February | 2023 | Englishman in Italy

Last week was Carnival in Italy, unfortunately I slept through it, I was suffering from a bad case of man flu. I cancelled all my lessons and decided to spend the week being nursed by Fräulein.

I might stay ill for a couple of weeks. 😇

Actually, I thought I had cancelled all my lessons, however it seems I forgot to cancel a lesson. I realised my mistake when I received a rather terse WhatsApp message from a teacher. She used words such as, molto dispiaciuto and perché! I didn’t need to use google translate to realise I was yet again in deep trouble.

Today I went back to school to work with Class 1 children aged 6. They are a special class who work hard and we have now finished their workbooks, so now I either have to design some interesting lessons so they don’t realise we are repeating work they have already done (read revision for the above sentence ) or I can start getting them ready for next year, which is way more fun.

Between lessons I wandered downstairs to apologise to the teacher I forgot to message whilst I was on my death bed. She made me apologise again and stoop my head in shame. I felt like one of the donkeys in Class 2 that I was due to teach in five minutes time..

Dear heart before you go do you have any last words? Yes, tell the school I might not be in class tomorrow

Class 2 have been an ‘interesting’ class to teach. Interesting being the best adjective to use for class 2. I have tried various methods of trying to control my lovely Class 2 and have settled on the carrot and stick approach with them. If they complete the work and I don’t have to glare at them, they receive a star in their books. The stick is they will have to listen to a 5 minute talk about respect and behaviour after the bell has gone. The head teacher has resolved her problem of losing her voice whilst teaching class 2 by purchasing a small portable speaker, slung around her waist.

The head has started using a small portable speaker!!!

I refuse to shout in class, I prefer to scare them silly by staring at them or talking in a deep low voice using a language they don’t really understand…. English. I think the fear of the unknown is more fun and besides if I decided to use a speaker to raise my voice, I would go out and buy the type of megaphones the police use during civil unrest.

My heart goes out to all my teacher friends, roll on the summer holidays

On Valentine’s day I ordered a new bed, Fräulein had been very patient with our sleeping arrangements, even I was forced to admit a sofa bed was not really practical when you are 180cm tall (5 foot 9″ in real money) which makes her several inches taller than little old me. Today our new bed arrived. Whoop Whoop!

I ordered the bed on the 14th February, then while I was at school with my sticky little children, I received a Whatsapp message from Fräulein asking me if I had ordered the140cm or the 160cm width bed as we had previously agreed. I quickly checked and I was forced to cancel the order and spend twenty anxious minutes during my break, trying to order the larger bed and matching mattress while hoping it would arrive on the following Monday. As I had promised Fräulein.

IKEA are amazing, they cancelled the order for the smaller bed and accepted my updated order. And just to be super nice, they refunded my money within 48 hours and the bed arrived early Monday morning, which gave me a full day to put it together. Fräulein was VERY keen to help build the bed, she kept saying useful things like “give me the allen key, I can tighten it better from here” and “you hold this, let me do it” I showed Fräulein the instruction book and it was patently obvious that this was man’s work, but as there wasn’t a second man present she could help by holding the bedframe while I did the technical stuff.

Fräulein is fantastic at a number of things that I would love to learn, take for example German, I would love to be able to learn another language (obviously after I have learnt Italian, as this is taking longer than I thought it would) or playing the guitar, she can actually multitask. Not only can she play the guitar she can sing at the same time. With a little help, ok a lot of help I can find C dur cord. I place my fingers on the guitar strings where I think they should go and she then twists and bends my fingers in strange ways so the guitar makes a sound. I have been searching on the internet for a song where I only need to learn C dur cord.

And as to learning German. I can now count to ~~sex~~ sechs (Six in real words) I can also say No. Yes, Hello and Thank you, I consider this to be a major breakthrough.

So who knows, maybe one day I will be able to sing Eleanor Rigby in German or order a cappuccino in Germany without the waitress killing herself laughing as one did during the Christmas break.