Ladies night

After my week in Bologna, where I experienced life on the receiving side of the learning dynamic, I thought I was in for a very quite week where my own teaching was concerned. I had reckoned, however, without the demands of the Italian mother, keen to keep her children occupied over the long summer holidays.

Maddalena had, a week or so ago, passed on my contact details to an old school friend of hers, and who had phoned up last week while I was in Bologna. Stephen had told her that I was away till this week, and she wasted no time in phoning back on Monday morning. While I was able to get the gist of what the lady, Michela, was saying, it seemed to make more sense if we spoke face to face. So, with the help of Stephen (yes, I still need a safety net) we arranged to go over to Fermo, where the family live, to see her in the afternoon.

We arrived at her house, a very impressive town house, just after 5 and were shown up two flights of stairs to the open plan granny flat at the top, which her two sons, Carlo and Pietro, use as a playroom. It was agreed that I would do two ninety-minute lessons a week, on Tuesday and Friday afternoons, from now till school restarts in September, with a two-week break at the beginning of August. The break is because this is when the boys will be going to a summer sports camp near Aberdeen, which could be something of a shock to their systems unless North East Scotland experiences a heatwave around then.

They had enough of a shock as it was when they heard that they were going to have two lessons a week, and their vehement cries of ‘No,’ when Michela asked me if I thought three might be a good idea echoed my own feelings. Fermo is a bit more of a drive than I’m used to, thirty minutes each way, and whilst there may be something in the price that reflects travelling time, I think two journeys there and back is more than enough. I take my teaching seriously and want to give a good service, but I do it mainly because I enjoy the lessons and the interaction with my students, and I don’t want to turn it into a chore.

As if to emphasise this, as a treat on the way back Stephen pulled into Sigma car park where we went into Bar del Borgo for a swift aperitivo before dinner, and to buy some of their fine ice cream. This had made a reappearance a couple of weeks ago, a definite sign that summer had arrived, even if June was playing a bit hard to get as far as blistering skies was concerned. We were very moderate and only came away with a half-kilo assortment in one of their polystyrene boxes, despite Massimo, the owner, tempting us with one of the larger, kilo containers.

The rest of the week passed uneventfully. We treated ourselves to aperitivo at Totò on Wednesday, which seemed to be running on a bread theme. It was as good as usual even though our friendly waiter, Massimo wasn’t there. (Remember, as I’ve remarked before, 90% of the male population of Italy are called by one of four names.) This is the second time in a row he’s been absent, and we can only hope that both times we’ve coincided with his day off. Thursday I tried out a new recipe from an Italian food magazine, a ricotta, lemon and poppy seed plumcake, and very nice it was too. Don’t let the name confuse you, as no soft fruit were harmed in the making of the cake. Plumcake is the generic term in Italy for any loaf shaped sponge cake and is no indication that fruit of any sort, dried or fresh, features in the list of ingredients.

Friday was my first lesson with my new pupils. Michela, showing her keenness (or desperation?) had wanted me to start on Tuesday but I needed a bit more time than that to prepare a lesson. The day started sunny and hot, but just after I sat down with the two boys at the dining table in their ‘playroom’, in what could be taken as pathetic fallacy, the skies darkened and the heavens opened. Carlo, at 9 the older of the boys by eighteen months, chatted away happily and was very accommodating. His brother, Pietro, however, was a bit more of a challenge, needing firm boundaries as to what was and wasn’t acceptable behaviour – and I’m sure we will find a way of working that suits us both.

This weekend has been the palio in MSP – or rather it hasn’t. For some reason the Sunday events, when young representatives of the three churches competed in a series of events, have disappeared. That left only the Festival of the Damsels on the Saturday night, when ladies dressed in mediaeval costumes and representing various local towns parade before a series of judges and one is declared the winner. I would like to be able to tell you who won, but unfortunately I can’t. Not only has the palio element disappeared but so too had any sense of occasion to Saturday night.

In this, it wasn’t helped by the air turning chilly after Friday’s rain, so sitting in town square was not as inviting as last year. Nor did it help that instead of serving the food in the Piazza Umberto – with the gazebos and sense of busyness – you had to collect it from the Maria Teresa pasta shop up the street and carry it on a tray to your table (something which was something of a challenge for the elderly lady before us in the queue). It was a bit like eating in Dotheboys Hall refectory, but without the charm. A for the accompanying live period music advertised in the flyer, this had for some reason had been replaced by a variety of easy listening pop standards relayed over a crackly sound system. The positive point was that the food was very good – as it always is from Maria Teresa’s - but when we looked around and saw that besides ourselves, MSP locals were noticeable by their absence, we felt we had done our duty. We finished off our galantina, tidied away our trays (as well as a couple of others – no one seemingly having thought to delegate this job), took a quick caffè at Pina and headed home.

At least we were able to get to bed at a reasonable time, as the pageant was not due to start till 10 o’clock (meaning 10.20 at the earliest, being Italy) and therefore able to rise and shine in good time for our Sunday walk on Porto San Giorgio beach this morning, where the sky was clear and the sun shining. Every cloud, as they say, has a silver lining – or, in this case, an azure blue one.