Mixing it up

After last week’s exciting escapades, this week has proved, thankfully, to be a little more humdrum.

Maybe not that humdrum, though, as on Monday we awoke to the news that following the elections on Sunday (you know, the ones in which we couldn’t participate because we were too late asking for a voting card) MSP has a new mayor. He’s the chap from Insieme, the thrusting new party that has been making itself felt on social media and at meetings in various popular spots around the town. We’re hoping for great things and a reenergised community, and that this is one occasion where people keep their promises once elected. There are positive signs that this may be the case, as we found out on Tuesday that already the mayor has changed the opening times of the Comune offices. Now you can call in anytime between 9.30 and 13.00 every day bar Sunday, which by my reckoning is a 233% increase. What is yet to be discovered, though, is whether this increase will make the mechanisms of local bureaucracy move any faster.

And talking of local bureaucracy, we had our own little victory when we managed to get our form for paying reduced VAT on the house painting authorised. We had sought the help of Giordano, my student, with its completion, which he did for us on Wednesday. Not that we had it signed there and then for when we went to the Comune with its doors thrown back to welcome perplexed citizens, it was to find that the Technical Office only opens on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Oh well, what difference does a day make, so we returned next morning only to be sent from the Ufficio Tecnico upstairs to see the coolly elegant Carla, who tapped a few times on her keyboard, stamped our form and handed it back to us with a charming smile. I hope that you, like us, are suitably impressed with this speed and ease. There again, we should really have been prepared for this for our experiences in the past have shown that with Italian bureaucracy the thrill is in the hunt. Once you have circumnavigated the various obstacles the final sortie is laughably easy.

On Wednesday, we managed, finally, to change our address at our bank in Montegranaro. Fortunately, on this visit, our account manager, Simona, was in the building so she was able to alter our details, after having taken photocopies of our identity cards and getting us to sign several times. This caused a slight problem, as the electronic pad didn’t want to recognise my signature when it compared it with the examples logged in the system’s memory banks. After three attempts where I had taken care, I just scribbled it quickly and it went through; there may be a moral there somewhere.

I also caused another bit of a problem when we asked for a new cheque book (yes, they still use such quaint old-fashioned ways in Italy). While conjuring one up on the computer, Simona noticed that we should actually have more than the one remaining cheque. This is when Stephen dobbed me in, as the previous night I’d made a mistake filling one out to pay Corrado for the house painting and had ripped it up before throwing it in the bin. Simona looked aghast. We mustn’t do that! If there is something wrong we have to keep the cheque and return it to the bank for their records, because otherwise it might fall into enemy hands. It took Stephen quarter of an hour on our return to sift through the rubbish (fortunately, the paper recycling bin, so nothing obnoxious) before he found all eight pieces, which are now waiting safely in a loose-leaf plastic wallet for return to Simona at some point in the near or distant future. Call me cynical if you like, but I’m of the belief that this is another of those “must do’s” that in the end become “doesn’t matters” we have encountered so often before.

We also, being on something akin to a roll and in the vicinity, took a quick hop into the old town centre of Montegranaro to see about our car insurance, it being (so Stephen said) due for renewal. The hyper-efficient woman at the desk greeted us as we entered and knew, before we opened our mouths, who we were and what we had insured, even though we had only been once before, last year. However, she obviously proved much more on the ball than us, as we were a month too early. Stephen, world-renowned for his flair for numbers, thought that the seventh month was June. Bless. So that it wasn’t a completely wasted journey we then tried to change the address on the documentation, but as there was less than a month before renewal (by a couple of days) we couldn’t even do that. Oh well, at least the woman is now primed for immediate action the next time she sees our faces at the door – in July.

The working week ended on a high note when I took Stephen to Mescola (Mix, in English), a restaurant in Civitanova, for a belated anniversary dinner. We found out about it during the Festa delle Erbe Spontanee as its chef-patron had cooked the Friday night dinner in the society’s headquarters and a quick Google search suggested it a place worth a visit. We were joined by Computer Luca - well, what would an old married couple do for conversation if they dined à deux? His participation also meant that we were able to visit his bijou pied-a-terre then take a stroll round the trendy part of the city where he lives and down an aperitivo and some antipasti before dinner.

The restaurant itself was all Stephen had hoped for: coolly elegant with stylish touches and a loop of Jackson Pollack painting playing on the main wall. Presumably, this is from whom the chef gets his inspiration. Being a seafood restaurant Stephen was in his element, taking his pick of a variety of creepy crawly things, each of which he pronounced as excellent. Being less enamoured of God’s more physically challenged sea creatures, I stuck to the non-piscatorial choices, which amounted to three dishes, one for each course, tucked at the back of the menu. All I will say is that Stephen had a fabulous meal and it was his treat, and that Mescola is well worth a visit – if you like seafood.

Which brings us to the weekend, and after last week’s dicing with the elements we decided to play it safe and stick closer to home – which, judging by this afternoon’s drizzly rain, like the UK in April, was a wise decision. Yesterday morning saw the long awaited arrival of the man from the Comune to cut back the tangled bankings and overgrown scrub at the side of the road. Shame then that Stephen had wasted an hour or two on Thursday morning getting rid of some of the worst of it up at the top of the hill before it completely ruined the paintwork on the car. Well maybe not a shame, because at least he did a proper job unlike the basin haircut the Comune inflicted. Luigi is not impressed; I feel another storming of the Council offices may be in the offing.

In the afternoon we headed up to Corridomnia for a new dog bed for Harry and Bella to use in the kitchen and a few bits and pieces to help store clothes between seasons. Pursuant to which, this morning Stephen sorted through the last of the packing cases from Ramsbottom that contained clothes, which means we are within spitting distance of reducing the remaining unpacked consignment to single figures. He had decided to leave the outdoor work till this afternoon, which proved a bit of bad timing. After a fine lunch of ricotta and lemon ravioli from Pasta Maria Teresa in the village, which we served with a butter and sage (fresh from the garden) sauce, grey skies and rain set it, cancelling play for the afternoon. Or maybe it wasn’t bad timing, seeing as instead he spent the time lounging and dozing on the sofa in the snug.

You just can’t get the staff these days.