Déjà vu

4th September 2022

If Stephen thought the previous week was busy, it was as nothing compared with the last one which started, as expected, with an early return, his third visit in four days, to the paint place in Corridomnia. He was there as it opened, collected the paint, returned, sprayed the renegade piece and set off to work all well before 9am. He did manage to get home for lunch, which was good for me as otherwise I wouldn’t have had to go twelve hours without a glimpse of him, as his paint job coincided with my morning walk with Bella and Harry.

While his week was busy, busy, busy, mine was still on the sedate side thanks to the tail end of the holidays. The start of September did see me with two lessons, and you will be thankful that I was able to bear up under the pressure. What did occupy a portion of my (or maybe our would be more appropriate) time was the rearing once more of the ugly head of the affair of the driving licence.

You may or may not recall that when I renewed my licence back in April, it turned out to be for only six months. Because I was, without realising it, permitted to drive a range of outlandish vehicles, it ran out on this year’s milestone birthday and would require renewing every year thereafter. Obviously, not planning to take any coach tours round the ruins of Pompeii, we were told that we would be able to change the licence to plain and simple motor cars.

When we called at Scuola Europa after doing the shopping on Tuesday morning, the nice man behind the counter said that yes, that was possible, but because we were changing the licence and not simply renewing it, it would cost €140 – a good little earner for someone. It was a bit of a pill to swallow, but we consoled ourselves with the fact that it was still much cheaper than paying for a new licence every year. I passed over my current one for the man to make a photocopy, which I duly signed (it is Italy remember), so all that is left is to return next Tuesday evening at 7.00 (for, if the past is anything to go by, an 8.30 start) and in the interim call by with two photos.

This is why Wednesday evening found us at Girasole, being the nearest place with a photograph booth. To make the trip worth our while we combined it with some window shopping, that turned into actual shopping when we snuck into Imperial, seduced by their sale, where Stephen bought a pair of trousers and two linen t-shirts, in beige which, he said, was the di moda colour. He also, as an early birthday present, bought me a blue linen and cotton shirt, which, like his purchases, was reduced by 70%. I had thought that a €100 shirt for €30 was a bargain; how much more of one is it for nothing?

If that wasn’t enough, we popped into Il Priore, just round the corner from the shopping centre, for a burger and chips. This was a guilty pleasure and one to be kept secret from Dottoressa Sara, especially as Stephen, obviously hell bent on the pleasures of the flesh, suggested we have frittura mista as a starter, which apart from a couple of olive ascolana, two or three fried mozzarella cubes and some vegetable julienne in batter, was mainly a plate of patatine fritte. Yes, chips followed by chips, but before you judge us too harshly there were mitigating circumstances.

When the booth delivered my photos, I was more than a little shocked by how drawn and gaunt (though some could say chiselled and patrician) my face looked. “That’s how it is now,” were Stephen’s words of consolation, whereas I wondered if there were such a thing as fat face cake. Probably not, and settling for carbohydrate packing my cheeks seemed the next best possible option.

Thursday was the first day of a new month, but for Stephen it was a return to his latest favourite spot, the paint shop in Corridonia. Flushed with his success with the leather, this time it was for some silver and some gold paint to spray buckles. Actually, he had to go twice, making it five visits in seven days, as in the morning they again said they would have to mix the colours and they would be ready at 3 that afternoon. He left it till 4, but only the silver was ready; the dark gold wasn’t so he still had to take one off the shelf, (I hope you are as fascinated as I am by this snapshot of the glamourous world of international fashion).

This time, when he came home, he had to do his spraying in the garage, using the logs to rest the buckles on (eat your heart out Tom Ford), the weather having decided to greet September by turning unsettled for a couple of days, with rain in the afternoons. As for the buckles, Stephen was even more pleased with them than the leather - I just wonder whether I should be worried about what he’ll titivate next.

Any such thoughts took a back seat on Friday morning. I had to do the shopping on my own, which meant that after Stephen monopolising the Panda, it was my turn while he took the Freeclimber. This hadn’t been used since the previous week, when on arriving home Stephen had said that not only hadn’t he been able to engage anything higher than second gear but that there was also an odd, burning smell. Yes, we were foolish not to have it looked at, and yes, Stephen was foolish in that case to drive off for an early assignation with Bertrando and a last manufacturer, and yes what ensued had more than a passing resemblance to déjà vu, including Stephen phoning me as I was halfway on the morning walk.

There were a couple of slight differences, though, because this time when the Freeclimber sailed to a halt it was on the road to Montegranaro rather than Monte San Giusto, and instead of Manuel being called upon to ride to the rescue, Bertrando filled the role of Stephen’s saviour by collecting him and taking him to see Ivano, our friendly garage man. “I thought you were going to sell it,” said Ivano, which had Stephen humming and hawing before asking him to go and collect it, saying he would be back that afternoon.

When he did return, it was to the news that it was the turn of the accelerator to take its ball home, and that it would be upwards of €400 to fix. It will have to be done because we can’t sell it as is, and until we get our act together and source a replacement there will be occasions when my lessons pick up again in the autumn that we will need two cars. As for the immediate problem as to how Stephen was to get home, Bertrando kindly said that he could take the work’s Fiat Punto, but that didn’t get him all the way, not really being made for our road. I went to collect him from the top, where the car was left overnight before we moved it to the zona industriale car park, the spaces not being needed for the workers on a Saturday. This morning in a military-style operation, Stephen drove it back to the office in Montegranaro with me following in the Panda, because if he drove the Uno back tomorrow, there would still be the problem of how he got home.

As for me, apart from needing the Panda for the shopping on Friday morning, I also had to take my photos to Scuola Europa. The man cut off the two copies he needed – we had not done this, for while it seems an easy operation, we didn’t want to contravene some bizarre bureaucratic Italian stipulation about where to cut or how to cut or which make of scissors to use. He then, presumably because we are changing the categories on the licence, asked me to sign a document, and then another one, and another… I think in all I wrote my signature, or at least a close approximation of it as my interest dwindled, about seventeen times, sometimes twice on one page. The powers that be obviously want to make really sure that I definitely don’t want to be available to drive a tank; they’ll just have to find someone else to do that for them in times of national crisis.