dog, write a blog post, wash up and prepare some dinner. As I write, Stuart is still labouring outside dismantling the floor of the former man cave in the cold and in the dark. I sense that he has long since lost his patience with it and is utterly exhausted. I wish that he could leave it - but Andrea is due at 9.30am tomorrow to take photographs, and both the canopy over the apartment door and the satellite dish will also need to come down before then as well.

I feel as if we are in an utter state of disarray now and our property looks almost as untidy and as decorated with piles of rubbish as it did when we first arrived. I know we'll get it back to being tidy and beautiful again at some point, but I resent all the upheaval - especially when we are already experiencing health issues and in the run up to Christmas when we really ought to be making our house cosy and concentrating on making sure we are prepared for the season's festivities (be warned, we have yet to complete our Christmas shopping or organise any cards...).

So, tomorrow's blog lies in the hands of the satellite gods - our connection to the outside world depends on how the satellite dish handles being taken down and put back up again and on whether we can 'tune' it back in again. Wish us luck.

Upheaval

Today saw two of us feeling under the weather. Having gone to bed with a headache last night, it was still with me this morning and in varying degrees on and off all day. Nevertheless, I got up at just after 7am, when the Reggie-alarm went off (I usually manage to pre-empt his whining, but today it had started before I had got out of bed), and fed the cats, took Reggie into the garden to do his business, let the geese out and gave Reggie his breakfast before heading back upstairs to bed.

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 ...

Off again, off again.

Over the last few days we have been beset with internet problems and the side effects of a malfunctioning thyroid - neither of which have yet been fixed, but we do at least have a temporary window of internet connectivity, so here goes with an epic three-day update.

Thursday: 

Thursday may have started out slightly better than Wednesday, but regrettably it didn't end up that way.

It was an early start for me, feeding and watering all the animals so that we would be ready to head into town just after 8.30am - we were due to meet with Andrea, the geometra, at 9am to discuss plans for the extension, and after that we had a string of other errands, including getting Stuart's blood test done and going to Sue's check on her chickens.

At the last minute, we decided to take Reggie with us - we decided that he could stay in the car while we were at Andrea's and then go for a nice walk by the river afterwards, so the three of us hopped in the car and headed down the hill into town.

We arrived at Andrea's office at 8.55am, but there was no sign of his car outside, so we sat and waited until just after 9am he turned up. We gave him a minute to open up the office then headed in, giving Reggie instructions to be good while we were busy. In the past, all of our meetings with Andrea have lasted about 15 minutes maximum, but this one way exceeded all previous visits and we were in his office for over an hour. The entire meeting was conducted in Italian, and we were really pleased to find that we were able to follow pretty much everything Andrea was saying. Having said that, there were moments when my brain tuned out as I started to fret about poor Reggie being left in the car on his own.

The discussions with Andrea were both positive and frustrating. On the positive side, he said it would be fine for us to brick up the doorway in the kitchen that leads to the man cave. It was actually Sue who suggested this - bricking up the doorway would both solve the issue of cold air coming in from that space AND give us more wall space for kitchen storage - a brilliant idea, so we were pleased that Andrea didn't think there would be any problem with doing that.

We also asked him whether it would be possible to move the large pillar that stands in the kitchen in a very awkward position. In its current position, it creates dead-space as there isn't enough room to move between it and the stairs, and it's generally a giant pain. Andrea had to think a bit more carefully about this. In the end, he came to the conclusion that moving it all depended on the position of three wooden and two metal beams in the ceiling of the apartment below. As long as the pillar would still be standing directly above one of these beams, it would be OK, but under no circumstances should it be moved unless it was still over one of these supporting beam. Well, that could be a bit more difficult that we hoped, but we understood the reasoning.

