A walk on the wild side

This was to be the week then, when our residency at La Casa dei Due Baffi was finally to be settled. After two visits to the Comune, surely now that a house number had been agreed upon, all documentation was in place and we’d purchased four official stamps from Hotel Pina while enjoying a morning cappuccino and brioche the other day, there couldn’t be any more hiccups?

Fittingly enough, the start of the week was the first anniversary of our arrival in Italy. Monday, which was just an ordinary sort of day, was the date we turfed up outside the Stefoni house after two days travelling through England, France and Italy, while Tuesday, the day we returned to the Comune, was the anniversary of our first full day as ex-pats. It is, therefore, with pleasure and relief in equal measure, that I can say after much printing, stamping and signing, Fiorenza handed us our documents of citizenship and shook our hands to welcome us into the community of Monte San Pietrangeli. A bit ironic really, since we’ve been making significant contributions to the economic and social life of the town for the past fifty-two weeks, but we are in the land where the written word speaks louder than actions.

Having finalised the residency we thought we might as well go for broke and we sorted replacement identity cards with our new address on as well, before seeing a nice lady in the office next to Fiorenza about starting the rubbish collection. She was equally as charming and happily checked over the form Stephen filled in a few weeks ago with Marco and Maddalena’s help, changing just about everything on it with a quick scribbling out or writing over. We then had to take the form upstairs, giving us chance to appreciate the glamorously decaying sweeping baroque staircase, chandelier and wall sconces, where yet another charming and stylish lady (who happens to be the mother of Massimo, my student) entered some things on her computer. From here we went to see Jessica, young and charming, in the Ufficio Tecnico. She photocopied the collection rota for us, gave us a brown bin for the umido (food waste) and some free refuse sacks before sending us on our way with a promise that she’d make sure MSP’s bin men would know to pick up our bags from the top of our road. We will see.

And we didn’t have long to wait before finding out, as the bag of plastic we put out on Wednesday evening was still there on Thursday morning. Stephen was due to go the Comune anyway, as he wanted to enquire about one or two things, so mentioned this as well. One of the things was to enquire about the possibility of paying reduced VAT on work done to the house as, we had been told, is the case if you are renovating an old property. The person he needed to see, unsurprisingly, wasn’t there, which is a bit of a problem as this particular window of opportunity is only open for about an hour on a Thursday afternoon, so it will be another week before it rolls round again. Not only that, but as the Comune building itself is actually closed to outsiders, you have to hang around the doorstep waiting for someone to go in or come out so you can actually access the offices.

The other matters had a little more success, but not much. Stephen told Jessica about the recalcitrant rubbish bag, and she said that she would write ‘them’ a message to make sure ‘they’ knew to take future offerings. Fiorenza, meanwhile, when he asked her about a tessera elettorale (voting card) said that we were five days too late this year as registration had closed. He was too much of a gentleman to point out that if the Comune had been able to decide where we lived when we went the other week then we wouldn’t have missed the deadline. It looks, however, very much like we won’t be voting in June’s local elections. Still, we can’t criticize them too much as one of their orange clad jacks of all trade appeared, as promised by Jessica, in his truck on Friday morning. With Stephen helping, he loaded up all the scrap metal that a person or persons unknown had, at some point in the recent past and before our occupancy, decided to abandon on the banking at the opposite side of the track by our house. Piano, piano, we are getting things sorted.

Which brings us to the weekend and MSP’s Festa delle Erbe Spontanee (Festival of the Wild Herbs to you and me), which was a much grander event than last year. Unknown to us, there is actually a centre for wild herbs here in the town, situated in one of the old buildings just off the main square, where they held a dinner on Friday night prepared by a renowned chef from Civitanova Marche. We passed on that but Stephen did go on the herb walk yesterday afternoon with Computer Luca. Unfortunately, I had my last lesson with my three ladies before the summer break – Saturdays from now on are the reserve of the beach. I think Stephen was a little surprised that the expedition lasted three hours, but fortunately the Comune’s school bus was pressed into service to ferry the happy gang from sunny glade to shady pasture and both he and Luca enjoyed it very much. I’m not sure, though, what they enjoyed more, learning about all the wild florae or the fact that the rest of the group, consisting mainly of local ladies of a certain age, all had different names for the various plants and kept correcting each other and the professore leading the happy wanderers.

I met them after they returned to MSP for an aperitivo before hooking up with Marco, Maddalena and Maddalena’s sister, Chiara, for a festival dinner at trestle tables under a marquee in the town square. Whilst maybe not winning any culinary awards the food for mass catering was more than acceptable with inventive uses of herbs. The musical entertainment started at nine, with a group from a neighbouring town running a repertoire of Italian standards, as gradually a group of townspeople started to get up and dance in a manner that might be best described as line dancing choreographed by The Wurzels.

We returned to the town square this morning to visit the Festa’s market, which turned out to be a good move. We have wanted some planters for the terrazzo for a while now but haven’t been able to find what we want at the price we want, but the first display we saw was planters, very nice ones too and at a reasonable price. After some discussion with the man, who seemed more than happy to spend the morning chatting with Stephen and showing him all the options available from his various catalogues, we took a tour of the rest of the market, buying plants and herbs, before returning to the planter man and relieving him of three of his finest.

Stephen spent a happy afternoon planting up our new acquisitions before we both carried them up to the terrazzo (see, I can do some things), where they look, to our biased eyes, wonderful. All we need now is for Maisons du Monde to make good with our furniture and we will be all set for lazy evenings, but, as I think I have said elsewhere: piano, piano. We are in Italy, after all.