Packing a punch

I’m pleased to say that the weather, having eventually settled into what should be expected of June, has continued to give satisfaction. The past week has been dry, hot and sunny, and we have now hit the point in the year where we dispense with a lunchtime walk. Instead, Harry and Bella potter in the shade at the back of the house for ten minutes or so, giving me a bit of extra sit down time before getting on with the demands of the afternoon.

There was evidence that we are not the only ones to be feeling the increased heat, for when we had our morning walk on Monday, part of the water table, that with all the rain accumulated earlier in the month is still squelchy and squidgy, seemed to have been hollowed out and a mound of mud pushed to one side. As no one else has been down that way, I could only assume that a wild boar or two had decided to take a cooling mud bath at some point overnight. Fortunately, by the time dawn broke, they were well gone.

As usual on Monday Stephen went to the factory, and spent a degree of time there during the week as there was an order to prepare and get ready for collection by the shippers. He did, though, before getting his shoulder to the wheel have time to hand over to Meri a few rock buns that I had made the previous day. She’d shown interest in them a couple of weeks ago after seeing a picture on Facebook, and was even more intrigued when he told her they were made with self raising flour - something you can find in the supermarket but which does not seem to feature in any recipes that I have read in Italy or on the average person’s radar. When he asked about them the next day, Meri gave them a thumbs up and was interested to know what the spice was (nutmeg and allspice) while Mrs C’s only comment, with the inbred wariness of most Italians for anything that their grandmothers hadn’t cooked, was to say, suspiciously, that they contained fruit.

After a morning at work it was work of a domestic nature that took Stephen’s time in the afternoon, when he set about clearing out some of the vegetation that had taken advantage of firstly the rain and then the heat to grow with gay abandon. While this was a good thing to do, there was a minor tragedy when he lost one of his gardening gloves, the ones I gave him for his birthday and which had proved such a hit. One moment it was in his back pocket and the next it wasn’t, and nowhere to be seen. This does, however, like all the best stories have a happy ending as when we were passing the copse at the back of the house on Wednesday’s walk, Harry started sniffing on the banking and there was the glove. Cue much joy at finding that which was lost, but we did stop short of searching out a fatted calf.

So what else can I tell you?

I had a further couple of conversations with Patrizia, who recommended that I should read I promessi sposi (The Betrothed) by Alessandro Manzoni. Published in 1827, despite being comparatively unknown outside Italy, it is widely regarded as the classic novel of Italian literature, and at over 700 pages offers a sweeping view of Lombardy in the 1600s. Patrizia did a good job of selling it to me, so much so that I have downloaded a copy onto my Kindle (the Penguin Classics edition, in English; I’m not a sadist) and will gird my literary loins to tackle it in the not too distant future. In addition to my chats with Patrizia, I also made contact on Tuesday with Loris from Ravenna and we had a very pleasant initial conversation, though it did leave me feeling a little inadequate as, unlike him, I don’t play three musical instruments nor do I speak six languages. Still, he seems happy to slum it with an underachiever and we hope to speak again next week.

Thursday was a bit of a post-lockdown red-letter day with the return of two different outings. The first was in the morning when we went to the market in Porto San Giorgio for a look round and for Stephen to buy some basil. Whilst maybe not quite to the busyness of last year, there were still plenty of stalls and plenty of people, and plenty of ways to wear your obligatory mask, and it was more than pleasant to wander in the sunshine and almost believe that things were back to normal. And whilst Stephen didn’t, in the end, invest in any basil plants, he did buy half a dozen nude ghost socks while I splashed out on a miniature cactus plant.

I know, though, that you won’t believe that is all we came away with, and you’re right. Firstly we were seduced when passing a shop window by Guzzini’s new range made from 100% recycled plastic bottles to go in and buy a covered bowl – and a new salad spinner (a better shape for the fridge, said Stephen) at the same time. These, however, paled into insignificance when just before we left we were passing a stall and spotted some punch glasses; that is punch in the Italian winter drink that I discovered belatedly last year, not the stuff of crystal glasses and Edwardian dance cards. Despite trying, we hadn’t been able to locate any suitable glasses, as they needed to be heat resistant and with a handle - and evoke the 1970s – so had had to make do with coffee cups, which somehow took the shine off. You can imagine the Stephen’s yelp of delight when he saw an array of triple packed glasses, whose tired packaging suggested that indeed they had been hanging around in someone’s garage since 1978; we wasted no time in claiming two packs – and at a total price of €4 for six a better bargain would be hard to find.

