A song and dance

Of the two pieces of unfinished business last week – namely the elusive painter and the enigmatic Comune - one, I am pleased to say, has been successfully completed while the other, despite a degree of progress, hasn’t.

The week started with great promise on Monday morning when Bella’s and Harry’s barking alerted us to the fact that a vehicle was approaching. To our great joy – and relief - it was the painter returning after his sabbatical. He more than made up for his absence by giving us his undivided attention all week and by Wednesday he’d finished the painting, both coats. He then spent the next couple of days stripping off all the protective coverings, replacing all the shutters and making sure everything was in order – even swapping some broken roof tiles for complete ones from our stash of spares – before dismantling the scaffolding. By lunchtime yesterday, it was as if he had never been here; except, of course, for our newly transformed house. We may have had to wait a while for the end result, but he and his colleagues have done a fabulous job and we are incredibly pleased with the colour and the finish.

It’s a pity we can’t say the same about the Comune. We returned on Tuesday morning, as advised by Fiorenza, with all our documents and some hope but no real expectation of getting things sorted. At least she always looks pleased to see us, which is something, even if we do, inadvertently, cause her such headaches. We started off by consulting the record of house ownership in Monte San Pietrangeli, which comprised of several heavily annotated sheets of typed paper that were kept in a manila document file secured by several rubber bands, which in turn was housed in a box file. And to think I have been so disparaging about Italy’s efficient and technologically savvy bureaucratic systems.

This consultation took some time as Fiorenza kept worrying over the sequence of house numbers and the fact that 22-28 Contrada Forone seemed to belong to various members of Mario and Luigi’s family while 20, which was unassigned, was deemed to be a laboratorio (workshop). After much prompting by Stephen and explaining several times that the downstairs of LCDDB was a factory before we had it reassigned as a domestic dwelling, Fiorenza eventually seemed happy for our house to become number 20 and went off into her back office to do lots of typing on her keyboard.

Once finished, she rejoined us just as the Guarda (Community Police Officer) came into the office. You may recall that when we were given residency last year, the Guarda was supposed to come and visit us at the Stefoni house to check that we were really living there. She was unable to do so on that occasion because it clashed with her holidays so it was decided that it wasn’t necessary after all. Now that a number had been assigned to our property it appeared that she would have to perform the same function, i.e. coming to visit us at LCDDB and confirm that yes, it was our home and we were indeed occupying the property - presumably because Italy is rife with bogus claims of house ownership just for the sheer delight in being able to pay taxes for no reason whatsoever. Anyway, when Stephen asked, she said that yes, she did know where the house was. In that case, he pointed out, she must know what state the road was in and how care was needed to be able to get back up it. Would she like him to pick her up at the top of the road? For some reason, this seemed to put her off (whether it was the road or the prospect of Stephen’s company, we’re not sure) and it was decided that she didn’t really need to come and check after all.

Although the house visit was cancelled we still weren’t able to finalise the registration as, it turned out, to do so we needed 4 official stamps, each costing €16 and obtainable from any local tabbacheria. How foolish to think that the Comune itself would hold such items. We said we would get the said stamps and bid Fiorenza a fond farewell, promising to come back and see her soon and, at last, become citizens.

After all this, could the rest of the week live up to the excitement?

Well, Wednesday was notable for two reasons. The first was that Stephen’s anniversary present arrived: a new hoe to fill the gap left by the one he broke a couple of weeks ago. It might, to some, seem a remarkably unromantic gift but his delight showed how much he had missed his old one and how much he appreciated his new, lovingly crafted replacement.

The second was a visit to and by Terenzio, the man who is making the new railings for the terrazzo. Being now in a position to start work on them, he wanted us to pop over to see him to sign a couple of sheets of paper (what else, here in Italy) and to confirm we were still happy with the overall look that we had previously discussed. For our part, Stephen wanted to check the space between the uprights to make sure that Harry wouldn’t be able to squeeze through them when he gets a little worked up at the sight of the local tabby taunting him from Mario and Luigi’s barn. While we were there, Terenzio decided he needed to come over later in the afternoon to check some corner measurements. He did ask if Stephen remembered what they were. Well no, and besides, isn’t that why he and Marco the builder spent an afternoon with tape measures and angle contraptions?

Speaking of Marcos, I accompanied Stephen on Thursday afternoon to visit another of that name, this time of Chinese ethnicity, on shoe business. Unfortunately, he wasn’t ‘at home’ but to make the trip worthwhile (and to keep me happy) we took a slight detour on the way back to stop off at Francavilla d’Ete for an aperitivo. This is the neighbouring village where Stephen had to collect his renegade parcel the other week and one that I had not so far visited.

After a brief walk by the church and through the town square, we headed to the bar. We had a clue that it might be an interesting experience as we were preceded by a woman in pyjamas, housecoat and curlers who walked in ahead of us, unplugged a laptop from where it had been charging on a chest freezer and walked out again. We later learned from Maddelena, a Francavilla girl herself, that she is the local schoolteacher. It may have been her entrance that caused the various men seated along the wall to stop talking, but I rather think it was the sight of two strangers moseying into town that brought on a pregnant hush. We felt a bit more at ease when the barman took our order and invited us to help ourselves to the canapés at the other end of the counter, whereupon subdued chatter started up again. This, I think, was also helped by the arrival of the barman’s wife (sic Maddalena), the length of whose skirt was inversely proportionate to her age - and she was no spring chicken. Well, I suppose if you’ve got it, flaunt it, no matter what it looks like.

The end of the week saw us celebrate the unique cultural event that is the Eurovision Song Contest, in honour of which we invited Computer Luca, Marco and Maddalena to come and share the excitement, as well as an Anglo-Italian buffet, with us. Maddalena contributed a savoury torta, Stephen made cheese and pineapple on sticks and I whisked up some cheesy mini-muffins à la Delia. Luca was beside himself with excitement, it being one of the highlights of his year, especially as he can WhatsApp to his heart’s content during the whole show - and there was plenty of show for him to WhatsApp about. Where else can you spend three and half hours watching a music show and wonder what was the point of it all. Oh, that’s right – every Saturday night in Italy.

To recover today, Stephen suggested we go to Fermo Forum for a second hand market. What he didn’t tell me in fear, quite rightly, that it might put me off, was that the market was mainly to do with renovating old cars and motorcycles. The forum itself is an impressive building and I’m sure must hold some interesting events, but on this occasion, rather like last night’s Eurovision, once you’ve seen one rusty gasket, you’ve seen them all.