Ho ho ho

25th December 2022

By rights, I should start by wishing both my readers the compliments of the season, but by time they read this Christmas will have dwindled into the past. I will, instead, offer my wishes that it was happy, and a good time was had by all.

There are, though, six other days to account for, so let’s start at the beginning, or almost.

We had thought that Tuesday morning’s shopping trip, with no visit to the Post Office but with the planned addition of one to the baker’s, would be fairly straightforward. Not so, with the first hiccup occurring at Pina when Stephen thought he would do a spot of Christmas shopping in the form of a panettone in a fetching tin, as so many are now, and a smaller tin with biscuits. He accepted the offer of gift wrapping, which meant putting each in a branded bag to match with a dash of festive ribbon and smattering of self-adhesive jewels. This should have been a simple process, and it was as far as the biscuits were concerned, but the panettone took some time as the stapler broke. As we had time to kill while repairs were effected, I checked out the magazines on the stand and can share with you a discovery apparently known previously only to the magazine Diva – that Kate of England is secretly plotting to overthrow Charles and become queen, with immediate effect. Those Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’s, what are they like?

Ah well, we thought, we can make up time in Conad as our shopping list was on the lighter side. We did indeed whip round, but things slowed down at the checkout, where one of the elders of the town was taking her time with her purchases, including having bottles of water set aside and labelled for someone to collect later and taking up the offer of a six-pack of Christmas glasses, a bargain at only €6.99.

Ah well, we thought, it won’t take long at the baker’s, but that was overlooking our innate inability to make decisions. We knew we wanted a serpente, the little-known MSP Christmas delicacy, to give as a present, and also a panettone for home consumption, but which to buy – classic, chocolate, pistachio…? In the end, with the help of the nice lady behind the counter, we compromised and bought two, a classic and a chocolate… but only medium size so don’t judge.

Ah well, we thought, at least Stephen can have a quick turnaround when we get home so he won’t be too late getting to work, and all seemed well as we drove down the road and passed Mario and Luigi who were pruning not insubstantial branches from the various trees that grow alongside it. We waved and carried on, but as we turned the corner into our driveway we seemed to hit or run over something. On stopping the car in front of the house, Stephen’s suspicions were confirmed when the impediment revealed itself to be the telephone cable that the brothers had managed to sever along with the branches.

This was not necessarily a big problem, as it is now a few years since we ditched the ineffective landlocked TIM for an EOLO dish and the cable is no longer in use, and besides, the brothers had already cut through it at the top of the hill sometime last year during previous landscaping husbandry endeavours. It did, though, require, a post-mortem and a winding up of cable, which stretched for some length, and which, like the milk on Manor Farm, mysteriously disappeared.

The next few days were taken up with the general things that occupy one at this time. Despite Stephen saying that we weren’t going to have a Christmas tree, he arrived home on Wednesday with one for me, but as it is less than a foot tall, we were able to accommodate it without major disruption. Thursday, he made a whistle stop return in the late afternoon as Bernardo had said that if they got the work up to date they could take the next day off, which meant that Stephen had to come back to get the presents for him and the nice assistant which he had anticipated taking the next day. As it happened, he still had to go in on Friday afternoon as a particular client was proving a little intractable and Stephen was called upon to shout at him in the politest way possible. He would have been late home, but when he and the boss started to head up the main road to Porto Sant’Elpidio to visit a sole factory, they gave up on account of the Christmas traffic

Thursday evening we had dinner at Marco and Maddalena’s, just a simple one she said, which meant there were only three courses plus desert. Friday morning Stephen had his haircut before, it being Christmas, we both did the shopping. It was pretty calm, though with a bit of a queue at Pia we decided to divide and conquer: I did the fruit and veg while Stephen saw to the meat. In the event, he was finished first as people were buying joints rather than having slices pounded by Pia, and the woman in front of him was just placing her order of €165, thankfully for collection the next day.

Friday evening we treated ourselves to burger and chips at the pub, but there was a bit of a wait as they were having problems with the fryer. It was relatively busy for such a comparatively early hour (7.30), with the motley mix gathered including a trio of youths who must have started their celebrations earlier that day and were just about capable of standing if they supported each other. They did, though, seem to forget about their food order as they went to sit outside and somehow had trouble remembering to come back inside to eat it. We didn’t mind, seeing as they also had trouble remembering to close the door.

It was altogether a more sober affair when we went into the centre yesterday morning with a mission or two in mind. The first was to collect a signed-for letter from the Post Office, which fell to my lot, while Stephen went to collect next year’s stock of refuse bags from the Comune’s depot. We thought that each of these might involve some time in a queue, but we actually met up quite quickly, there being only one person ahead of Stephen and of the three before me, one was just finishing and the other two had quick transactions. As for the letter, when we opened that it was from the aforementioned Comune informing us of a missed payment of rates in 2018 (yes, some time ago…) and requesting payment.

This struck us as somewhat odd, as not only are we punctilious that side of life, but we also always pay the two tranches at the same time, so why would one be paid and the other not? Fortunately, Stephen has kept all the documents relating to the house since we moved in, and when he got out the folder later, he found the relevant payment slip showing receipt of the money. Let’s hope it’s a simple matter of proffering the proof when we call in at the offices early next week.

Before heading home we had a couple more stops to make. The first was at the old but recently refurbished church in the square to look at the art exhibition on display there, as well as the even more recently returned altar piece of the Madonna with Child, Saints and Apostles, painted in the early 16th century and formerly at the Church of San Francisco, the one at the top of the town, which seemed like a good thing to do on Christmas Eve morning.

After such an exciting half hour, we reckoned we deserved a treat, which meant cappuccino and cake at Pina, even though it wasn’t Tuesday. They had reinforcements behind the bar, which just meant two of the daughters of the establishment who must have been home for the holidays from university, leaving the others free to wrap up any last-minute gifts that may be needed – stapler permitting.

And then it was home to shut the door on the outside world and spend the next couple of days relaxing (once I had the stuffing prepared and the bread sauce made yesterday afternoon for our Anglo-Italian Christmas lunch) with just the four of us. What more could one wish for than good food, good wine, good company and a Knives Out mystery on Netflix.