Hot as a pistol

26th September 2021

You won’t be surprised to learn that with the main mover and shaker of the family being otherwise engaged in Milan, the business capital of Italy, my week holding the fort at LCDDB was on the quiet side. It wasn’t all twiddling my thumbs, though, as apart from domestic duties, things began starting up again on the lesson front.

Monday saw the return of Fouzia, which while it didn’t herald a busy week workwise was a sign that things were warming up. Tuesday I should have had my first lesson with Vanna’s son, but when I settled down and sent him a message on Skype there was no response. After a few minutes I messaged his mum, who got back to me that he was out with his grandma and that his mobile was not responding. Strange, an eleven-year-old boy forgetting his online lesson like that. I had more luck with his sister the next day and then on Friday the rearranged lesson with him, during which I was incessantly jolly so that he won’t run away in fear again next week.

Tuesday also got off to an interesting start for a couple of reasons, not the least receiving early morning greetings from Stephen wishing me a happy birthday, a day too soon. These were followed shortly afterwards by him wishing me the same via FaceTime and refusing to accept that it was only the 21st. Numbers, bless him… and it is a definite improvement that he remembered the date correctly and with such a hectic week you can’t blame him for not knowing what day it was.

The other thing of note was when we were on the bottom leg of our walk and Harry suddenly became interested in something behind us. He kept stopping and looking backwards, which puzzled me till I saw Luigi hove into view (how Harry knew he was coming down the road must have been due to one of those dog things). He was walking, which was a little unusual, and when he does venture down on foot as opposed to by tractor he invariably has Billy with him, but on this occasion the lab was nowhere in sight.

The reason for this became clear when, before he caught up with me, he stopped by the pile of leaves and small branches that had been moved to below the copse all those months ago when we had the trees pruned, and started showing interest in them. I continued on my way and when I turned round on reaching the persimmon tree that marks our return point, I saw the first flickers of flames starting to consume the pile. By the time I’d made it back up the path it was well alight, and Harry and Bella needed little persuasion to keep well away as we walked past on the other side at a wonderfully safe distance of some three metres.

I’m not sure how long the conflagration lasted as I had to shower and get off to do the shopping, though when I looked out of the back window before leaving it was still going strong under the Luigi’s watchful eye. When I passed that way later on our lunchtime walk there was no sign of Luigi or the leaves, which had been reduced to silvery-grey ashes without damaging the trees, or at least only the little one that was in the middle of the pile and which is still standing but showing little sign of life in its charcoaled state. I am also assuming that the spread of ashes up behind the copse is due to Luigi raking them into a makeshift fertiliser and for no other reason.

Which brings us to Wednesday and a second set of early morning greetings from Stephen, which this time I could accept gracefully before locating the bag of goodies he had left hidden on top of the bookcase and sharing opening my cards with him via FaceTime while I had my breakfast. I had a very pleasant day, and even if I was in splendid isolation the wonders of modern social media meant I was by no means alone. Two lessons, a chat with my conversation partner, Marco, another with Eric in Cyprus and my daily catch-up with Dad took up quite a bit time, as did responding to the various electronic good wishes that pinged throughout the day – and I did have the delayed opening of my main present to look forward to when Stephen came home at the weekend.

Friday offered something in the way of a diversion, and not just because I had to bear sole responsibility for haircut and shopping – just as well I know how to be tough and how to get going – but also with phase two in Operation HSBC account, which proved very exciting and not a little frustrating.

I had received a message on Thursday to say that I needed to upload my documents verifying who I was and where I lived, giving me a web page and reference number to achieve this. All went ok and I selected the option to say that I was uploading my ID card and my driving licence but then it got very whizzy, as I had to scan a QR code on my phone that took me to a place where I had to scan in my ID card, front and back, and then take an image of my face for biometric authentication. This all went very smoothly and I returned to my laptop to upload the copy of my driving licence – which went on, and on, and on.

Now I’m sure that if you live in Putney with super-duper fiber optic internet access these things are a cinch and before you know where you are you have completed your task and are heading out for an almond milk flat white. Here in downtown Le Marche things are not so speedy. After some time a sign came up saying that there had been a problem and to close the page – except the close button was not working and the page would not go away. Well, I thought, the only thing was to start all over again, which I did. This time, however, when I went to the site to scan my ID card, that would not work properly, refusing to show my face in the oval to take the picture, meaning that I could not centre myself correctly.

Third time lucky, they say, and fortunately so was the case. This time when I restarted the process it accepted biometrically that I was indeed who I said I was and my driving licence uploaded with only a minor wait. Now the only problem is whether they accept the two pieces of evidence as they didn’t quite fit in with the requirements as listed on the site. The ID is supposed to prove who you are and the driving licence proves your address, only my address is not on my driving licence though it is on the Carta D’Identità – but interacting only with an automated system does not allow you to tell anyone this. Let’s all cross our fingers for logically speaking, if the address is verified in one place rather than the other it should be acceptable…

And so to the weekend and the triumphant return of Stephen. OK, that might be a slight exaggeration given the state of his feet from all that walking but the week does seem to have gone well and the two trade fairs were well attended and had a definite positive buzz. In celebration, the weather was particularly glorious yesterday and, indeed, this morning, but as is the nature of these things we paid for it this evening as the skies darkened and a spectacular display of lightning visible from the back window heralded something of a downpour as the night drew in. Not that it was a problem as I had the delayed gratification of opening my presents accompanied by a pre-dinner gargle – and what better way to end the week could one want?