A Christmas cornucopia

20th December 2020

It has been another fairly uneventful week, but I will try my best to breath an air of excitement and expectation into these days of advent while we wait to find out if the Comune of Monte San Pietrangeli is going to turn a blind eye to Santa Claus breaking the 10pm curfew in order to bring joy to its beleaguered citizens.

One place doing its best to raise the festive cheer is Pina, as we discovered when we made our first post-orange breakfast stop on Tuesday morning. It was indeed a winter wonderland, with every available surface - including some additional display space drafted in especially for the occasion – bedecked with an embarrassing richness of Christmas ornaments and decorations, gift ideas, and panettoni. Whether it was this abundance or anti-Covid measures that meant there was nowhere to sit down in the bar I couldn’t possibly say, but when we were eventually served with our cappuccini and pieces of crostata (there being a bit of a queue) Amalia directed us through the door at the back and to the solitary table in the VIP seating area.

Under normal day to day circumstances this is what would be considered the reception, but as the double doors to the street were decidedly shut and, indeed, blocked by boxes and cartons of a Christmas bent it was obviously not going to see any passing trade signing the register. It was certainly a first, breakfasting amidst boxes, cartons and carrier bags overspilling with Christmas and other less identifiable goodies, but that is why we love Pina; it always marches to the beat of its own inimitable drum.

From there we went to Conad, where we made the momentous decision to sign up for their Christmas lunch. We had been dithering about what to cook and Stephen had mentioned about their menu last week, but with no firm decision made and when faced with the attraction of someone else not only deciding the menu but also cooking it, we opted for the path of least resistance. Some may call it a cop out; we call it making a strategic choice in the interest of the local economy. We told the nice lady behind the counter to sign us up for two meals, who laughed off as ridiculous Stephen’s attempt to put us down under the name of Webster, preferring the easier option of gli inglesi instead.

Having got all that gripping stuff out of the way I won’t detain you for very much longer as no doubt you have a thousand and one things to do considering the time of year. Here then is a gallop through the remainder of the week.

Thursday was a bit of a red-letter day for me as I went shopping in the afternoon for a few bits and pieces that have to remain a closely guarded secret between Santa and me. This might not sound all that earth shattering, but as we are more than a little circumspect in choosing our shopping expeditions and this was the first time I had flown solo in retail land since before March, you will see it was a big deal for me.

On Friday we had an address by that nice Mr Conti, the Prime Minister, outlining his plans for turning Italy into a red zone for most of the days over Christmas and New Year. I read a report on the BBC news site that it was because positive numbers were rising; this is not the case. The numbers rose then fell and have been holding fairly steady in the teens, and the restrictions over the holiday period are to ensure that they don’t spike again – which all seems very sensible to us though how the Italian mammas feel about it may be quite another matter.

We had a visit yesterday morning from Loris, the pipe man, who brought his bill (made out to: ‘Stiven, the house below Mario and Luigi’) for the work done when relaying the water pipe. We were not surprised at the time gap as being of the old school Loris, we knew, likes to keep to quarter days to sort out his finances and so had the money set aside against him appearing shortly before 25th. In the afternoon Stephen, in between bottling the pere cotogne liqueur, added a couple more festive touches by augmenting our decorations with a light arrangement atop the chimney breast, a finishing touch of which I heartily approve.

Fittingly, I have kept the best news to last - because it only happened today. While we were taking our customary post-luncheon coffee and sit down in the back room up popped a notification on my iPad that I’d received an e-mail. Trying to contain my excitement for maybe it was just an anomaly I tentatively opened up Safari and successfully carried out a search on Google. Stephen was naturally sceptical when I told him that the signal seemed to have reset fully but changed his tune when he too was able to access the Internet from his chair in the corner, as far away as it is possible to get from the router. We have, I am delighted to say, a full service back in operation and while we might have our fingers permanently crossed against any sort of interruption to the electricity supply, it is good to know that once again good things come to those who wait…and wait…and wait…