It's a fair cop

16th November 2025

It was my turn to come eye to eye with our friend the fox on Monday when Peggy started up the twilight barking. Having a good idea why, I dashed out with the torch, Harry hot on my heels, but was disappointed not to see it snaffling the cachi. That was probably because there wasn’t any fresh windfall to be had, even for ready money, but all was not lost. Playing the torch around the lane, a pair of eyes shining in the beam marked where the fox was standing, wraith like in the gloaming, staring across at us all for a couple of beats before shrugging its shoulders and continuing up the road.

I saw it once more, the next day, but after that other things have needed my attention, and Peggy has taken to coming inside rather than hanging around on the terrazzo, thus robbing us of our early warning system. I’m sure the fox is grateful to be left in peace.

Tuesday it was shopping da solo as Stephen left Civitanova on the 8.09 train bound for Milan and two days of high-level meetings. I can’t actually vouch for their status or importance, but it sounds much more impressive than saying it was his turn for the short straw and a trip to the parent company. He was back the following evening, pulling into Civitanova station a little after 9, although at one point it was moot whether he would be. He’d checked his return itinerary on Tuesday and saw that he’d booked the connecting train in Bologna for that afternoon, a day early. Fortunately there were still seats available the next day; unfortunately a refund wasn’t.

There was much excitement on Thursday - at least for me, others might have been somewhat underwhelmed – with the arrival of my new feather duster. This was chosen after much soul searching of a well-known online retailer and general world superpower, my current one having proved less than reliable in retaining its feathers. In the end I clicked the sort by customer review option, discarding the first (I’m not mean and am all for quality, but were they having a laugh at forty odd euros?) and, after a little dithering (is one with a metal and not wooden handle that’s extendable quite the thing?) I put prejudice aside and opted for the second rated with it’s new-fangled ways. Initial results are favourable, but time will tell.

Friday morning we had the pleasure of a joint shopping expedition to Coal, there being no Rocco (see last week), then yesterday evening we went to Macerata, the first time in ages, for a walk round the shops and to have dinner at Sugo with Computer Luca, who now lives, there. He was in good form, despite being overworked by the university (200 first year students in the faculty) and happy to be in the city. Sugo was as good as always, including some fine chickpea and some equally fine lentil polpette as part of our antipasti together with a mighty fine crostone (a big crostino) with cherry tomatoes, rocket and a pesto dressing. ‘One’ is the common Italian suffix to indicate a bigger version of something, hence ragazzo is a general term for a boy while ragazzone could be translated as a big kid, or maybe big boy - so I’d advise caution if you’re ever tempted to use it; “Ciao, big boy,” might give the wrong idea.

The centre of Macerata has gone through some changes since our last visit, with a couple of quirky shops where we liked to browse having closed down as had a very high-end clothes shop where we only browsed the windows. On the other hand, being a university town there are still several book shops, and, like everywhere else, there’s a vast selection of places to eat. More puzzling, though, is the abundance of perfume shops, but maybe the Maceratesi like the security of knowing they smell nice.

It was, however, as we were heading home that the drama started when, having just passed Corridomnia, we were flagged down by a young police officer stopping cars at random for a spot check. We wound our windows down and handed over our ID cards and Stephen his driving licence. “Just a couple of minutes,” he said and went back his car and his oppo (who, from the look of him, was probably his mother) to check them. Judging time when you’re waiting is always a bit hit and miss, but he was definitely much longer than two minutes and we were beginning to wonder what was causing the delay when he eventually swaggered back. (Actually, given it was dark and I couldn’t really see him approaching, I can’t put my hand on my heart and say he was swaggering, but let’s just imagine he was and give a bit of colour to this inconsequential anecdote.)

He asked a few questions about passports and residency, finishing with us confirming that we only had British nationality. I think we must have caused a bit of puzzlement when they couldn’t find us listed as Italian citizens when we had Italian ID cards (though, as we know from foreign travel, ours as extra-terrestrials is different – but maybe he nodded off when they covered that bit on the course). We confirmed that we didn’t have dual nationality, just British, whereupon he shrugged, said that was ok and waved us on.

It didn’t, of course, stop me worrying the rest of the way home that we were not going to be in trouble and that we had unwittingly done something wrong. Stephen assured me everything was all right, but to be on the safe side, we’ve been laying low at home all day just in case they local carabinieri are staked out at Mario and Luigi’s waiting to grab us if we make a move. We should be so lucky.