A day at the office

This morning we finally found coinciding gaps in our and Flavia’s diaries to go to the local government offices for extra-terrestrials and leave with our codici fiscale. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned these before, but it’s a bit like a souped-up National Insurance number, which you need to carry around with you as it has to be given if you wish to buy anything major or open a bank account or anything else involving bureaucracy.

As is ever the case, we had Flavia to guide us through it all. She drove us to the building in Fermo (though she went to the general car park first rather then the offices – she must have automatically thought she was going to look for bargains in the town’s shops) where we were given our tickets showing our allotted numbers, a bit like queuing at the deli counter in Tesco, and sat down to watch the screen in the corner to await the summons.

After just over an hour’s wait and a slight hiatus in the changing of the screen – which seemed to coincide with what would have been coffee break time – my winning combination came up. Flavia gathered her Prada handbag and herded me into the adjoining room where we sat at our allotted booth. The lady who dealt with us was quite charming, and had the look of your best friend’s mum. Flavia chattered away while I adopted my usual pose of good-natured simpleton and the lady typed in my details with the precise two-fingered style of someone who thinks that computers are just a passing phase.

When the lady finished chatting and typing, she printed out my codici fiscale, which was a slight anti-climax as it was just on a piece of A4 paper, but she did sign and slap an official stamp on it – in red ink, which made it a little better. Flavia, with her usual no nonsense approach, then asked the lady if she would call Stephen next as he was my companion and was here for the same reason. As they say, if you don’t ask you don’t get, and within moments Stephen pushed open the double doors and we went through the operation again. You’d have thought it would be quicker second time around, but when the nice lady (who was called Rita) found out Stephen spoke Italian, she told him all about her son who worked in London. That is both the good and the bad thing about the officials we’ve met in Italy: they are much more human and approachable than in Britain, but they take so much longer.

Our second appointment at an office was our return to Giordano to sign the sale agreement for the house. This was simpler and quicker than Friday’s visit, with just a confirmation that we were happy with the document (we were, as apparently were the Mario brothers who just smiled a lot – Stephen thinks they had not bothered to read it, if indeed they could) and more joviality about the pomodori before the relevant parties signed.

To celebrate, Stephen said he would take me to the fashionable bar under Monti Moda for an aperitivo, but it was closed. Unsurprisingly, we ended up going through a door in a wall into the Bar Borgo for a swift Campari and a few crisps.

On the subject of bars, we also made our first visit, after dinner, to the newly opened summer bar in the car park by the sports hall and five-a-side football pitch, which they have been building (i.e. setting up the hut and constructing a sort of pergola only without entwining plants) for a few days. You may think that siting a bar in a car park is an odd move, but it makes a lot of sense. Not only does the open aspect make it feel fresher, but it is freer of mosquitoes, has a ready market in the youths and not so youthful coming to play football and parking is no problem – and at just over €5 for an two espressi and accompanying bicchieri of limoncello, the job’s a good‘un.