Guess who's coming to dinner

8th October 2023

The good thing about just popping up the coast for a weekend break is that you are able to fill up on breakfast, pay up the bar bill and be home for midday, even with a slight detour to pick up Bella and Harry. We were touched that they seemed happy to see us, and Harry was crying and whining as he waited for Stephen to attach his lead so he could, as I thought, get out of the cage to greet me. Fat lot I knew, as it wasn’t me he was interested in so much as getting out into the central area of the kennels to see what was going on. The answer was not much, as all the other dogs were safely hidden away. Still, he and Bella both seemed to be very happy to be back at LCDDB when we got there.

The start of the week actually turned out to be a bit hectic for one reason or another. Monday afternoon we sorted stuff out then Stephen gave the grass another cut. While he was doing this Mario and Luigi came down and started loading the trailer on the tractor with the pile of logs that have been seasoning on the top of the banking opposite the house. There was time for a spot of chat when Stephen came round to the front, and after chewing the fat over the wood man, Mario asked how much we had paid. Stephen told him and he paused for a moment, presumably to set his gears in motion, then said that next year they could get a truck to go and buy the wood themselves, which Stephen took to mean he would sell it on to us with a bit of a profit for himself. We shall see, but as far as we are concerned if he wants to do that and give us a fair price it will be so much easier.

Later in the afternoon we took the Panda up to Ivano at the garage as a couple of small jobs needed doing. One was replacing a rear light and the other was replacing another part inside somewhere – and that is about as precise and technical as you’re going to get from me. I was no wiser when I went to collect the car the next afternoon (I had to walk up to the garage as Stephen was in the Renegade and our time was limited, see below) and the son showed me the old part as if (a) I was interested and (b) I knew what he was talking about, but I guess it is all part of the service.

While the wood man might have had his problems (and not just with his truck), the gas man on Tuesday morning was his usual jolly self as he came and went with not trouble. Well, not for him anyway. We were about two-thirds of the way up our road on our way for breakfast at Pina when his tanker rolled over the brow. He wasn’t going to reverse so it was up to Stephen, his second favourite manoeuvre after parking, and he slowly started to edge back. “You’ll have to help me,” he said, “and watch where we’re going.” How exactly I was to do that he didn’t say, but he didn’t need to as inspiration struck.

After about ten metres he looked to the left. “We can go in the field,” he said. And why not, other people have ended up in there without planning to, and the section we were passing had almost a natural entrance, and besides, what is Jeep for if not for such emergencies. We went in the field, the tanker sailed past, Stephen did an impressive three-point turn in the road and we followed the man down. He filled the tank, we paid, he left and we headed for a delayed breakfast, secure in the knowledge that we are well-stocked with fuel of both types.

We were due at the vet’s in the evening to discuss the results of Bella’s blood analysis, and as Stephen would only make it back from work in time to head out for our 6.30 appointent, that’s why I was on Panda duty (see above). It was a bit mad when we got there, with lots of dogs and owners milling around inside and out, including a belted and booted member of the Guardia di Finanza, whose towering presence would have the most hardened embezzler admitting to anything. Unfortunately for his Alsatian snakes are harder to impress, which is why he was there to have a viper bite attended to – the dog, not him, and don’t worry, the dog was fine.

As we expected, the analysis showed some issues with Bella’s internal workings, mainly in the kidney and liver area. We discussed changing her food to one for renal support (in hand) and a bit more investigation before any other course of action is decided upon. An appointment was made for next Tuesday morning when the vet who does the scanning is present, and we went home to Harry, who had looked particularly nonplussed about being left out of the excitement – which was just as well given that the clinic was a bit like Piccadilly Circus.

If that wasn’t enough, after dinner we went to Marco and Maddalena’s for cake and a little something fizzy in belated honour of my birthday and to tell them about our weekend. We had a very fine Prosecco and an even finer piece of cheesecake – a proper baked style from the pasticceria in Monte San Giusto near where Maddalena works, and which might require further investigation. They also presented me with my birthday gift, a thing I never knew existed till I opened the parcel.

It was a card case, but one incorporating a small box, the size of a credit card funnily enough, and wide enough to take seven cards, Marco said. It’s designed to stop sneaky scanning of your details while you are just going about your business – who knew they could do that? Lots of people probably, just not me. Anyway, when you want to use a card, you slide a little knob at the bottom and the cards come out in a staggered formation and you select the one you want. Howe clever!

Stephen then had to put his busy head on as Bertrando’s enterprise had a client, let’s call him Albert, from London for a couple of days. I was told not to expect him home for dinner on Wednesday as he was on airport duty with the boss and Albert’s plane didn’t get in till 10 pm. I sorted myself accordingly, but had to rethink quickly when Stephen rolled down the hill at seven, Bertrando declaring it was stupid two people going and sent him home.

He was, ostensibly, out all the following day, including taking the client to lunch at Pina. This has now become the thing to do, there being nothing like it in London, or almost anywhere, it being true to its authentic self (which could rank number one in my list of most meaningless and annoying media phrases in current vogue), so authentic that the usual clientele looked somewhat askance at Albert’s black nail polish. It might be all very well for Spitalfields, but it takes more than that to impress a Monte San Pietrangeli scaffolder. Again, I had been told to make my own arrangements for dinner, and again Stephen surprised me with an early finish, rolling down the hill at 6.30 this time as Albert wasn’t feeling well.

He was well enough recovered by the next morning, and at last Stephen kept his word, not making it home until 11.30 after a full day and dinner at Oscar and Amarna for another trip to the 1970s. The inside has had an update since the only time I have eaten there, but all things are relative, and Albert with the innocence of youth was fascinated by the Villeroy and Boch chargers set at each place. “You mean you don’t eat off them?” he cried in wonder, as he took pictures and sent them via WhatsApp to his metro-sophisticate London friends – so if you start seeing a resurgence of chargers in all the style magazines and a feature article in Monocle, you’ll know why.

You can see that after all that we thoroughly deserved a treat this weekend, but instead we went shopping to Girasole in Campiglione as I needed to stock up on several items in L’Erbolario and followed it with burger at Il Priore. We were something of a curiosity there as we booked a table for 7pm, an unheard of time for Italians as you well know by now, and consequently while there were a lot of people milling around, they divided into three groups: (1) the waiting staff who had been on duty since it opened at six; (2) the steady stream of people arriving for and departing with takeaway pizze, and (3) the cohort of pizzaioli making them behind the counter in a corner of the restaurant (other food being seen to by the unseen cooks in the back).

There were one or two other couples who arrived while we were there, and by the time we left a little before eight, there were diners massing by the door and waiting to be seated at the tables set for large groups around the room. We felt reassured that we had made the right choice, for whilst we have no beef with anyone wanting to have a good time on a Saturday night, we prefer not to feel like, as a colleague of mine once put it many, many years ago about a popular eatery in York, we’re eating in Asda.

Someone else who obviously prefers the quiet life was the tiny scorpion I came across this morning when I was wiping down the window frames and shutters (yes, on a Sunday). I found it when I opened one of the bedroom windows, snuggled into the channel that makes an air-tight seal when the window’s closed. I managed to encourage it outside, where it dropped to the ground. It was early in the day to be taking forty winks really but I couldn’t help feeling a bit of a cad for disturbing it because, whether poisonous arachnid or grumpy human, we all like a spot of the quiet life (see above).