Questo e quello

30th January 2022

After a turbulent – for us, anyway – seven days last week, this one has followed a more predictable flight path, meaning that you needn’t fasten your seatbelts as, unlike for the stuck truck, it’s not going to be a bumpy night – or day, or, indeed week. And I think that is more than enough forced extended metaphors and Bette Davis allusions.

My new phone arrived on Monday when whoever was responsible for the redelivery was actually able to find the Carelli’s door. Stephen picked it up on his way back from Porto Sant’Elpidio, and the benefits of investing in Apple everything came into play when, after my 7 o’clock lesson, it took but a matter of moments between coming upstairs and sitting down to dinner to switch it on and sync it with my iPad.

One minor observation, though: I’m not convinced as to how smart this phone is, because the face recognition doesn’t work, I discovered, when you’re brushing your teeth – but maybe that’s God’s way of telling you that there are some occasions when you really don’t need to be connecting to social media. As for charging it, that will be a piece of cake as Stephen presented me with two charging pads, one for upstairs and one for down, the latter also doubling as a spare should I travel to Eastern Europe and leave the first in a hotel room.

Tuesday saw the return of Diego after his second weekend stuck in his bedroom, though it was again short-lived as Thursday morning I received a message from him saying he had a temperature and had been to the chemist for a test and was awaiting the result. He is obviously not having much luck, but in a silver lining sort of a way at least we got one lesson in which meant that I was able to take delivery of this week’s food parcel courtesy of Samuele. This time it contained two items, a bottle of his wine made from his grapes and a foil container of impasto di cinghiale, or wild boar sausage meat if you prefer. This, too, was a family affair, the boar having been shot by his father. I don’t know who turned it into impasto or how, and really, I’m not sure I want to.

So what else can I regale you with of our past week? Not a lot. Stephen had a long afternoon on Thursday when he was again at the factory in Sant’Elpidio, first to continue his utterly fabulous ladies’ collection (not that I have seen it, I just know) followed by a team meeting followed by a one-to-one meeting with Paolo the modellista over a Crodino outside a bar in the cold and dark because the barista said it was closing, and then home sometime after 8. At this rate it will be almost like having a proper job.

As for the weekend, this has been gloriously mundane, though with two minor diversions.

The first was yesterday afternoon when I had an initial chat with a new conversation partner, Lorenzo. You might be wondering where I find the time for all these, but my weekly commitment has dwindled to just two as Claudio’s and my schedules are not currently in synch and Stefano from Bologna has had to take a break for a while. Lorenzo, from south of Milan, speaks good English, is very encouraging and, what is better, wants to hook up at the very sensible time of 5 pm on a Saturday. While not an overly serious person he does appear to take the conversation seriously, saying we have to have equal time in English and Italian, we have to correct each other, and he suggested we decide on a topic during the week for our chat, which really is no more than I need to try to lick me into shape.

The second was a trip this morning to Corridomnia (ah, how we’ve missed it) but only to Risparmio Casa for some basic cleaning items. You will be very proud of us as we were in and out in under twenty minutes – surely a record. And what made it even better was that we took our outing as an excuse to stop at Maria Teresa’s Pasta shop on the way home and buy some of their cannelloni as a lunchtime treat.

“Is that a bit big?” I asked Stephen, pointing to the foil tray holding nine of them. “No,” he replied with alacrity. “No,” chipped in Lorenzo, the family member who serves in the shop, adding “four a half each.”

Four and half seemed a strange standard portion size to me. “What happens if there are three people?” I asked. “Then three each,” replied Leonardo. How we chuckled while I hoped he wouldn’t realise I was being really stupid. Maybe I should suggest to Lorenzo that our first topic should be how to avoid looking like an idiot, but maybe that would be asking too much.