Winging it

18th May 2025

Believe it or not (and I lean decidedly to the latter) it is now ten years since we drove through the Monte Bianco Tunnel on a sunny Saturday morning and set foot as ex-pats in our adopted country. Thursday was the actual anniversary to the day, and that, like the rest of the week, was fittingly uneventful. After a decade, what was new and exciting has become familiar and comfortable – and there’s nothing wrong with that.

There has, of course, been the odd variation to the norm over the past seven days, namely one of Stephen’s occasional solo work trips to Milan. He left on Tuesday morning, but as his train wasn’t till 11.00, he decided we could breakfast as usual in Pina before he abandoned me to do the shopping all on my own (yes, I managed ok, thank you for asking).

He was back home the following evening, more or less on time, so dinner was more or less finished by ten allowing us time for a little digestivo and an episode of Schitt’s Creek. The following couple of days being only vaguely interesting, we will gloss over and pass to a scintillating weekend; scintillating in comparison that is, which is not saying much.

Yesterday morning was round two of Stephen and the lopper versus the trees, when he edged a win on points after hitting a bit of a hiccup. He was only able to clear away some of the lower branches of the trees at the side of the house where Mario and Luigi pass in their tractor because he couldn’t find the wing nut needed to attach the saw blade. He knew he’d put it somewhere safe so it wouldn’t be lost, but where remained a mystery till late in the afternoon when he found it in his trouser pocket.

Today was significant, not because it was time to stock up on household items at Risparmio Casa, that not being a rare event, but because short-sleeves were the order of the day for the first time for our post-shopping luncheon date at DiverXo. We gave a couple of our Bologna purchases an airing, and even if I say so myself, looked much to advantage, me in my vary-coloured striped linen shirt while Stephen opted for his fifties Yellowstone Park vibe one, complete with bears.

As for Risparmio Casa, that took a little longer than anticipated. Since our last visit they had extended the shop by knocking through to what had presumably been storage space, and by reconfiguring the rest of the area so that while things were sort of in the same area they weren’t in the same place. That was no problem, though, as while we might have had to do a bit of wandering to find what we wanted, at least it gave the other shoppers the chance to appreciate how dapper we looked.