Reviewing the situaton

9th April 2023

At the end of the last entry I said that the countdown to our holiday had truly begun. Well it seems I spoke too soon. Luckily, it hasn’t been aborted but it did suffer a pause while, due to our ignorance of the Italian criminal underworld, we had to rethink our plans, but the good news is that the new shoes I’ve bought to cut a dash, a pair of Camper sneakers and a pair of Zara espadrilles, will still be debuting on the Pugliese terrain.

They are safely stowed away, and given the change in the weather on Tuesday, there will be no call for lighter summer wear for a while. After breaking out the fly curtain the other week and being able to leave the door open for Bella and Harry, it was back to keeping it closed as the temperature dropped dramatically to low single figures. We even woke to frost on the cars on Friday. At least it turned sunny on Thursday after the preceding days, which had been dull in all senses of the word, the most exciting thing being a bit of repair work carried out on a molar by Claudia.

It was also on Thursday that our holiday plans went a little awry. We popped up to see Marco and Maddalena in the early evening to take a small Easter gift and to catch up on things, though Maddalena was less than impressed when we told her that we had booked Bella and Harry into the kennels in Falerone. She looked aghast and protested that we couldn’t leave them there as it was terrible. She knew this because a woman in Francavilla said so. Who are we to fly in the face of such an expert opinion, but given that we had actually visited the place and been impressed, and that a woman in Montegranaro told my student that it was wonderful, we remained implacable in the face of her protestations. Let’s hope we are proved right.

Her look of horror at that piece of news was nothing compared to when we said we had booked a night at San Severo. “Nooooo!” (which is Italian for Nooooo!) she cried, before going on to say that it was impossible to stay there, that it was truly awful and known as the worst place in Italy because of all the lowlifes and criminals that lived there. “It’s worse than Foggia,” she said, which might mean something if you are au fait with the ne’er-do-wells of that particular place. Much as we love her, we are by now a little inured to her reactionary take on things (like refusing to go anywhere near Porto Sant’Elpidio) so smiled through her objections.

We were not so sanguine the next morning. When I met up with Stephen after shopping (me) and haircut (him), he said that maybe we should change our overnight plans as Rocco, on being told that we had booked in at a place near San Severo, said in that case he would say goodbye before we left as he would never see us again. He confirmed everything that Maddalena had said, adding that it was the centre of the Pugliese mafia, which is why we spent a happy hour this morning back on Google maps and Booking.com, choosing the far safer option of an agriturismo, Torre Bruno, standing in splendid isolation in the Gargano national park, surrounded by a wealth of olive trees. It’s not far from the town of San Giovanni Rotonda, where Italy’s most adored saint, Padre Pio, lived for over fifty years and is home to the Padre Pio Pilgrimage Church. Hopefully, all that will be enough to keep Maddalena happy and we can rest assured that we won’t wake up to find a horse’s head in bed with us.

Of course, the main news of the weekend is that Friday, or Vernedì Santo if you prefer, saw the return after a three-year hiatus of MSP’s Passion of Christ. It was another welcome sign that things are returning to normal, even if the re-enactment has seen some changes, most importantly in a new actor in the main role. The previous Jesus has moved to Pisa, hence bff Manuel’s son, Enrico, taking on the part – not that Manuel was totally sure about it, worried that it would be too cold and not all that comfortable being hoisted up onto the cross in just a loincloth.

Another change was to the notional time at which it started, which was moved forward to 9 o’clock, which translated in reality to 9.20 – so more or less on time by Italian standards. We weren’t, of course, surprised, especially as from our vantage point on the road leading up from the church we could see, over the wall, extras for the crowd scene still scurrying along the bottom road well past the time the performance should have started. As I remarked to Stephen while we were waiting patiently as latecomers (if that is strictly correct when it hadn’t begun) were arriving, it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation – do things start late because they know people won’t arrive on time, or do people come late because they know things won’t start on time? One of the many conundrums of life in Italy.

In the end, Friday night was not quite as chilly as might have been expected, which is more than can be said for this Easter weekend. Yesterday evening saw the return of the fire, having finally capitulated to the dropping temperature inside the house, for while the central heating can give a boost, the fire heats up the walls which emit heat all through the day. That though, was nothing compared with our shock while searching for an overnight stop this morning when, contrary to the forecast of a cloudy but dry day, the skies became very dark, thunder cracked overhead followed almost instantly by forks of lightning and hail plummeted from the heavens. Harry, for reasons best known to himself, thought it was a good idea to bark vociferously and dash out onto the terrazzo, and then dash back in – though if he was expecting this act of courage would earn him a share of our Easter eggs, he was sadly disappointed.