Today is Friday, the end of a very long and tiring week. Alfie and I are now settled into the apartment in Rome and he is getting used to living in a flat and alongside the many feral cats in the neighbourhood. - Quite a challenge for an outdoors-loving, cat-hating lurcher!

Monday was a difficult day. We were flying to Rome from Heathrow and we set off from home at 1 am. The flight took off on time, with Alfie in the Hold. Two hours later, we should have been in Rome, but a fault on the plane meant we had to turn back to London. Several hours later, on a new plane, we took off again.

Arriving in Rome, it took us over three hours to locate Alfie! He had been sent to Cargo City, with general freight. Finding Cargo City was difficult enough,but we then had to see several different people (World Cargo, Customs etc)in several different locations. We had to complete various forms, in Italian and hand over various amounts of money. While I was straining to understand the Italians we met, I realised how important it is to actually listen with complete concentration if we are to understand the meaning behind the words. It is no good simply hearing a message if we don't understand it. I was reminded of the Transfiguration story in the Gospel of Matthew (chapter 17) and God's exasperated intervention when Peter seems to have missed the point,"Listen to him!"

May we all listen attentively!