Is there a pill for that?

Another few days of moving forward at an Italian pace, but with the weather continuing to be hot it’s perhaps the best speed at which to take things.

On Wednesday morning, we had a consultation with Mona, the lovely architect from the house signing. She came to look round the house and give us her thoughts about what we intended to do and to offer a different perspective. We spent two and a half hours with her in total, and it was most useful indeed – so useful we have again changed our ideas for how to use the upstairs rooms.

The centre as you enter will be the dining/kitchen area - much to Maddalena’s abhorrence: how can you have people entering your kitchen! She obviously has not visited many houses in Britain. To the right, the front room will be the sitting room, giving easy access for visitors who can shut their eyes till they are safely past the unholy sight of tables, chairs and sink. The back room on the right will now be a study-cum-guest room, as keeping it solely as a bedroom would be a waste of space. To the left there is a small vestibule, off of which is the bathroom, what will be our bedroom at the back and a dressing room at the front. We intend to open up one of the windows in this room and make it into a doorway onto the terrazzo.

All we need to do now is find a kitchen, have the bathroom knocked out and replaced and build a fence to keep Bella and Harry from scampering across the local countryside and we may be in a position to think about moving in.

In the afternoon I started with a new student, a charming but very nervous youngster called Alessandro who is all of 9 years old. His parents, especially his father, are keen for him to improve his English and no doubt spend some time during his summer break more profitably than having fun at the beach. They have signed him up with me for three hours worth of lessons per week over two afternoons for the next few weeks. They live in Fermo, a large town about 30 minutes away, but heard about me through my other Alessandro’s brother, who knows young Alessandro’s father (I do wish Italians could have more imagination when naming their children – can’t we have a Kyle or Logan or Kawasaki to leaven the mix?) Luca, of the Stefonis, knows the father and said he looks like a young Bruce Willis. Well, he looks as much like a young Bruce Willis as I do Zac Efron – so disappointment all round on that one.

Stephen took Maddalena to view the house on Wednesday (see above comment), then returned with her and her father on Thursday with a view to him sorting the fencing and replacing the railings – as he is retired, I’m not sure he is really up for the job but his advice was very welcome. We also paid for the car, so now Mr P has the money, we just need to get the Identity Card and we might actually get our sweaty hands on our very own car keys.

Today we screwed up our courage and went to see about arranging an electricity supply for the house. From past experience we geared ourselves up for a prolonged afternoon with much signing, printing and waiting, and took Maddalena along for back up (well, she is on holiday and has little else to do). To our astonishment but great delight, it turned out to be simplicity itself (once Stephen had found the building – which was admittedly a bit off the beaten track, being a few hundred metres away from the main road with nothing else but waste ground around it). A very helpful man with a splendid beard said that yes he could sort that for us and then proceeded to advise us what was best and then fill in the forms for us. I did, of course, have to sign several pages but he did whip from one to another while I stood pen poised to swoop down and scrawl my mark.

And that only leaves us with the saga of Remo’s tablets. He and Romolo went to the doctors a week or so ago for their routine check ups. For whatever reason, he has been “too busy” to go back after receiving the results, so Flavia went on his behalf and came away with a selection of tablets. This evening, after dinner, he was standing at the cupboard muttering with increased volume and ferocity until Flavia weighed in to help him sort them out. “What are these tables for?” he shouted at her. ‘They’re to help calm you down,” she said. “And what about these ones then?” he yelled. ‘They’re the other ones to calm you down.”

Enough said.