Next, we talked about the plans Andrea has drawn up for the possible extension, as well as the visit from the Man from Florence (and visits from a geologist and an engineer). We learned that, besides the fact that the goose house, the man cave & wood shed, the canopy over the apartment door and the satellite dish all need to be dismantled prior to the visit from the Man from Florence, we will also have to pay a fine of over €2000 in order to 'make good' the fact that the previous owners: 1. added a small window in the apartment bathroom, 2. made a small window in the upstairs bathroom larger, and 3. painted the house yellow, all 'outside of regulations'. This fine needs to be settled before the visit from the Man from Florence.

Andrea told us a horror story about the Man from Florence - to illustrate his pernickity-ness: another couple who own a house in Sorana had a temporary car port type of construction over an area on which they had planned to build an extension. The car port (merely some posts supporting a temporary roof) was CLEARLY going to be taken down, as it was on the exact spot on which the extension was to be built, but on seeing it, the Man from Florence insisted it be taken down, then photographs taken to prove that it had been taken down, and those photographs submitted to him in Florence (in person) before he would even give consideration to the plans submitted for the extension.

Furthermore, we learned that, while the comune will allow us to have solar panels for hot water, there are three conditions: 1. we can only have two (at 1m x 2m each), 2. they must be fitted so that they are flush with the roof tiles, rather than simply fitting them on top of the roof, and 3. (the sting) they must be red. Andrea wasn't even sure if red solar panels existed, so while we were in his office, he called his friend at a solar panel reseller nearby. His friend didn't know of any either. While apparently photovoltaic panels do come in red, solar panels for water heating do not. There is, in fact, a very good scientific reason for this. In order to draw the maximum amount of energy from the sun to heat water, solar water heating panels are black - which (think back to your physics lessons at school) absorbs the most amount of heat. Red panels will absorb just 70% of the amount that black ones do. That came as a bit of a blow, but Andrea said he would write to the comune to tell them it is a ridiculous rule (in polite terms, I guess) and meanwhile his friend will check all his catalogues to see if he can find any red-coloured solar panels...

Andrea showed us lots of photographs of extensions he has done for various other people that are very similar to what he envisages for us. They did all look beautiful, but the more he talked about the process and the requirements, the more and more expensive it all sounded. Even the simple process of getting planning permission before we can even get quotes for the cost of the building work is likely to cost us thousands of euros - we have the €2k fine to pay for starters, plus fees for the geologist, the engineer, Andrea's fees, fees to pay to the comune ... and so the list goes on. Hmm.

Anyway, after all the discussion and even a bit of chit-chat (all in Italian), we finally got out of Andrea's office and sprinted to the car to reassure Reggie that we hadn't, in fact, abandoned him. We decided that, since we'd been so long, we would take him out now and take him around town with us. First, we walked to the CUP, where Stuart went in with his pink form from the doctor to find out how to pay for his blood test. After a bit of a wait in there, he was told he simply needed to take it with him to the misericordia or public assistenza. So, next stop was the public assistenza opposite the bus terminus. We'd only ever seen ambulance staff hanging around outside this building, so weren't really sure where to go, but Stuart eventually found the right door... only to be told that blood tests are only done between 7.30am and 9.30am (by the time we'd got out of Andrea's office it was well past 10am. Next, we tried the misericordia in the main square. This place is also an ambulance station (we have yet to work out the difference between the two) and also, it seems, take blood for blood tests. However, we found out (thanks to a lady standing outside on the street) that they also only do the blood test service between 7.30am and 9.30am.

Frustrated, we decided to retire to Franco's bar for a cappucino outdoors, with Reggie sitting nice and quietly with us (that is, quietly until each time a dog walked past). Reggie was pretty good with other dogs today. He would growl and lunge at them initially, but if we gradually let him closer, he would calm down and simply sniff noses. He even gave one little dog a couple of friendly licks. He also met a 4-month-old puppy who was roughly a quarter of the size of Reggie - a cross between something and a Yorkshire terrier, apparently.

As we sipped our cappucinos, workmen finished decorating the Christmas tree in the main square.

Also on our walk around town, we passed a nativity scene outside the San Francesco church.

