It warms you twice

With August comes the great Italian getaway and the month that everyone, or so it seems, is on holiday and you can abandon any hope that anything of consequence will be done until September rolls around. That is one of the reasons why my only weekly lesson since March came to an end for the summer when I had my last session with Diego and Marzia, who were ready for a rest after such a tiring year – either that or they didn’t want a Monday morning commitment with me to interfere with their beach life with friends.

On Monday afternoon I had my now regular online meeting with Iacopo. He has taken control of these sessions, alternating English and Italian, and had decided that what I needed was for him to read me a text in Italian, broken into sections, which I would then repeat. This one was about an upcoming exhibition of Roman beauty products at Pompeii. I’m not sure what he was trying to suggest, but it was very interesting though listening and understanding were made somewhat more difficult by the kerfuffle taking place in the barn.

Mario and Luigi seem to have second sight where my online conversations are concerned and always manage to turn up in the middle of them –where the noise of their machinery and Harry’s barking turn what should be a pleasant jog into an Olympic level obstacle race. There was a third element added when raised voices came into play, which Stephen was able to explain once he got over his amusement. Apparently, there were two tractors, Mario on one with Luigi offering support and one of the Pina twins on another with machinery attached. This is what caused the problem, for when he was being guided into the barn he managed to take a whack at the central post supporting the roof with the trailer. Fortunately, there didn’t appear to be any damage caused, only to Mario and Luigi’s tempers as they gesticulated and bellowed in that way that only Italian men can do.

If you’ve been taking notes then you should remember that Tuesday was my appointment with Annalena Matricardi, the head of the bilingual school, and after parking up outside Paola’s house she ferried me over to the apartment in Montegranaro. Fortunately, the daughter, Alessandra, who works in the school too, was also present as she can speak English whereas her mother, despite having set up an Anglo-Italian school for something to do in her retirement, doesn’t. It was comforting to know that I was not labouring under misapprehension, though it was not so much as an interview as the pair explaining about the school, its philosophy and its aims. I did take my resume with me, which seemed to impress Annalena, though she was more concerned, I think, about seeing whether I was a nice person and trying to force caffè on Paola and me.

What I learned during the conversation was that the school was started about five years ago, and as it continues to grow as the year groups work their way up they are looking for a madre lingua teacher for about ten hours a week to take the slack that their current teacher, a man from Canada, does not have time for. As for English itself, Alessandra explained that they want it to be used by the pupils as naturally as Italian, with the two languages existing side by side and with some subjects taught solely in English as they see it as a means for their pupils to access the wider world in which they are living.

It all sounded very interesting to me, and while returning albeit part-time to the real world of work was not something that I had envisaged, if I am going to do it at all then the school seems a good place for it to happen. Not that I was sure where it was all left at the end of the ‘interview’, and when I asked what they would like me to do next Annalena dismissed that idea with a laugh and a wave of the hand. I left my card with them with the contact details and Alessandra gave me her number, which I took as a sort of positive sign, and Paola drove me back to MSP.

I didn’t have that long to wait in limbo as I received a call from Annalena on Thursday afternoon, saying that they would be delighted if I would work with them as their madre lingua teacher and I said that I would be equally delighted to do so. Obviously, as we were at the end of July, it was foolish of me to expect anything other than that as Italy, as mentioned above, shuts down for the month of August. For anything else I will have to wait till 10am on 1st September, which is the day and time I eventually managed to wangle out of Alessandra, to whom I had been passed, as to when I should appear at the school, the subtext being, as with all things in this wonderful country, don’t worry, everything will be all right, have faith and it will just happen.

There was not much else of note during the week, other than it getting hotter, another meeting with Daniela at the garage to settle up Marzia’s and Diego’s lessons and buying another block of feta when we shopped at Conad to keep up supply and demand (this time to use in a couscous salad, no doubt another thing that would cause much amusement amongst the matriarchs of MSP), but in a reversal of recent weeks the weekend turned our a bit more lively.

