Let's get this party started

Monday, the first working day and a day for us of sorting, chores and animals. So let us begin at the beginning...

And the beginning was the after-breakfast tortoise hunt. Great consternation was expressed by Flavia when the tortoise in question was not in its little house. It had last been seen on Saturday when Marcia (of ‘Head and shoulders, knees and toes' fame) had been playing with it. Stephen and I joined in, then, to show how serious the matter was, Elsa called by on her way to work. Despite our best efforts, neither hide nor hair (or should that be neither shell nor scaly skin) could be seen. We kept shtum about the fact we had seen it yesterday, lurking in the grass near the gates, believing that if the untoward had happened, someone would have been it pancaked on the drive.

Mid-morning, when the house was empty apart from me and i cani, I was able to close the gates and let Bella and Harry free range of the garden, which they thought was very exciting. With all the new smells and corners to investigate, they spent ages running round and round before Bella found a desiccated frog and decided to roll around on it: preferable, I guess, to trying to eat it - though I did have to spend considerable time hoiking bits of bone out of both of their mouths. These relics, that litter the garden, are a reminder of the Stefonis' late Alsatian, Cora, and are well on their way to petrification. This, though, was a doddle compared with the incident with the cat.

Remo has taken to leaving out plastic plates or dishes with leftover pasta for the local cats, of various levels of care and grooming, to come and eat. This was a good idea, I suppose, when there was no dog, not so good now there are two. The first indication of the cat's presence was when I heard then saw Harry standing near a bush, tail wagging and barking loudly at a terrified white cat that had seen much better days. As I went to get him, Bella came hurtling past and leapt on the cat, at which point Harry, with his usual bravado, dashed forward to join in now that reinforcements had arrived. Just what we needed, I thought, a mangled cat to greet the others with at lunchtime. Fortunately, though, I managed to pull Bella away easily, as I think she only had a mouthful of fur and not cat, and the it leapt up the nearest tree and clung to the trunk before sliding slowly down while I wrestled the leads onto Bella and Harry.

I took the two assassins inside and went back out to see what state the cat was in and found it over by the hedge, on its side and apparently breathing its last. I didn't really want to get too near as goodness knew what other livestock was living on it, but a quick check showed no blood and it didn't mew or complain when I touched it - but when it started a rattle in its throat I thought that was it. However, after I came back from taking Bella and Harry up to our rooms there was no sight of the victim. I just hope that it had been recovering itself from the shock; I know I was.

The one success of the morning though, animal wise, was I did find the tortoise and put it back in its home. That at least would make me some kind of hero - that and the fact that I had been given the crucial task of turning on the gas under the pasta pan in good time for Flavia to start preparing lunch on her return from the factory.

There was much joy and supplying of lettuce on hearing of the tortoise’s. It may be, though, that it finds its diet a bit limited because when we looked again a little bit later it had beggared off for a second time. Oh well.

In the afternoon I went to the factory with Stephen, from where we went mid-afternoon to Civitanova Marche to pick up our hire car. Remo kindly took us, but we had forgotten that the town would be bustling from the aftermath of the start of the Giro D'Italia. Our progress was a bit slow due to this but also from Remo making his own Giro Di Civitanova Marche as he visited places depositing and collecting various items associated with shoe production. Now, I am not all that familiar with the town, but I am sure we passed the same landmarks on more than one occasion before he left us at the Avis site.

A bit of paperwork later, Stephen and I left in what initially looked like a very smart Fiat 500L, but which on closer inspection showed evidence of life as a hire car on the Italian roads. Still, it will give us independence.

And that was about that, apart from my last two encounters with animals. The first was lovely, as we passed illuminations of fireflies on a late walk with the dogs. The second was not so lovely, as when we returned, Stephen had to rid the dogs' room of a scorpion. Admittedly it was only small, about twice the size of a large spider, but I guess hot climates bring dangers other than sunburn.