Anyway, coffees dispatched, we next walked to Chris and Sue's in order to see to their chickens - Chris and Sue are currently away, so have asked us to check up on the chickens and top up their food and water accordingly.

When we got there, we tied Reggie up to a tree at a safe distance from the chicken coop and went in to check the chickens' water bowls etc. No sooner had we opened the door to the chicken house than a little familiar face was peering at us - hello Reggie!! WHOOOAH, hold on a minute - Reggie??? How had THAT happened?! Somehow, the little Houdini had managed to wriggle out of his harness, had left harness and lead tied to the tree and come bounding over to see what we were doing. We executed a quick retrieval of the lead and tied him up again, this time attaching the lead to his collar, while we went in to top up the chicken's water and feed and to collect 11 (yes, 11!) eggs. Stuart carefully placed the eggs in the pouch of his hoodie before we finally retraced our way back to the car at Andrea's office and headed home.

Chickens all present and correct.

By the time we got home it was almost lunch time, so guess what we had? Yes, DELICIOUS scrambled eggs. They really do taste better when fresh and free range.

Delicious fresh scrambled eggs.

It was after lunch that the internet decided to stop working again, and didn't flicker back into life after a few re-boots of the modem, so I ploughed on with some offline office work for a few hours.

As the afternoon wore on, Stuart's well-being seemed to take a nosedive - he hadn't been feeling brilliant all day, but by late afternoon he was clearly feeling awful both physically and mentally. I'm sure his mood wasn't helped at all by the geese giving him the run-around. Having been absorbed in my work - and happy in the knowledge that the cats were already safely indoors - the geese had completely slipped my mind until 5pm, by which time it was properly dark. Once I realised that Stuart had given up trying to get them in, I headed outside in the dark to see if I would fare any better. I think there were a couple of problems - first, the geese were spooked by the torch, and secondly, they were spooked by the darkness of their house. In the end, I resorted to placing a torch in the back of the house, on top of their hay, so that there was some light in there, and after 30 minutes of standing outside in the cold making encouraging noises (in amongst threats including cooking them for Christmas or simply leaving them for the fox overnight), they eventually (on about the 8th attempt) waddled far enough into their house for me to close the hatch and lock them in. Note to self: DON'T LEAVE THE GEESE UNTIL AFTER DARK again.

By the time I came back in, it was 6pm, so I cooked a mushroom risotto - one of Stuart's favourites - in the hopes it might lift his spirits, but of course what he's dealing with is nowhere near as simple as that. It's very hard not to take it personally, especially when there is literally nobody else here to turn to, but I know that he has no control over how this horrible affliction makes him feel, and this time around the extreme exhaustion really has brought with it some extreme dark moods. I hope the doctor will be able to shed some light on things and help get the right medication sorted out quickly.

So, after yet another evening sans Internet (not helpful when you're feeling isolated and in need of support from the outside world), with Stuart retiring to bed at 8pm, I finally turned in after a late-night toilet trip for Reggie at about 11pm.


Friday:

This morning started with the usual rounds of the animals. I took Reggie with me to see to the geese and down to the apartment to empty the dehumidifier, then for a walk up the drive and then a short play in the garden. When I ventured up to the bedroom at 8am, Stuart was stirring, but looking miserable. Thankfully, he reluctantly agreed to go into town to get his blood test done, so after he'd struggled out of bed and pulled some shoes on, both of which looked like it was taking him a monumental effort, we both got into the car and drove into town.

We parked up in the main square and went straight to the misericordia. There, the lady on reception took Stuart's pink referral slip then printed out a document for us to take over to the hospital on the other side of town in order to pay the fee for the test, telling us to come back once we'd done that. So we traipsed over to the main hospital building and used one of the self-service machines for paying for treatments. The blood tests Stuart is having done cost €32. In Italy, you pay a nominal fee for various treatments - which must help enormously with cutting down on time wasters and on people not turning up for hospital appointments.

