A moving experience

April has arrived, and as far as being the cruellest month is concerned, it has started out as temperate as March ended. In fact, it’s been so warm and sunny that on Tuesday we brought down the anti-zanzare* screens at all the windows as our first line of defence against those pesky varmints.

(*Mosquitoes to you and me.)

Tuesday was also the day that the section of banking that had slid into our road during the recent deluge found a more suitable home. Stephen spent a happy hour or so shifting it, with the aid of a wheelbarrow, several yards down the hill and onto a convenient spot by the side of Mario and Luigi’s field. Not that I didn’t play a small but crucial part in the proceedings myself, standing by in case of further landslides so I could haul him out with my bare hands and supervising his control of the wheelbarrow. With that job done, we can now phone the gas man to come and fill our tank as he will again have a clear run down to LCDDB.

As if that was not enough physical activity for one week, on Wednesday we moved various pieces of furniture from storage in the garage to the workroom. The latter had been waiting patiently to be called into action since being decorated and fitted out with power and lighting the other week. The only new things we’ve bought for the workroom are a whiteboard (the bog standard write on/wipe of type, not the all singing and dancing interactive type that I could never get my head round when I was teaching) and a cork notice board, both of which Stephen fitted on Thursday. Instead, we have recycled a diverse assortment of items formally used in our home in Ramsbottom. The old kitchen table and chairs are in the middle of the room as a teaching area while the office table is at the side to house my stained glass equipment. Add a couple of cabinets and shelving units and bob’s your uncle. Stephen has also hung a few of our prints and pictures to make the overall effect less severe, which could make an interesting talking point should I ever run out of other material.

I had my maiden lessons there yesterday morning, first with Lorella and then with Irene, both of whom expressed admiration for the new location. I think Irene was a little disappointed to have move, though. She’s obsessed with Harry and has tried on a number of occasions to smuggle him into her handbag (not that we tried all that hard to stop her), but being downstairs she wasn’t able to fuss Harry on her arrival. I thought I was in for my own mini student revolution but when I promised that she could see him after the lesson if she worked hard she soon knuckled down.

While I was driving her back to her car she mentioned about a street food festival at Porto San Giorgio, so with nothing better to do Stephen and I took a jaunt down there this evening to sample what was on offer. Being Italy, which, as you are aware, is incredibly jingoistic about food, you can forget any ideas of fusion dishes and a heady aromatic scent of enticing spices as all the stalls were unforgivingly Italian (apart from one selling churros, which, being Spanish, are just about acceptable). Really they should have called it Fried Street Food as the majority of items on offer had been in close contact with oil to some extent; not that I’m complaining. We had some very fine chips followed by olive ascolana, but were then left with the dilemma of how to use up our remaining lira.

No, I haven’t slipped in time nor made a dreadful error and we did indeed have lira to spend. The festival employed a method whereby you had to exchange your euro for their faux currency at a cash desk. I suppose this was a way of avoiding the various stalls holding tempting amounts of ready money, but it did present a logistical challenge if you were not to leave with unspent lira. Stephen, who is not known for his numerical acumen, showed that when you have an incentive you can do anything, worked out that we could break even if we fraternised with the churros stall. A portion of these with a coffee for him (the driver) and a glass of moscato for me (the non-driver) polished off our money exactly. Perfetto, as the locals would say, which is a fitting comment not only on our evening in the spring sunshine but also on the workroom that Stephen has created for me. That leaves only another four rooms to go…