Mantova. 6th September.

I wake up, first, at about 4 a.m. The dogs seem excited and are ready to go for a walk. I try to get back to sleep. It must have been after 5 before I managed to doze off again. The alarm re-awakens me just before 5.30. I hit the snooze button a couple of times before getting up to take them out.

This the “normal” time to get up but, what isn’t normal, is that I went to bed after 1 a.m.

But, it’s not a work day, it’s a Saturday and, what’s more, I’m off to Mantova, for the festival. Sadly, without F. And, just sadly as the “background stuff” remains.

I get the leads and we leave the flat. As we exit, I see some bastard has called both lifts. I wait for one to become free and call it. It’s the slower one. Oh, well. As we’re waiting for the lift to arrive, the other one arrives on our floor! Since there are only 2 flats on our floor, this has to be our next door neighbour! And so it is. He’s obviously returning from his night out. Oh to be young!

He’s mid-twenties, I guess. And, it seems, he likes dogs, which is excellent. As he asks, I introduce the dogs to him as he strokes them.

I realise afterwards, that, although he now knows the dogs, we both failed to introduce ourselves! And, I guess, if he has the habit of coming in at this time, we may not see him so often!

The streets are almost deserted. There’s the newspaper stalls opening up, a few people going to work and a few, like our neighbour, returning home. We go for a longer walk than normal – I won’t be back until late and I’ve allowed extra time, as I do when using public transport.

Back at home, I make coffee and message F. He messages back. He’s on his way to the hospital, so he phones me and we chat about things. I tell him I’m not staying overnight this time. He says that he’ll definitely come next year and I realise that he understands it’s important to me.

I go to get the tram for the station and nearly miss one but the driver kindly waits for me.

And so now I am on the train, on my way. I’m thinking that some beers are in order, maybe (one of the reasons for taking the train, after all :-))