Lotto love

Last week’s quiet weekend at home seemed to do Stephen some good. At the start of this week he was sounding as though he only had two blankets wrapped round his head as opposed to three, and his coughing and sneezing would only have placed him in silver medal position as opposed to his world record potential a couple of days earlier. Not that we had time to mollycoddle him, as we were both up and about even earlier than usual on Monday morning.

This was because Monday was my first lesson with my new student, Sig Mancini, and as mentioned in the last blog, this was to start at 7.30 when the factory is quiet and before the hectic business of the day kicks in. I think it must have gone well, as at the end of the session, Massimo (yes, we are on first name terms now) asked if I could do every morning rather than the two we had originally arranged. I said yes, of course, for we all know that I find it hard to say otherwise, but I was also happy to do so as Massimo is such a very nice man. In an area where the default approach to man management is to shout and scream and to blame anyone or anything other than yourself if things go wrong, Massimo is proof that you can be successful, deliver a quality product and run a happy and cohesive team by being considerate and treating your workforce like individual human beings.

This was the start of a somewhat busy week for me, lesson-wise, with everyone starting up again after the Christmas break. Not that I’m complaining – it is better to be busy that sitting twiddling my thumbs wondering why I have been deserted. It did mean, however, that I wasn’t able to accompany Stephen on Tuesday evening when he was once more at the vet’s with Bella. This time it wasn’t her eye, which continues to do ok, but her paw. Somehow she had managed to split one of the nails on her front right paw, the area round it having become so inflamed she couldn’t bear it being touched. So sensitive was it that even despite Stephen locking her in a full nelson, the combined efforts of him and the vet were not enough to keep her pinned down so a proper examination could be carried out. Another stop off at the chemist’s on the way home was called for, however, to get the antibiotics and antiseptic gel required to reduce the swelling enough so that next week the vet can get a proper look.

Apart from prising open Bella’s jaws to throw a tablet down her throat, the rest of the week was a doddle. Being January, we did take the opportunity of an empty post office on Friday morning to renew our rental of the post box in the main square. As this is now the third time we have done it, the process has been finely honed and it only took 30 minutes from beginning to end as Paolo printed off a quantity of sheets and we duly signed them. Mind you, while we might have thought the transaction was speedy, I’m not sure that the small queue that formed whilst it was happening (minus one person who gave up part way through) would agree. When I say that it only took half an hour, I was being a little economical with the truth as this visit was to secure the post box; we are due another visit on the 20th (or soon after, that day being a Sunday) as that is when we have to see to changing the postal delivery address from our house to the box. No, I don’t know either why they are separate transactions or why they are due on separate dates other than it keeps us all on our toes.

Today was a day to catch up on bits and pieces and to relax, but we did take time out yesterday for another cultural excursion, again of an artistic bent. This time we headed away from MSP to Macerata and its museum, where there was an exhibition of paintings by the Renaissance artist, Lorenzo Lotto. Lotto is considered to be of the Venetian school, but spent a great deal of time travelling around Northern Italy and this collection of his work focused on the various times he spent in cities and towns of Le Marche – partly, it seems, because he wasn’t rated by the art establishment in Venice, who were all mad for Titian.

It was a very well staged – and attended – exhibition, and you came away with a good understanding of the period and of Lotto. I have to say, though, that whilst there were aspects of his work that were striking, you could see why he didn’t get as many commissions as he thought he deserved as the overall quality was a little patchy. He seemed, to us, to have had trouble particularly with hands, which didn’t quite work. Maybe he should have been ahead of his time and gone for a Mickey Mouse effect, as losing the odd finger didn’t seem to harm the career of Walt Disney.