Say Cheese

17th August 2022

After the weekend’s winds and intermittent rain Monday dawned much brighter, but whilst the sun made a welcome return it also brought chillier weather. Fortunately, it did manage to warm up during the week, bringing on some delayed orto action, though before that there was a mystery to solve.

When Stephen returned from the factory on Monday morning, I went down to collect a couple of parcels addressed to me that had been delivered over the weekend. Although this only took a few minutes, when I came back up my phone showed a missed call together with a message from a Piergiorgio saying he had been given my contact details by an Elisa S and would like to talk to me about checking an article.

My first, and obvious, thought was that it was a wrong number, not knowing any Elisa S and not recognising his name, but while I was trying to reply via WhatsApp I somehow (not surprisingly) called his number. There ensued a conversation, first in Italian and then in English, in which it transpired that it wasn’t a wrong number, and that he had been given my number by this unknown Elisa S and that he and his co-workers were looking for someone to proofread the quality of the English in medical/scientific articles that were for publication.

The fact that I had no knowledge of specialist terminology was not important, he said, as it was purely the accuracy and the use of English that I would be looking at. I said I was interested, because why not, and after an exchange of emails over the next day or so, I started on the document (juvenile diabetes) on Wednesday afternoon, though who Elisa S was remained a mystery. In the meantime, things were on the move in the great outdoors.

By Tuesday, the weather had improved so much that Stephen reinstated the fly screen at the front door, meaning it could be left open during the day and Bella and Harry could potter in and out to their hearts’ content (i.e. a lot), while on Wednesday afternoon Mr C and Mirco arrived after lunch with the rotovator for their delayed date with the orto and set about turning the soil into the now familiar neatly furrowed rows.

As if that wasn’t enough quality time with the Carellis, Stephen had a date with them in the evening to meet with a client over dinner, though in that they were being economical with the truth. After being picked up at the top of the road and driven to Ristorante Campanelli, a fish restaurant in Porto San Giorgio, he discovered it was all a ruse. There was no client, and the evening was his treat – and indeed it was, especially the tagliatelle with lobster, which he declared was one of the best he’d ever tasted. I’m happy to take his word on that.

With the orto primed, he came home on Thursday morning with an array of lettuce and a healthy helping of parsley to make a start on this year’s planting, as well as come chicory as a new departure. These he got in the ground on Friday afternoon, with the lettuces set out in close ranks instead of elegantly spaced, as advised by Mr C., as, apparently, they grow better that way.

Before that, however, the Easter holiday weekend got off to an early start when we went, after dinner on Thursday, for coffee and cake at Marco and Maddalena’s. This was a particular honour as Marco’s beloved Roma were playing, which usually means no visitors, but he did manage, when not dancing around the living room, shouting and yelling whenever Roma scored a goal (four, in total) to spend the odd minute with us as we sat round the kitchen table speaking to Maddalena,

What it did mean was that we were responsible for the coffee. As they no longer have a coffee machine, having almost stopped drinking it, Marco usually pops out for a takeaway from Pina, but we didn’t want to drag him away from his match. Instead, we called for it on the way to the house, though not without incident; as there were no small paper cups the coffees (plus one orzo for Maddalena), they had to use the large ones. This would have been all right if Stephen in trying to carry three at once hadn’t knocked one over, and whilst it did have a plastic lid on top enough poured out of the mouthpiece before he righted it to stain his favourite pink jumper with fetching brown splotches. So much for doing good deeds.

Friday was Venerdì Santo, which you would have thought would be a holiday in Italy as in Britain, but is not, though a lot of factories do close for the day or half the day. I suppose it is partly because the focus of the occasion is the evening, as per the MSP Passion Play, which, as I said previously, was cancelled for the third year in a row. However, as I also said previously, the citizens of the town had been requested to light up their houses with candles, and this they did in a magnificent way. Stephen had plundered cupboards and boxes to augment our two coloured votive glasses from the committee so that the three window ledges facing onto the terrazzo were aglow. This, together with a row of ground candles by the railings, meant that anyone passing along the top road could not fail to notice us and maybe take a moment of reflection.

Although today has been Stephen’s official birthday, going out to eat on Easter Sunday when families amass in groups to spend six hours over lunch, either at home or, more particularly, in restaurants, didn’t seem such a clever idea. Instead, I told Stephen to be ready for 7.20 last night as we were going out to dinner. He was, being someone who likes to be in control, a little put out that he didn’t know where, but that part of the surprise was pre-empted somewhat when on the way, the navigator on Google Maps decided not to use the generic ‘your destination’ when giving directions but named Officina del Sole instead. Still, Google Maps wasn’t able to spoil the main part of the surprise, and when we pulled into the car park to see Computer Luca and Shoe Marco waving madly at us, Stephen was truly stunned and, for once, speechless.

The meal was fabulous and eaten in leisure in a secluded part of the dining room that almost amounted to private dining. This was helped by the restaurant being on the quiet side, which suited us – presumably people were saving themselves for the feast next day. As for our Easter lunch, we collected this, as is now our bi-annual tradition, from Conad. The slight hiccup with this is that other people are obviously cottoning on to the fact that Gabriella’s catering is the thing, as we had to wait for almost an hour before we were given our generous servings. Still, it’s not like we had anything pressing to get on with, and sometimes it is quite nice to stand around aimlessly and have a bit of a chat.

As for his birthday, Stephen celebrated this at home (apart from the hour at Conad of course), opening his cards and presents over breakfast before taking it easy for the rest of the day. We did, though, have a special treat. What, we had wondered, should we have for tea, given that we would trough well at lunchtime. Cheese on toast, was Stephen’s request, a guilty pleasure since cheese in any form apart from the most bland was banned by the doctor. In honour of the occasion, I splashed out on a generous chunk of aged pecorino from the deli counter in Coal, and gave not a flicker of a reaction when Roberta weighed it and I saw how much it cost – it’s just as well it was on offer - but it was worth every centesimo and every calorie and every gram of saturated fat because sometimes the best things in life aren’t free.