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my driving licence had expired at the end of June, some four months ago… As he ambled over to his colleague, I googled OUT OF DATE DRIVING LICENCE IN ITALY.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!!!

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First job was to pay the fine for using an out of date license, the good news was it was only €110 and not the possible huge amount that google suggested plus the €1300 charge for finding me, good God, all they had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.

• Purchased by Fräulein at Gulliver’s Supermarket
• German Riesling 2022
• Torrevilla
• €2,99
• We gave it an 8.5 out of 10 (Fräulein said it could be a little more fruity)