Only connect

It has been brought to my attention that whilst I glibly mention various Stefonis, the actual hierarchy of the family leaves many of you in total confusion; so as we head into a new year, let me enlighten you.

The family is headed by two twin brothers, Remo and Romolo, now in their mid-70s, who built up a shoe factory, started by their father, into a thriving business in the 70s and 80s. Remo is married to MariaLuisa while Flavia is Romolo’s wife and they and their families lived together in a large house on the outskirts of the village.

Romolo and Flavia have two children, Leaping Luca (who now tries to run the company) and Elsa. Luca is married to Antonella, a schoolteacher, and has twin sons of his own, Marco and Ricardo, both at university. Elsa’s second husband is Giovanni, a Carabiniero and cousin of this year’s Italian X-factor winner. She has two daughters, Irene and Lara from her first marriage and a third daughter, Marzia, with Giovanni.

Remo and his wife MariaLuisa (who has dementia and now lives in a home specialising in looking after such residents) have two sons, Sandro and Samuel who, like Elsa, work in the factory. Sandro is married to Paola, a beautician, and has two daughters, Chiara and Aurora, while Samuel and his wife Stefania, who works in the office at the factory, have a daughter and son, Sofia and Alessandro.

Remo, Romolo and Flavia still live in the family house, stretching over four floors, the top floor of which was where Stephen and I lived until we moved into La Casa dei Due Baffi. Luca, Sandro and Samuel live with their families in the former family house in the town that was converted into three apartments. Elsa and her family live in the centre of the town just off the main square in one of its tumbling terraced houses.

And there in a nutshell is the family Stefoni. I hope this helps and please feel free to reread all of my blogs so far in an effort to get it all straight in your minds. Now back to business.

Following a brief break for Christmas, Stephen screwed his organising head on again and set to licking the guest room (or study…or sitting room…the jury is still out on what to call it) into shape. Sunday witnessed him restaining then waxing the bargain combination wardrobe we purchased ages ago from Civitanova and which had been languishing in the back room whilst other things took priority. When it was sufficiently dry on Monday we shifted it into position then, without the aid of either a safety net or lumber supports, we managed to grapple the new bed settee from the garage downstairs up to the first floor and into the room – and without damaging either sofa or walls. It was then a matter of titivating the room with some bits and pieces – though the seemingly large expanse in the centre of the room seems to be crying out for a rug. As we have said before: piano, piano.

Monday evening we enjoyed a surprise dinner at the pub as Marco and Maddalena had returned from Rome and asked us to join them. It could be that they were dying to see us or that they didn’t have anything in to cook or had run out of conversation; whichever, a jolly time was had by all and for once, where Marco is involved, we managed to leave at a reasonable hour as we had to be up early on Tuesday for the persiane men.

Persiane is the Italian word for the slatted shutters on the outside of doors and windows and is the femine counterpart of persiano, meaning Persian. As to why they are called Persians I have no idea, the best I can find is that it’s taken from the French who, according to my source (no, not Wikipaedia), have an affectation for using the word as an adjective. No worse than our French windows I suppose. Anyway, etymological digressions aside, the same two jolly fitters who served us well the first time appeared at 7am as promised (yes, strange for Italy, I know – they must have some sort of defective gene) and were done and dusted comfortably before 10.

Which brings us to today and a shopping expedition in search of a DVD player and telephone. This could have been a bit galling if we allowed it to be, being in possession of two perfectly good DVDs and a telephone system with three handsets that we brought from Britain. I say perfectly good, but that is if you make allowances for the vagaries of technology. The DVD players won’t work because they don’t have the correct connections for our new ‘smart’ TV – not that smart then, is it. As for the telephone, that hit a language barrier as again the connections are mismatched – this time due cultural differences. It does, though, make one wonder if all this is just some conspiracy by the mighty conglomerates to make us buy more things.

On a lighter note, having finished the wonderful chocolate panettone that my student, Alessandro, bought us it was time to crack open Rocco and Vittorio’s serpe. For those of you who’ve been worrying about impending dental work following an encounter with this local sweetmeat, let me put your minds at rest. I don’t know where Stephen got the one he brought back to Ramsbottom for us all those years ago but far from being granite like this one was particularly toothsome: a crumbling casing somewhere between shortbread and pastry and a dark, chocolate and almond filling were just the thing to get our gnashers around. Now that’s one Anglo-Italian connection that really does work.