December | 2023 | Englishman in Italy

Our house has been getting colder and colder, we use the radiators sparingly because gas is incredibly expensive in Bell Italia. Poor Fräulein who comes from the Baltic sea and should be more acclimatised to the baltic (cold) weather is feeling pretty cold. So in my infinite wisdom, I went out and bought a second hand pellet stove from a friend.

Davide sold me the pellet stove and part of the deal was he would help me to carry it upstairs and set it going for us. I had no idea how heavy this thing was, poor Gianni, Davide and I struggled with it up stairs. At one point I nearly suggested it would look better downstairs.

They went home and promised to return the following evening to start it up. Feeling quite satisfied with my daft self, carefully I connected the rear of the pellet stove to the special round hole in the chimney breast. The following evening as promised Davide returned and turned it on and the Stove promptly blew dirty soot all over the place. Some fool had put the tube on the inlet instead of the outlet. Looking rather sheepishly at Davide, who was standing closer to the stove than I was and therefore ended up dirtier than I did. I watched as he rolled his eyes and swapped the tube around.

Davide was less than impressed with the way things were going.

With the exhaust now correctly connected, Davide pressed the start button and we waited with bated breath as the machine first went through a cleaning cycle and then… blew a fuse and switched off. Fräulein was sent on a fools errand to buy some more fuses. Did I point out it was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the shops that sold little glass fuses were closed, meanwhile Davide and I cleaned the soot and waited for the return of Fräulein .

There weren’t any fuses to be had, so Davide went home, but not before saying “Let’s hope your chimney hasn’t been closed” That gave me pause to think and a sleepless night full of weird dreams. 8:30 in the morning, I launched my drone and flew it over my roof. The roof had been renewed by the previous owner and there wasn’t a chimney in sight. They had been capped and tiled over. So now I understand why the wood stove we attempted to light smoked us out …

Monday evening Davide, Gianni and I will carry the Pellet Stove back downstairs and connected it to a hole in the lounge near the stairs in the hope some of the heat will flow upstairs.

So watch this space to see if we manage and that it doesn’t blow another fuse.

It is nearly Christmas, good will to all except the carabinieri and Fintel Engineering SRL of Milan. Let me explain why, last month I was calmly driving to town when three ~~wise~~ men driving in the opposite direction flashed their headlamps to warn me that the police or carabinieri were stopping cars to check the documents of the driver. I knew I wasn’t going to have a problem, because my car wasn’t due its revisione (MOT car exam) until the following month and my tyres were more or less ok.

When the carabinieri flagged me down, I greeted them politely and handed over my documents. Imagine my horror when the carabinieri pointed out that my driving licence had expired at the end of June, some four months ago… As he ambled over to his colleague, I googled OUT OF DATE DRIVING LICENCE IN ITALY. The result was a penalty between €2,257 and €9,032, I was trying to think how I was going to explain this to Fräulein, then the carabinieri returned and told me I had an even bigger problem, because some company (Fintel Engineering) in Milan had put a hold on my car and I couldn’t use it until they released it. Plus I had to pay the ‘Verbali” €1,300 this is a charge because the police ‘found’ me!!!

Out of date, ok it really expired in July 2023

Driving home I was wondering if Fräulein would like to emigrate to Bogato in South America and leave this expensive mess behind. I mean if the verbali was €1,300 and €1900 if I didn’t pay within five days. God only knows how much Fintel Engineering wanted to release my beloved but old car. I drove home and broke the news to Fräulein that for the foreseeable future she had been promoted to my chauffeur. well until I sorted this mess out

First job was to pay the fine for using an out of date license, the good news was it was only €110 and not the possible huge amount that google suggested plus the €1300 charge for finding me, good God, all they had to do was ask ‘where is the Englishman who lives with the beautiful German woman with red hair and anyone could have told them!’

Fräulein was remarkably calm about the whole problem, no, Why did you forget? or Maybe next time you will try to remember… She is such a sweet woman.

I have to book an appointment with Mr Cretino , I am sure you remember him, I wrote many posts here about when I was organising my first Italian driving licence.

To finish, Fräulein and I are having a little fun trying to buy reasonably priced bottles of wine. So here is tonights.