I am so happy

We heard from Mario that he had been to our house in Lazio to cut the grass and tend the olives.  He said he had seen our cats on Easter day but despite being at the house for two days the following week he hadn't seen them.  We weren't too worried, at least the darlings had survived the winter and would now be able to fend for themselves with more creatures about to hunt and eat which might be why they had taken off.
So we were beyond delighted when we got this yesterday an email entitled here is your cat, Marzia tucking into food in the shelter.  

Admittedly it's not as clean as we left it, her blanket seems to have disappeared but my goodness she has grown and looks fit and well.  We are so grateful to Mario for looking after her and can't wait to see her and hopefully the other two. In fact Mr FF was half way to booking a flight out next week, allowing the builders just three days to complete the new door and window openings.  I did explain that wasn't reasonable, they just needed the miss a day for some reason and we would be in a pickle plus we would miss the Tour de Yorkshire.

We are going out the following week, we may have to leave the penthouse boarded up while the new doors and windows are manufactured, which is a good enough reason for not being here.

We will stay in Italy for two weeks, come back to have the doors and windows fitted, the manufacturers will carry out a survey of the openings before we leave.  It will be so wonderful to see the cats again and we will explain that this time when we leave them it will only be for a short while, we shall be back again in June and stay for ages. Bless their little hearts and Mario's too.