Felicità

As anticipated, Stephen was off bright and early on Monday morning with Mario to the tube place (an veritable extensive Aladdin’s cave of anything tubular and plastic, in any size but maybe not shape, what with them being tubes). It was a very exciting excursion for the pair of them, especially when a welcome discount was applied and Mario said that Stephen had no change, meaning it was rounded down to the nearest euro ending in 0.

Just over an hour later (so not bad going) it was our turn. I would like to give the doctor the benefit of the doubt and that it was the mask that made us more aware of his eyes, which seemed to show a mixture of suspicion and fear which only heightened when he found out that (a) we were foreign and (b) he had to do something more than hand our a few pills. When it was explained why I was there he proved less than helpful. Accepted, it is not his fault that the certificate in question no longer exists but his declaration that if it had he couldn’t issue it anyway as he has no medical records for me is. As others pointed out later, if there were no records he should have set in motion the procuring of these, either by examining me himself or by referring me to the relevant services.

The only thing, he said, that he could suggest was for us to go to the medical office in the hospital in Montegiorgio to see if they could help but no, he said in reply to Stephen’s question, it wasn’t open in the afternoon, only in the morning (not true, as we later found out, it is open till 4 pm). If he was doing a little internal jig at having washed his hands of us he must have been very disappointed when Stephen asked if it was possible for him (Stephen) to complete his registration with him (the doctor). You won’t be surprised that Mr Medico started ducking and diving, saying that he couldn’t do it without this or that piece of paper and besides it wasn’t automatic that we could register with him (which begs the question why his name is on the form that we complete at Fermo when renewing our health card).

After some fifteen minutes we left, no better than when we entered other than having wasted half the morning. However, before we started on Plan B (when we had thought of one) I sent a message to Alessandra, the daughter of the headmistress, who had given me her number at the end of my ‘interview’, saying what the situation was and asking how they wanted me to proceed. There was no reply. Fortunately for us, however, Stephen had to go to see Manuel at his office in the afternoon and when business was completed he told his bff about our fiasco with doctor and Mr International Businessman immediately got the bit between his teeth on our behalf.

To sum up his ninety minutes phoning here, there and almost everywhere in a nutshell (albeit of walnut rather than hazelnut size): indeed the certificate in question no longer exists, the nearest being the one required for doing any form of sport but there is a self-certification form available on the Internet (“I am very fit and healthy, signed Me”) and I would need to find out exactly from the school what they need so we can follow this up. Manuel also called the doctor to say that his behaviour was not correct and the latter continued to take evasive action, though he did call back some twenty minutes later to say that the only other thing he could think of was to go to the Medico Legale (“But that’s the coroner!” exclaimed Computer Luca when we subsequently told him about it) for the tests required by the school to form my own special bespoke certificate. On a more positive note (or maybe that should be a hopefully negative one), Manuel was able to supply us with a place in Piano di Montegiorgio where I pay for a Covid test, which we put in the diary for Thursday morning.

As something of a relaxing interlude, on Wednesday afternoon we went on a shopping expedition to Civitanova, though not as glamorous as last week’s one. We headed first to Globo (imagine TK Maxx for the common man) to source items for our costumes. “What costumes?” you are no doubt rightly exclaiming, to which the answer is, “The ones for Claudia’s 80’s fluorescent pool party to celebrate her birthday this coming Saturday.” “But aren’t you leaving it a bit late?” you further exclaim, to which the reply is, “Yes, but seeing as we were only told to keep the date and did not receive the invitation saying what the event actually was until last Thursday, we were on a relatively tight time scale.” This is why Stephen spent hours over the weekend raking through boxes of clothes (yes, we still have things in boxes from the move) as well as sending off for various items from Amazon and having my vintage green silk Kenzo suit cleaned for the Miami Vice vibe should it be needed (but not for me as I can no longer get in it) as he has not only our two selves to sort out but also Luca and his brother, Alessio.

This is why we were scouring the Globo store on Wednesday afternoon, coming away with a Real Housewives of Montegranaro white bum bag and a selection of day glow t-shirts before heading to Cuore Adriatico for a very nice caffellatte freddo while we waited to rendezvous with Shoe Marco. He managed to get a few minutes away from his office to deposit a bag of various appropriate items, including trainers and a multi-coloured bomber jacket, with Stephen before dashing away again.

With things progressing with the costumes for the party, it was back to matters work related on Thursday and the Covid test. As planned, we set off for EMO Test arriving just after 8am, thinking that is when it would open, only to find a large group of people waiting outside, socially distanced and masked as the centre, which I found out when taking my numbered ticket from the machine by the door and seeing the display of opening times, actually opened at 7.

How much use it would have been arriving earlier I’m not sure, for in the first twenty minutes or so only three numbers were called for people to go in, but after 8.30 things speeded up considerably (presumably the day shift had arrived) and my number was called shortly before 9. I registered with a fearsome lady at the desk (there is something in only seeing the eyes of officials that is disconcerting) and then waited a few minutes before it was my turn to go into the small medical room where an alarmingly young man, who looked like he was on a Youth Opportunity placement, took my blood sample. In just over an hour we were heading home with me clutching the passwords necessary to retrieve the result (negative) on line the next day.

