Last days in Yorkshire

I am writing this in France where we are relaxing after the first stage of our epic drive back to Lazio.  We left ilkley late Monday afternoon, took the midnight ferry from Dover and after rest and refreshment stops en route arrived in the champagne region early Tuesday afternoon.  The driver took several sleep stops, MrFF can fall asleep to order, I can only sleep in a bed at night so I didn’t get any sleep for 36 hours and was a little tetchy when we stepped out for dinner last night.   I am rested now, we plan to take a walk as the sun is out after a wet start to the day.  Later we will have swim and a sauna, a quiet evening and back in the car tomorrow morning.  We are getting closer to those cats.

Before we left we had a delayed celebration for MrFF’s 76 birthday.  We took the little Dales minibus service that only seats 15 so you have to join the queue in good time, to Bolton Abbey,  see below.

From there we walked 10 miles of the Dales Way home, mostly following the river Wharfe. It was a sunny t shirt kind of day, we stopped in Addingham for a birthday lunch beside the river, here is the view from our terrace table, sorry about the glare from the glass balustrade.

MrFF offered the option of then taking the bus back to ilkley but I was happy to keep walking and we were home in time to watch a mountain stage of the Vuelta a Espana.   It was a glorious trip that made it even harder to leave Yorkshire but we did and tomorrow evening we should be in northern Italy for our final overnight in Aosta and at our house Friday evening.  Today we are enjoying the calm and the memory of our lovely walk a week ago.

Invincible Vincenzo

 

Giovanni sent us this photo taken one evening of the amazing Vincenzo, the cat who is afraid of nothing, certainly not a young fox.   Giovanni told us a while back that Vincenzo was king as he had tackled what translated as a ferret, now he says Vincenzo is a wolf.  We are so happy that the little cat who appeared in spring is spending his days with Giovanni and his family, they all seem very taken with him and I’m sure it’s reciprocal.  During school term Giovanni is on his own during the week, it’s only in the holidays the grandchildren are with him so I am sure he enjoys having a little cat companion.

Below is the most recent photo Giovanni has sent, he calls it family reunited. Bottom is Grigio, next Vincenzo and finally the cat we think is Vincenzo’s mother.

Grigio apparently comes and goes, Giovanni sees her every few days, she regularly calls by our house where she is caught on the camera and she also spends time with Anna who is resident for the summer at the bottom of our road.  Grigio just has to stay around another week or so as we plan to leave next week for Lazio.  Of course the downside is that we will only stay until early November, by which time the summer residents will have gone back to Rome, our cats will be alone and reliant on Mario regularly topping up their automatic feeder.  That needs consideration. For now we are grateful the cats are well fed and very excited to see them, what a reunion that will be.