Oiling the wheels

27th March 2022

Stephen obviously exhausted himself of all things shoe related on his trip to Milan because he has spent the vast majority of this past week hanging around LCDDB, inspired by the spring-like weather that has eventually shown itself, to get on with some of the tasks that are dictated by this time of the year.

He made a brief trip to the factory on Monday morning and again on Wednesday, but that was it as far as visits were concerned, though he did have the obligatory firefighting over phone and internet as well as the odd confab, so it wasn’t all sitting on the chaise longue. What did take up a fair amount of his time was the garden, with some tidying up and weeding of the orto as well as rearranging the pots in front of the house, including moving the cactus (surprising how much one broken ‘ear’ pushed into some soil can flourish in a couple of years) to the front of the office door. He also unveiled the lemon trees (crossed fingers on the sudden overnight frost front), with one of them heavy with some fifteen or more fruit.

After taking some time out on Thursday morning to clean the cars, both of them, inside and out (and a very fine job he made of it too), this morning Stephen made a start on the grass that is in abundance around the sides and back of the house. He tackled a good third of it with the strimmer in readiness of venturing out with the mower at some point. As and when that will be is debatable, for if it refuses to start, like it did at the end of last year after someone managed to flood the engine, recourse to more experienced hands may be needed – i.e., Giordano at the ferramenta, if Stephen can bear the ignominy of it all.

As for my week, that ran more or less as per the current usual. More or less because my newest student, Andrea, swapped from Skype to in person for his lessons. I had been recommended to him by his friend, another student who has online lessons, and he had assumed I lived somewhere in the UK, but when during conversation he discovered that I lived less than 10 kilometres away he asked if he could change. I was quite happy to do this but maybe he wasn’t for whilst his very smart Audi 4x4 ate up the road, his exit was delayed for quarter of an hour by a methane powered people carrier that couldn’t.

It was about half-way through our lesson that headlights swung into the area in front of the house, prompting Stephen to come down to investigate, whereupon the driver said that he had come for the oil, and didn’t believe Stephen when he replied that we didn’t have any. “Yes, you do,” he said, because he firmly believed we were the Mogliani Two and that we had oil for him as arranged, a belief based on the fact that his sat nav had led him past Mario and Luigi at the top and down to us. Any right-thinking person knows how reliable a sat nav is, but not our surprise visitor, at least not without much convincing by Stephen.

He did eventually accept that he was in the wrong place, while still making it seem like it was our fault. He made to leave, but a people carrier powered by methane was not going to get very far, and nowhere near the really steep part, before rolling back to the start of our drive – and we all know what that means. Tractor time. When the cavalry in the shape of Luigi arrived, after the man had phoned him, there was a bit of a delay as he didn’t know where the hook was that had to be fixed to the front of the car in order for it to be towed, again sidestepping responsibility by protesting how was he to know as it was a company vehicle (interestingly enough, he is the area manager for the gas company who supply us – and the Mogliani brothers – and to his credit he did give Stephen a card, promising him a good price if we called up sometime over the next two months before the prices went up).

Eventually, however, the hook was found, put in place and a stately procession made its way up the hill. Stephen, Andrea and I watched its progress and when we were satisfied that the road was indeed clear, Andrea got in his 4x4 and exited stage right, only fifteen minutes late. It would not seem that his experience has deterred him, as at the time of writing I haven’t received a request from him to return to Skype.

Speaking of driving matters, it was time to turn our attention to the question of renewing our driving licences. Although I had a grace period, thanks to you know what, until the end of June, there was less than a month till Stephen’s ran out on his birthday in April so we thought we might as well do the two of us at the same time, with me crossing my fingers that I would still see well enough to pass the eye test. Thursday evening, therefore, we popped over to Scuola Europa the other side of Rapagnano, where the man behind the counter took a photocopy of our current licences as well as a photo of each of us on his digital camera and told us to return next Tuesday at 7.30.

Before we left, he also said that as their electronic payment system was not working, we would need to pay in cash and it would be €97 each. We smiled and said of course, as though forking out nearly €100 for a driving licence was quite reasonable before getting in the car and exclaiming “How much!” Mind you, when you think about it, it is quite a jolly wheeze. I’m not sure how the fee is divided and what portion goes to government coffers, but to make all drivers over 60 renew their licences every five years is quite a tidy income. I’m just surprised no one in Britain has thought of it.