Ain't no stopping us now

Like the weather, this has been a week of peaks, troughs and various stages in between. While you might think this prevents our daily routine becoming, well, routine, where the weather is concerned it would be nice if it settled into a stretch of dry, clear and sunny weather. Stephen is becoming most concerned about the state of his tomatoes, which, like everyone else’s in the area, are suffering from the heavy downpours that seem to arrive most days.

One such favoured us on Tuesday when we set off in late afternoon sunshine to pick up Maddalena for a spot of shoe shopping followed by pizza in Civitanova. Stephen was on the hunt to augment his not inconsiderable footwear collection, while Maddie is always happy to go browsing. And me? I was just along for the pizza. After failing to find anything to his liking at Il Castagno, an outlet centre on the way to Civitanova, he struck gold when he bought two pairs of brogues from Outlet Cappalletti, a stone’s throw round the corner, one pair in painted London Tan and the other in painted Bottle Green.

Buoyed up by this success, we then headed down the strada provinciale to his favourite destination, Fabi. Here he went in a different direction. He still managed to come away with two pairs of shoes, but this time he went for a more colourful and relaxed look. Maddie and I came away empty handed.

After this it was time to head to Civitanova to meet up with Marco who, unlike us, had been working. By now the sky had become a steely grey and, though still warm, the chances of escaping a downpour seemed slight. Just as well we had raincoats with us, for while we were enjoying particularly fine pizze at La Briciola Beach, we heard the rain bouncing on the roof. Fortunately, it had stopped by the time we left, though the glistening pavements and a bit of a nip in the air made it seem more like August in Blackpool than Le Marche in June.

Elena, who came for interview practice the other week, must have been pleased with her one off lesson as she joined Massimo and her friend Laura for their lesson on Wednesday evening, turning it from a duo to a trio. This was the same night that Stephen was taken by Nazarino to visit a sandal factory in a hunt for possible manufacturers. And that was as about as exciting as the end of the week was getting till Bella decided to give us a bit of a scare.

We were a bit concerned about her left eye on Friday morning as it didn’t seem to be as open as her right one, but she didn’t appear to be in any pain or distress. We monitored it closely for the rest of the day and by the late afternoon not only had it become very bloodshot but it had also closed entirely. We bundled her into the back of the car and sped (safely, of course, especially by Italian standards) the twenty minutes to the vets. Fortunately, no appointment is necessary at this particular surgery; you just turn up and wait your turn in the little anteroom – no need for a receptionist. On this occasion, the vet was sitting in splendid isolation in his consulting room, so we went straight in. On inspecting the eye, he found that somehow or other Bella had managed to slice the bottom of her cornea, which he proved (apologies to the squeamish) by pulling it up and away from the eyeball. Bella, who had been reasonably amenable up to this point, understandably baulked at this and Stephen and I had a job to keep her wriggling body still enough for the vet to complete his examination.

The vet was not unduly concerned and seemed to think that a course of antibiotics and two lots of eye treatment – a gel in the morning and drops in the evening - would sort it. He wrote out the prescription and we stopped off at the chemists on the way home to collect the medication, though one was not in stock and had to be ordered for the next day. Yes, the chemist. Here in Italy the vets prescribe but don’t dispense, and from what we can tell Bella’s treatment is just the same as a human would have. Well, I suppose we’re all mammals at the end of the day and the only real difference between dogs and us is that they’re more intelligent, more honest and more loyal. Anyway, we are hoping for a good recovery as after two days we can detect an improvement; her eye is clearer and she is managing to open it to a narrow slit so fingers crossed.

After that excitement, we decided yesterday, as the weather forecast was fine and sunny, to have a second stab at getting to see Giacomo Leopardi’s house. Consequently, we set off after my morning lesson with Lorella to head, once more, for Recanati. I’m pleased to say that this time everything went swimmingly (no pun intended), and not only because Recanati is unique amongst Italian towns and cities, at least in my experience so far, in having a fabulous car park. It’s big, it’s easy to navigate, it’s cheap and it has a fabulous view over the plain sweeping down to the Adriatic - and a large garden dedicated to Nelson Mandela!

Encouraged by this positive start, we took a gentle stroll in the midday sunshine across the market in the main square and through the streets of the old town to Giacomo’s house. We stopped off partway for lunch at Osteria di Via Leopardi, where we enjoyed a selection of salumi from the local Macerata area followed by spaghetti cacio e pepe (a cheesy and peppery pasta, this one having added guanciale - cured pig’s cheek which is like pancetta only better). Having passed a very relaxing interlude in the shade of the osteria, we headed to the house and bought our tickets from a pleasant young woman (who was, admittedly, thrown into a little bit of a tizzy trying to get one of her associates to find a print out of the guide’s spiel in English) then passed the time till the tour started by browsing in the shop (a lot to learn from the National Trust) and the exhibition. This latter is housed in the old wine cellars, which, I’m sure under normal circumstances, are a genial sanctuary from the heat outside but which on our visit had a fusty air, the legacy no doubt of the drenching they received a fortnight ago.

The tour itself was conducted by a young man who spoke, fortunately, quite clear Italian. Having read the English transcription while we waited I was able to pick up enough cues from his speech to have a reasonable understanding of the gist, though the finer points escaped me. The tours are guided as they have to regulate the number of visitors in the rooms at one time. The focus is on the suite of libraries that Giacomo’s father created and where the poet spent much of his time as he was growing up in the house so numbers are limited to protect the thousands of books from too much human humidity. The rest of the house is still inhabited by the descendants of one of Giacomo’s brothers, whose family fortune, apparently comes from wine and olive oil production. During the tour, there are some family artefacts to see and rooms can be admired, but overall the focus is on Leopardi’s precocious genius (as a boy he taught himself Latin and Greek from a polyglot bible by painstakingly analysing the translations) and his and his siblings’ relationship with their father.

After the tour we headed home to check on Bella and Harry and give then a spot of exercise before collecting the outstanding medication from the chemist. With it being a beautifully sunny afternoon we took the opportunity to seal the official start of summer by stopping for an aperitivo at the recently opened Bar Chupito in the campeggio (diehard readers will remember this from last year). Just as well we made proverbial hay while the sun shone because the rain has returned – again – this afternoon. Still, with nothing better to do, Stephen was able to get on with painting the wardrobes for the dressing room. These have been waiting patiently in the downstairs future summer loft living since he set to with gusto to sand them months ago but which have taken a back seat to other priorities. However, having finally settled on a colour and obtained the paint, hopefully there will be no stopping him now. If only we could say the same about the thunderstorms.