Starting over

Five days of independence and fending for ourselves without the safety net of Flavia – so how did we fare? Very well, I’m pleased to say, despite one or two hiccups along the way.

The week started with one of those holidays that’s not really a holiday but makes a bridge between the weekend and the actual holiday and is viewed as one to make up for the times when the holidays fall at the weekend. Got that? For many Italians, and Stephen, it made a long, four day weekend, so we were able to make an early start on Monday morning and head for the laundrette to wash the bedding and quilts from the Stefoni residence in the maxi washing machines.

This in itself is not a remarkable event but it did include another marker in my Italianisation, and all down to a missing glove. Never ones to miss a shopping opportunity, no matter how prosaic, we left the sheets tumbling round and popped into the discount shop next door for a quick shufty and came away with a throw for the dogs’ bed and tea towels.

It was a while later that I realised one of my gloves was missing from the pocket of my jacket and the only place I had been was the shop. Despite looking forlornly at Stephen, I had to man up and go and look for it myself. Not only did I look, but I had a conversation with the owner about it as well where we both seemed to actually understand each other. Despite my linguistic tour de force the glove failed to materialise – mainly because, when I returned to Stephen, I found I’d put it in my bag.

Buoyed up by my success going food shopping on my own later that morning was a doddle; or would have been if, when I was getting ready to cook the spaghetti for lunch (the accompanying puttanesca sauce gently simmering), I realised that I’d forgotten to put salt on the list. Well, I had managed to tell the woman at the deli counter that I wanted the mortadella with pistachios not the one without; what more can a man do?

Monday afternoon we continued with our excavation of the boxes, moving on from kitchen to clothes. Now I have more than two pairs of heavyweight shoes to choose from in a morning, though after six months plus of incarceration some of the shirts are looking in need of a good freshening up. In the evening, Marco and Maddalena became our first official visitors when they came for coffee after dinner, bearing a stain resistant tablecloth and a chef’s hat and apron as house warming presents.

Tuesday, being the feast day of the Immaculate Conception and therefore a holiday, gave us another whole day to festoon the house with discarded wrapping paper as we unearthed necessities and not quite so necessities. We took a break in the evening to scoot round to see Flavia, who’d called to say that she had some food for the dogs – though when we got there, there was a bag with olive oil and two boxes of chocolates too. She’s obviously concerned that we’re managing to feed ourselves – as evidenced on our first afternoon when Elsa appeared. We thought it was to wish us luck in our new home, but, it turned out, she’d been sent by Flavia to check on what we had to eat. She evidently thinks we are as incapable of looking after ourselves as the average Italian male…

Stephen was back at work on Wednesday but he still found time in the afternoon to demonstrate what it is to be a man in both modern and primeval terms. Satisfying a deeply atavistic impulse, he took great pride in first setting and then lighting the logs in the kitchen fireplace to bring flames into the heart of our home. Just as long as it stops there and he doesn’t go hunting for boars armed with a spear and wearing just a loincloth. Coming up to date, technologically speaking, he also connected both the TV and washing machine – one with more success than the other. The more successful one was the TV, and we spent a happy half an hour scrolling through the glut of channels available – all, of course, in Italian and most worth only a moment’s consideration.

The less successful, therefore, was the washing machine – a wonderful Samsung contraption that plays a little tune and flashes blue lights when it’s switched on. Unfortunately, when I carried out my maiden wash yesterday morning, it also leaked water all over the downstairs floor. In its defence, it may not have been totally to blame. Stephen, in a Wallace and Gromit moment, thought it would be a good idea to wire the discharge hose into the shower, as it wouldn’t connect to the outlet pipe. Patently it wasn’t a good idea and therefore we (i.e. he) will have to go back to the drawing board – or, preferably, to Giordano at the ferramenta.

I should say here for those who are wondering, it’s customary in Italy to house the washing machine in the bathroom. In some ways it sort of makes sense, but to British sensibilities fed on images of claw-footed baths resplendent in faux Victorian splendour it seems somewhat random.

Yesterday was also the final of Italian X-factor, with Elsa’s cousin still in contention as one of the four finalists. Our interest lasted long enough to see the first elimination (one of those women who think that screaming is singing) but as there was another 90 minutes to go we headed to bed and thereby missed the moment when Giosada was indeed crowned the winner. Only six months in Italy and I’m already touched by greatness – albeit in a random and distant way. To think, I know someone whose husband’s cousin is an X-factor winner. Beat that .

Now that the phone line is installed and seems to be working ok we returned to the TIM shop in Cuore Adriatico to purchase a modem and have a stable and permanent Internet connection at last. On the way encountered a prime example of the Italian attitude to driving, which one of my students, Alessandro, described as a war. Certainly there is none of the courtesy of the road here that you tend to find in Britain. No one acknowledges, for example, if you give way to another car; they just think you’re stupid to do so and besides they were coming anyway. Their favoured driving is the middle of the road, which can leave little room to get past, especially as pedestrians don’t believe in using the pavement. You’re never quite sure if cars are really going to stop at junctions; I mean, why waste time breaking gently when you can screech to a halt? And as for speed limits – what are they for? Well to keep you safe, maybe, just like seat belts, which are something else the average driver abhors.

Remo, like countless others, puts the passenger seat belt in the driver’s buckle to stop the warning noise. Isn’t it just as easy to fasten the driver’s belt? I said to another of my students, Irene, that Italian men seem to be born with a perverse desire to do the exact opposite to what they are told (witness the amount of smoking that goes on in the factory – Stephen even found that someone had used one of the prototype shoes in the showroom as an ashtray). She, being a woman and therefore quite sensible, heartily agreed and told me that one of her male friends carries around just the tongue part of a belt to use whenever he is in a car. And if you think using a mobile while driving is a problem in Britain, it’s as nothing compared with Italy.

Which brings us back to the man this morning who caused me to do a double take in my rear view mirror. Not only was he on his phone, but he was also smoking and nonchalantly flicking his ash out of the window. This meant that, as we wove down a windy road in the morning commuter traffic, he frequently had no hands on his steering wheel. Fortunately, he turned off before he ran into the back of me or caused an accident – which might have had disastrous consequences for his designer sunglasses.