Domestic bliss

I suppose we must have settled down into some semblance of domestic bliss, as this week has been the most uneventful one since we came to Italy. I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, but I will try to amuse you as best I can for, as Sophia said in ‘The Golden Girls’: “With a story you get a moral, with an anecdote, pure entertainment.”

Unlike us, however, the land has not decided to settle down yet, with there continuing to be the odd rumbling though nothing to match the previous disturbances. I missed one of them, being sound asleep at the time, while another happened while we were parking the car, which caused Stephen to check the handbrake as he though it was somehow still moving.

Their relative mildness paled further into insignificance when compared to the shock that the Carelli family received when they asked Stephen, on his visit to the factory at the beginning of the week, about my ciambella. He said how good it was and let slip that it contained butter, at which they threw their metaphoric hands in the air at such audacity and the danger we were putting ourselves in at eating something so unwontedly rich. Italian cakes, at least those favoured in this area, if they must contain fat have just a slick of oil added to them, which accounts (at least to a British palate) for their somewhat dry and mouth-clagging quality. The plus side of this is that they are mightily improved by dunking in a handy cappuccino or, better still, a glass of something for the tonsils but otherwise they’d be hard pushed to make it onto a three tiered cake stand in the Ritz.

On Wednesday evening we met up with Marco and Maddalena for dinner at the pub – if dinner is not too grand a word for a panino and a bowl of chips. Besides being good to catch up, we also wanted to pick Maddalena’s brain about the communication we’d received the day before from the Comune, which featured a very jolly cartoon refuse bag. While we got the gist, we wanted confirmation that we were on the right track. Apparently, it is all change in refuse collection in Monte San Pietrangeli and its environs, the biggest one for us being that country areas are no longer going to be treated like poorer cousins. We will have the same rota as the town and no longer be on a reduced service. This makes sense as we have to take our bags to the top of our road anyway, which is only a mile from the town centre and on its collection route. We also have to go next week to pick up a new bin as they are adding glass and metal to the collection schedule, when we will see how much bureaucracy they manage to shoehorn into that process.

What did puzzle us, and Maddalena and also, as it transpired later in the week, Mrs. Carelli, was the part that said you could have a reduction in your council rates if you opted to put out less non-recyclable waste. On the surface, this would appeal to us as we have very little and it can be a couple of weeks before we amass enough to leave for collection. But how do they know how much you are putting out? Is it a matter of trust, or will the guardia have increased duties requiring her under the cover of darkness to make spot checks by going round weighing peoples refuse bags? Or maybe the new sindaco is investing in smart bins with integral cameras in MSP’s take on Grande Fratello (or Big Brother to you and me). Time will tell…

From there it was a slow descent to a very quiet weekend. Thursday I had another new student start while on Friday evening we found somewhere new for pizza to add to our growing list. This time we ate at Friends Pub in Fermo with, appropriately enough, a couple of friends of our own. The food was very acceptable and obviously a lot fresher than their website, which, when I checked it online, was still advertising upcoming events for November 2014. On Saturday afternoon, we took up my student Massimo’s invitation to the opening of the revamped Dino Bigoni Outlet, which forms part of his brief for the company. We made sure we got there early to avoid the rush but in enough time to enjoy a generous glass of Prosecco before leaving with a new pair of shoes and a new shoulder bag for the coming autumn season. Being the reopening, and as flagged up on the invitation, special guests were also in attendance. These turned out to be members of the basketball team that Dino Bigoni sponsors, which I have to admit left me a tad disappointed. À chacun son goût, but personally I feel sponsoring a local rugby team would be a much better proposition.