In the afternoon, still not having received a reply from Alessandra, I sent a message to her mother, the headmistress, saying that I had taken the Covid test but what was I to do about the certificate. Less than five minutes later I received a message from Alessandra (I will leave you to draw your own conclusions on that one) saying not to worry, it wasn’t urgent and we could talk about it next week at the meeting at the school – which, by the way, was on Wednesday and not Tuesday as I was previously told, but still at 10 a.m. So, it looks like it’s as we were where all that is concerned.

The third thing lesson oriented was in the evening when I had a meeting with a new student, Fouzia, a young woman who lives in MSP. She had contacted me last week when I was ‘on holiday’ and then following a series of messages we arranged for her to come for a chat. She is something of a departure for me as usually my older students have a degree of English but she has very little – her second (if not first) language is French as she is originally from Morocco though she moved here with her family when she was young. She is very keen to learn though, for work and travel as is the usual case, and wants three lessons a week starting next Wednesday.

In what turned out to be another action-packed day, we had a date at Marco and Maddalena’s for aperitivo cena – or apericena if you are a member of the in-crowd. Wine, light bites, good conversation and holiday snaps of the Amalfi coast made for a very pleasant way to end the day.

By contrast, Friday provided a little bit of respite, especially for Stephen as it was his last beach day of his summer break. I meanwhile had a conversation with a new exchange partner, Fausto, who lives in a small village above Bologna and who speaks incredibly good English albeit with an American accent as he lived and worked there for eight years when he was younger and returns regularly. I also received a message from another person needing my English services, Alice, the sister of Marco who I taught for a short period before Covid intervened. She has to make a presentation in English and wanted to have an hour or so of my time to go over it with me. She is slated to come next Tuesday evening, so after months of doing nothing I have suddenly found myself with my time starting to fill up – which can only be a good thing, can’t it?

This brings us to Saturday, party day, and to get the ball rolling Luca and Alessio arrived in the morning to get kitted up (nothing like being prepared well in advance). They were suitably pleased with their look, and we also found out from Luca a little more about the way the evening was to roll out. The start time on the invitation was 17.30, but this was for the gathering round the pool with drinks and nibbles but the dinner was not due to start until 20.30 (which means 21.00 at the earliest – as it proved). Our quandary was how long we could leave the dogs: if we arrived for the start then we would have to leave sometime around the first course, but if we arrived later, would we miss some of the fun? With regard to the latter, Luca said no one would be there for 17.30, it is just not what Italians do and so we arranged to pick him and Alessio up at their mum’s house, ten minutes from Casa Azzurra where the event was to be held, at 18.30 (this is beginning to sound like one of those old maths problems, “If a train leaves…), which we thought was a reasonable compromise.

So it was that we around 18.45 the four of us descended on the pool, where maybe about twenty people were already gathered, to the great delight of Claudia. This was due to two main things: one, that she is a wonderfully positive person who finds everything fabulous, and two, we made quite an entrance in our 80s drag, partly because apart from her cousin, no one else had bothered (fulfilling another of Luca’s prophecies) but mainly, thanks to Stephen, we did look, even if I say so myself, tremendous. “The top of the top of the top,” as one woman said to us, while Claudia kept calling us “I fantastici” and various others took our photos. We didn’t, however, steal her thunder, as her happiness as she greeted a steady stream of arrivals over the next hour or so outshone even our star.

As for the meal, it was a very happy occasion, consisting of three fish courses alternating with different kinds of pizze (the two things for which the agriturismo is noted), and, shockingly, no pasta! Being Italy, there was much wandering and chatting between courses and also DIY entertainment as each table in turn was called upon to sing. You were able to find your place on the seating plan as each table was named after a famous Italian pop song of the 80’s, and ours was Felicità by Italian power couple Al Bano and Romina (daughter of Tyrone) Power. As luck would have it, this was the first song to come up on the play list and as we were only four (the fifth member, Luca’s cousin, was stuck in traffic after setting off fireworks at someone’s wedding – it being her job, not out of devilry) and neither Stephen nor I had ever knowingly heard it before in our lives, things looked a bit dodgy. However, Claudia called on Simone, the MC of the evening, to give us a boost and as I was in character I thought I might as well give it all I had regardless. We caused a storm. I’m still not convinced I heard Simone correctly when he whispered that I should sing “sempre un dottore” as “always a doctor” doesn’t strike me as the sort of lyric you usually get in a disco anthem (even easy listening Italian style) but declaring it with gusto seemed to be very well received. I just pity all the others who had to follow us; it can’t have been easy.

With all this, it was getting on for midnight before we got to the cutting of the cake, but as soon as this was done we said goodbyes to Claudia and thanked her for a truly fabulous evening, full of fun, warmth and good-humour and headed home to our babies. Bella and Harry were ecstatic to see us, you’d have thought we had been away for a fortnight, but more importantly they had managed to keep their legs crossed, which can’t have been easy it being almost seven hours. But how, I hear you ask, after such an eventful evening, do you avoid the next day being an anti-climax? Why, make tomato chutney, of course. I can recommend it.