Homeward bound

In 1959, Dinah Washington won a Grammy award for telling the world about what a difference a day makes. Those twenty-four little hours might have had a bit of an impact on her but nothing like the 168 momentous ones have had on LCDDB, MSP and Italy since I lamented the closing of The McIntosh due to the spread of the coronavirus at the end of last week’s blog. If only we knew what lay in store for us in the ongoing battle.

Unaware of what was being decided in the upper reaches of government, Monday was more or less a normal day with Stephen bobbing to the factory and a lesson for me in Montegranaro with Marzia and Diego followed by one in the town with Rocco and Antonella. Neelam, however, cancelled hers, feeling it wisest to stay at home and avoid the possibility of spreading contagion, a presage of the announcement Carlo Conti… sorry, I mean Giuseppe Conte was to make to the nation a few hours later. This announcement, as you will no doubt be aware, effectively placed the whole of Italy on a war footing against Covid-19, including telling the populace that unless they had a valid reason for doing venture out, to stay at home for the foreseeable future.

Our valid reason for going out the next morning was, of course, to do the shopping, though without our usual stop off at Pina on the way. It was a quick in and out at Sigma, where things appeared on the surface to be not very much changed and whilst there were not the queues seen in pictures of Roman supermarkets, there did seem to be a lot of packs of UHT milk and bottles of water in people’s trolleys. I have to hold my hand up and say that we did buy a few extra things, just in case, but we didn’t snaffle a full cardboard box of packets of pasta waiting to be put onto the shelves, as one woman did. Who knows, maybe she is in the habit of buying De Cecco in bulk when it’s half-price.

We returned home after our excursion and as far as I was concerned that was the last of contact with the outside world for the rest of the week as I fell in line the trending hashtag, #stoacasa, suspending all my lessons until normal service is resumed. Stephen, however, has ventured as far as the Carelli factory most days, which is where learned, when he went after our shopping expedition, that the supermarkets were to be closed all day on Saturdays and Sundays. This, as far as Mrs C was concerned, was the most shocking news so far and sent her into something of a tizzy. As she, like the vast majority of her fellow townswomen (and some men) have lived their whole lives shopping daily, buying fresh and seasonal and cooking it the same day, for her the idea of having to buy food for three days was inconceivable. What she would make of the once a week and pile it high philosophy of the British shopper, heaven only knows; probably something similar to what she would make of the amount of that food that British households throw away.

Keeping to the fresh is best mantra, Stephen arrived back from the factory the next morning with seven newly-laid eggs from Mrs C. As I was at home all the time with no lessons, she thought I would appreciate the opportunity to pass the time by using them to make a cake. Not wanting to let the side down, I made a two-coloured ciambellone the next afternoon but as that particular recipe only called for three eggs, Stephen used three more for spaghetti carbonara for Thursday lunch. That left one, which I magically turned into ginger biscuits this morning, with the aid of a few other ingredients of course.

It’s just as well we were making our own fun as things became even more serious in the world outside LCDDB, even if not as apocalyptic as the sensational coverage by the BBC seemed to be suggesting. But there again, I suppose footage of ordinary people behaving in a responsible and good-humoured fashion would not make for interesting viewing, even if it is much nearer the truth. After a further announcement on Wednesday evening of mass closures of retail and leisure facilities with only food shops and chemists remaining open, Stephen returned home on Thursday morning not with eggs this time but with the latest from the village telegraph.

Following the guidelines, Pina and Bar Centrale were both closed while Bar del Borgo remained open but only for the sale of cigarettes (no comment) and only to one customer at a time. Meanwhile the word on the supermarkets was that they were to remain open but that only one member of a family was allowed inside. In a further measure to control movement and ensure no unnecessary journeys were made, Stephen had also sent by Maddalena a copy of the document that needed to be completed and shown if stopped by the Carabinieri when out and about. These showed your name, codice fiscale and the reason why you were making the journey. Whilst this might all seem like Big Brother is watching, we find it reassuring that the Italian government is taking clear and direct action unlike some I could think of.

Stephen filled one in on Friday morning, having been designated the forager of the family, and headed to Sigma to do the weekend shop. When he got there he found he had to take a ticket from a machine situated at the door and wait with the various women of the town (until another man eventually turned up) at a strategic distance from each other. This was because only three people were being allowed into the supermarket in rotation, with a maximum of six people inside at any one time. You would have thought that there’d be plenty of space for everyone, but Stephen said that it was like some strange dance to keep a metre apart as the shoppers were all at the same sections at the same time.

He managed to get everything that was on the list, there being no gaps on the shelves, including the components necessary for making our own pizze. There had been a moment’s frisson earlier in the week when we realised that the pizzeria would be shut and that our Friday night slouching in front of the TV was in jeopardy, but thanks to pizza bases, a jar of good tomato sauce and a fine buffalo mozzarella our ritual was saved, and even having to break off between Grace and Frankie and reruns of Glee failed to take the shine off of it.

One thing that did make Stephen feel a little self-conscious while queuing up was not being the lone male but being, apart from one other customer, the only person waiting and in the shop that was not wearing a mask. To rectify this, he had a root around downstairs this morning and returned triumphantly with two he had bought when he was sanding the wardrobes all that time ago. These he customised into his and his masks, each with a different stick-on moustache so we know whose is which.

Whilst it has been a weekend for pottering around the homestead for us, up the hill Luigi has been finding things to do and pursuing his own method of dealing with the virus. He appears to have decided that a scorched earth policy is the way forward, though maybe he needs to exercise a modicum of restraint. Following a bonfire earlier in the week he had another one yesterday afternoon and managed to set part of the banking alight. The benefit of this was that it kept Harry occupied for some time as he paced the terrazzo barking at the beacon in the distance.

Apart from that brief moment of excitement, the most interesting thing we have done is watch a DVD that has been in the drawer for some time now, waiting for us to find the time. I think Stephen summed up the general feeling best when he said that it is like those old 1960’s Bank Holiday Mondays when everywhere was closed and you just had to stop at home and find something to pass the hours – except we don’t even have Disney Time to look forward to.