From our foreign correspondent

Without wanting to be too cryptic, I can tell you that I’m now back home after being back home for a few days. Meaning, of course, that I have returned safe and sound after my trip to Britain.

So how was it?

Well, the flights both ways were fine and arrived on time at each end. Travelling through Stansted, though, does give one a taste of what it’s like being a sheep, not least with half an hour to get through passport control going and a similar length of time to clear security coming back. In contrast, Ancona airport is almost cosy and there is much to be said for being able to park your car then cross the road to the terminal building. The downside, of course, is that your choice of destinations is a bit limited and duty free shopping amounts to a selection of Italian wine and chocolates.

And what was it like to be back, even if only for a short time? It goes without saying that it was lovely to see my mum and dad, who were equally pleased to see me, and to catch up with my close family as well as share a cup of coffee with our friend Val. The weather decided to give me a white welcome on Friday morning when it snowed for a couple of hours, fortunately without settling, and it was noticeably chillier than recent weather in Italy. I readjusted to driving on the left quickly, though it took me several minutes to figure out how to start my hire care (a Juke) as they had hidden the starter button behind the steering wheel and I did keep putting my left hand down to change gears.

While my main reason for returning home was to visit family, I had been given a shopping list by Stephen before I left, the key items being towels and paracetamol. Yes, an incongruous combination, and yes you can get these things over here but there are reasons behind both items.

One of the few drawbacks to living in Italy is that any medicinal compound has to be bought from a chemist shop, even something as humble as an aspirin or paracetamol. This means that whilst UK supermarkets sell these at a knock down price, in Italy they retail at a premium, with a pack of 12 basic painkillers costing in the region of £5. Hence my daily trip to Morrison’s, sometimes with Dad in tow to augment my cache of 25p packets, as, of course, you can only buy two at a time. The kickback from this, though, is that you if you multiply the difference in price by the number of packs I bought, the amount saved almost paid for my flights to and from Britain.

As for the towels, for old times’ sake Stephen seemed desperate for me to buy grey ones (to tone in with the bathroom) from Boundary Mill. Which is why the three of us set out late Saturday morning for towels and a lightweight jacket for Mum to the firm’s satellite store just off the Sheffield Parkway. While we all came away clutching purchases (Dad joined in the fun by buying a blue pullover -though he was not to be persuaded to throw caution to the wind and buy the on trend teal coloured one that took years off him - and a new ferrule for Mum’s walking stick) I have to say I was disappointed. Having been spoilt by the wonder that is Boundary Mills original and best store in Colne, this was a pale imitation. It had the same corporate look and stocked a lot of the same lines but did so without the braggadocio of its big brother. Nor did it have Banny’s fish and chip restaurant. Instead we made do with a sandwich from the café, which turned into a bit of an epic as the lady at the till didn’t now how to put through my tuna mayonnaise panino (though, like most places in the UK, it was incorrectly labelled in the plural) and neither did the manageress when she came to the rescue. We never had this trouble in Lancashire…

After all this excitement, it was back to Italy today, arriving on time in Ancona - where Stephen thought it would be fun to hide behind the café kiosk while I wandered up and down the concourse. From there it was home, where everything seemed to be as I had left it apart from the Internet not working. Fearing a protracted process but hoping that maybe fixing the problem may actually prove simple, Stephen phoned TIM, where a lady told him that indeed there was no operational connection and they would send someone on Thursday. Could she specify when, he asked. Yes, she said, it would be on Thursday. Thanks. But this wasn’t the only instance of TIM’s helpfulness as we later got a text from them to say that it might be useful for us to look on the Internet for a solution. Now why hadn’t we thought of that… oh yes, that’s right, because we have no Internet.

On a more topical note, I wasn’t aware till I was listening to the radio on the way to the airport this morning that today is International Women’s Day, which seems in the past to have gone by almost unnoticed in Britain. Not so here in Italy, as 8th March is La Festa della Donna where, to prove how modern and free thinking the Italian male is, wives and girlfriends are allowed to go out in groups to restaurants and bars and actually order food by themselves without male guidance. Goodness knows what next; give it a few more years and the men might even start washing some dishes and doing a spot of ironing. You see, like paracetamol, Italian machismo has an inflated idea of its own value