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It’s been quite something else here the last couple of weeks. I did a little decorating for Christmas and I thought the apartment looked pretty good. THEN, everything I had in storage arrived on Monday. OMG I didn’t take pictures but I should have. My apartment is not very big and all of a sudden it was wall to wall boxes. Literally, stacks of boxes 4 feet high! I could only clear a “path” through the kitchen into my bedroom. Now, 4 days later the kitchen area and most of the living area is clear but that’s mostly because the ones that I can’t unpack are all in the spare bedroom. Hope no one’s coming to visit anytime soon!! The biggest problem is my lack of kitchen cabinets and space for some of the hardcover books I won’t part with. I’ve ordered 2 bookcase from IKEA in Florence. They won’t arrive until the 21st and I’m not exactly sure where I’ll be able to put them. One with doors on it will hold all the extra dish ware like platters, casserole dishes, etc. I have pot and pan lids stacked up everywhere with no place to put them, either. Oh well, I’m sure it will all get sorted out in time, just not anytime soon!! 😂

There doesn’t appear to be any charity shops here like we had in Spain. I could donate a lot of stuff. I’m thinking of contacting the church to see if they have any kind of program for donations.

My experiments with walking Henry and Polly off lead have been very successful. Henry still doesn’t come when called but he doesn’t let himself get too far away – he seems to check to make sure he can still see me, at least until we head for home. Then he just does his own thing and eventually shows up at the door. Polly keeps a close eye on me, she’s never too far away. Anyway it’s been really good.

We had rain for the better part is the last week but today the sun is shining and it’s not too chilly. It’s supposed to be sunny, if not warm, for several days. That always lifts my spirits.

I have a little Christmas tree set up and a wreath on the door. It’s as much as I can do this year. I know that somewhere in the gazillion boxes I still have to unpack there are Christmas decorations but I’m pretty sure I won’t see them in time for this Christmas.

I’ll definitely post again before Christmas. I hope everyone is healthy, if not happy!

I should have known the whole residency thing wouldn’t be that easy. Roberto took me around to gather all the necessary additional documents on Thursday such as private medical insurance and other things I didn’t quite understand, and we had an appointment with a lady to help fill out all the pages of the forms to be submitted, including multiple copies. Then we went to the post office to file all of this and for it to be posted to Rome. When I had paid all the fees the nice lady at the post office gave me a receipt which stated the date I will receive residency. APRIL 24, 2024!!! Needless to say I was in shock. Even Roberto didn’t know what to say. Neither of us expected the date to be so far out. Of course this means no car for another FIVE MONTHS! No selling the camper, nothing! I honestly don’t know if this is just a computerized date that gets generated automatically and not necessarily the true date or what. What I do know is that it’s not going to be a Merry Christmas for me 😞

I also contacted the moving company about getting my things out of storage and shipping them to Poppy. The new estimate they’ve given me is now DOUBLE what it was when they picked everything up in May. I’m disputing the estimate but I won’t know anything more until sometime next week.

Sorry, guys, I know this post is not exactly filled with good news and joy from me. I’m struggling right now with all this crap going on but I’m really trying to remain positive. At the moment it’s awfully difficult to feel good about anything. Christmas is coming and can also be a bit of a downer. Just no glad tidings at the minute, except that the dogs and I are healthy and have each other. That’ll haveto be enough for now.

I’m legal!!! I flew to Madrid on Tuesday night and spent several hours at the Italian Consulate on Wednesday, but I came away with my visa! It’s good for a year. My lawyer will have it registered with the municipality of Arezzo and then I’ll have residency! Once I have residency I can buy a car – yay!!! So my visa has to be registered within 8 days which means I should be good to go by the beginning of December (I hope 🤞🤞). Merry Christmas to me!!!🎄🎄🎅🎅 After the residency issue is resolved I can start working on my Italian citizenship again. Maybe that will be my Christmas president for next year….

I didn’t realize how stressed I had been till I got home. I absolutely crashed Thursday night and Friday night. Thursday I had to get groceries – literally nothing in the fridge. I fell asleep in the car on the way back to Poppi. Good thing I wasn’t driving! I feel so much better today. The sun was shining making today glorious. I even got laundry and some cleaning done. Now I’m sitting at my table enjoying a glass of wine 🍷

Next week I have to get in touch with the moving company that has my stuff in storage and arrange for it to be shipped here. I don’t know where I’m going to put everything though. I’ve gone from a 3-bed 3-bath house to a 2 bed 1-bath apartment with no solarium and not much closer space! My art stuff that I brought with me is already in the 2nd bedroom. There’s more in storage, plus paintings I’ve done, all my winter clothes and kitchen stuff. I got rid of a lot of stuff before I left Spain, but probably not enough. Oh my, oh my.

We shall see what this week brings. For me, even though I’m not in the United States, this week is Thanksgiving and I have plenty to be thankful for!!

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.

I was told that November is the rainiest month here and so far it’s proving to be true. It’s still raining every day, with breaks in the rain here and there, but not really drying. I’ve managed to find an hour or so every day to walk the dogs. Sometimes we have a decent enough walk and sometimes it will be ok when we start off and then we get caught in a downpour halfway through the walk. I ordered a pair of waterproof hiking boots about a month ago and thank goodness I did! We’ve had such heavy rains and high winds that some of the areas we walk into have big branches and even trees that have come crashing down along our path. I move what I can out of the way and leave the rest for the farmers to deal with. It’s getting to be like a bog with all the water and mud I swear I heard my walking stick making a sucking sound as we walked along and I pulled it out of the mud!

In spite of the weather as I said we’ve walked every day. Today before we went out I told myself that I would NOT pick up any walnuts today. So here’s what happened: as we’re walking along I start to see naked walnuts. What are naked walnuts, you ask? Well, they’re walnuts that due to the rain and wind have had their outer husks removed. So they’re just laying there on the ground, naked, wet, vulnerable and alone. What could I do?? I couldn’t just leave the poor things there. What kind of person would that make me, I ask you?? So of course, I had to pick up the first one and then there was another, and another and so on. I felt tears in my eyes as I had to walk by so many of the poor, naked things because my pockets were stuffed. It was a terrible ordeal but I’m consoling myself with the knowledge that I will go back out again tomorrow and rescue as many more as I can! 😜

Speaking of the rain, areas just north of Florence have been flooded because the rains have been so heavy. Every day we walk by the Arno River and it’s getting deeper and faster. Fortunately it’s not near enough to me to be a problem. Most of the area around here has pretty high banks and it’s farmland. I believe that the last time this area flooded was in 1966.

I have found out that I have to go to Madrid to get my Italian visa before I can apply for the more permanent Elective Visa which is for foreign retirees. Right now there are no available appointments however so I’m praying for a miracle that will somehow get me in before the end of November. Once this is done I can work on my citizenship again. This journey has been long and fraught with obstacles but I really hope there is beginning to be an end in sight.