One way or another

17th November 2024

Fabrizio the geologist must really means business as Irene forwarded copies of his forms to Stephen on Monday for us to sign. These outlined the work, the breakdown of the costs and an estimate of the final figure. We would have printed, signed and returned them the next day but for a slight stumbling block – the number of the house had, for some reason, been doubled and someone had managed to mash-up our names. I’m not sure who exactly Stephen Ian McKenzie is, but I’m sure he must be a very nice person. Stephen sent Irene a note with the corrections which she acknowledged, saying she would amend and resend them, As yet, they haven’t arrived.

With Stephen’s visit to the aforementioned factory near Ancona slated for Thursday, Tuesday seemed a good day to get back in touch with the electrician to see about putting up the new light in the dressing room and fixing the light switch in the bedroom that he was supposed to come back to do once he had got the parts that he’d forgotten the first time. He was full of apologies when Stephen called and said he was getting the stuff together, and maybe he could fit us in that night. No, Stephen said, next week would be ok, not wanting to hang around on the unlikely off-chance, and Monday or Tuesday were mooted as possibilities. Let’s hope that’s enough time for him to get the stuff sorted.

Just so you don’t think that Stephen is the only member of the family to be freewheeling around central Marche, I had my annual check-up and clean and polish at Studio Montanari. I didn’t see Claudia this time as she was occupied with a patient. but I will in a couple of weeks as she wants to have a look at my implant, as the nice hygienist told me after she had made her report to the dottoressa. And that’s all there is to say on that hot topic.

Stephen headed up the autostrada on Thursday for his factory visit and his stop off at Ikea, commandeering the Jeep for the occasion. First, though, he stopped off at Paolo’s to fill up with petrol and asked him to check the tyres. The pressure warning had come up a couple of times in the Renegade, despite making with the air pump, so he thought running it by a higher authority was a good idea. It was. Paolo confirmed that the pressure was ok, but said that the tread on the front ones was wearing thin and they needed replacing.

We had a brief discussion about it, though there wasn’t really that much to discuss, what with it being a choice between new tyres or driving illegally and at the risk of an accident. We called in on Ivano at the garage the next morning on the way to do the shopping, to see about it and to book the Panda in for a service.

Ivano was otherwise occupied but his son, Alessandro, was happy to help. He was a bit quizzical when Stephen said that we needed two tyres and that they were all season ones – in Italy, in case you don’t know, you can have summer tyres and winter tyres, changing them over twice a year, or all year tyres, as we thought we had, which obviously don’t need changing. Alessandro agreed that we needed the two new ones, but said they were winter tyres, not what we thought. In for a penny, in for quite a few euro, so we decided that we might as well have four new all-season ones, Pirelli none the less (the slight difference in price between those and some oddly named brand from China not being a deal breaker), so we are good to go, and legal, for the foreseeable future.

As for Ikea, that all went to plan more or less (unlike the factory, where Stephen was told off by a self-appointed officious lady with a dog for parking in the wrong place – though some signage might not have gone amiss). He located the remote control after some searching because, for some reason, it wasn’t with the light fittings. He also stocked up on new containers for the freezer, on sale at a bargain price, and, more importantly, a small sheepskin rug to keep Harry snug in his bed over the winter months. It was a toss-up between off white and grey, but having felt them all to find the softest Stephen plumped for a grey one – which matches the wardrobes better and these things are important to a dog with such fine sensibilities.

The weekend has been notable as we have ventured past our line of demarcation not once, but twice – though neither of them is anything to get excited about unless you are Harry. We took him with us to the pub last night when we went for hamburger and beer, and he found all the different smells that assailed him when he exited the car very stimulating. We let him have a good sniff around but once we got inside, he sat quietly by the table keeping an eye on the comings and goings, especially when the burgers appeared.

Like last week, we were due another spot of Sunday morning shopping as we needed a couple of things, namely some more boxes of my magnesium and potassium mineral supplement sachets from Eurospin (where, as I said before, they work out about six times cheaper than the branded version), and some razor blades from Girasole – so it’s a bit of a puzzle how we managed to come home with four shopping bags if not quite bulging then more than adequately filled. I guess it’s because we were born this way.