This was partly due to a telephone call at the start of the week from our friendly wood man, who for some reason likes to get us out the way early (maybe because we provide his holiday spending money or he knows he can get away with an August delivery to the English, but either way we are not complaining). He asked if it was ok if he brought our firewood on Saturday, around lunchtime, and Stephen said of course it was. That is why shortly after lunch yesterday, just as I had switched on the caffè machine Stephen had to rush out to see to the delivery and pay the man. Unfortunately, it was sometime before he was able to drink his coffee, as the inevitable happened as the wood man was trying to leave.

With no load, having disposed of the 3,125 kilos of logs in front of our garage, when he hit the dicey part near the top, just before it starts to level off past Mario and Luigi’s, the truck was unable to get any traction on the gravelly surface and slowly slid sideways into the edge of the field. Whether from the shock, heat exhaustion or just surprise at the angle at which he found himself, when the wood man exited the cab he stumbled and fell. Stephen, who had gone up in the Panda when he saw the man was getting into trouble, brought him back so he could wash himself off while he went up to trouble the Mogliano brothers once again. Fortunately, our wood friend declared himself unscathed.

Luigi, unsurprisingly, was a little disgruntled to have his lunchtime disturbed, but when he came out and realised he knew the latest victim of the road he was a lot happier about it. In fact, he and the wood man in a feat of forward planning unheard of in Italy, started discussing how to avoid a similar situation next year. The first suggestion, that he leave the wood at the top for M&L to ferry down (too much like hard work, it seems to me) was jettisoned in favour of Plan B, to hook the truck to the tractor before it set off back up. Personally, I would prefer Plan C: that the Comune fix the road and that it stays fixed so that any van, car or truck can get back up it, but I suppose I have always been a bit of a dreamer.

With the wood man safely on his way, eventually, we were left with our annual pile of logs to sort out, which is why 5pm on the hottest day of the year so far saw Stephen and I carrying them the short distance into the garage and stacking them up ready for the winter. It took us three sessions in all, with Stephen starting again early this morning and me joining him after I had done my Sunday chores, and then finishing off this evening, when a friendly shower of rain had made the air a little fresher. We can now rest easy, knowing that we are well stocked to keep the house warm no matter what January chooses to throw at us.

In between today’s stacking sessions we took a bit of time out to do some shopping, taking a jaunt to the small mall in Porto Sant’Elpidio so we could combine retail therapy with a spot of lunch at Alta Marea, somewhere we have not eaten for, I should think, almost a year. The shopping was necessary as Stephen had declared that the shorts I wear in a morning while doing my bits and pieces around the house were no longer fit to be seen in, coupled with a minor disaster yesterday morning when I started to shave the unbearded part of my face and the razor broke in half. I’m pleased to say that I bagged three very fine pairs of Champion gym shorts (the first part of that collocation being redundant in my case) and a sparkling new razor before hitting the self-service restaurant.

My tortellini with speck, asparagus and courgette was a healthy portion and most acceptable, while Stephen took great pleasure in polishing off his plate of paccheri with scampi (proper scampi that is) though some of the punters must have thought that there was something a little lacking on what was on offer. After much back and forth, with the wives forming a vanguard to spy out the terrain followed by the husbands as the main attack, commandeering four tables over to the side of us, a party of eight (Stephen was of the opinion that they had come off the beach during the hottest part of the day), eventually settled down to heaped plates of the fritto misto and a few other side dishes.

Not satisfied with this, however, one of the women produced a few beef tomatoes from her bag and proceeded to cut them up into quarters, season with oil and vinegar and then pass them round on the spare plate she had brought from the counter, whereupon they were enjoyed with much relish. If nothing else, it proved that she must have been something of a horticulturist and knew that the tomato is not a vegetable, because as they say, forbidden fruits do taste sweeter.