So what's new?

After my sojourn in the UK, I’m pleased to say that the blog is back, refreshed and bigger than ever. OK, so that might be a slight exaggeration, but saying here we are again with the same old same old might not be quiet so inspiring. So what, if anything, is new?

Well, let me put both my readers’ minds at rest from the outset by saying that all went well when collecting my hire car at Stansted, and that I didn’t need to make a mad dash across London to get a train to Sheffield using the instructions that Stephen had thrust into my hand as he waved me off at Ancona airport. There was a brief moment of doubt when I told the nice man at the Sixt desk about the slight problem, but when he examined my documents he declared that it would be OK. Not only that, he also gave me an upgrade to a very smart Audi A1 automatic with sat nav - which prove my theory about travelling: if you dress smartly and treat people with respect then you have a much better chance of nice things happening to you.

This was further evidenced on my return trip when, at 4.30 am and unable to spot any luggage drop-off areas in the Ryanair section of the departures hall, I asked a lady at the business desk if, having checked in online I needed to queue at the clogged up desks further down. With consummate efficiency, she asked where I was going, took my boarding pass and processed by suitcase, meaning I left check-in a couple of minutes after I had arrived there – a new personal best for me, shattering the previous record. As I said to the lady as I left, she’d made an old man very happy.

Before I left for the UK on the Tuesday morning, we had a visit the previous evening from the Messers Carelli, driving to LCDDB in their white van containing their rotovator. Being work of a gardening nature, I did my bit to help by taking Bella and Harry for a walk while Mr C senior got on with the task of churning up the lotto as Stephen and Mirko looked on to make sure he did it right. To be fair, Stephen did lend a hand later on when it came to forming the freshly tilled soil into furrows and he has made a start of this year’s home grown produce by planting seed potatoes, a selection of salad stuff and a variety of herbs in my absence. There is still, however, plenty of space left for further additions, including, I hope, the parsnip seeds that I was instructed to bring back with me. These are a strange and exotic vegetable as far as the Italians are concerned, and whilst there is a word for them in the language no one we have spoken to has even the vaguest awareness of such a foodstuff - an ignorance that they seem to become even more complacent with when we try to describe what parsnips actually are.

While Stephen was busy planting, working and going out for a seafood lunch with Computer Luca, I was idling my time away in the UK, seeing the odd friend (make of that what you will), and catching up with family. As it was my mum’s birthday on the Saturday (sandwiched between her wedding anniversary and Mothers’ Day – talk about living to excess) she had decided she would treat the family to a meal out. So it was that sixteen of us, including my nephew, Jonathan, who stole my thunder by flying in that morning from Paris as a birthday surprise, gathered at The Sitwell Arms in Mosborough for dinner and conversation. A fine time was had by all, and it gave me my first opportunity to meet Jonathan’s charming French girlfriend, Laure, who showed typical Gallic composure when faced with a horde of Celtic Britons.

After a quiet Sunday spent at home with my parents it was down to Stansted on Monday afternoon to return the hire car and stay the night at the local Radisson, ready for my early flight the next morning. All things being equal, I would have preferred not to have had to stay in a hotel, but at least this one makes the experience pleasant, and I was looking forward to eating in their Italian restaurant, where I had dined last August on my way home from that trip. In the interim, however, they had rebranded the restaurant, which was now for some bizarre reason called Collage and served, in their words, ‘our unique twist on the classic British Brasserie’. The unique twist must be keeping everything exactly the same as its former incarnation except the signage, the menus (big sheets of brown paper, of course) and charging ridiculous prices for remarkably ordinary food. They did though, just to prove how cutting edge and modern they were, serve my water in a glass with a slice of courgette. It may be that this trend has passed uptown MSP by, but the earthy smell of the vegetable did little to enhance my overall dining experience.

After an uneventful early flight, I was back home at LCDDB in time for lunch on Tuesday, and it was back to normal. Well, almost, for while Irene was ready for her lesson on Wednesday morning, both Lorenzo and Massimo had to pass on theirs. I’m not sure what the former’s reason was but Massimo was unable to come as he had a date with stardom.

For many months, we have been awaiting the reopening of the civic theatre in Monte San Pietrangeli, with which Massimo has been closely involved. They had hoped to hold the inaugural production, written and directed by Massimo’s brother, Sergio, at Christmas but with delays to getting the building finished, passing various health and safety checks and repeated quakes and tremors it has taken somewhat longer than expected. However, they finally staged the play, entitled appropriately enough, what with it being the end of March, Un Natale Diverso (A Different Christmas) the weekend I was away in the UK. And rapturously received it was too, with a red carpet reception, after opening night, at Bar Corradini and profuse press coverage.

As part of this media saturation, Massimo with three members of the young cast were interviewed on a local TV station on Wednesday night. Massimo was a bit doubtful about this, fearing that things could go badly wrong, but from what we saw of it, it seemed to go all right, if a little shaky. The most disconcerting thing about it, though, was Massimo’s tendency to look askance at the camera, which was eerily reminiscent of Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining’. “Here’s Johnny!”

Stephen’s burgeoning self-sufficiency took another step forward on Thursday afternoon when he took delivery of his early birthday present from my mum and dad, courtesy of Amazon.it, something that I had organised for them when I was in Sheffield. As you may know, most carriers don’t dare venture down our road but as we are online shopping devotees some of them have figured out their own way of making sure we get our parcels. One of them is to leave them courtesy of the Carellis at their factory, and this is where Stephen was when our friendly van man made a call, having recognised our car. The Carelli family were most amused when the driver climbed out of his cab bearing a small lemon tree, which he had kept in the passenger seat as he thought it might come to harm rolling about in the back. The thought that anyone would want to shop for plants on the Internet when you could go to a local garden centre seemed, to them, a whimsical eccentricity typical of the British. Anyway, no matter how it arrived, Stephen was very pleased with his gift, which is now settling in to its new home in a tub on loan from the Carellis – because, obviously, left to our own devices we might do something ridiculous like plant it in an old bath…

Which brings us to the weekend, and with the weather set more than fair it was pleasant enough to hang around the old homestead enjoying the sunshine and doing a few odd jobs outside, which seemed mainly to entail Stephen sawing up bits fallen from trees. We did have one small victory when, on Saturday night, we had our rescheduled dinner at Arco with Marco and Maddalena. Maddalena showed great strength of character by allowing Stephen to try again to book the table. This time there was no misunderstanding, which goes to show how we can all benefit from being given a bit of responsibility – though Maddalena might have shown her appreciation by ordering more than a plate of roast potatoes for her main course.