All change

The affair of the burst water pipe having reached a satisfactory conclusion, it was time to turn our attention to other matters hydraulic, namely our underperforming but incredibly stylish cascading shower.

The shower, which drew gasps of delight from Stephen when the nice ladies at Dream Ceramiche showed it us in the catalogue, looks as fabulous (to us) as we had hoped but unfortunately has not worked properly since it was installed. On consulting the ladies they said that it must be to do with the water pressure and we should look at this before doing anything else about it. Without wanting to confuse you too much with the ins and outs of the business, we haven’t been able to look at the pressure as we have been waiting since early December for Mirko, the plumber who installed the shower room, to show up with a replacement plug for the sink (as the original one was not popping up far enough) that the nice ladies gave him all those weeks ago. Still with me?

So much for filling in the backstory, now on with the main plot.

Wednesday morning saw Andrea arriving almost as promptly with his bill as he did in sending his brother to fix the pipe. You may think that this is what is to be expected from tradesmen. Not so. We have as much trouble in getting a bill here as we do in getting a body to keep to a promised day and time; Italians are equally lackadaisical in both areas. The usual response to a request to settle what we owe is a shrug and a patronising assurance not to worry; it’ll all get sorted. This, for someone like me who keeps punctilious track of all my finances, is little comfort.

Anyway, as I said, being atypical, Andrea turfed up mid-morning with a remarkably reasonable bill, more or less equal to what it would have cost for someone to sort out the skirting board in the first place; but where’s the fun in that? Whilst he was here, he kindly had a look at the non-functioning shower for us then went outside with Stephen and did something to increase the pressure (I presume turning of stop cocks or taps or valves of some sort was involved somewhere along the line) but with very little effect. The flow from the hand held shower was a bit better and we were able to get hot water at a reasonable force without turning on the sink tap as has been the routine but the cascade still obstinately trickled from its corners. It was, Stephen and I agreed after a short confab, time to admit defeat regarding the envisioned waterfall as well as acknowledge a setback in our pretensions to be MSP’s style setters and see the nice ladies about getting the fixture changed.

Wednesday proved to be a busy day all round, as prior to Andrea’s visit we had set off bright and early to see about getting a new tyre for the car. Maddalena had recommended a place about twenty minutes away near Campaglione and the Girasole shopping centre. It was quiet a large concern with several bays for working on cars but, as we very much suspected, they didn’t have the appropriate tyre in stock. A very helpful gentleman in the reception area investigated on line and said that yes he could order a tyre for us but as Fiat had ‘improved’ them since our Panda Cross had been manufactured we would probably have to buy two of them to avoid having different tyres on the same axle. And I thought it was only Apple that upgraded their products every other week to make us all spend piles of money. Such is modern life.

In the afternoon we had another jaunt, this time Stephen took me to see the railings man that he’d visited the other week with Marco regarding replacing the existing white plastic ones currently surrounding the terrazzo. There were two prongs to this outing: one was for me to see the product in real cinemascope as opposed to the pictures on Stephen’s iPad and the other was to confirm the size of the bars (14cm as opposed to 12cm, for those who have a vague interest in these things) and give the man the go ahead to price up the work with a view to having them made for early spring. We did make a slight alteration to our original request, having decided that it would be a good idea to have a gate at the top of the steps to keep Bella and Harry on the terrazzo for, while Stephen’s original plan of using the imitation hedge had seemed a good one, Bella, with her illimitable ingenuity had figured out how to push it open.

After a pretty much run of the mill day on Thursday, Stephen went on Friday morning to get the tyres changed – and yes, we did have to buy two. He also stopped off on the way back to see the nice ladies at Dream Ceramiche who were aghast that Mirko had not been to change the plug fitting. A quick phone call resulted in them assuring us that he would be the next morning and if not to let them know, so here’s fingers crossed he appears. They were also still convinced that the waterfall shower should work and, before we ordered a replacement fitting, they wanted to see what Mirko could do with it. So would we, but there again we would be happy just to see Mirko who we are starting to believe is just a figment of our collective imagination. As for getting the shower to work as it should, we feel that it is one of those things that you have to accept when you buy an older property; as we learned from all our years in Ramsbottom you can only do what the house will let you and sometimes it just says no.

To make sure that we finished the week on a high note, though, Stephen took me shoe shopping. That is ‘took’ as in ‘accompanied to nod and agree’, not as in ‘bought me something fabulous and ridiculously expensive’. He was in need of some new shoes to wear at Micam, the trade show in Milan in a couple of weeks’ time. After purchasing three pairs at Fabi we headed to the Tods outlet where he did indeed treat me to something wonderful: a Campari soda in their café. OK, it may be that it’s the same Campari soda you can get anywhere else but we all know that the pleasure lies not so much in what you have, but where and with whom. Stephen may have had three new pairs of shoes to accompany his aperitivo, but I had him and whilst he may not be ridiculously expensive he is fabulous – not least in my eyes.