Sofa so good

Another couple of days of fairly routine activity, with the odd jaunt here and there to break the predictability. I always find it interesting how we, for the most part, are creatures of habit and have to establish a rhythm to our day – and become unreasonably disgruntled if someone disrupts it.

Which brings me nicely to the first jaunt – which was Stephen’s as I was otherwise occupied. Bless him, he has missed out big time this summer with visits to the beach, partly because of having to deal with house-associated business and partly because neither the dogs nor I are made for spit-roasting in the Mediterranean sun. Yesterday morning, however, he took his cossie and towel and headed to the sea, where he spent the morning alternately snoozing and walking along the sands. I hope he had a good time, but not that good a one seeing as he was on his own.

Confusion reigned, as he was due to return, owing to another piscatorial cook out at the Fisherman’s chalet. We made our apologies to Samuel on Wednesday night when we saw him at the McIntosh, and everything was fine. However, the idea to the senior Stefonis that (a) anyone would not want to join in any family jamboree that presented itself and (b) the same anyone would not want to eat seafood when the opportunity arose was incomprehensible heresy. That is why I found myself sitting in the hall at 11.45, having been summoned by Flavia, while she and Remo paced agitatedly waiting for Stephen to come home.

The fact that they he’d told them on the phone that we weren’t going and I tried in my best Italian to say that they should go and I would wait had no effect. When, at one point, Flavia looked at me with despairing incredulity and spluttered, “Stephen says you’re not going. Why?” I put on my best bewildered look and gave a pathetic shrug of the shoulders. Thus, with one blow I exonerated myself and made Stephen the villain of the piece – well, all’s fair in love, war and family outings.

Stephen duly swept in, brushed aside all protests and the inevitable was accepted. The Stefonis went off to eat prawns (again) and we headed to Caffè di Muretto for a glass of chilled white wine, chicken escalopes and a barley salad – with not a crustacean in sight.

I was able to indulge at lunch as my last lesson with Alessandro junior before his holiday was cancelled. This was a good thing as the day before, despite my best efforts, he fell fast asleep for 25 minutes. I found out when his father appeared at the end of the lesson that Alessandro had spent all morning and early afternoon playing at the beach with his friends and almost burst into tears when called by to come out of the sea and go home for his English lesson. Now I try to make the lessons varied and interesting, and hopefully I succeed in part, but concede defeat to a summer’s day at the beach. Besides, I’m not convinced that one-to-one sessions is the best way to teach a child of that age and I would be wary of taking such a commitment again. Small groups yes, individuals no.

I think I have already said that instead of a spare bedroom on our floor of the house, which would only be used intermittently, we are going to have a study-cum-guest room with a bed settee - hence why we were in Civitanova having a cappuccino each and waiting for Poltronesofà to open at 10am this morning. Whilst we wanted a settee that would look good, we also wanted to make sure it had a mattress as comfortable as a regular bed – which we managed to find in spades. Although we’d gone just to see what they had to offer, we left after an hour having chosen the settee, its style of arms and the fabric for covering it, and feeling very satisfied with our choice. We should take delivery of it in the middle of October – but seeing as young Andrea, the man on the Poltronesofà TV advert, has been stuffing the same cushion ever since we arrived in May, we hope whoever’s making our settee works a bit faster.

Before we headed home for lunch, we popped over to the Cuore Adriatico complex to check out Obi for gates and drew a blank, but we did see some garden chairs that were very good value and are thinking about them. And just to round off satisfying morning’s shopping we scurried round Loopy, a Chinese store quite unlike anything you would find in Manchester’s China Town. Here, it means a store run by Chinese that sells anything and everything. We left with an armful of goodies all at knockdown prices – which is just as well considering what we had just spent on the sofa.