Chirpy chirpy Jeep Jeep

20th November 2022

Having said yes to the Renegade, the change of insurance from one car to the other had to be sorted out, a task that fell mainly (ok, wholly) to Stephen, as working in Montegranaro he’s only a few minutes’ walk from the broker’s office. Not that he progressed very far on Tuesday as when he went there the queue was too long for him to wait. He had called in last week to give them a heads-up and the fierce lady started looking into it, but I’m afraid to say we were shocked to find that she is fallible. Calling me, thinking she was talking to Stephen, was more or less forgivable, but when she did finally get hold of him, it was to give him the cost for insuring a Panda., not a Renegade. It gives us lesser mortals hope.

Stephen returned to the broker’s on Wednesday morning when all was sorted satisfactorily, even managing to draw money from the cash machine at the bank next door which was neither closed, empty nor damaged from an attempt at extortion. He was also, after two days of communications blackout, able to talk with Mr Pompei. Stephen had emailed copies of what he believed to be the relevant documents on Monday, though not the signed form that was mentioned previously and which no one seemed to know what it was, even the fierce lady. It obviously wasn’t that critical as Mr P never mentioned it and it was agreed that we would collect the car on Saturday, i.e. yesterday. This meant that could all be put on the back burner while our attention turned to something a little more urgent.

We were more than a little concerned about Harry on Tuesday, as when we got up he was very slow and lethargic, showing little interest in anything and his breathing was laboured. He managed a bit of a walk first thing, but showed little inclination after that, and while he was eating his food it was with a great deal of encouragement, mostly consisting of feeding him by hand, piecemeal. Wednesday morning he seemed to rally a little and came for his morning walk with me and Bella, but after that it was back to his bed for the rest of the day, most of the time panting to get his breath.

Stephen took him to the vet’s in the evening and the diagnosis was that Harry had somehow managed to contract influenza. From where is anyone’s guess, seeing as he hasn’t been in contact with any dog other than Bella, but, apparently, it can just hang around in the air. The vet gave Harry an injection and Stephen a prescription. He stopped off at the chemist on the way back where he got some syringes and the solutions to put in them. Solutions because there was one small bottle with one medication and an even smaller ampoule with another.

On the face of it, you might think popping a pill would be a simpler process, but as anyone who has a pet will know, getting them to swallow a tablet can be a war of attrition that only the stout-heartedly determined should embark on, but the injections turned into a whole performance of their own. The mixture in the ampoule had to be extracted using the syringe and then injected into the small bottle by piercing its thick plastic cover with the needle. The two solutions had to be agitated until the mixture went clear and then the syringe was refilled with the mixture. Unfortunately, the end of the needle wasn’t long enough to reach the liquid, even on a slant, but a judicious poking with the end of a pair of scissors opened up enough of a hole in the top for Stephen finally to get the needle into the solution, but only just. He did, after the initial run, work out a more efficient method, though still not a straightforward one.

I would like to say that the admittedly minor difficulty was worth it, but so far it does not seem to have been so. After a slight rally on Thursday, Harry was not good again on Friday, so much so that we gave him his injection overnight rather than yesterday morning as he was awake and panting to get his breath. This medication seems to give him some temporary relief but otherwise he is still listless, showing little interest in anything other than lying in his bed. The vet had said to take him again this coming Tuesday to see how he was getting on, but we are going to take him tomorrow as he has also over the weekend developed a problem with his eyes. The corners with the openings of the tear duct are swollen and red, and don’t look good at all. The poor boy is far from happy with himself.

He is, while poorly, able to be left at home so we didn’t have to change any plans for collecting the new car, which we did yesterday morning. Not that that, of course, was completely plain sailing, especially as the Freeclimber decided to make one final stand, refusing to start on Friday evening when Stephen left work. He had said in the morning that he wasn’t sure if he had enough petrol, and indeed he hadn’t as that, fortunately as from experience we know it could have been worse, was the problem. Also fortunate was that the nice assistant in the office was still there as her car was in for a service and she was waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up, so instead of me dashing up to Paolo for a container of petrol and then dashing across to Montegranaro with said container, the obliging boyfriend (who, I believe, is big in the Monte Urano Pro Loco so is no doubt eager to help those less fortunate than himself) was able to drive him to the local garage.

Our first stop, then, yesterday morning, was to get €10 worth at Paolo’s before taking our final trip in the Freeclimber to Pompei, where Stephen signed all the forms that Monica in the office presented to him and exchanged our keys for theirs. It was not, however, a simple matter of then hitting the open road as we had to go to an insurance office in Fermo to sign the changeover of ownership document. And why couldn’t we do it at Pompei even though this is now done virtually on a pad? Because it’s Italy. We went and we signed and, not surprisingly, it still wasn’t finished because while we were at the office Monica phoned to ask them to ask us to call back in at her office to sign the receipt for the car that she had somehow overlooked. Oh, and could we, said the lady at the Insurance place, take this ID card with us as someone who had been in earlier to do the same as us had left it.

We did eventually make it home, just before the morning expired, and a very pleasant ride it was, but just to make sure we took the new car for a spin to Civitanova in the late afternoon so we could do a bit of early Christmas shopping and return to Thirteen, the bar in the town centre, for aperitivo. It might not have been the best evening to be going out and about as the rainy weekend that had been heralded on Friday morning with a thunderstorm really kicked in, just after we set off, with a heavy downpour. We kept up our spirits as, now having a car with a proper inflight Bluetooth entertainment system, I was able to connect my iPhone and shuffle through my eclectic collection of songs. I was made even happier when one of the first to come up was St Barry of Manilow (I said it was eclectic, I didn’t say it was tasteful) singing, and this is where you think machines are more intelligent than we suspect, I Made It Through the Rain, to bless the car and all who sail in her.