Branching out

4th May 2025

We edged a little bit further up our learning curve this week, most notably on Tuesday morning when we came home from doing the shopping to find that we had nothing for dinner that evening.

Being an organised sort of chap, my usual routine regarding meals is that I cook at the weekend, then we eat some and freeze some. Most recipes will give us two other meals, and sometimes more if I double them as with the turkey polpettone (or meatloaf if you prefer) I made a couple of weeks ago and which divvied up into six healthy tranches. We took one of these out before we headed for MSP, leaving it as usual on the windowsill in the kitchen area, it being out of direct sunlight and a little cooler thanks to the marble sill.

Generally what is left to defrost is in its own container, but as the polpettone had been sharing one with two of its brethren, this, still wrapped in the baking paper used to keep it separate, was placed as it was on a plate. The problem arose when I was putting away the shopping and I noticed it wasn’t there.

“Have you moved the polpettone?” I asked Stephen, knowing really what the answer was going to be. And indeed, while we were out the smell of meat had been too enticing for Peggy, whose muzzle when on four legs is just below the height of the window, so with two paws on the sill… well, you can figure out the rest easily enough. We’re not so sure if Harry shared in her feast but there was no sign of polpettone and no sign of guilty looks from either of them. On the plus side, she had carried out the operation very delicately: the plate was unmoved and the baking paper was lying by the side. Also on the plus side, we could take another portion of meatloaf out to defrost – pushed it well to the back of the kitchen counter.

Unable to get a second turkey fix on Wednesday, Peggy had to be content with pinching the paw wiping cloth (fortunately just one of them – we have a week’s daily supply) from the window ledge by the front door where I leave it handy – too handy. There seems to be a pattern emerging here, one that we need to break, or if not break, circumnavigate.

Nor were we the only ones with matters canine on our minds, as I found out when I was on the terrazzo shaking out the bedside mats and Luigi drove down in his van. Had I seen Billy, he asked. Sorry, not that morning, I told him. It looked like he (Billy, not Luigi) had gone off on one of his occasional tours of the area, as I mentioned to Stephen when I went back in.

He (Stephen that is, not Billy or Luigi) headed off to work and I got on with my morning tasks, a little surprised when, maybe half an hour later, I got a call from him. He was calling to tell me I could stop worrying about Billy as he’d been found – by Stephen. He (Billy, not Stephen) was lying by the side of the road that runs past Madonna del Buon Cuore, the small, old church in the countryside about ten minutes from the centre of MSP. Stephen stopped, much to the chagrin of the lady behind him, to check if everything was all right, and it was. Billy hauled himself up when Stephen called his name, looking somewhat wet and bedraggled but otherwise his usual self.

What to do? Stephen couldn’t just leave him, and if he called Luigi it would be a short while before they arrived and how could he keep him there? The simplest and speediest solution was for Stephen to open the back door of the Panda and invite Billy to hop aboard, which he obligingly did.  Less obligingly, he gave himself a good shake, splattering the doors and windows, before sprawling along the back seat and dropping off to sleep.

Stephen delivered him safely home, and when he saw Luigi later that day, they both reckoned that after Billy had been let out that morning he must have caught sight of something in the field, maybe deer. Stephen had spotted a couple a day or two previously, but he, unlike Billy, had resisted the primal urge to hare after them and follow their trail along by the river – a path that takes you to the vicinity of Buon Cuore without having to cross any roads.

And that was only the start of things to a day that turned out to be busier than we expected. Apart from going for pizza with Marco and Maddalena at the place in Montegranaro (which was a bit of a surprise for while the idea had been mentioned a few days before, Maddalena had forgotten to message Stephen to say that it was sorted for Wednesday evening till remembering that afternoon), Irene contacted us in the morning to say that she would be coming, p.m., to take the first measurements using the small devices set up last week.

Fortunately, Stephen was back in time to see to this and act as taxi driver as I had a lesson, but as ever with LCDDB, things were not quite that simple. Irene and her father stayed at the top while Stephen returned with her oppo, the man of the tripod from before, but the bouncing of the laser beam, or whatever happens, was slightly impeded by a small branch of a small tree by Mario and Luigi’s barn next to our house. The vaguely good news was that they were still, just, able to get the measurements. The less good news was that Stephen would have to get rid of the branch.

This he tried to do the next day, it being 1st May and another holiday (Festa dei lavoratori – or workers if you prefer), and I was once again called upon for ladder holding duties. It was, though, not as simple as it should have been (yes, again). The branch was not particularly thick and the tree not particularly tall, but its siting, right at the top of the banking, was less than convenient. There was only one spot that the ladders could go with a degree of stability, but even standing as close to the top as feasible and reaching up the mini chainsaw was several inches short.

Resorting to Plan B, which was to tie something heavy to a piece of rope and try to throw it over the branch and then pull it down was not any more successful, so it was a recourse to a search on Amazon to find an extendable lopper to show the branch who was boss. I ordered it on Friday and it should be here tomorrow, giving Stephen another gadget to play with.

Also today, there was the little matter of the wardrobe changeover to deal with. In the good old days, before we had the suite of wardrobes installed last year, this would take us (and I use the plural pronoun advisedly) a good part of a weekend. Now, thanks to the copious space available, Stephen (it was not a job that demanded two) had it done and dusted in little more than an hour this morning. Bit of a shame, really, that after a glorious week with temperatures touching the high twenties in the afternoon sunshine, next week is forecast to be on the cloudy and wet side. Oh well, we can always layer.