Once we'd retrieved the receipt for the payment from the machine, we headed back across to the square and back to the misericordia where, after checking that everything was in order with the payment, we were directed to the blood-taking room. I sat on a chair outside while Stuart went in and was seen by a very friendly older chap. As we'd arrived, I'd spied this chap tweaking the arrangement of the figures in a nativity scene on top of a microwave. I don't know why, but I immediately warmed to him! In a matter of minutes, the blood had been taken and Stuart was being sent on his way after being told that the results would be available between 9.30am and 12.30pm on Monday.

Job done, we got back in the car and headed back up the hill towards home.

Once we were home, I booted up the computer (still no internet) to do some work, while Stuart tinkered with a few jobs outside before announcing that he didn't think he would make it to his day's work in Lanciole today, as had been his original intention. I was shocked that he had still even been considering it, and therefore relieved that he had come to that decision.

The rest of the afternoon was pretty uneventful - the internet stayed firmly off, I ploughed on with some offline work, and Stuart tried to occupy himself as best he could with no internet and little energy.

After yesterday's shennanigans with the geese, I left my desk at 4.45pm to make sure I got to them well before dark today. Unfortunately, the geese didn't seem to have any plans for an early night, and bluntly refused to go into (and stay in) their house again. It was pretty chilly, and my patience was in shorter supply than it had been yesterday, so after having told them that they would make a nice dinner for Mr Fox, and shouted various threats at them such as 'cranberry sauce', I told them they could have it their own way and left them to it. When I got back into the house though, Stuart offered to come out and help put the geese to bed the 'old fashioned way' - with the two of us herding them with poles. So I did an about turn while Stuart pulled some boots on and we headed back to the goose enclosure where, without even a hesitation, the geese went straight into their house and let me close the door.

Once the geese were locked down for the night, we decided to take Reggie for a walk in town, so put him in the car and drove to Pescia. We had a good walk around the streets, bought Reggie some more chew sticks, met a few other dogs and admired the twinkly Christmas lights before heading back home.

Once home, we opened a bottle of wine and heated up some of our home-made ragu from the freezer - good comfort food with a minimum of effort - before relaxing on the sofa for the evening.


Saturday:

Saturday started with the usual early morning animal rounds: breakfast for the cats, toilet trip for Reggie, opening the geese house, breakfast for Reggie and a play in the garden for Reggie.

I did try getting back into bed for another half hour's doze after all that, but it wasn't to be, and both Stuart and I were getting up by 8am. Stuart said that, while he still felt exhausted and couldn't seem to shake the tired feeling, he did actually feel in a slightly better frame of mind than he had done for the last few days, which was encouraging.

After we had each had breakfast and showered and dressed, we got Reggie ready and put him in the car. First, we headed to Montecatini: first stop there was ArcaPlanet, the pet shop, where we bought Reggie a range of new toys to add variety to his play time, as well as a new extendable lead and some more chews. Next, we headed to the ipercoop complex, where we left Reggie in his travel crate with a couple of new toys and a chew stick while we dashed in to have a coffee while we made use of the free WiFi there. We had been told by Brad, supplier of our internet "service" (or lack thereof, as it seems to have been recently) that the problem might be that the satellite dish had moved in the wind and might need repositioning. His solution to the problem was to email Stuart a set of instructions as to how to do reposition the satellite dish. Great. Only without any internet connection, we would have to go somewhere else in order to download the email. Hence the trip to Montecatini.

Anyway, we each had a cappuccino, and watched with wonderment as the Internet sprang into life on Stuart's tablet computer. It was tempting to stay there all day, checking emails, uploading blogs, getting back in touch with the outside world, but we had a puppy waiting in the car and other things to do, so we just downloaded the relevant email, then headed back to the car.

Next stop was Pescia to take Reggie for his walk. He'd been very good waiting for us while we made our dash into ipercoop, so he was due a good walk and a run by the river. We test drove his new lead which, at 5m long is a lot longer than his other lead and he seemed to enjoy the freedom. This time, we took him off the lead altogether to try out some whistle training, which he did superbly, as always.

