Of mice and men

After all the excitement of residencies and house buying, the last few days have been a welcome return to the closest we get to a comfortingly predictable routine

Friday was work for Stephen and my weekly lesson with

Alessandro, then a quick jaunt to Bar Chupito, the car park watering hole. While we were sitting there, appreciating a pre-dinner gargle, I became slightly concerned by the sight of a lady of some considerable age tottering across the tarmac, looking a bit like John Mills when he stumbles after the hallucinatory lager in ‘Ice Cold in Alex’. I was convinced she was not going to last out, but not only did she prove me wrong, she also approached us, took out a creased piece of paper from her pocket and started reading a poem.

As you know, I’m not yet fluent in Italian, but I it was fairly obvious even to me that it was of the Patience Strong school of verse – something about flowers and birds and sunshine that she had learned as a young girl with her father, as Stephen later told me. He also said that the MSP’s wannabe Ancient Mariner was a retired schoolteacher, the very mention of whose name still strikes fear into any man in MSP between 35 and 50. Grown men with families and positions of authority have been known to cross the road, heads down, to avoid bumping into her – so I guess we got off lightly.

Saturday was a day for bobbing around: chores in the morning, shopping with Flavia in the afternoon, who then came with us to see Mr Pompei of Pompei Motors, then dinner with our friend Luca, his brother and his partner in Macerata.

We were hoping that we would be able to finally get some sort of date for taking possession of our car, now that we had residency, but Mr P decided that he also really needed Stephen to have an Identity Card. Well, that’s good, seeing as he can’t get it till next week, with Fiorenza of the Cumune having taken today as a beach day. Oh well, in the words of Eurovision legend, Johnny Logan: what’s another year?

The evening, however, was a delight. It was my first time in Macerata, which is the nearest that you get in this area to something approaching a city. Like many other of the other places, it is centred on the old fortified town that climbs a prominent hill. It was here that we ate – having walked through a passageway and over a small bridge to the restaurant. The inside was a tad incongruous as the style owed much to 70s bier Keller chic but outside was idyllic – a tree lined terrazzo built on the top of the old town walls with views almost as beautiful as the customers.

After dinner, we strolled up through the narrow streets to the main square to view the recently restored planetary clock, which at midday and 6pm puts on an automaton show like its more famous counterpart in Prague. It is definitely a place to return to and one to take visitors, as besides the clock there is a wealth of stylish bars, cafes and shops worthy of further investigation.

As for the last three days, there has been nothing of importance. Sunday we went to the house to do some measuring up for the kitchen/dining/living area and pondered how we can achieve a run of units along the back wall when we can’t knock the dividing wall down without the house collapsing. Monday night was the final of the five-a-side football tournament at the campeggio – don’t worry, we didn’t suffer an aberration and turn up to watch, but took the opportunity to go to Caffe del Muretto, the trendy bar under Monte Moda, knowing that all the young things would be cheering on the teams in the final. We enjoyed a couple of gin and tonics and completely changed the layout for the house we had discussed the day before. No doubt it will change again before we are finished – after all, as R L Stephenson said: “...for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.”