Fast and loose

March has continued as February finished, with increasingly warm weather and dry days, which would be a cause for celebration if not for my newly acquired association with the world of business and agriculture. This prolonged dry spell is causing not a little concern to Mr Mancini, who has an eye on his burgeoning wheat crops, and means that while walking Bella and Harry in the morning sun, part of me is thinking that really we should be out in our galoshes.

There was no hint of rain on Tuesday, even if the distant Sibillini mountains were still snow-capped, when we headed to MSP to do a spot of shopping and drop in at the Comune as Fiorenza had called the previous day to say that our new identity cards had arrived. We duly signed for them and then popped next door to have a word with someone about the telegraph pole at the top of the road which was still at right angles after it mysteriously toppled over the other week while Mario and Luigi were working, clearing the banking. They had mentioned the cock-eyed pole to Stephen the previous day when he stopped for a chat, and he promised to report it, as they had done, to the Comune. Before promising this, however, he had asked them if they were sure they hadn’t actually caused it themselves, which elicited a firm denial. This might have been more convincing had they not stood there, shuffling their feet and snickered like naughty schoolboys.

In the interests of good neighbourly relations, we found ourselves talking with the Comune’s architect while he was trying to get through to TIM when who should walk into the office but Luigi, on the same mission. This was educative for us, as we have always worked on the basis that you ask politely, explain reasonably and with good humour and show appreciation for the efforts made. Wrong. What we should be doing, as evinced by the senior Mogliani brother, is to barge through the doors, speak rapidly and loudly and in barely comprehensible dialect while eating an apple, fling our arms about with abandon and then barge out again. We just smiled wanly and beat a hasty retreat.

Stephen was able to take his new carta d’identita for a spin on Wednesday when he went with his bff, Manuel and Cristian, a business associate, for a meeting about shoes in Treviso just north of Venice, a round trip of some 900km. You might think this is a long way to go for an hour of talking, but it is a mere hop for your average Italian male, as evinced by Cristian when he adopted the time-honoured macho style of driving at 200km on the autostrada with just his right index finger placed on the steering wheel – or at least he did till Stephen suggested it might be an idea to make sure that they ended up in Treviso and not in the barriers in the centre of the motorway. Despite this, it appeared to have been worth their while making the journey, and not only because Manuel took the opportunity to stop off and buy a few cases of very fine prosecco from a friend of Cristian, one of which he generously gave to Stephen.

We can vouch for its quality because we cracked open one of the half dozen bottles on Thursday night when Computer Luca came to dinner. We hadn’t seen him for quite a while, and it was very good to catch up with his news. He did wonder, on his arrival, why we had logs burning considering the temperatures outside were hovering around the 20C mark. We hadn’t banked on that when deciding to feed him a British staple and had planned the meal around baked potatoes done in the fire. At least we now know that they go very nicely with something Italian and fizzy, and we don’t mean Luca.

Friday should have been as busy a day for me as the previous one, but in the end I found myself with extra time to do various bits and pieces as both Silvia and the mayor’s nieces, Elisa and Arianna, cancelled. The latter give me a couple of days’ notice, but I didn’t get the news about Silvia until I was leaving my lunchtime session at Prosilas. This is understandable, however, as she is in the early stages of expecting her third child, something about which both she and her husband are very happy but which might have a knock-on effect on her English learning.

No doubt she had a relaxing time over the weekend, which was again very quiet for us. Mr Massimo is away in Florence for a food fair, so I only had my one lesson with Alessio on Saturday morning. The rest of the time was spent with various chores and preparations for the week ahead. Stephen ventured into the garden for his first sortie of the year, clearing the area around the herbs and chopping back some intrusive growth from several of the bushes while I studiously caught up with paperwork, correspondence and lesson preparation. I’ll leave it for you to decide which of us had the better deal, though given my lack of success with things horticultural I’m sure the plants were pleased I kept well away.