Bright Spark

29th November 2020

It’s just as well Stephen wrapped up the lemon trees last week as this one set off on a distinctly chilly note. The temperature was only reading 2C when we got up on Monday and Bella and Harry were not for hanging around on their early morning walk. Given that there was ground frost for the first time this year one could hardly blame them, and in another first Stephen had to de-ice the car before he could go to the factory.

In another acknowledgement that the days were getting colder he also, on his return, took down the fly screen from the front door. We are maybe a little later in doing this than our neighbours, but up until recently mid-morning temperatures were still warm enough to leave the door open for Harry and Bella to potter in and out. Now, though, with the thermometer struggling to make double figures the door needs to be kept closed. This means that we have to be ready to jump to attention to open it should Harry or Bella want to sniff the air to see if it is worth their while reclining on the outside bed for a spell – which usually it isn’t but it doesn’t stop them checking what seems like every other minute.

And that was as about as exciting as we thought our week would be until Thursday morning. As you know, we are early risers and when Stephen set out just after 6.30 for Harry and Bella’s pre-breakfast stroll it was to the sound of fizzing and the sight of sparks flying off the power cable that brings electric to the house. The fact that it was less than two metres from where hits the wall to run down to the metre was of concern for while the actual lively spot seemed to be only a centimetre or so in length, having our own mini son e lumière show almost within touching distance of the terrazzo was slightly worrying.

There was little we could do at that moment, it being too early to call the electricity supplier and switching off the mains to the house wouldn’t stop the power travelling along the damaged cable. We got on with the morning and then whilst I was out with Harry and Bella for their main morning walk Stephen called the power company. This was not a total success. After spending 20 minutes making his way up the queue he eventually got through to an operative who told him that it wasn’t anything they could see to and that he should contact the local office. She then gave him a number to call and hung up immediately he had repeated it, however when he tried the number, it wasn’t operative – so thanks a lot for that.

Rather than try again, and as he was due to go to the factory, Stephen decided he would take the paperwork and ask Marina in the office to call Enel (the national power company responsible for the infrastructure rather than our obviously tin pot supplier) on our behalf. This was more successful – eventually, for Italy is no different to the UK and before you are able to speak with a real live human being, who may or may not have the ability, knowledge or inclination to be of assistance, you have to navigate a labyrinth of automated menus. There was an added challenge to this as at one point Marina was asked to input the customer contact telephone number that was shown on the documentation – only there wasn’t one. Eventually, however, she managed to get through to a real person who said that someone would be round to the house as soon as possible.

And indeed they were, surprisingly so by Italian standards as Stephen only just managed to beat the engineer to the house, which is just as well as I was otherwise engaged in the shower, having finished my morning chores not because I had been lounging about eating chocolate. The engineer surveyed the problem and said (after Stephen had shown him the video he had taken earlier as by now the sun had dried off the cable and it was not cooperating by reprising its earlier performance) that yes, the cable would need to be replaced but he wasn’t sure if they would be able to get the necessary machinery down the road and they might need the mountain 4x4 and he didn’t know where that was as they only had one.

This is why he then phoned his boss. His boss’s initial reaction was to ask if we were sure that the cable was in such a bad state, because presumably he’s constantly having people phoning him up erroneously claiming that their electricity is indeed a real live wire. Fortunately, Stephen also had photos of the effervescent cable that he was able to send to the engineer who then forwarded them to the capo who then believed us. Stephen’s new friend, Matteo the engineer from Pedaso, then departed, after showing him pictures on his phone of his English Staffordshire bull terrier, Kenya, with the assurance that someone would be either that afternoon or the next morning.

Having past experience of such promises, we were not holding our breath but indeed a little after 2pm a white transit van appeared on the road – but then disappeared again. What we thought was a false alarm actually proved the opposite as the van had gone to make a recce of the box and wires at the top of the road before returning a little later, with a smaller van in convoy and, after a short while, a digger and a white car. This latter was the boss man (whether the same as the one in the morning, who knows). He only stayed a short while to check that all was in order for the work to proceed, which it obviously was as the four men in various combinations then shimmied up ladders and got on with replacing the cable.

This makes it all sound very simple, but it obviously wasn’t as the electricity supply was off for three and a half hours. While this was fine by us, a few hours without power being a small price to pay to do away with a combustible cable, I’m not sure how la famiglia Mogliani managed as they are on the same main circuit as we are – as indeed are two other houses and the Faro Box factory. We’re not convinced that these people warned about the imminent disruption to their supply, as Luigi only seemed to find out because he wandered by on a walk with Billy and stopped to ask what was happening.

I am happy to say that since Thursday all has been reassuringly calm, if not, indeed, comfortingly dull, with nothing of any sort of interest to report other than that the new cable seems to be in fine fettle. This is just as well as when its predecessor was taken down and opened up for the engineers to inspect, Stephen said that the inside was completely burned away. Given that today has been a complete turnaround from the beginning of the week, and instead of frosty sunshine we have had persistent, and at times heavy, rain Thursday’s sparkler would surely have turned into a full out bonfire display, in more ways than one.