Here and there

Monday dawned bright and clear for our visitors first morning ever in Le Marche, so what better thing to do than introduce them to the wonders of breakfast at Pina? Nothing, of course, so that is why, whilst Stephen was away keeping the heels of industry turning, we partook of cappuccini and brioche at MSP’s premier – and only – hotel.

I think Dave and Josie were duly awestruck, though the niceties of an Italian breakfast seemed a little puzzling at first. Still, they must have impressed Mara as when they did take their choice of pastry from the case she gave them a plate each to put them on. There’s posh.

We followed this with a stroll round the centre of town, taking in the Monday morning market with its habitual stalls of household goods, leisure wear and fruit and veg. The busiest, as is usually the case however, was the man selling live chickens and ducks. This caused a bit of a double take from our visitors, especially Josie, who seemed to find this somewhat worrying. She seemed slightly happier when I assured her they were being sold purely for laying purposes. Right.

Generally speaking, Monday is not a great day for tourists unless you are in the country’s main hot spots as many places are closed. A quick Internet search, however, showed that the museum and library in Fermo were open in the afternoon so we suggested taking a trip there to see them and the mappamondo, which is the treasure of the library and which after four years here we still haven’t seen. And we still haven’t, for being Italy the information on the website and the reality were two different things. When we went into the ticket office, sending Dave ahead to practise his Italian, the nice lady explained that because of the renovation work following the earthquake the library is only open for an hour in the afternoon and it was closing in 15 minutes. Similarly, some of the other parts of the museum were still closed but were due to reopen in a couple of months. Being busy with all this restoration work must account for why no one has had time over the past three years to update the information on the website…

Despite the skies having turned a bit cloudy, we opted to take a walk up to the cathedral instead to admire the view before taking an aperitivo in one of the few bars open in the main square and heading home, getting there just as it started to rain. This continued the next morning so Dave and Josie opted to go to Macerata, where they spent a happy day at the museum (whose advertised hours were not a work of fiction) taking in, amongst other things, the Bauhaus exhibition.

Neither Stephen nor I were free to accompany them as work called as my lessons with the fantastic four at Mancini Pasta restarted after lunch, one of only three lessons this week – it is only September after all. There were, however, indications people’s minds would soon be leaving the summer holidays behind. If you recall I ran a series of eight one-hour lessons earlier in the year at Prosilas, a company in Civitanova. Those of you with excellent memories may also remember that these lessons were part of a project funded by an outside agency and said project was for a total of thirty-six hours, and those of you with acute mathematical skills will have realised that there are still twenty-eight hours left to do.

This is why I was busy sending and receiving messages on Tuesday with Vanna, the woman whose father started the business and who now manages it, and who has decided that the remaining hours would be best used in helping secure her English skills for when she is interacting with suppliers and customers. She said she thought two hours a week would be a good idea and when was I available. More or less anytime at the moment, I said, so pick your time, and of course she picked the only two hours when I am already committed with Mancini. After some back and forth we eventually settled for Mondays and Fridays from 3pm to 4pm starting this week – but watch this space, because I know from my limited dealings with business people that there is no such thing as personal time during the working day.

After a couple of indifferent days, weather-wise, we woke to sunshine on Wednesday morning, which prompted Dave and Josie to decide to spend the day at the beach. We recommended they try Porto San Giorgio, our default destination, after making a slight detour to Torre di Palme where, from its hillside location, you get an extensive view along the coastline. Our suggestion was only partially successful, however, as after they had parked in PSG and walked under the railway line to the lungomare, they turned the wrong way. This meant that instead of turning right along the town’s sandy beach they turned left past Lido di Fermo, where the beach is more pebbly, and ended up in Tre Archi, one of Fermo’s less salubrious suburbs.

In the evening, to restore their faith in the Italian seaside, we went to Civitanova where after a very pleasant walk along the lungomare to the harbour we met up with Marco and Maddalena for dinner at Arturo. Unfortunately, it being September, by the time we sat down to eat it was too dark to be admire the view and gaze out to sea but the food and the conversation more than made up for it as Dave tucked into a bowl of seafood and practised his Italian on Marco and Maddalena while Josie had to make do with pizza and speaking English to Stephen and me.

That was the last night our visitors spent with us, but not their last night in the area, as the next day they moved on to the house they have rented for the rest of their stay. This is in the town of Grottazzolina, about fifteen minutes south of MSP by car, so handy enough for us to get together for some more quality time. This we did at the weekend, but before that there was Friday and Vanna’s first individual lesson…

…Or not. First I received a message in the morning asking if we could change the time because a problem had come up. I said that was ok for, as I said, I’m not overburdened with teaching commitments at the moment. Then about an hour later another message came saying that she would have to postpone the lesson till Monday afternoon as she was still tied up with the production issue. At least this meant that I didn’t have to rush my post-lunch caffè or Bella and Harry’s walk just before that. It was while we were strolling back up the lane that a field mouse darted out of the banking under the fig tree and scribed a wide arc before disappearing back into the undergrowth, closely followed by the rippling form of our resident black snake in surprisingly hot pursuit for something with no legs. And who said we needed a cat to control the mice population?

Although Vanna was not able to make the lesson happen on Friday, yesterday was a different matter when young Alessio returned after his summer break, making a grand total, as I said, of three for the week. Being so exhausted with such a heavy workload, I had thoroughly earned some downtown, starting yesterday evening when we met Dave and Josie in Fermo for an aperitivo at Artasylum followed by dinner at Enoteca. It is now too late in the season to eat outside, but the inside was humming with a busy buzz of customers. This morning I went with Stephen to Corridomnia in search of a pair of white jeans, which he has decided are absolutely necessary for one of his looks at MICAM in a week’s time.

With the weather being more than fine, Dave and Josie came over mid-afternoon and we drove up the coast to Numana, one of the key summer holiday spots between Porto Recanati and Ancona. We had a very pleasant stroll along part of the lungamare then up towards the town, where we took an aperitivo on a terrace overlooking the bay before returning, for dinner, to the same restaurant after a wander through the town itself. Although it was very busy, the staff were very obliging and offered us a table on the narrow terrazzo on the upper floor, where we were able to watch the sun set and the sky turn from blue to dark indigo as we ate. As Dave said, it doesn’t get much better than this.