After a good run and walk by the river, we headed back to the car and went to Sue's again to check on the chickens and collect eggs. There were 9 eggs today - a little less productive than Thursday's collection, but still fantastic (from 6 chickens).

After that, it was finally time to head home, to cook up some poached eggs on toast for lunch, and then for Stuart to attempt to follow Brad's instructions to reposition the satellite. This proved considerably easier said than done, and led to a lot of frustration. After well over an hour of fiddling with the satellite dish and going back and forth with Brad by text message, the internet was up, but not functioning as it should - so don't be surprised if you don't hear from us again for a few days as this may only be a temporary fix. SIGH.

We had been planning to meet up with Claudia - the lady who had come to Lucca with us to collect Reggie (or Jeremy as he was then known!) - this afternoon, but in the end we postponed the meeting as, by around lunch time, Stuart felt both his mood and energy levels plummeting once again (after such a promising start to the day, it seems that he is right back to square one with this 'thyroid storm'). I can tell just by looking at him when he's feeling bad, it's like all the light goes out of his eyes, sometimes he can barely make eye contact, and conversation is monosyllabic, if not non-existent. I know he desperately struggles to fight the feeling, and that he hates not feeling in control of his mood and hates feeling so utterly exhausted all the time, regardless of how much sleep he gets. I just wish that there was something I could do to make things better. Roll on next week, blood test results and a return to the doctor.

Anyway, it's long overdue time for me to go and warm up next to the fire, as I'm shivering at my computer in the office - hopefully we'll be back to a normal blogging schedule from now, but we remain at the mercy of the internet/satellite gods...

Two Wednesdays...

Somehow, we managed to write blog posts simultaneously this evening - each without realising that the other was already writing. So, after a couple of days of no blog posts, tonight you get a double dose (you lucky things) and get to read about the same day from two different perspectives. Don't get used to it though, there are no plans to make it a permanent feature (is that a sigh of relief I hear?).

Stuart's day: 'Wednesday'

At 9pm last night it all became clear as to why I had kept losing my temper during the day. Come 9.30pm, I was in bed after shovelling my dinner down as quickly as I could so that I could hide out from a thyroid crash that I didn't see coming.

Twelve hours later, I dragged myself out of bed. I didn't really want to move but my back couldn't take any more of our mattress.

I'd planned to go to Lanciole today but there was no way that was going to happen in my current state, so I tried to resign myself to doing very little - easier said than done. The fact is that when I feel like this I can do very little, but I tend to get horribly frustrated by not being able to do anything, which only serves to darken my mood - it's a vicious cycle - so I'm making it my mission to be able to switch off from my to-do list whenever I feel like this. It will take time, but I'll get the hang of it... I hope, as I've no doubt I'm unbearable for my poor wife to be around when I'm slamming around the place getting more and more angry with EVERYTHING.

It was gone 10am once I'd had breakfast and was feeling like I'd mastered the art of  'whatever' and had got my book at the ready for an afternoon in front of the fire. First, though, I decided to take Reggie out for a walk - I didn't feel like it, but I knew that I'd be feeling even less up to it later in the day. Helen was at a point in her work where she could pause and come with me - or so she said, I suspect she was somewhat worried that I might have thrown the puppy in the river and come home alone had she not been there to supervise, such is the shortness of my fuse right now.

We had a good hour's walk, did some whistle training by the river, and in the square Reggie introduced himself to a couple of dogs, initially by growling and barking but as soon as he got close enough to sniff he was fine. Progress, I think!

We thought we'd try sitting down for our first coffee with him and took a table outside Bar Poulter in the square. Most of the time Reggie just sat there, but he did have a good bark a two passing dogs, I'm sure he just wanted to say hello.

Helen had suggested earlier that I try and see the doctor today as it was one of his days in the village surgery. When she first suggested it, I rebutted the idea immediately - my brain was feeling about as agile as a gymnast in diving boots and the thought of trying to talk in another tongue seemed impossible.

