“I’ve had an idea”, he says. I have many ideas, most of which I keep to myself. I now know that he does too.

He doesn’t tell me straight away. Cleaning teeth, playing the new game on Facebook all go towards a delay in telling me. It isn’t until we get into bed that it is explained.

I should, perhaps, first explain that, the holiday plans go something like this:

We go back to his home town and stay with his brother (AKA Johnny Depp) and sister-in-law, taking our dogs (I can say ‘our’ now – see previous post). We go either next Tuesday afternoon/evening or Wednesday morning (possibly early).

We stay there until Saturday (so three or four nights).

On Saturday we (the dogs and us) go to the flat we have booked in Umbria. We stay there until the following Saturday.

The following Saturday we return to home town and he said he wants to go and stay at his parents place. He has an extra week’s holiday. I come back to Milan and go to work and the following weekend I go back down for the weekend and to pick him up and we return to Milan.

You may notice that the dogs are absent from the last paragraph.

I had thought that, maybe, I could leave the dogs with him – that was until he said he would like to stay at his parents’.

I had not mentioned my idea – but although Dino was really good on both car journeys last weekend and was not sick and drooled a lot less than normal, I didn’t fancy a couple of hours back to the home town and then another 2 or 3 hours to Milan. Dino, however good he may be, may struggle with that one.

But, as I say, my hopes were dashed, somewhat, when he said he would be staying with his parents. Luckily, I hadn’t said anything.

Back to his idea.

“Perhaps I could take the dogs for the week when you come back to Milan”, he said, continuing “but I’m worried about Rufus”.

His worry about Rufus (and there is another post coming up on him worrying, probably) is because Rufus is old and I know things that Rufus does that other people (actually only him) worry about but which are fine, really, because I know Rufus. When he does the teeth chattering thing, for example – it’s OK – I know why or, rather, I know the cause. So when F gets worried, I assure him it’s OK.

We need to see the other house that he and his brother owns. We aren’t stopping there not, as I thought, because the flat is not clean but rather because the garden is overgrown and, therefore, is full of mosquitoes and other parasites that might affect the dogs. I’m not overly worried – but I need to see it first. Perhaps next week.

I suggest that, if he would like, he can keep Dino and I just take Rufus with me since Dino and F have that special bond – they love each other so much.

I also suggest that it would be OK and I would take the dogs back with me because then he can have more of a relaxing holiday. The key (for me) is the other house. I need to see it to determine if I can allay his fears or if he is correct. Maybe next week.

Still, I’m glad that he came up with the suggestion and I thanked him for the idea. I also said that he shouldn’t worry about Rufus and, anyway, I was only a telephone call or text away and, if anything really bad happened, I could be there within a couple of hours.