Open wide

25th July 2021

It was an early start, and breakfast at the bar by the garage (the local one with the friendly lady, not the one on the way to Cassette D’Ete with the nowty one), on Monday, what with it being that time of year when we have to pay for the insurance on the Panda and our extra health cover, meaning a trip to the efficiently RuPaul fierce lady in Montegranaro.

Getting there for when the insurance office opened was obviously a good plan. Our friend was sitting in splendid isolation, with no sign of any other customers or, indeed, colleagues. She did, though, have our documents where she could put her hands on them as Stephen had told her last week when she phoned to remind us the insurance was due that we would be in betimes. While she was sorting the paperwork, I was able to admire her latest bejewelled t-shirt, and to wonder where she sources them. This one was particularly fine, being a white silhouette of a poodle with a diamante collar on a dusty pink background, with, written across it, “Take me out only for shopping”. Indeed.

There was a slight hiccup when I was unable to draw any money from our bank’s cash machine close by. The downside of it being Monday morning, and the fact that Unicredit only open that branch now at select times in the week, was that the machine was void of readies, and they are important as, for some reason, the insurance office’s card reader does not accept our debit card though works fine everywhere else. A quick dash up the road to another bank, with interesting parking arrangements even for Italy which caused Stephen no little discomfort, and we returned with a sweaty bundle, handed over the money and went on our way happy in the knowledge of another year’s cover on the car and with a free water bottle from the company.

The next two days were hijacked by unplanned visits to the dentist for both of us. Mine was prompted by an unfortunate encounter with a peach stone on Sunday evening, which managed to chip away a tiny but irritating by its absence piece of my front left tooth. When I said I’d phone to make an appointment, Stephen asked me to make one for him too as he had a bit of a pain at the back of his mouth on the right-hand side. By the time I did phone up, on our return from the insurance office, Stephen’s slight pain of Sunday had turned into something a bit more agonising, even with regular doses of paracetamol – so much so that he was hardly able to open his mouth to eat on Tuesday lunchtime.

Fortunately for him, I had managed to get us two appointments for that evening, so help was at hand. My somewhat minor problem was dealt with relatively quickly, though not by Claudia. They say that you know you’re getting old when policemen start looking young, to which I would add you definitely know you are getting old when your dentist looks like he is on work experience from school – though to be fair I think maybe he just has a general youthful appearance as he sorted my issue out exceptionally well.

As for Stephen, he went in to see Claudia just after I had finished. She told him off in the nicest possible way as she could tell he hadn’t been following her brushing instructions from two years ago. After an initial foray with her healing fingers, the details of which are better omitted, she said that before she could really investigate the problem, which was probably more gum related than tooth, he had to bring the swelling and the infection down. She made an appointment for the following morning and sent him home to clean the infected area with cotton wool soaked in salt water – once we had called in at the chemist’s next door to buy some, where the nice young man behind the counter endeavoured to help us when he heard us trying to figure out what the Italian for cotton wool was (cotone, how simple) by using a smattering of English. We were very appreciative, though maybe his use of decimals needs a little revising if he is not going to cause confusion when giving prices.

Stephen carried out his cleaning regime as per and we returned the next morning for the appointment. I went with him as Claudia had advised it would be a good idea as it was likely she would have to use quite a lot of anaesthetic and Stephen may feel a little groggy afterwards. She actually used four lots, but it was still not quite enough to deaden all the pain as she gave Stephen’s mouth a good bottoming. He reported afterwards that he was still at times in great discomfort, but he was a brave little soldier and battled on to the end. His mouth has, I’m pleased to say, been a lot better and he has been very good at using daily the packs of antiseptic mouth gels he was given. Claudia, though, is not 100% happy and thinks there may be some issue with one of his back teeth so he/we have to return next Tuesday when she and the A level student can put their heads together and have a poke around.

Thursday saw the end of term with Marzia and Diego in the morning and a return trip to Fermo market in the evening and our second apericena at Artasylum. Much as we were tempted, we thought three weeks on the trot would be a bit like overkill so have left it there for the time being. We did, though, after admiring the prints on display inside the café, buy copies of two of them from the artist who was plying his wares from a little case outside in the square. This was obviously a smart move on his part as many people were stopping and buying, which may be a testament to the quality of his work or to him being just the sort of young man you would be more than happy to take home to meet mother. Other than investing in art, our other purchases were quite routine: some soap, a large jar of honey from our preferred producer and one of their bottles of vino cotto, which, together with the Marchigiano sherry from last week should supply our digestivo needs for the near future.

Stephen had his first beach day on Friday with the usual posse plus one, meeting up with Computer Luca and his friend Sergio at Corridonia before preceding northwards, to be joined later by Shoe Marco once he managed to get away from work. Before that, though, following his visit last Saturday to the Casa di Cura, Stephen made an appointment with the doctor to review the results – on 6th August, as she is away on holiday and he didn’t feel like entrusting himself to the locum.

It looked like the most exciting thing over the weekend was shaping up to be that the melanzane in the orto were coming on stream, prompting a new (to us) recipe for dinner yesterday of baked aubergines with garlic, lemon, and couscous. We had, however, figured without the ongoing cabaret that is the hay bales in the barn, which started mid-afternoon yesterday when Mario, Luigi, one of the Pina twins, two tractors and a trailer paraded down the road. Amidst much shouting and manoeuvring back and forth they seemed to be moving around the round bales and the square bales into a different configuration, during which a round one became stuck on the prongs of one of the tractors.

Eventually, it was persuaded onto the trailer to be joined by two others. This appeared to be the end of the business and the convoy set off back up the hill, using, to our great relief, the field across the way. Actually, our relief was twofold as not only was the road saved from further churning, but as the tractor climbed the steepest part the bale at the back rolled off and proceeded in stately fashion all the way down to the bottom of the incline. Chances are if it had happened on the road it could well have bounced down over the orto and used our cars as a braking device.

Mario, who I think was driving, must have realised pretty quickly when he got to the top that something was not quite right, as it was not many minutes before he sent the twin was back to retrieve the escapee. This time he was taking no prisoners as he had forgone the trailer and instead relied on a frontal attack with the fork, spearing the bale and carrying it back triumphantly aloft. As you must have realised well before now, every day at LCDDB is an education.