Our other outing was in the evening, when we had dinner with bff Manuel, his mother and his children, our first time eating out at someone’s house since Christmas, I think. It was as pleasantly relaxed as we had anticipated, even if Manuel’s mamma did bemoan the fact that we hadn’t eaten anything despite doing our level best to make an inroad into the kilos of steaks, both veal and beef, and sausages that he had cooked on the barbecue. Our contribution to the evening was to take a kilo of ice cream, chosen from the selection at Bar del Borgo, in two half-kilo containers. In a divergence, however, from the norm we only had two flavours in each container, as opposed to the Italian way of having one container and packing it with as many different varieties as possible, ending up with some kind of frozen smorgasbord where there may be something for everyone but not a lot of any one for anyone.

Which brought us to the weekend and mostly quiet it was as well, being far too hot to stir oneself unnecessarily, though Stephen did dabble with some grass cutting this afternoon for some reason best known to himself. It was certainly too hot to bake, though I did try out a new recipe, courtesy of the wonderful Diana Henry, and though her baked rice with feta, orange, green olives and herbs required a moderately hot oven we could leave it to its own devices while we relaxed on the terrazzo then let it cool to a pleasant room temperature before enjoying it.

Before all that there was Friday, of course, with my turn for the shopping while Stephen was pampered in the barber’s chair. He needed it, for he spent most of the rest of the day at the factory, making sure the order was ready for collection and then waiting for the shipper to come and collect it at 4pm… or rather 6.30, when the driver actually turned up. Being late was not the only drawback as the van’s loading device was out of action, meaning Stephen had to get physical with the boxes while someone who shall remain anonymous suddenly found that he had an urgent message on his phone.

Stephen did find time, however, to come home for lunch when he was surprised to find that there were strangers in our midst – as was I when shortly before midday I heard a car outside. Thinking at first that it was Stephen returning, I realised pretty quickly from Bella and Harry’s barking that it couldn’t have been. When I went out, there was a car parked just at the end of the driveway and a man was getting out. He hailed me, mentioning Stephen’s name. I said he was not at home but would be back shortly for lunch, to which he started calling in a very jolly manner, “Susan! Susan! Susan, Auckley!” while what turned out to be his wife joined him from the car.

I donned my mask and went down to meet them in front of the house, where all became clear. It was Salvatore and Marta, two online friends of my sister-in-law (yes, she is ahead of me in that caper) who were in the area for a week visiting family as Marta comes originally from Lapedona, a small town of just over 1,000 inhabitants the other side of Fermo. They thought it would be a jolly wheeze to cold call and surprise us, as well as Susan by sending her a group selfie. Surprised we were, but pleasantly so as they were a very cheerful couple, even though the shadow of having to get their town car back up the lunar terrain of our road loomed large during the conversation.

They politely declined our invitation to come in and have a little something, as they were expected at a family lunch, and when it came time to leave, after half-an-hour of happy talking, Salvatore went up the hill solo, just making it over the critical point, while Stephen drove Marta up in the Freeclimber to the accompaniment of her screams all the way. We have exchanged telephone numbers and suggested that should they like to call again, maybe for an aperitivo when they are back in la provincia di Fermo, they give us a ring first so we can lay on the exclusive LCDDB taxi service.

It wasn’t till later when Susan called to speak to us on WhatsApp that we realised how surprised she was, too, as while she had mentioned us and said we lived in MSP, she had not told them where. It turns out that the enterprising pair had popped into Sigma and got directions to our house from Pia on the meat counter, leaving us not sure whether to be flattered by our local celebrity or worried that next time she will divulge the details to a couple wearing black and white hooped sweaters, black face masks and with a bag saying ‘Swag’ swung over their shoulders.