Cutting crew

Despite the thunderstorms continuing to keep us on our toes earlier in the week, I’m pleased to say that finally we have been blessed with the sort of weather usual for June and which we enjoyed so much last year. However, it seems to have come too late for a swathe of MSP’s domestic tomato crops. Stephen was able to take some comfort in hearing from Nazareno (his gardening mentor) on Monday that his tomatoes are a disaster as well, so at least our meagre looking specimens are not down to something Stephen has done wrong. Well, not totally, as Mario on a recent visit told Stephen that he should be ignoring all the instructions regarding the use of copper sulphate (which they use liberally here to fight all forms of plant blight and which speckles the leaves a very fetching blue). Rather, he should be dowsing the plants frequently with the mixture, especially after rain.

On a brighter note, Bella has responded well to her treatment. Her eye has improved gradually all week, progressing from a slit on Monday to almost fully open by today. She has another few days to go with the medication but we are confident that she will be better than ever. She’s such a good girl, bless her, not complaining or being uncooperative when we prise open her jaws to throw her tablet down the back of her gullet or when I pull open her eyelid for Stephen to apply the gel and drops. Mind you, I think she quickly cottoned on that if she just lets us get on with the necessary, then a doggie biscuit soon heads her way.

We were intrigued on Monday when Stephen received a text message asking him to call Nico, an acquaintance of ours who, as a member of Insieme, is now a newly elected official of the council. Apparently he had something to discuss with Stephen to do with important Comune business. Our visions of lucrative contracts for either or both of us as our considerable talents were put to the benefit of MSP soon vanished; the urgent matter turned out to be to ask us if we wanted to buy the old school house in San Rustico (a small village that comes under MSP – known as a frazione). We could, reasoned Nico, turn it into a B&B-cum-English school. That all sounded wonderful, and if it had been this time last year we would certainly have considered it, but there were one or two drawbacks, i.e. we already had a house and we didn’t have a spare €100,000 knocking around to help the Comune with balancing its books.

We found out the next day, when Stephen was telling them at the factory about the call, that Nico had also been in contact with Nazareno, asking if he wanted to buy the small plot of land next to their property. It seems, then, that we were not singled out for special treatment but that Nico is phoning round the whole town seeing if they can offload unwanted land and properties to any unsuspecting local – or even further afield. When Nico sensed that Stephen was less than enthusiastic he wanted to know if we had any friends who might be interested. Over to you then: if you are considering an Italian bolthole for a reasonable price we know just the place and we operate on a very reasonable commission.

Stephen has been pressing on all week with painting the various pieces of dressing room furniture, which is proving much more successful than his horticultural endeavours. His shortcomings in the latter department were made perfectly clear to him he went to see Giordano the Ferramenta on Tuesday to check on his ailing petrol strimmer. Not being one to mince his words, even by Italian standards, Giordano told Stephen that he was stupid and the English don’t know how to cut grass and it would be much better to pay someone to do it for us, oh, and by the way he knew just the person and was sending him round to see us. Well, that’s service for you, of a sort.

The man did, indeed, turf up on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the matter with Stephen and it was agreed that he would take over responsibility for licking the grass around LCDDB into shape. Several visits over the next three days saw him trim back the bankings to the front and side of the house outside of our fenced off area and all the ground enclosed within it. Whilst we won’t at anytime in the near future be holding any bowls tournaments, it does look an awful lot better, not to say bigger. It has caused a bit of confusion to Bella, though, who is used, when playing with her ball, to finding some cool overgrown area to lie in and have a good gnaw. Now she has to search for shade from the house or trees – but at least we can see where she is.

Also on Wednesday we had a morning of doing things, starting with taking our car to Pompeii motors, near Campaglione, for its service. As such frivolities as courtesy cars are a completely foreign idea to Italian dealerships, we had arranged with Maddalena to come and pick us up so she could take us to sort out, at long last, our Italian medical card (another of the things that have been on hold with the protracted business of official registration with the Comune). Not wanting to waste the opportunity, however, of being in the area, first we had to do a quick tour of the available outlets. The results of this being Maddalena 2, Stephen 1 and me, as usual, an also-ran. I suppose it was my own fault really for being so picky for I wasn’t really in the market for a new leather tote bag, like Stephen, nor did I need any new strappy jewel-encrusted sandals, which were Maddalena’s winnings.

