Park your Lexus

14th April 2024

First things first: the onions. The bad news is that when Stephen checked the orto on Monday morning he found a solitary snail happily munching away at the top of one of the plants. The good news is that a tip gleaned from a spot of online research over the weekend seems to have provided a solution. We discounted the scattering of eggshells (a notional limit of one a week imposed by the doctor makes that logistically impossible) in favour of sticking large sprigs of rosemary (something we are not short of) amongst the onions – and so far it seems to have worked. Either that or the one that braved the challenge was the Jason Statham of our local snails.

Stephen had time to see to all this before he left for a trip to the parent company in Milan, and as it was there and back in three days he decided to drive the Panda to Civitanova and park it up near the station so I was excused taxi duties. Just as well really, as when he left around 9.30, I was in the middle of my biweekly early doors lesson so couldn’t have taken him anyway. He had something of a busy time, with meetings all day Tuesday as well as having to fit one in on Wednesday morning, meaning he had to take the later train so wasn’t home till 9.30 that evening. He was taken out to dinner on Tuesday night, which might sound glamourous but he said the sushi was ok, no better than DiverXo (really, in the big city?) and the company about the same.

As for me, I had excitement of a sort on Monday when out with Bella and Harry for our pre-lunch walk. Bella and I were hanging around, as we so often do, while Harry sniffs around at clumps of grass at the side of the lane, when he suddenly jumped back. He was about to venture nearer again when a soft hissing made me tighten the lead to keep him away. Peering over the area there was, indeed, a black snake coiled in the grass. Harry hadn’t been bitten (we would have known about it if he had) but he obviously wasn’t going to take a friendly hiss as a warning as I had to drag him halfway down the path until he stopped turning back, eager to investigate further. Terriers.

The snake must have been taking advantage of the warm weather, which has been unseasonable all week, reaching mid to high twenties by the weekend. On Tuesday I had my first walk in just a t-shirt, one layer being more than enough, and by yesterday we had drawn down the zanzare screens and left windows and doors open to get some air moving through the house. This is all very strange for the middle of April, and while sunny days are to be welcomed, such heat is just another symptom of the freakish turn the weather seems increasingly to be taking. If the forecast is correct, it’s due to end on Tuesday, and while it remains mainly sunny, the temperatures should fall to a more sensible 16 or 17 degrees.

So what else of note? Not much, unless you count downloading an album on Fiday (if they are still called that, one hopes so as it has taken me all this time to stop saying LP) for the first time in three or four years, but what else can you do when Beyoncé goes country? And a very wise move it is too on her part. We listened to it in the car on our way to and from Pomod’Oro that evening, an outing which also gave me the chance to wear my new trainers making it a sort of double first.

As for yesterday, what better way to pass the time in the sun, at least for Stephen with the odd bit of support from me, than playing about with the drains at the back of the house. These have been giving a bit of trouble when using the washing machine as not all the water seems to want to exit via the conventional route. After a couple of hours of pushing the hose up the pipe and flushing out bits of debris and turning on taps and turning them off again he finally admitted that it was a bigger job than he could conquer. After postulating that the problem might be the discharge pipe from the downstairs bathroom being broken a decision was taken that Monday would be phone the plumber day.

Just to avoid people thinking we have no social life at the weekend, we treated ourselves to breakfast at Pina this morning, and a stop off at Conad afterwards to get our parcels from the Amazon hub (new pillowcases for the bolster on our bed, in case you’re interested). There were, for a change, plenty of spaces to park, both in the square and by the supermarket; perhaps everyone had gone to the beach, even though strictly speaking that shouldn’t happen till June (see above re unseasonal weather). Something else that seemed a bit out of synch with the yearly round was the turkey we came across when Bella, Harry and I were out on our walk this morning and had to veer away from our usual sniff around (by which I mean their, of course) at the top of the field where it was gobbling about.

It's anybody’s guess where it had come from. I’ve not seen any chicks being fattened up by the Mogliani brothers, and besides it was older than that. Maybe it was an escapee last year and has been hiding out since then. Who knows, but it was a timely reminder that, despite all the sunshine, there are only 254 shopping days left till Christmas.