Excited (Thursday)

I thought I’d better start writing this a little early because I’m having troubled staying focused. The reason is that I have an appointment at the Italian Embassy in Madrid on Wednesday the 15th to get my visa!! I’ll fly in on Tuesday night for an 11:00 appointment on Wednesday morning and come home, hopefully with visa in hand, on Thursday. The embassy people have told me that unless there are problems I should have the visa in one day. 🤞🤞🤞It’s not going to be a cheap trip but at this point I have no other options. My only worry is that I can’t find a pet sitter to stay here at the house with Henry and Polly. If nothing comes up before I have to leave my neighbor Francesca will come in to walk them during the day and feed them at night, but that’s it. She won’t stay here full time or at night, but beggars can’t be choosers, right? I’m sure they’ll be fine, I’m just freaking out at leaving them.

We had our second squirrel siting today on our side of the river. Henry went absolutely ape and nearly pulled me down into the mud! I’ve stopped picking up walnuts (cold turkey!) after I found boar or deer tracks all over the place, and of course saw the squirrel. I figure they need the food more than I do. Besides, I now have 10 pound of walnuts in a bag 🤪

I’m painting bottles like mad to use as Christmas gifts this year for Francesca, Roberto and his wife, and Francisco who lives over me. I also want to get back to doing some line and wash painting. I have several ideas for that.

No Christmas decorations this year. Everything is still in storage in Spain. I doubt that anything will get delivered here before January or February. Unfortunately, most of my winter clothes are also in storage. By the time they get here I probably won’t need them!

(Friday)

Another squirrel sighting! I swear Henry’s gonna kill me when he gets charged up and takes off with me holding on for dear life. He actually dragged me partway into the woods chasing this thing. Of course, it was way up in the trees but that didn’t stop him. I have discovered that the tracks I’ve seen in the mud very nearly resemble wild boars but are in fact deer. There’s surprisingly little difference between them.

More rain this weekend, unfortunately. I have clothes hanging all over the house drying.

Tomorrow morning I’m interviewing a woman who has replied to my profile on the dog sitters site. She sounds nice on the phone, but we’ll see how Henry and Polly react to her tomorrow. It would be a HUGE relief for me to know they will be well looked after while I’m gone. If this woman works out I may be able to do a little traveling next year. We’ll see.