By the time we'd had a walk and coffee though, I took up Helen's offer of coming with me to the doctor's, and we dropped Reggie home just before 1pm, which is when the surgery opened.

When we walked in, there was only one other person waiting - great news, shouldn't be there long, I thought. After about half an hour, and still nobody had come out of the consulting room, it dawned on me that there must be no one in the room, not even the doctor.

While we waited, I amused myself with my medical notes. I'm not sure the read was worth the £35 I had to pay for them all, but I learned that at one point during my first year on the planet I was, and I quote, "a bag of nerves". It also seems that I have suffered with tonsillitis very often and from a very young age, that I am an ex-smoker(!?!), and that I had my tonsils out in 1980! I've no idea where the smoking thing came from (I have never been a smoker), and I definitely didn't remember having my tonsils out at five years of age - I'd have remembered the ice cream, surely?! 

Further on in the notes, I found a letter addressed to a Stephen Smith (born in 1947) who lived at 8 Green Acres Road and who seems to have had his tonsils removed in 1980! How this got onto my records, I'll never understand.

Anyway, time ticked on and the doctor finally strolled in at 2.15pm - only an hour and fifteen minutes late!! I'm not sure if this kind of tardiness is normal in the health service here, but we'll find out soon enough.

On the upside, the doctor was a very nice man, spoke a smattering of English (which helped when our Italian fell down), and I walked away with a piece of paper to take to somewhere in Pescia tomorrow for a blood test to check my thyroxine levels (which are without doubt out of line at the moment).

By the time we'd finished at the doctor's, it was 2.45pm and Remigio, the carpenter, was due at 3pm to measure up for the new windows. So we hopped into the car and... it wouldn't start! I tried it again, nothing. I tried again, nothing. I tried it one last time before we resigned ourselves to walking home up the hill and it just kicked into life. I had only been thinking this morning how we'd had no trouble with starting it since Enrico looked at it. I hope it was just a one-off, although I'm sure my hopes are in vain and this 'feature' of the car will crop up again at some point in these posts.

We got home, cleaned out Reggie's cage as he'd wee'd on his mattress while we were out - he'd been in there for too long, courtesy of Dr Conforti.

Just as we were putting Reggie's cage back together, Remigio arrived and spent half an hour measuring up windows, taking a deposit from us, and leaving with the promise of windows towards the end of January. We finally got to eat our lunch at around 3pm.

Helen then took a whiny Reggie along the drive for a walk and then went back to work briefly while I sat on the sofa to write this post. Reggie fell asleep next to me for about ten minutes until he heard a truck way down in the valley beeping its horn and got up to bark at the door. He wouldn't relent, so I let him outside to get it out of his system. Upon returning indoors he promptly went for a wee on the floor... It seems I have about as much control over my temper at the moment as Reggie does over his bladder. He's now in his crate and I'm about to retire upstairs where I can't upset anyone else.

Helen's day: 'Under the influence'

Today (and indeed yesterday) has been heavily influenced by the fact that poor Stuart seems to be experiencing some form of poorly thyroid relapse/episode. I can't pretend to be able to imagine what it feels like for him to be so utterly exhausted that the simple task of putting one foot in front of the other is a monumental effort, and anything that involves complex thought is an epic struggle. But you might remember the photograph I posted yesterday of the weather we witnessed on Monday - I get the impression that it's very much like living under (and being entirely surrounded by) some very dark, very heavy clouds:

To an outsider, this is what living with a malfunctioning thyroid appears to feel like.

Stuart took himself off to bed at 9.30pm last night, leaving Reggie and me (and later, once Reggie was safely in his cage, Florence and me) to watch a DVD downstairs with the sound turned down so as not to disturb him.

