My other car's a Winnebago

This has been a very sparse week on the news front, as far as La Casa dei Due Baffi is concerned that is. I’m sure that in the world at large there have been monumental events taking place but here in our little neck of the Le Marche woods life has been pretty quiet, resulting in us shelving recent plans to construct a wall to keep out the riffraff from San Rustico. I can report, however, that Bella seems to have responded well to treatment and is able not only to walk normally again but is also humouring us by once more allowing her paws to be wiped.

As for the human members of the household, Stephen was off to Milan once again, it being Linea Pelle. This time, however, I was spared undertaking the early morning shuttle service to Civitanova station and was still tucked up in bed at 5am when Manuel, the local man with whom he is looking at doing some work, picked him up. I suppose the downside for Stephen was that they didn’t leave Milan until late Thursday evening, when their party had increased to three. This was because Manuel was bringing back the son of an associate of his who lives in Dubai. The son is over here looking at shoes (what else) and Manuel was bringing him to Le Marche so he could visit a couple of factories. It was well after midnight when Stephen darkened our doorstep. It would have been sooner if the son hadn’t professed hunger and they’d had to stop in Riccione for dinner – but as it was seafood I don’t think my beloved found it too much of a hardship.

My routine, on the other hand, would have been pretty predictable if I hadn’t received a call, on Tuesday afternoon, from the driving school. It came just at the end of my lesson with Elisa and Sara, and after a little confusion I eventually understood that they wanted me to come that evening and that my repeated suggestion of Friday, after Stephen had returned, was no use. I headed straight there from my lesson where one of the nice ladies took my driving licence and kept it. She did, though, give me a signed and dated photocopy of it, which I’m sure would stand up in any court of law. I can’t honestly say I was really aware of what was happening but without the language skills to protest or investigate I just had to trust that they knew what they were doing. I did comprehend enough, however, to know that she expected me to return the next evening around the same time; for what, I had no idea.

When I went back, things became a little clearer. After a short wait, one of the ladies, who had been to the regional office of the Dipartimento dei Trasporti Terrestri at Ascoli Piceno, a town south of MSP and just over an hour’s drive away, returned and handed me a sheet of paper. This, as she pointed out, was a temporary Italian licence valid for thirty days from the date of issue. Hopefully, within this period, the DVLA will have confirmed to its Italian counterpart that I’m not wanted in six counties for driving while under the influence of Radio 2 and a permanent licence should have been issued. I say hopefully as I’m returning to the UK on 21st March and am supposed to be picking up a hire car at Stansted. As the temporary licence runs out half-way through the hire period my fingers are crossed that the two transport departments work in tandem more quickly than the British and Italian postal systems.

On a brighter note, Stephen made it three nights junketing in a row after his late (by British standards) dinner on the way back from Milan. On Friday we were both invited by Manuel to join him and his Dubaian guest for dinner at Chalet Il Grillo, a seafood restaurant on the beachfront in Lido di Fermo. Here we had, amongst other things, spaghetti carbonara made with smoked swordfish, which proved to be an elegant - and flavorsome – variation. Saturday, though, was much more to my taste as we went to the pub for pasta with cinghiale sugo, having been given the heads up about it earlier in the week by Teresa. She knows we have a great partiality for their wild boar sauce so now calls us up to let us know when it is coming on the menu.

We had left our Panda in Sigma car park while at the pub and on our return found that it had been joined in the next bay by a small, white car that we‘d spotted several times round and about. While there would not normally be anything noteworthy in this, it had been puzzling us that, apart from the driver’s seat, the car was crammed with what looked like bedding, cases and boxes of domestic and personal items. Even more puzzlingly, there was always a woman sitting in the car, even late at night. Stephen had assumed that it might be someone who had taken to living in her car because of the recent earthquakes, thinking it was a safer option – which some people actually choose to do. However, in conversation with Manuel during their drive to Milan, it turns out that the woman has been living in her car for over a year following an argument with her husband. What the disagreement was about is anyone’s guess but it obviously got her dander up. Don’t think, though, that her drastic action has taught her estranged spouse a lesson, for although during the recent cold snap he did go out to check up on her, it was to see if the freezing temperatures had finally seen her shuffling off her mortal coil. And who said chivalry was dead?