Matinee Idle

I had thought, foolishly, that this last week would have seen things getting back to normal, but that was due to overlooking the perverse behaviour of the Italians. Apparently, they seem to think that the twelve days of Christmas last from the 25th December until Twelfth Night and have some vague religious significance. Their more enlightened cousins in the UK, however, know that the twelve days of Christmas begin somewhere around the middle of November, finish on Boxing Day and are about watching ‘Elf’ on DVD.

So it was that, although people were back at work on the 27th, there was still an air of relaxed festivity until Epiphany and the visit of Befana were over. Consequently, I had another week free of lessons and, as the advent of January was mirrored in the advent of seasonally icy weather, it seemed wisest to spend a few more days cloistered at home pretending I was busy by doing a spot of lesson preparation. And I do mean cloistered, as with the drop in temperatures and a couple of days of glacial winds we barred the windows against the cold by closing all the shutters, giving LCDDB an feeling of hibernation.

Not that we were as totally anti-social as last week. We did manage a trip Corrodomnia on Monday afternoon for a spot of hot chocolate at Lindt, some pyjamas for me and a new broom handle for Stephen to replace the one he broke when he got overexcited the other day sweeping the terrazzo. He just doesn’t know his own strength. Tuesday afternoon we helped Maddalena to complete her education when she joined us for a matinee performance of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (in Italian with English subtitles – what will they think of next?) For some unfathomable reason she’d never seen the film, and the dark days of January just seem to cry out for the solace of Audrey Hepburn in Givenchy.

As mentioned previously, Friday was Twelfth Night and a public holiday in Italy, meaning that MSP was shut. We still haven’t quite shaken of old habits and working on the basis that it would take a plague of Biblical proportions to force any self-respecting British supermarket to close its doors, we went shopping in the morning expecting Sigma to be open. It wasn’t. Still, Pina was buzzing with activity when we went for our cappuccino and doing a roaring trade selling decorative hand-held besoms in honour of Befana to ladies of more than a certain age.

And that is about if for the week. We spent a happy half hour yesterday afternoon manhandling a not inconsiderable chunk of fallen ivy, the trunk of which would have supported Jack on a giant slaying trip. It had been blown away from Mario and Luigi’s barn in the strong winds and had come to rest, draped over our fence. The fact it was cold work was proved when Stephen came to fill Bella and Harry’s outside water bowl, which was frozen solid. When he knocked the ice out it broke into large shards on the ground, which were still there, intact, today when he had to repeat the operation.

We had vague plans earlier in the week to go for a walk this afternoon, but with sub-zero temperatures it seemed a much better idea to stay at home for another matinee performance, this time a stonking old Hollywood melodrama in the shape of “Leave Her to Heaven”. Things looked a bit dicey for Cornel Wilde for a while but fortunately for him, and us, the director obviously knew his Oscar Wilde for the good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. You can’t say fairer than that.