Ray of light

With Alessandro the electrician set fair to fit the kitchen and bathroom lights – or rather make holes and run wires for the latter – we thought we should make some effort to actually buy them. And there, in a nutshell, is how we spent our weekend. You’d think it would be easy finding something – and no doubt it would have been had we not seen the ideal light for the kitchen/dining room at Simonetti last week. The problem being that, following investigation on the Internet, two of them would have cost the equivalent of a small nation’s national debt. As our budget does not stretch quite that far we will have to do the usual cloth cutting.

This morning we headed, on the recommendations of Maddalena and Alessandro, to a lighting shop called Smal about twenty minutes away in Cassette D’Ete. We must be very hard to please as, despite the shop stocking every conceivable type of light, we didn’t find one that we thought suitable for the pendant fittings. We did, though, with the help of a very knowledgeable assistant (who I have a sneaking feeling may be the owner or joint owner) manage to find spots for the kitchen beams and the bathroom – even if he did seem to have a permanently perplexed look on his face. I hope we weren’t the reason; but maybe it was because his G-star t-shirt and 40 West shorts seemed a tad at odds with the exuberant rococo Venetian glass light fittings.

Undaunted, we set forth again after lunch, this time heading west instead of east as Stephen had spotted two lighting shops up that way on his travels.

The first looked vaguely promising, with a small but select range of lights. There was a white one that might have done, but we were not totally convinced by it nor any of the others the somewhat delicate owner scoured his catalogues to find for us. In this he was aided by his mother, a wonderful lady of more than a certain age with a startling resemblance to Bette Davis’ turn in ‘Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?’

The second shop took a bit more finding, having missed it on the way up. Stephen did suddenly spot it on the return journey, which gave me the opportunity to practise my racing turns. This time the lady in charge was more of the Joan Collins camp of fading glamour, but we still came away empty handed – as, judging from the sepia price tags and dusty goods, did most other potential customers.

The afternoon was not a total washout, however, as we took the opportunity to stop at a very fine pasticceria and buy a selection of small cakes and pastries for tea. Who needs lights when you can have carbohydrates?

We pursued our search again today, and this being Sunday where else would we go but to Corridomnia and Maisons du Monde, where we did indeed strike lucky. Well, maybe not lucky but we did find a reasonable compromise in a pair of light fittings for half price. These will suffice till we either source something devastating at a knock down price or save up enough shekels for the lights of our dreams. I somehow think that whilst the first is somewhat unlikely, we have a better chance of that happening than the latter.

Whilst at Corridomnia we ventured to the first level, unchartered territory for us but having been told by Flavia that there was a large Chinese shop atop that she highly recommended, we risked it. As Stephen had frittered away too much time in the ground level shops and lunch was beckoning, we were left with a very small window to make the most of what was indeed an Aladdin’s cave of everything you could ever wish for in your life and then some. We did, though, manage to buy some on trend shorts for Stephen (amazing how quickly China can turn round fashion) and some t-shirts for work while I came away with a large size crochet needle and three skeins of hefty cotton thread.

This may seem a bit of a random purchase but I fully intend at some point in the near future to set about crocheting some round, Granny chic retro place mats for our kitchen table – either that or, if I can’t cast off, a rug for the fireplace.

This afternoon Stephen headed to the house and in the late August sunshine set to with various bottles, brushes and cloths to see if he could get the downstairs windows and the fire upstairs into something of an order. You may be wondering what, while he is beavering away, I am doing. Why, writing my blog of course; after all I do have posterity and my public to think about and like Miss Jean Brodie, I am devoted to you in my prime.