When the going gets tough...

Time to catch up with the minutiae of the last few day while we are still in that hiatus waiting for things to happen: gaining residency, buying the house, buying the car, being discovered by a talent scout from Juventus…

This week started when I received a call from Stephen just after lunch on Monday, to say that Flavia was coming to pick me up to take me to the bank in Montegranaro because I had to sign something urgently. I quickly sorted the dogs and hastened down the stairs in time for Flavia to do a racing turn in the driveway (well, not really, not in her old VW) before dashing to Unicredit. And what was this urgent thing I had to sign? Doodly-squat. When we arrived, breathless and hair dishevelled the man behind the counter said it was all right and that I didn’t need to sign anything after all. Why was I not surprised? At least it was not all a pointless journey as Flavia carried out some transaction or other and also got them to give us a print out of the money we had in the bank – this we can use as proof for that we can support ourselves when we go to the Comune for our residency.

Wednesday I went with Stephen to a sole factory in Monte San Giusto as he had some business to do there, but also to have a word with a lady that works in the office because she was interested in taking some English lessons. Lorella, the lady concerned, was thoroughly charming and eager to start lessons, not for job prospects or to pass exams but because she just loves English. She said she studies her English textbook whenever she can and reads things in English on the Internet when doing the ironing. We arrived at mutually agreeable terms and she is to come for an hour on Saturday mornings, when her husband is at home to look after her two young children.

That takes us to Thursday, and what do two self-respecting men of a certain persuasion do when things become a little quiet? They go shopping somewhere fabulous. On this occasion, Stephen told me to be ready in something reasonably smart because he was picking me up, then Maddalena, and we were going to Fabi. Now I will forgive you if you did not emit a squeal of unbounded joy at the mention of the name as I too had little idea what it meant, nor did I understand when he spoke about Barracuda in hallowed tones. Now I do. Fabi is a high-end clothing and shoe label with Barracuda being its more fashion forward line. They have a shop, which also includes an outlet, by their factory in the small village of Villa San Filippo - and what a shop: an oasis of airconditioned, marble tiled calm with sylthlike assistants gliding discreetly between displays of just lovely, lovely things.

Stephen was most pleased with the look I had put together for the outing, declaring it very Russian. This was a good thing as it suggested not only that I was a target customer but that I also had money to spend. And spend we did but in the best way because we saved lots of money, partly due to the discounted shoes we bought (Stephen, white trainers with a subtle design based on the Argentinian flag and I some sparkly green camouflage canvas pumps) and partly because it turned out to be the first day of their sales, which meant 40% off the two polo shirts I acquired. What more can one ask?

With all this excitement, we couldn’t go straight home, so we met up with Marco at a place called Pistachio (remember, ‘ch’ is a hard sound in Italian, so it is pronounced ‘pistackio’), a casual eating place a few kilometres outside of MSP. We had decided to eat here as I’d said a few days earlier that I’d like go out for pizza because I had been in Italy several weeks and not done so. I wasn’t disappointed.

And as for today? Just a day of sunshine, doing stuff, English with Alessandro and a drink at the pub. Perfecto.