Planning ahead

26th March 2023

The start of the week was particularly lacking in excitement, apart that is for Stephen taking an overnight trip to a secret location which I am not at liberty to divulge, for security reasons. Suffice to say that he was back around 7pm on Wednesday, well ahead of the 10pm ETA he had previously given me, and looking decidedly pleased with himself.

The reason for this was twofold. First, that he had brought me a present, a very fine dolce from one of the best pasticcerie in Italy, where he had marched in and demanded the large, ring-shaped babà in the window. The man put it in a container and assured Stephen it wouldn’t leak. Well he was wrong on that count, but most of what escaped was caught by the carrier bag, and there was still enough of the plain syrup (no rum being harmed in its making) to make the delicately light cake just moist enough. We even managed to make it last three nights, not bad for something that was probably meant to serve eight generously.

The second reason was that he had bought himself a pair of caramel-coloured dungarees, fulfilling a long-held ambition to revisit the glory days of his mad youth. I am still waiting to see what he looks like in them, as they seem to have been squirreled away against a fitting fashion event, but I have sufficient faith in his fine taste not to worry that he’ll look like he’s auditioning for Playschool.

After that highpoint, the end of the week was, like the beginning, again particularly lacking in excitement, unless you count Stephen arriving home on Thursday lunchtime and telling me to be careful if I used the car as Mario and Luigi had filled in potholes at the top of the road with concrete. Let’s hope they have more success than Rawtenstall council who tried the same tactic on the unmade road to our house in North Street, only for it to be dislodged in the next good downpour.

Today, though, has been much more exciting – comparatively - especially as the start of summertime has coincided with a definite taste this afternoon of warmer weather to come. Before that, we took a trip to Fermo for the second day of the flower market, which was quite busy to say it was mid-morning. We strolled round twice, but Stephen was not tempted to invest in anything despite saying before we went that we needed a couple of shrubs to replace the bushes that had given up the ghost. We didn’t come away empty handed, however, as, predictably, I bought two large jars of honey, which should keep me going till the festa season gets into full swing and the artisanal producers come out in force.

On the way home we stopped in the village to treat ourselves to cannelloni from Maria Teresa’s pasta shop, where we also discovered a new way with olive all’ascolana. Those who have been keeping notes will know that these are olives stuffed with a meat mixture, dipped in breadcrumbs and fried, and indeed there were the usual type on offer in the shop. Next to t

hem, however, was something that looked the same, only darker. Obviously, we asked Leonardo, who was serving, about them and he said that they were darker because there was a smattering of truffle in the coating mixture, as well as a dash of squid ink to help with the shading. Of course we had to have some, mixed with a few of the original for comparison purposes, and very good they were too, with a pungent, earthy edge to them. Which is better? I think it’s an honourable tie, but just to make sure we will probably have to have another test to make sure.

The taste of warmer weather meant that Stephen could leave the front door open this afternoon so Bella and Harry were able to wander in and out without him having to get up to open and close the door. This in itself was not so very unusual, but taking the step to hang the fly curtain was, so let’s hope we are not tempting fate with such a precipitous action. Someone who was less impressed with the temperate weather was Harry when he found himself in the shower being lathered up with anti-parasite shampoo as a preventive measure for when he goes sniffing in the long grass.

The main news of the day, though, is that while Harry was drying off, Stephen and I went online to find a hotel for a week away at the end of May. We had decided that it was about time we actually had another proper holiday together, as one in the almost eight years we have been here seems abstemious in the extreme. We wanted to stay in Italy and at that time of year, heading south seemed a good idea. We settled on Puglia, being a sensible driving distance. After much indecision, we finally booked six nights in a hotel in Polignano a Mare, a small town on the rocky coastline just down from Bari, with the intention of stopping overnight somewhere on the way.

That’s as far as we have got with preparations, but given as it is only eight weeks away, we better not leave it too long before we (by which I mean Stephen) do the wardrobe changeover in case there is some must have item missing from our ensembles. Not that Stephen has to worry. After all, he does have his new dungarees.