When you can't see the wood

The week got off to a bit of a confusing start with the holiday that wasn’t, or was it? Certainly it confused Stephen, who turned up at the factory at his usual time of just gone 7 on Monday morning to end up twiddling his thumbs while he waited for other people to arrive. Eventually, when Remo ambled in and ambled out he came to the conclusion that no one else was going to bother so he came home, changed and headed for the house.

And what caused this confusion? With All Saints’ Day falling on a Sunday, those who care enough to mark the occasion and remember their dearly departed count it as a holiday though officially it is a working day. It was even more hit and miss, therefore, as to which places were open and which closed than on a normal Monday – though, according to Flavia, it mainly happens in small towns like MSP where people still hold these values to be important. A cynic might take the view that it is only in small towns like MSP that you would get away with an ad hoc day off, but I’m not that person. Besides, it wasn’t a holiday for me, what with two lessons in the afternoon.

So what did we do with Stephen’s unexpected free time? Other than further work on the house, he took me to explore the Monday market that closes one of the main streets every week. I appreciate that it shouldn’t have taken six months to get round to checking it out, but you know how easy it is to overlook things right on your doorstep. Besides, if we’d spent the ten minutes it took us to tour the stalls earlier in the year, I might not have been quite as disappointed. My visions of artisan breads, farmhouse salami and lovingly made cheeses bowed out to cheap shoes, even cheaper clothes and a truck full of live geese squashed into individual cages.

Tuesday then was the surrogate beginning of the working week but Leaping Luca only had one thing to say to Stephen the whole day – but with words, as with everything else, we know that it is quality and not quantity that counts. So what was LL’s best Churchillian call to wingtip wonders? It was only that David, one of the American agents, had sent him an email telling him about some wonder pills from Indonesia which made you lose 12lbs in a week. Well that’s definitely the sort of information that will forge a prosperous business, though personally I think LL would be better off eating less, taking a bit of exercise and trying to see beyond the end of his stomach.

Tuesday was also a day of some good news and some that sounded promising. The promising was a telephone call to say that our windows were ready but the internal doors were not, which means that, hopefully, they will all be fitted sometime next week. The good was that Giordano, my student and all round good egg, had found some firewood for us.

I haven’t bothered you with the worry of us being wood-less for the winter (yes, the cold can have that effect) as someone who shall remain nameless forgot to order some for us when he ordered it for himself. It seemed that most suppliers were out of stock but spreading the word at the pub has saved us and we were promised a delivery by the weekend and thereby the expectation of roaring flames at which to make hot buttered toast when the snow falls.

If Tuesday brought good news, alarm bells rang on Wednesday and it was all hands on deck - well, two including Stephen’s - when he discovered woodworm in the cabinet we’d bought in Civitanova. as he was busy staining it red. This had to be dealt with quickly so that it didn’t spread to the other newly acquired furniture and, more importantly, to our beams otherwise the roof would fall on top of our heads. The only thing to do was to head speedily to Giordano’s, the friendly local ferramenta – not to be confused with my student of the firewood fame - which has become Stephen’s second home. He supplied us with a wonder treatment (which Stephen used yesterday and assures me has blasted the critters out of existence) and a wheelbarrow; after all, every home should have one.

Stephen had decided that not only did we lack this crucial piece of all-purpose equipment but, more importantly, it would be essential for ferrying the 18 quintale of firewood we were promised from the front of the house to the back. If, like me, you have no idea what a quintale is, it’s equivalent to 1800 kilos or almost 2 tons in real money – which is an awful lot of wood. While I agreed that a wheelbarrow was a good idea I wasn’t expecting to have to stand and watch with feigned interest while Stephen road tested a selection of contenders. Still, he was happy with his choice and, as the wheel is pneumatic, he gets to blow it up with his air pressure contraption so that is even more exciting.

Mind you, we didn’t spend as much time choosing the wheelbarrow as the lady of a certain age before us did choosing a new olive oil container. It is, currently, the olive season, a vitally important time for all Italians. Olive trees grow everywhere there is space to slot a few in and as you drive around you see at the roadside small groups of people laying netting like picnic blankets under the trees to catch the olives. They use a variety of pronged contraptions to dislodge the fruit from the branches, which they then take a local olive press. (I did wonder if you own the local olive press, what do you do for the other 11 months of the year?) Yes, you can buy olive oil in bottles in the supermarket, but most houses have a stock of either their own or locally produced oil which they house in these urns that hold up to 50 litres.

The woman in Giordano’s was taking the task very seriously, even if her outfit suggested otherwise. What first caught my eye were her white mules with sparkly flower designs, set off nicely by her baby blue tracksuit. But these were as nothing compared to the sequined Donald Duck on the back of the jacket. One glimpse of this and I knew we were in the presence of sartorial greatness, so it was a bit mean when, after much deliberation, she eventually settled on a 30 litre urn and Giordano only gave her a €2 discount on a tap for it. The lady, however, was more than happy and departed glittering into the autumn night.

As for the end of the week, Franco fitted the skirting board in the snug and the study/guest room yesterday, then today the wheelbarrow provided sterling service transporting the wood that was delivered this afternoon from the drive to an empty room at the back of the house. And for once I wasn’t a helpless bystander, as not only did I help fill the barrow for its repeated return journeys but I also followed on with armsful of logs to augment each trip. In just over an hour we moved a weight of wood equivalent to a small adult elephant into what the previous Chinese occupants had used as a downstairs kitchen, which now, instead of smelling of cooking fat, smells of newly hewn wood – altogether a more pleasing aroma.

And wood seems to be the scent of the season, for this week when we have been out for our after dinner constitutional with Bella and Harry there has been a haze redolent with the whiff of wood smoke and a promise of toasty nights by the fire has hung in the chilly air.