Reggie tried couple of half-hearted barks at 6am this morning, so I leapt out of bed and ran downstairs to take him outside for a toilet trip in the dark before his vocalising woke the whole house up. I went back to bed afterwards, but didn't sleep at all, just lay there wondering what today would bring for Stuart's well-being and mood, and trying to work out how best to manage the process of feeding and watering all the animals while making the least amount of noise possible.

I eventually got out of bed at 7am, took Reggie outside for a toilet trip and then, rather than taking him straight in for his breakfast as usual, I took him for a walk up the drive. In fact, I took him for a run up the drive. He is sometimes (actually, make that often) incredibly reluctant to walk up the drive. It seems to simply be a case of him preferring to stick around the house and garden where he knows there are lots of things that interest him, and sometimes he will literally sit down and go on strike, not budging. However, I have discovered that if I run a little, he soon wants to join in, and the two of us can run happily all the way to the end of the drive, Reggie holding the loose part of his lead in his mouth. So, after a run up and down the drive and a brief play in the garden while I opened up the goose house, I took him indoors for his breakfast.

I went upstairs to get showered at about 8.30am, and there was no sign of Stuart stirring from his sleep, so I left him to it and came downstairs for some breakfast and to reacquaint myself with the outside world, having finally got some internet service back again.

Stuart made it downstairs at about 9.30am. He did not look or sound good. If anything, he seemed worse than yesterday, even after 12 hours in bed. He decided that there was no way he would be feeling up to taking Reggie out for a walk by this evening, so suggested we do it in the morning. I agreed and so the three of us piled into the car and drove to Pescia. We parked up near to Chris and Sue's house, then walked down to the river where we put Reggie on Donatella's 50m lead (he didn't wander anywhere near that distance away from us, but it was nice to see him exploring from the safety of a lead but without the constant tugging on it). After that, we did some recall training with the whistles, meaning that Reggie did a lot more running, and finally, we walked through the main square and even sat down for a coffee with him at the outdoor seating area at Bar Poulter. He was largely very good while we drank our coffees, although a couple of passing dogs caused a bit of commotion as he strained at the lead and barked at them.

By the time we'd got back to the car, it was getting on for 12.30pm. Since Stuart has just registered for Italian health care, and registered with a doctor last week, I thought it would be a good idea for him to visit the doctor today. The doctor he is registered with makes a visit three times a week to a small 'surgery' (actually just a waiting room and a single consulting room) a couple of doors down from the post office and Amanda's alimentari in Pietrabuona. His hours on a Wednesday are 1pm to 3.30pm, so once we'd dropped Reggie back off at the house and picked up Stuart's paperwork, we turned straight around and went back to the doctor's.

We must have reached the 'surgery' at about 12.50pm. There was one other chap in the waiting room - that was a good sign, we thought, as we'd be next in line. Well, we sat in the waiting room (which was unimaginably hot, with some sort of heating system churning out hot air) and we waited. And we waited. And we waited. Finally, just as I'd made a trip to the car to check what time it was (we were expecting the carpenter at the house at 3pm), the doctor appeared - it was 2.15pm.

After the other chap had been in and come out again, the doctor welcomed us into his office and Stuart explained that he needed a blood test for his hypothyroidism. The doctor - who had a smattering of English, which was helpful - wrote him out a form to take along for a blood test in Pescia tomorrow, took his blood pressure (and advised him to cut down on salt!) and sent us on our way. It seems that once we have the results of the blood test Stuart can go back to the doctor and he will interpret them accordingly. Let's hope the results don't take long to process.

So after our epic wait and short consultation, we headed home, getting back to the house at about 2.45pm. Remigio, the carpenter, arrived bang on time and measured all the window frames and the front door. We have decided to go ahead and get all the windows replaced, as well as the front door, both in an attempt to increase the insulation of the house (the current windows are not only poorly fitted, but are also only single-glazed) and to increase security. After Remigio had finished measuring up, therefore, Stuart wrote him a cheque for the deposit and he was on his way, with the promise of the windows being ready for fitting in late January/early February.

