Wilfs nurturing skills - G8 comes to Italy

The boyz started the day at five o'clock with their trademark enthusiasm. They rushed down the farm track barking away to their hearts delight. Thankfully, the weather has improved and all the puddles have dried up so their post-bath pristine whiteness might remain unmuddied for a few more hours.

Late last night we found Wilf sitting on the terrace with a baby owl snuggled contentedly between his paws - for some reason he was looking adoringly at the baby owl while the baby owl was returning the look and hooting gently away. Come bedtime he gently nuzzled the owl with his nose and trotted contentedly off. We found him doing exactly the same thing last year - it must be some deeply ingrained nurturing trait that Polish Lowland Sheepdogs possess. Whatever the cause neither owl nor Wilf seemed to be harmed in any way by this bizarre relationship.

The young owls are everywhere - I found eight of them waddling around the courtyard in the small hours of the morning. They seem quite oblivious to the threat that I might pose. I put the increase in their numbers down to the banning of chemicals from our fields - the numbers of voles and shrews has surged in the last two years and this seems to have enabled the owls not only to stabilize but to thrive. The local farmer stopped in, uninvited, for a drink at eight last night and paid the great , and probably unintended compliment of saying that he hadn't seen as many wild birds in the fields since he was a boy. I felt as though our stewardship of this little piece of heaven was worthwhile.

The visa saga has come to an end with the agreement that I shall meet my old clients in London next week. One great thing about the EU is that you don't need visas to get around.Here in Italy security has been tightened for the upcoming G8 meeting. This means that at Rome airport the process of checking in, passing through the security check, and finally boarding the plane will go from very slow to glacial. Oh,the romance of travel!