The customer is always right

13th June 2021

After a settled dry and sunny period the weather did its usual thing of making sure we didn’t get too complacent by throwing in a few thunderous downpours during the first part of the week. As per the usual pattern of these things, clear and decidedly warm mornings started clouding over at lunchtime, followed by heavy rain in the afternoon, persisting for some time on Monday and Tuesday before dwindling to a mere hour on Wednesday and then a mere whiff of a threat on Thursday. The good news is that Stephen was excused watering duties for three days and that the road has held up well to the onslaught.

There was more good news, on both a provincial and a domestic level, with one having some bearing on the future of the other. Stephen returned on Monday with the news that for the first day in some time there were no cases of you know what registered the previous day in Fermo, which augured well for a continuation of our breakfasts in Pina. These we reinstated on Tuesday morning together with a shopping trip in due to Conad. For the past few weeks Stephen has been doing this alone on his way to the factory, there being little point in me joining him for the ten minutes or so it takes. Now, though, with cappuccini and homemade ciambellone and the possibility of buying this week’s Dipiù TV magazine at Pina, we can once again join forces and share some quality time.

We were also working as a team on Thursday afternoon when we took both cars for their revisione, the Italian equivalent of the MOT. In the past we have booked into Auto Pompei for this, but their lack of urgency, if not indeed helpfulness, with the problem with the Freeclimber means they are no longer quite our cup of tea. Instead, this time, on Mirco’s recommendation, we took them to Ripani

Giove, the garage just this side of Rapagnano where you roll up and wait your turn. The first waiting, as it turned out, was not for the revisione but for the boss man to stop chatting with a couple of guys who may or may not have had business with him. Once they got in their car and drove away, we told him we had the two cars for testing and he said that was fine, it would take 20 minutes per car and his son, Marco, who carried it out, would be with us when he finished his current test.

We duly took position under a tree in the parking area, with a good view of the testing bay so that when, fifteen minutes later a satisfied customer drove away we were ready to be called forward. There was, though, a slight delay as it was discovered that the printer was failing to do what it does best, i.e. print. Marco apologised and said that it would hopefully be only ten minutes. After some twenty minutes he was ready for us and we decided the Panda would go first so I could then head home as Bella and Harry would need walking. About half an hour was all it took for the car to given the all clear – and the appropriate documentation to be printed.

I headed home, leaving Stephen in charge, but when I was minutes away from LCDDB my mobile went off. We should really have known better than to think things would go smoothly with the Freeclimber, as nothing ever has in the past. Really I should have waited, for when I pulled over and answered Stephen said that Marco couldn’t do the test then as with the car being thirty years old the machine for testing the exhaust would fail it.

I had to do a quick turn around and pick him up and then return for the Freeclimber just before the garage closed at 8pm, allowing young Marco to get his hands on a suitable method of testing. The good news when we did return was that, like the Panda, it was given the all clear. All that’s left now over the next few weeks is to renew the insurance and pay for this year’s road tax on each of them, once I’ve scanned the papers for a part-time job to pay for it.

As for what passes as my regular job, there was an elegant variation to it on Friday when, now that the schools have finished, my lesson in Montegranaro was switched from Friday afternoon to Friday morning. This was no real hardship, other that Stephen having to do the double of haircuts and shopping, though it did cause an alteration to our breakfast plans. While Stephen hit Bar del Borgo as per I stopped off at the bar at the garage at the traffic lights on the way to Cassette D’Ete, where we usually go if we are heading into Civitanova – usually, but I think no longer given the idea of customer service that the nowty woman who owns the place seems to have.

I’m not sure exactly what the final straw was; maybe it was the less than welcoming way she asked what I wanted or perhaps wondering why she had put the coffee into my cup but left it on the counter while she started tidying away empty pastry trays, though to be fair she had given me my cornetto al cioccolato so I could stand there with it in my hand while I waited. On the other hand, it could have been when she snapped at me to go into the back room where I settled at an uncleared table before she handed the cappuccino through the hatch, having filled it with the tepid milk from the jug that was standing on the counter when I first went in rather than steaming a fresh batch.

Really, though, I think what settled it was when I want to pay and put down the loyalty card that she gave Stephen on his first visit after she had taken over the bar and was pretending to be nice, expecting her to stamp another of the boxes with a silver star. Instead, she told me that the card was a fidelity card for regular customers and she hadn’t seen me in months (February – and maybe I should be flattered I am so memorable) so it was no longer any use. Somehow I can’t help thinking that she hasn’t quite grasped the idea of how to make your customers feel welcome.

As for the weekend, the good news is that Stephen harvested our first courgettes of the season yesterday, with a promise of more to come. The bad news is that when he went to get our dinner (spiced chicken and potatoes, the second half of a batch I made a couple of weeks ago) from the freezer downstairs it was to find that somehow the adaptor was lose and the freezer wasn’t on. How long it had been off is a moot point, but everything inside was not only defrosted but definitely on the warm side as well, leaving us no alternative but to jettison the whole lot. Fortunately, it was only about a third full, and even more fortunately, at least now it is empty we have lots of space for all those courgettes waiting in the wings – which must be why freezers have a silver lining.