By the time all that was done, lunch was WAY overdue, so we had a quick couple of pieces of bread and cheese, before I walked Reggie up the drive another time. By this point, Stuart seemed to have run out of what tiny amount of energy and patience he'd had earlier in the day, so I thought it prudent for me to take Reggie out for another run up the drive and a brief play in the garden. It was then a half-hour of work for me (I pretty much decided that work was a lost cause today) before attempting to coax Lucca into the house while there was still some light in the sky, making sure Florence was safely indoors, then trying to herd the more obstinate than usual geese into their house for the night. I don't know what got into them today, but we had three 'just pretending' attempts at getting them into their house - where they slowly waddle their way in, but before I can get the hatch down, they've turned around and charged back out again. They pretty much do this every night, but tonight they seemed to go through the whole charade more times than usual.

And there you have it - a day heavily influenced by a malfunctioning thyroid.

On again, off again

Since Monday morning, our internet has been on, then off, then on again, then off again - with the 'off' periods far outlasting the very brief 'on' periods. As a result, we haven't been able to update the blog (every time we've gone to do it, the internet has flickered off again). Having an interrupted internet service really brings home just how much we rely on the internet and what a huge effect it has on our everyday lives. I rely on it for my work, we both rely on it for gathering information, for translating letters, working out how to say certain things for which we lack the vocabulary, for researching dog training, for watching the odd bit of UK TV, but perhaps most importantly (other than the obvious economic importance of using it for work), we rely on it very heavily to maintain contact with the outside world - to send messages back and forth with friends and family back in the UK. Not being able to communicate easily with the outside world is not only like having your right arm cut off but can have an emotional impact as well as a practical one.

Anyway, since we are currently in an internet-ON phase (for who knows how long!), here is a very quick round-up of the last two days.

Stuart spent most of the day on Monday working - in between rain showers - on finishing the fencing outside and constructing a stair gate for the bottom of the stairs. Reggie has shown increasing interest in trotting upstairs to find out where we go when we climb them and, since the bedroom is out of bounds for him (we like to keep it as another 'safe' place for Lucca and Florence), it was becoming clear that we would need to take some action to nip his upstair investigations in the bud.

The fencing looks great, and while a stair gate is perhaps not the 'look' we were going for in our living room, it's actually very good too:

We had a brief visit from Sue mid-morning - who wanted to be introduced to Reggie. Reggie barked his little head off at her when she arrived, and at first cowered away from her and sought sanctuary on Stuart's lap, but as Sue sat quietly next to him, he gradually came round and by the time she left he was happily licking her hand.

With winter on its way (there's no denying it now it's December), Stuart wrapped up the more sensitive of our pot plants to keep them safe from frosts. They look like rather odd early Christmas presents:

We thought we were in for an almighty storm on Monday evening - the sky looked like it was about to fall in, but after a little rain, some strong gusts of wind and a few flashes of lightning, it passed over - thankfully!

We did manage to take Reggie out for a short walk in Pescia on Monday evening (once we were sure that Armageddon wasn't actually going to happen). We were surprised when we arrived in town to see it all lit up with beautiful Christmas lights - of course, it was 1st December!

The photo doesn't do it justice, but hopefully we'll get some better pictures before Christmas:

So that was a round up of Monday.

Tuesday was similarly uneventful (and less photogenic). Between taking Reggie outside for play time, toilet time and walks, and fixing broken printer cables and battling against flaky internet connections, Stuart managed a shopping trip to buy a new extension cable, some much needed new door mats (more important than ever now we have muddy-four-paws coming in and out twenty times a day), a new outdoor security light and various other bits and pieces. He also started work on exercise area/outdoor work area version 5.0 and started moving a few things from the wood shed to the former rubbish shed. I went for my weekly Italian lesson in the evening - going solo this week, as Sue is away for a week - and we had a quiet evening.

So there you have it. Apologies for the very brief and belated nature of this post. Hopefully normal service will resume from now on!

I will leave you with the rather splendid mushrooms growing on the tree stumps in Goose Island: