Heaven help us

If you thought last week was a bit on the slow side, then it was nothing compared with this one. The good news is that I won’t be taking up too much of your time; the bad news is that I’m going to be hard pushed to be witty and entertaining. Ah well, we can’t have everything.

My week started off along its usual path but by Wednesday things had slowed down with several cancellations of lessons due to illness or work commitments. Stephen, though, continued to be busy, including a trip to Empoli on Monday with his new bff, Manuel. Empoli is a town about 20 kilometres southwest of Florence, so a bit of a day trip, and notable for being the signifier for the letter ‘e’ in the Italian phonetic alphabet, which uses Italian towns and cities. It is also notable for raincoats, which is why the pair made the journey, for a meeting with a manufacturer, and why Stephen spent a good part of Sunday afternoon preparing a PowerPoint presentation just in case it were needed (which, I’m pleased to say, it was).

During the rest of the week, I was left twiddling my thumbs at LCDDB, he was busy making various sorties to suppliers and manufacturers. One of these provided a pleasant and unexpected invitation when, on Wednesday, Stephen returned from Carelli’s factory, saying that Mrs C had asked us to join them for pizza that evening. This was a little bit of a surprise as 8th March in Italy is the Festa della Donna, when women both single and married and of any age go out together without their menfolk. It appeared, however, that neither mother nor daughter were taking the opportunity bestowed upon the women of Italy by a benign patriarchy to have a taste of independence as they remained at home, cooking. We therefore duly presented ourselves at the Carelli residence, where Mirko accompanied us through their remarkably extensive garage area (copious room to spare, even with three cars, one small tractor and a rotavator already accommodated) to the back workroom, where their wood-burning oven is installed. This, I think, is designed as an outside facility, but they had overcome this by channeling the fumes though a series of metal pipes to the outside.

There were two large pizze nearing the end of their cooking time, each covering a rectangular baking tray the same size as the substantial oven. A third of each had a different topping, making six in all, with one pizza being rossa and the other bianca. I don’t want to insult anyone’s culinary intelligence but for those not in the know, in Italy you can choose to have your pizza either red or white, the difference being that pizze rosse have a tomato sauce as a base for the toppings and pizze bianche don’t. I have, on behalf of both my readers and with little thought to my own safety, carried out extensive tastings of both types and can say that they are equally delicious; which you choose is a matter of personal preference .

After a couple of rainy days, the sun reappeared on Thursday with a definite spring like feel to the air, which was underlined by a fine show of daffodils on the banking at the back of LCDDB. Well, there was a fine show until Mario asked, on Friday, if he could have a few to take to the cemetery and proceeded to make off with half of them. Mind you, we couldn’t really say no to him, what with his and Luigi’s own narrow brush with death moments before.

The fine weather had obviously prompted them to think about matters arboreal. Earlier in the week they had progressed down out road, appearing to be trying to graft some – to our eyes – unidentifiable twigs onto nascent saplings. On Friday afternoon, however, it was the opposite. They were bent on the destruction of two dead trees just behind LCDDB and to effect this they pulled up on their mini tractor and clambered up the banking wielding a chain saw. Stephen had a prime view of the action from our kitchen window, but it was when he let out a loud gasp that I went over to take a look. I had a momentary wave of panic as I saw Luigi leaping about the field holding his hand. Fortunately, however, as his wrist was not spouting blood I quickly realised no saw-related accident had occurred and we wouldn’t be required to pack a pulsing digit in ice before haring to Fermo hospital.

What had actually happened is that, despite Luigi’s suggestion that Mario start their deforestation by removing some of the larger branches, his brother had gone straight for the arboreal jugular, cutting into the base of the trunk. His fraternal assurances that, due to the way he as approaching the task, the tree would fall across the lane and not into the field proved ill-founded when it did just back. This is where nature got her own back, for as it fell the trunk smashed into Luigi’s hand (hence his war dance) and the branches swept across Mario’s head, cutting open the back of it.

Stephen dashed out armed with antiseptic and kitchen roll to administer first stage medical intervention, but being made of stern stuff the brothers pooh-poohed any suggestion that there was a need for further treatment because that’s the sort of men they are – though Luigi did make a few choice comments to Stephen, sotto voce, about his brother’s modus operandi. And did they learn from their experience? Well, seeing as they set about the second in the exact same way then the answer would be no. This time, though, the tree obliged by toppling across the lane and not on top of them, which they celebrated by stripping off the branches and having a bonfire on the banking. Fortunately, they were able to exercise more control over this and caused only minor damage to the surroundings.

We had our own minor setback over the weekend when we went out for dinner yesterday with Marco and Maddalena, but not at Osteria Arco – our favourite spot for meat - as we had expected. Stephen had felt, when he phoned to book on Wednesday, that the lady who took the call was not really listening, especially when he stressed that it was Stephen the stylist and not the other Stephen that often visits his house in the area. And so it turned out, for when we arrived Tiziano, the owner, looked somewhat puzzled as there was no mention of us in his book. There was the other Stephen, who had dined there the previous night but nothing for us. Apparently he was absent from the restaurant on Wednesday being at home for a family celebration, and apologetic as he was, he couldn’t magic a table out of thin air.

Consequently, Marco took control of the situation and drove us down the valley to Ristorante Oscar & Amorina, which with its flounces and chichi décor seemed the sort of place where Barbara Cartland would have felt at home. Fortunately, however, they had a table for us and the food was more than acceptable, so we didn’t go home hungry. Our good luck may be down to celestial intervention, as the restaurant is watched over from across the road by one of the area’s more noticeable Marian shrines. Maybe Mario and Luigi should consider erecting one, using the wood from their felled trees, for if they persist in extreme lumberjacking they might need all the help they can get.