By now you know my sense of humour isn’t exactly, normal.  I have no idea why this is. Grab a drink tea, coffee or preferably wine and come a little closer and I will tell you when I was asked to translate a conversation for a friend.

Now you guys know my Italian language skills are pretty dismal. But under the right conditions, maybe a couple of glasses of wine,  I can sometimes even surprise myself. It was eight o’ clock in the evening and I had just finished giving an English lesson to a group of friends. As I drove away in my little blue Mini, I received a voice message from the wife.

I am going to bed, your dinner is in the dog oven.

I turned my car around and headed back up the hill to La Chance, one of my favourite wine bars owned by Edo, who is a bit of a character and his selection of wine is fantastic.

Edo, Cocktail maker, friend and a brilliant chef

I was just about to order food, when Edo invited me to stay and eat with the staff, so I settled down with my wine and started to laugh and have fun with the staff there was also an Irishman who was in Gabbiano looking for work!  Which is strange because Gabbiano is a little hill town, most people leave Gabbiano to find work.

The cook who works at La Chance is a big fellow and to be honest a little scary looking, I always think he looks like a huge KGB hitman, on the plus side he is a talented chef.

He may be nice, but he is really scary looking.

The chef, believe it or not, is twice as scary as the photo I pinched from the net.

It is now two-thirty in the morning and we are just finishing the deserts and I have a nice glass of Spanish wine in front of me, who would have guessed Spanish wine could be so good.

I have spent the evening laughing and joking with these guys and suddenly the chef leans across the table and catches me like a deer caught in a cars headlights and then he asks “Pecora Nera, can you translate for me, I want to ask the Irishman a question?”

Now I know, I should have laughed and declined, or called Edo over who was in the kitchen, but, well I was drinking wine and….

Sure, tell me?

Ask him why he has moved here.

So as the chef cast his stare on the Irish man. I turned to my new friend and said, The Chef says you have really nice legs.

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The Irishman was struck dumb for a few seconds, he managed to tear his eyes away from the chef, who incidentally was watching him quite intently, he turned to me and said.

I am not like that.

How I didn’t snort my wine all over the table I will never know, I shrugged my shoulders and told the chef he is here for work.

The chef looked at me, and said, tell him there is no work here.

My translation, from Italian to English went something like , The Chef says he can teach you.

Sorry I had to use this one

The look on the irishman’s face was priceless, the chef followed up his previous question, by looking at the waitress and asking if she knew of any jobs.

This was obviously translated into, The chef says your legs are almost as nice as the waitresses, and then Edo leaned over and refilled my glass. His English is pretty good and he caught my latest bit of translation.

Pecora Nera!!!!! Be good.

The Irishman looked at me, and then I lost it, I collapsed into laughter, I had to put my glass down before I spilled it. Fortunately, when I came clean and explained my little error in translating, both the the chef and Irishman thought it was funny. Although I haven’t seen the Irishman around in a long time.