Freeze and put your hands in the air

10th January 2021

After getting away with our illegal breakfast last week we were not so lucky this week when the long arm of the law caught up with us and we slipped further down that rocky slope to a life, if not of crime, at least of degeneracy.

Before we come to that, the week began as befits early January after the excitement (?) of Christmas and New Year in a suitably muted style. Stephen returned from a quick visit to check on things at the factory with eggs and lemons courtesy of Mrs C, for me, she said, to make a cake. Seeing as we still have panettoni, biscuits and an embarrassment of chocolate goodies to work our way through, a cake is the last thing we need to make us even fatter. Instead, Stephen put the eggs to better use in spaghetti carbonara while the lemons will be sliced up to add flavour either to Stephen’s breakfast cup of tea (I prefer milk) or our weekend g&ts.

Tuesday saw Stephen making a start on sorting out his books to send to his accountant. It hasn’t, you won’t be surprised to learn, been one of his busiest years, which is just as well as he still hasn’t finished them. This is not totally his fault, or so he claims, but rather that of his bank and Apple; the bank because it has changed the nature of their documents so he is unable to isolate the pages that are relevant for the accountant, and Apple for issuing an update that meant the way Stephen used to edit his document no longer seems to exist. Such is progress.

It was while he was engaged on his paperwork that he was called away to answer the beep of the post woman, who had come all the way down to the house - the reason being that she had a registered letter that needed to be signed for. It was all a bit of a mystery as when it was opened it seem to say that this one was to inform him that there was another, official, letter that was waiting for him at the post office. How unlike life in Italy to make things so bureaucratically complex: why send one letter when you can send two and involve a trip to see our friend Paolo?

With Wednesday being Epifania and therefore a public holiday to allow La Befana to distribute her gifts, it was Thursday morning before Stephen could collect the letter, which turned out to be a notification of a speeding fine. We knew it wasn’t going to be anything good, but at least he had the satisfaction when he worked out the date and location of the infringement that the culprit was me. He did, however, appreciate the irony that I had managed in one of the two non-work related journeys during the current restrictions to be caught speeding by one of the blue boxes.

What is even more ironic, and which caused him much amusement, is that in general I am punctilious about keeping to the speed limit whereas other members of this household, who shall remain nameless, are not, and I am constantly having people overtaking me on bends and round corners and even sometimes on the straight and narrow. At the end of the autostrada leading into Civitanova, while I slow down to 80 then 50 then 40 to comply with the signs the other drivers go whizzing past. So how, therefore, did I come to join the dark side? Simple, by a moment’s inattention. Let me explain.

The offence occurred on the morning I was driving back from the seeing Claudia, the dentist, in October. On leaving the town of Mogliano, you go down a long, steep hill with houses at either side that gradually give way to country side. At the bottom of this hill is placed (I refrain from saying strategically) a speed camera. It is very easy, therefore, to find that instead of doing the permitted 50km per hour if you don’t keep a wary foot over the brake you can soon find yourself edging 60. And this, dear reader, is what happened to me, and before I had time to bring my speed back down I had triggered the camera and been consigned to the box marked boy racer.

There is little consolation in the fact that it was, if not a one off, a very rare occasion or that, as Mr Carelli said when Stephen told the factory about it, that lots of people are caught out there. There may be some the bravery in Stephen taking the rap and, when he went to pay the fine on Friday morning, having it logged under his name as the registered driver. That, I suppose, makes it three misdemeanours in less than two weeks. I wonder if Ma Baker started out this way…

You won’t be surprised, therefore, that we finished the week lying low, a course of action made even more advisable by the weather turning decidedly grey and wet today. There were a couple of things, however, to break the monotony. One was Stephen putting up our new clock in the kitchen, a Christmas present from Marco and Maddalena, and the other was a new conversation partner, Emanuele in the Veneto region, with whom I chatted this afternoon.

We had a very pleasant chinwag, even if he is a bit of young shaver at a sprightly 45 years old. I think he thought I would be a good person to contact because he works in the leather business and therefore knows this area of Le Marche and some of the shoe factories reasonably well. Another thing that we have in common is that we are both dog owners, though when he sent me a picture of his Great Dane, Alano, sprawled across a sofa that might or might not be his bed it seems more likely that he actually owns a small pony. We may have two to his one, but one thing is for sure, they take up far less room.