One way or another

I don’t want to labour the point, which of course means that I am, but the gradual grinding to a halt of life in Italy has had an effect on the blog. I won’t be taking up very much of your time this week as so little has happened, but I will do my best to be as scintillating and entertaining as possible with the little I have to offer, because, as you know gentle reader, I am devoted to you in my prime.

With no lesson on Monday the week got off to a very humdrum start, though with the onset of rain on Tuesday that lasted on and off for three and a half days (not that I was keeping score), and the daily temperature dropping at one point to 18C, Marzia and Diego might as well have been sharing quality time with me as I don’t think they will have been anywhere near a beach. Stephen made the most of the cooler weather on Wednesday when he whipped up another batch of tomato sauce and a few cartons of grilled tomatoes for the freezer. Other than that, it was left to Thursday to provide some diversion for us.

The first came in the morning with the setting of a new world record, or a new MSP one at least. On his way back from the factory Stephen stopped to check the post and returned with two items, one of which was a birthday card from his sister in Australia, a little belated given that it falls on 17th April. Before you start wondering if, being situated in the Southern Hemisphere, living in opposite seasons had made her confused with the months, it hadn’t. The date on the postmark looks like 2nd April, which means that it has taken eighteen weeks to get here, which gives a whole new slant on posting early for Christmas – or anything else for that matter.

The second came when we had a boys’ night out with Nazareno and Mirco. Usually, as my devoted readers will very well know, the factory invites a selection of associates for a fish dinner at a chalet at the beach twice a year, in December and in early August. This year, what with one thing and another, it was decided that the do would be a small affair, and as it was just Stephen and me they flouted convention and opted for meat, somewhere heading up into the mountains. Wearing our best bib and tucker, we took the Panda up to the top of the road where Nazareno, with Mirco riding shotgun, picked us up.

“You wouldn’t be able to find this place,” said Nazareno as we set off, “if you didn’t know where it was.” Too true, as we got lost three times on the way there, and what should have been a fifty-minute journey took us over for eighty. What was really impressive about this is that their car, an executive Mercedes type, has a state of the art navigation system but they chose not to use it. Instead, the first time they realised they had gone wrong Mirco used his phone to get us back on the right road before switching it of, and using again the second time and switching it of, and the third. Still, it gave us time to build up an appetite, and did we need it.

The place, when we got there, was Agriturismo Roccamaia, high on the mountainside, up a road where you really don’t want to meet anything coming the opposite way, near the town of Pievebovigliano and with views across the Sibillini national park – not that we were able to admire them, what with it going dark when we got there. The place was rustic and charming, as was the food. This, as per the usual Carelli hospitality, was plentiful in the extreme and comprised of antipasti, a frittata, a thick bean and spelt soup, two pasta dishes and then meat with salad and fat chipped potatoes, all of which relied heavily on truffle, porcini and wild boar. Not the lightest of meals for an August evening when the weather, after the rain, had decided to clear and get hot again, but we did our best to trough manfully as it would have been rude not to.

Which brings us to the weekend and after the usual shopping and haircuts things would have been quite an anti-climax if hadn’t have been for the great missing hoover part mystery. Hoovers in Italy are much slighter than their British counterparts, not being called on to work their way over acres of carpet, with sweeping brush and dust pan being by far the preferred, and more effective, option. Our hoover is used daily for a quick whip round to keep things tidy between Stephen’s Saturday morning floor cleaning regime with brush and mop, and I empty it twice a week, Wednesdays and Sundays, as the dust storage capacity is not great.

Imagine my surprise on opening up the belly of the cleaner to find, that although it had worked perfectly well over the past couple of days, a part of its internal organs was missing, meaning that the dust and fluff had not been directed into the collecting chamber. A mild panic ensued before the renegade part was found lurking in the bottom of the paper section of the kitchen waste bins, where it must have fallen when I was emptying it all out on Wednesday.

I’m sure, after such a hairy tale, you will be as relieved as we were that it all came out right in the end, but I hope you take it as a salutary warning: if you’re not careful, your weekends too

could become as dull as ours.