I have had it sitting on my desk, with a stamp on, for weeks and weeks. To post it, it meant a trip down Via Castel Morrone to the post office. Post boxes, here, always seem in such short supply.

I keep meaning to do it. It’s not crucial. It’s the acceptance to the invitation to the wedding. The wedding is at the end of this month but they know we’re coming, so it’s not crucial.

But, apparently, the Bride’s mum likes getting them back and mine has an Italian stamp – so more exotic, I guess. And, anyway, the stamp’s used now so I might as well.

OK, I say to myself, I WILL go the the post office tonight.

I take the card from the desk and have it in my hand as I walk round the corner to the car. I will put it on the seat of the car to remind me to go there tonight.

As I walk round the corner, I almost bump into a post box! I never knew it was there. I walk past it nearly every day, sometimes twice a day and never noticed it before. We men are crap. As my mother used to say – we can’t see for looking.

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I don’t know whether he forgot it ‘on purpose’. I knew, that morning, that he wasn’t going to come. Sometimes, I think, I am beginning to understand him.

He gets up to his alarm. It is 7.30 a.m. I would like to stay in bed and would like to get more sleep but probably won’t. But Saturday and Sunday are the only two days I get to sleep in.

I get up to let him out and then go back to bed. But I know sleep won’t come now so get up anyway.

I see his phone. Hmmmm. I think to myself that it would be easier for him not to come tonight if he doesn’t have his phone. He could say that he needed to go and get it or that he couldn’t tell me what time he had come back or that he wasn’t sure whether we had gone somewhere else, etc, etc.

I go onto FB and chat to him. I tell him I have his phone. He says not to worry. I say I will bring it round. He says he will be fine without it. I say that if he doesn’t have it I cannot tell him where we go and what time, etc. I say I will bring it round shortly.

I take the dogs. After all, it is ‘cooler’ at this time. We walk the normal way. We go through an area between the trees in a quieter street. there are, usually, at night, a couple of homeless people, possibly of Asian descent, that sleep on a couple of benches. If they were there last night then they got up earlier. They are not there. I guess, that Sunday is much like any other day for them – possibly less people to beg off – if they beg.

But they are gone. In the distance, at the end of this patch of green and trees, on the end bench I see someone lying down, probably asleep.

As I approach the bench, I see at the side of it, the obligatory empty beer bottle. I think he may be the guy who I often see on that bench. The one who doesn’t seem to be homeless as he’s always sitting there, not sleeping there – as far as I knew.

As I approach with the dogs, the guy wakes up, or, at least, gets up. He looks homeless. He has a shirt and trousers but they do look like they have seen better days.

As we come aside the bench he reaches in his pocket and pulls out his mobile phone!

What?????

OK, so maybe not homeless after all – or someone who is homeless but rich enough to have a mobile phone?

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Dino has two, very annoying habits. He licks and he pulls on the lead. The licking (as I may have mentioned before) I can’t seem to stop. The pulling I can but it takes time.

And so, at least at the start of every walk he pulls and he’s quite a strong dog – about 25Kgs of solid muscle! I yank him back and make him walk beside me until he stops pulling.

But it couldn’t last forever.

His collar is a material (cotton) collar. It starts to break. So now, tonight, I have to go and buy a collar. First a bigger one as his neck is much thicker than Rufus’. Secondly a leather one as a leather one will last much longer!

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Update:
He didn’t come. He could have but he didn’t. I didn’t think he would.

I am walking home and I am tired. I phone him and it seems like he cut off the call. Maybe he’s asleep already. I text to say I am going home and then taking the dogs out and then going to bed as he seems asleep.

I get home. It seems he’s on Facebook. I chat to him that I tried to phone and that I have sent a text.

I take the dogs out. I come back and am having a quick glass of milk. He calls. The phone was on charge in the bathroom. He left the computer on. He was watching telly in the bedroom. Am I coming round, he asks. If you don’t mind, no, I reply. I am ready for bed. He says the phone did not say I had phoned.

Ah well, anyway, he seems to have bad nights with me or, maybe, because of the heat, I don’t know. Still, it does no harm for us to spend the occasional night apart – or is that wicked of me?