A burning issue

7th August 2022

With the car in the safe hands of Ivan at the garage, where, as Stephen discovered on Thursday morning, they were waiting for a part to arrive, it was not so much a case of out of sight, out of mind, as let’s get round to thinking about another matter of importance: wood.

This has been left (foolishly, as we found out) a little late this year, as by now we have usually taken delivery of several quintali which have been safely tucked away in the garage. It was still a bit of a blow that when Stephen contacted the man the other side of Rapagnano, who supplied us last year, to order some, he was told that it was completely sold out – maybe a sign not only of our tardiness but also of people sourcing other ways of keeping warm than gas or electric.

This left us with the quandary of where to turn (of course, when I say ‘we’, what I actually mean is Stephen, and, by association, Manuel). Obviously, we couldn’t go back our previous supplier as given his performance last year, which forced us to look elsewhere, goodness knows what he would demand this year – flying in by military helicopter presumably, so Tuesday morning we (see above) started putting out feelers.

The first was when we called by at Marco and Maddalena’s house to drop off our long-handled paint roller as, while he was at work, she, being on holiday, was setting about decorating their bedroom. She sympathised with our predicament and said she would ask Samuele as he got his from somewhere near Ascoli. We said thank you, not dismissing the idea as we feared we might well be desperate enough to have firewood delivered that required a journey of 60 plus kilometres.

Stephen pursued the search when he was out and about for work after our usual breakfast and shopping trip. This had the elegant variation of having to collect an Amazon parcel from the delivery hub, which is in the Punto di Ristoro attached to Coal. This was not quite as straightforward as it sounds, for both its doors were locked. Odd, I thought, but when I went into the supermarket to mention it, Tania on the till expressed no surprise that it hadn’t been opened, handed me the keys and told me to leave the room unlocked and bring the keys back. If only everything were so simple…

…especially finding wood as Stephen found on his travels, because the garden centre on the way to Cassette D’Ete, where we bought wood four or five years ago, had none spare. A helpful customer, however, gave him the number of a place in Castellano, just beyond Sant’Elpidio di Mare. That was one possible lead. Another was courtesy of “Bertrando’s” able assistant, whose boyfriend, when he does some bizarrely esoteric festa at Christmas featuring campfires, gets the wood from a place we pass when we take the low road on our journey back from the beach. What she didn’t know was if they deliver.

That was a moot point, as was discovered after Stephen had tried the place in Castellano where the wood, like all the others, was already spoken for. The place we pass seemed like our last hope, but before enquiries could be made Stephen and Manuel had to find how to contact it. Working on the basis that we would get a better hearing (and maybe a better deal) if they heard an Italian voice rather than an English one, Stephen had gone to Manuel’s for him to do the necessaries for us. And so, once the address of the unknown potential supplier had been located using Google Maps, the bff went into action.

The initial response was lukewarm to say the least, but when the man on the other end heard that we wanted 60 quintali at €18 each, he changed his tune. This quantity is a significant increase on last year, but we reckoned that we had to make it worth their while to get the wood, but more importantly the delivery, and it’s not like it’ll go off. Besides, with the hike in price also from last year (hey, where energy is concerned, we are in a seller’s market, whichever form it comes in), we can look upon it as an investment.

This left the perennial problem of the truck, and whether their big truck was too big to manoeuvre in our driveway, not to mention get down the road and back up again. Covering all basis, Manuel called Paolo, the mayor, who unsurprisingly said that he couldn’t offer any assistance from the Comune as it was a private transaction. However, he did say that if necessary, the wood could be left on the land beside his house, which is just up the road and round the corner, a couple of minutes away. And as for transporting it from there to here, that would require someone with some sort of small bulldozer with a bucket, but Manuel said that was not a problem.

Whether it is or not has been pushed to the back burner as events on Friday morning superseded this question when Manuel called into the place actually in person. Stephen had, initially, arranged to meet him there but he had a desperately important meeting (now he is the Red Adair of the shoe industry, at least in Montegranaro). Acting unilaterally, Manuel finalised the agreement on the wood and the price and sent photos of the truck, which seemed to be fine. Time, of course, will tell, and for that you will have to wait a couple of weeks as the provisional delivery date is sometime the week beginning 22nd August.

The good news this weekend was that after a gap of two years, we were once again able to enjoy the Sagra dei Maccheroncini in Campofilone, though it wasn’t quite the same as before. The food was just as good, and our preferred location maybe even better as they had festooned the old castle walls with lights, which were also garlanded across the area, making a charming canopy as the sky darkened. The serving area for the food, though, was behind protective sheets of plexiglass (a precaution those supplying drinks didn’t seem to need) and there were significantly fewer stalls as you walked up through the town.

Fortunately, as I am about to run out of my breakfast supply, there was a man selling honey, oddly enough from the other side of Montegranaro – obviously the in place of the moment. We were just going to buy the one kilo jar blend of millefiori, but so good a salesman was he, after encouraging us to sample his single malt range, that we also bought a 500g jar of his sunflower honey (“It tastes of apricots,” he said, as indeed it did). We had met up with Marco and Maddalena earlier in the evening, so you won’t be surprised to hear that, swayed by Marco’s example, we also left with a bottle of idromele. While this might sound exotic, as perhaps it is to an Italian, it is, in fact, mead, with all those connotations to an English ear of Tudor times and hearty carousing. All we need now is sourcing a doublet and hose so we can crack open the bottle in traditional fashion – though we might pass on the codpiece; we don’t want to frighten the horses.