Successful shopping completed, Maddalena took us to the clinic a short hop from Campiglione to see about the medical card, only to find that the small office dealing with such matters had moved days earlier to Fermo. So it was back into the car and off up the strada to the big city. Fortunately, as Maddie was in the driving seat, she was able to manoeuvre round the streets of Fermo and into the chaos that is the hospital car park. However, in one of those moments that come rarely in life, we happened upon a free space as soon as we sailed in and before the hordes circling shark-like had sniffed the opportunity.

Once inside the building we fairly quickly got to the front of the queue, though that is a bit of a misnomer as Italians don’t believe in forming an orderly line like we Brits. Rather, they just stroll up and hang around the periphery, exchanging small talk if it’s somewhere local, until their turn comes. Remarkably, it does actually work. Anyway, on our turn the seemingly knowledgeable man behind the counter informed Stephen and Maddie that yes we could have a card but we would have to pay for it. As this was contrary to what Stephen had read, we left empty-handed so he could double-check the information, but we have a feeling that the man is right.

On Thursday, our recalcitrant water pipe needed another seeing to when it started playing up again. Luigi, for the second time, was the bearer of the bad news, having been made aware of the leak when his own water pressure dropped so significantly his wife’s morning ablutions were seriously hampered. As before, Stephen turned off the mains (after I’d filled the pasta pan – water or no, we still had to eat) and awaited Loris. The great man himself appeared shortly after lunch with his digger and investigated once more. The pipe had come apart again, so Loris reattached it before putting in another kink in and reducing the pressure at the mains to try to lessen the force on the joint. Let’s hope it holds for a bit longer this time.

Which brings us to Friday, and the day the result of Britain’s referendum on EU membership became clear. As Tristram Shandy said on another sad and depressing occasion:

Some good things, though, did happen on Friday, the first of which was the arrival of our table and chairs for the terrazzo. The deliverymen bravely accepted the challenge of our road, and also carried the items up onto the terrazzo for us. We unpacked the chairs but left attaching the legs till Saturday morning, when the area was in shade. Half an hour before breakfast and all was sorted – and very happy we are too with our choice.

Friday was also the start of MSP’s mediaeval and palio weekend. The plan was to watch the procession through the town after we’d had something to eat at the pub. Marco and Maddalena said they would join us, but unfortunately Marco was delayed. By the time we’d finished it was too late to see the procession, which set off at 9.15. However, we did make it to the church for the end of the celebratory service and so were able to watch their return journey.

We were in better time on Saturday night when we went, with Computer Luca, to have our mediaeval dinner in the town square prior to the mediaeval beauty competition in front of the main church – though, as this didn’t start till gone 10 o’clock, there was more margin for error than the previous night. The food had been advertised as having mediaeval flavours to it; I’m not sure about that but as it was provided by a team from Pasta Maria Teresa, it was mighty fine – and plentiful. As for the beauty contest, you can forget any ideas of a parade of buxom wenches, as it turned out to be a costume competition between six local towns and villages that had entered.

Each entry paraded in a stately manner twice round the square in front of the church. This itself took some time but then, in true Italian fashion, a real feast was made of it when the judges decided they hadn’t really had a good view of the costumes so asked each entry to parade again, this time stopping in front of their desk. Yes, I know, why didn’t they do this the first time? Because it’s Italy. We then had to have a parade off between two entries as there was a tie in the votes, so more august perambulations were needed before we eventually got a result a little short of midnight. Gentle reader, should you ever have the good fortune to be invited to an Italian jamboree of any shape or form, be prepared that (a) it will start at least thirty minutes late and (b) seem like they are making it up on the spur of the moment and (c) have to involve at least one dispute or glitch somewhere in the proceedings.

To recover from this excitement, we went off up the autostrada this morning for a spot of retail therapy at the store that is called IKEA, searching out yet more stuff to make bring our inside outside. Besides cushions for the terrazzo chairs we also bought a bench for downstairs as well as some general bits and pieces for the house. This meant that after an afternoon where Stephen painted our rocking chair from Ramsbottom and I sorted out my lessons for the coming week, we were able at long last to relax in the evening sunlight and enjoy a preprandial g&t sitting on our new cushions on our new chairs at our new table. Bliss.