Simples

Last Sunday’s fine weather proved more than a fitting overture as the past week has seen gloriously blue skies, temperatures flirting with the 30C barrier and Bella and Harry forsaking the terrazzo to collapse on the cool marble tiles inside during the hottest part of the day. And about time too (the heat, not Bella and Harry collapsing).

One of the great bonuses of the return of continuous dry weather is that the nice man from the village arrived on Monday afternoon with his strimmer to set about taming the grass around LCDDB, giving it its first cut of the year six months in. It took him four visits in all, but at least now we can let Bella and Harry lose in the back area without losing sight of them in the long grass, though there was a certain pleasure to be had from seeing Harry leap gazelle-like whenever he could muster enough enthusiasm for it.

The onset of fine weather has also coincided with the last week of school here in Italy, which was why another two of my lessons dropped off the radar. Wednesday was the last of the PET lessons in Montegranaro and Riccardo said goodbye for the summer on Thursday, preferring, for some unfathomable reason, to spend afternoons at the beach with his friends. His partner in crime, Gloria, had already finished two weeks previously as she has spent the last part of term on work experience (at Aldo Brue, where her father works, because she could get a lift – the youth of today…).

Despite having transferred the payment for the new old car at the end of last week, we finished this one still without it as the issue of the insurance is waiting to be settled, with Manuel’s intervention causing a change of direction. When he heard on Monday (whilst he and Stephen were on a round trip Bologna*) what the office in Montegranaro was quoting he was aghast and said he would get his man on the case. (It would appear that Mr Fix-It has a man to call on for every eventuality). Indeed, his man came back with a quote two-thirds the price of the previous one, the only slight problem was we had to wait for the introductory offer to go live, which hadn’t happened by the time Friday rolled around but will hopefully happen early next week.

Actually, that wasn’t the only slight problem as we also had to get in contact with the nice broker in Montegranaro and tell him we breaking up with him and going with someone else. He did his best to point out the negative aspects, which really weren’t anything of importance especially against such a significant saving. What will happen when the insurance for the Panda and our medical insurances fall due in a month or so is to be seen, but if Manuel’s man can offer better terms on those as well then, while we don’t want to appear heartless, it will be so long and thanks for the fish.

With no car to get excited over, it has been a weekend of fine weather activities. Today was our first walk of the summer along Porto San Giorgio beach while yesterday we carried out the long overdue wardrobe change over from summer to winter. With the forecast showing uninterrupted sunshine for the foreseeable future, we thought we were safe consigning heavier clothing to storage downstairs as the vagaries of May seem well and truly behind us.

We weren’t the only ones shedding the dull days of the recent past, either, as we discovered when Bella made a sudden lunge at one of the flower pots at the bottom of the steps when we were on our way to our afternoon walk, causing it to topple and to suffer a significant chip in the process. When Stephen tidied it up the reason for her interest became evident as he found a discarded snake skin lying behind the fallen pot – fortunately on the small size. It seems that some descendent of our usual black friend has taken up residency under the bottom steps, where it is welcome to live rent free as long as it doesn’t hold any wild late night parties or come home the worse for wear in the early hours of the morning. We have quite enough of that with Harry…

* Actually, it was rather further. This was because the woman with whom they were having the meeting had suggested Bologna as being roughly half-way for both parties, but when they got near the city they found that the exit from the autostrada she had named was some distance further on and significantly nearer her starting point.