I wake at 6.45. I need the bathroom and a drink. I toy with the idea of sleeping for another 45 mins instead. Or maybe longer. Longer, of course, I shouldn’t do. Longer means later and later means NOT doing what F wants to do.

Or, rather, what he says he wants to do. I want to as well but, then again, 6.45 is early and next week I’ll be getting up at 5.45.

Anyway, I need the bathroom and a drink and I get up. As I walk back to bed, F, who is just awake asks what time it is. I tell him. He asks if we should get up. I say that I suppose we should.

Today, being our last full day here and, so, the last day of our holidays (even if tomorrow is really the last day), we are going to the beach. The dog beach. We are better at it now, having been a few times. We don’t take so much but now it also includes two new balls that F bought. This is because Dino will only swim if you throw something into the water for him to fetch. We found this out last time we went when we found a broken tennis ball. The problem with the tennis ball was that, because it was split it sank rather than floated. These balls will float.

We park the car and the dogs have their leads put on and then jump out of the car. As we walk down the small lane to the beach, Piero is pulling – he can’t wait to get there. The lane turns sharply right and runs along the top of the beach. There is a small wall between us and the beach. Piero keeps trying to jump over it, he is so excited.

The man is there running a big rake thing over the beach, to clean it. We walk over the bit he hasn’t cleaned but hesitate before the raked portion.

He shrugs as if to say “well, you might as well go – someone else will go soon”.

We walk down to the shore and set our towels and things down.

The balls prove a huge success and Dino swims a lot. Piero is slightly fearful but, eventually, F persuades him to swim.

We leave after an hour.

And, after the pineta and breakfast and returning the dogs home, we are the beach. On our last day.

I think next week will be difficult