Sold!

13th November 2022

Monday was notable for two major events. The first was that, after mulling things over and an intensive (for us, that is) conversation over spring rolls at Diverxo the previous day, I received a message from Stephen mid-afternoon, after much soul searching, to say that he was sure it was the right car. Presumably, he had reconciled himself to driving around in a white car that, given the Renegade’s shape, looked, in his words, like an ambulance. He phoned Mr P the next day to say yes.

As for the second event, following on from a couple of evenings with a blast of heat from the radiators, Monday witnessed our first fire of the season when Stephen set the wood and lit it after he came home. Needless to say, Bella and Harry were more than appreciative and took up position on their bed by the fireplace, and I too was appreciative of the cheering flames now the nights are dark by 6.

Something less welcome occurred on Wednesday morning shortly after we had sat down to breakfast when at 7.07 I wondered why Harry had thrown himself against my chair. He hadn’t of course, for while he has many talents, making the house shake isn’t one of them. It was the earthquake that hit the fault that runs below the Adriatic, and whilst it was some way off the coast the effects were felt well inland. We did what is advised and went outside, where the land was still trembling enough from the initial shock for the gates at the bottom of the stairs to rattle and the fruit on the persimmon tree to quiver for a good two or three minutes.

We learned afterwards that it was the strongest in that area since t 1930, and was followed by over 60 little aftershocks. As Stephen shared this factoid with me in the evening, those 60 obviously didn’t include the one that rocked me as I was sitting enjoying a coffee and a bit of downtime on Thursday evening. That one was not so strong; indeed Stephen wasn’t aware of it till I told him, but two in two days is really too much of a bad thing.

Other than the earth moving, the remainder of the week was taken up with this and that. I had a visit to the dentist on Thursday morning for a scale and polish by the nice young woman that now sees to that, and a quick check by Claudia. All seemed ok, but I have to go back in February for a more thorough examination. Friday evening Stephen discovered the joys of dog walking in the dark as my lesson with Diego and Marzia was delayed an hour due to an overrunning test and the non-appearance of a scheduled bus, joys that included discovering that while Bella and Harry might look spooky by torchlight, they don’t look quite so eerie as the sunflowers with their triffid vibe.

Although we had told Mr P that we had given the Renegade the thumbs up, we still had to make it official by going in to dot the i’s and cross the t’s and sign a copious number of forms as is the Italian way. Actually, there weren’t that many, only about five, and Stephen only had to sign his name maybe seven or eight times, a mere nothing when compared to the paperwork and signatures involved in renting a post box for a year. There are, of course, a couple of things to sort before we can actually take possession, minor things like transferring my life savings and arranging for the insurance. Mr P also mentioned something about a form for Stephen to sign saying that he was selling the Freeclimber to the company, but we will have to take further instruction on that as we really don’t know what he meant, and he wasn’t able to offer any clarification.

To celebrate, we stopped off at Totò on the way home for aperitivo. They must have known it was a special occasion as it was a particularly fine selection and the pieces of pizza were, we thought, a little larger than usual. And the excess didn’t stop there as taking home a blueberry crostata meant pudding and a glass of wine in front of the TV kept the party going till the small hours, or, as we call it, 10 o’clock.

This morning saw the onset of rain, which came in waves of varying intensity throughout the day, and with the same forecast for the foreseeable future I think we can definitely say goodbye to the recent milder days. Marooned at home, we were left with having to make our own fun and this evening we took the retrograde step of plugging in the DVD. Call us picky, but with the whole of Amazon Prime and Netflix to choose from, we couldn’t find anything that appealed other than the handful that are already part of our weekly schedule. (Note: we don’t binge watch, in fact we are the opposite. For example, with Bridgerton, whose episodes were well over an hour, we would watch one half one Sunday and the second half the following Sunday, thereby getting twice the pleasure.) So what did we opt for? A DVD collection that has been waiting patiently since last Christmas of John Alderton and Pauline Collins (ask your parents) starring in the BBC comedy series, Wodehouse Playhouse. They don’t, as they say, make them like that anymore. Considering the inclination of the scenery to shake now and again that might be a good thing, but I’ll take it any day over the soullessness of CGI.