Around and about

Let’s deal with the elephant in the room. This happens to be called Tim and is over there in the naughty corner, though now that our telephone line has finally been fixed we may let him out if he shows true contrition. The chances of that, however, given past form and comments of other subscribers to his system, seem pretty slim.

The countdown to reconnection began on Monday morning when our hired hitman shouted at a couple of new TIM people, who were as apologetic as usual and expressed the now routine astonishment and further assurances of action. Nothing happened that day and as Tuesday was a public holiday for the Festa della Liberazione it was Wednesday before there was any point in phoning up again. This Manuel did while he and Stephen were waiting for their plane to Stansted, and they were promised that someone would come that day, “100%”. Maybe they should have made it 101% because obviously, in the world of TIM, the chance of something happening is governed by their own idiosyncratic scale.

My hopes that something was about to happen were raised briefly on Thursday morning when I spotted an unfamiliar car coming down the hill. Of course, if I’d been thinking clearly I’d have realised that an engineer would be in a white van and not a midnight blue hatchback. This had obviously lost its way as it reversed in front of the house and headed back up the hill from whence it came – or rather, it didn’t. Being unused to our particular section of Contrada Forone, the driver failed to give the car enough welly and it gradually crunched to a halt well short of the top. I watched as it slowly reversed, and then went out to meet it at the bottom to see if I could summon up enough Italian to give the driver some advice.

A distraught woman emerged, gesticulating and looking fearfully up the incline. I tried to tell her that she needed to set off in first gear and with as much acceleration as she could manage (not that we need to do that, but there again that was the reason we bought a Panda Cross). Turning pitiful brown eyes on me she asked, “Puoi farlo?” I contemplated acting like I didn’t know what she meant but my chivalrous side got the better of me, so I settled myself in the driver’s seat and prayed that the vehicle wasn’t metano.

Fortunately it wasn’t, and with grit, determination and an accelerator flat to the floor we made it to the top of the hill. In that demonstrative way peculiar to the Italians, the lady threw her arms around me and hugged me like I was her long lost twin brother from whom she’d been separated at birth. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” she cried, making a gesture to show that her heart had been pounding with anxiety - either that or she was declaring undying love for me. She then told me that she was from Montegranaro and was a nurse out on her rounds and had been looking for to a patient in MSP when she took the wrong turning. She then set off to give the scheduled injection, leaving me floating down the road with the smug satisfaction of knowing my good deed had helped two people in need.

They say that what goes around comes around, and so it would seem as the next day I received a call from Stephen in the morning saying that an engineer from TIM had been in touch, that he and his mucker were some forty-five minutes away down the road in San Benedetto and would be arriving at LCDDB sometime in the afternoon, but they couldn’t guarantee when. This seemed the surest indication yet that something was about to happen, and indeed just after I had finished clearing up after lunch the two men appeared. I think Bella and Harry were a trifle miffed as I was just getting ready to take them for their walk, but I, on the other hand, was ecstatic. After one of the men came inside to check the phone wasn’t working (yep, because we had just been winding them up for the past three weeks) they disappeared up the road in the van. They then proceeded to progress slowly back down, stopping at each pole to check the line and, from what I could make out, replacing most, if not all, of the cables. It was only minutes after the final stretch to the house had been changed that lights started glowing again on the modem and shortly after that I was back on line. The engineer made a quick test call to the house to check it was working, and following a quick but heartfelt thank you they were off. It seemed a bit of an anti-climax after all this time, but maybe to TIM, reconnecting customers who have been bereft for nineteen days is an everyday occurrence.

As I mentioned earlier, Stephen was not here to share my joy as he left on Wednesday, with Manuel, for London. He is there for a few days of work related business then a couple of days in Yorkshire for family stuff. As he was travelling with his BFF, I was spared the task of ferrying him to the airport as Manuel drove them both, leaving his car not in the airport car park but a private one close by. I’m not sure where he heard of this one, but seemingly, while it is cheaper, it does operate on a two-tier system. It costs more if you don’t leave your car keys with them, the option Manuel was advised to choose, as otherwise he might find his car used for the odd shopping trip or day out in his absence. Stephen was with Manuel when he made the booking, over the hands free facility, and you could tell the operation was of a distinctly Italian nature for, when Manuel asked them if they needed any details from him regarding the car, their response was: “No, it’s all right, just tell them you’re the man that phoned.”

And that’s about it. With Stephen away it has been a rather quiet weekend, catching up with bits and pieces, but we did share quality time before he left. Tuesday, as I said, was a public holiday, La Festa della Liberazione, which marks the end of Nazi occupation and Fascist dictatorship in 1945. We celebrated by taking a trip down to Civitanova and had a walk along the lungomare, where a plant market was being held. It was a lovely afternoon, which accounted for the many people, like us, taking the opportunity for a gentle stroll in the sunshine. And while we may not have purchased, it certainly gave Stephen some ideas about future planting at LCDDB.

It was also on Tuesday that we were given some news about Leaping Luca, who, unfortunately for him, more than lived up to his name. Those of you with long memories will know whom I’m talking about; those who don’t know who he is just need to remember that ignorance is bliss. Apparently, the other night when LL was watching the football, he became so excited when Juventus beat some other team in some vaguely important kickabout that he leapt into the air, one imagines pumping his fists at the same time. This was not a good idea, especially given the substantial figure of a man that he is, for when he landed, not being the lightest of people on or off his feet, he managed to break his leg. As I was saying, what goes around, comes around…