I have decided it is time for another sensible post. We have had enough mirth and merriment. So today we will look at the low-cost airlines, that we like to whinge about.
Frederick R. Barnard in 1921 coined the phrase “A picture paints a thousand words” (see I do my research)
So here is…. A video paints a few thousand words, attributed to Pecora Nera 2013
Yorkshire Airlines
Fascinating Aida
Yesterday was my third visit to the motorizzazione, in my ongoing saga to convert my UK driving licence to an Italian Driving licence. At 5.30 I arrived at the office with Mrs Sensible in tow, she wouldn’t let me bring my sharpened fork.
Signore Cretino once again asked if he could take a photo copy of my driving licence, Italian identity card and my codice fiscale. Just for fun I also handed him my British Passport. This is the third set of copies he has taken. He must be building up an impressive file.
Pecora Nera Driving Licence
The first problem we hit was the name on my UK driving licence didn’t match the name on my British Passport or my Italian Identity card. Mrs Sensible explained, that in England it is possible to combine the surnames of the husband and wife when they marry. He wasn’t very impressed; I have to take my hat off to Mrs Sensible because she calmly explained that she was right and he would just have to accept the situation.
The next step was my medical. I had to visit the doctor who had an office next door, but way up on the fourth floor. By the time we had climbed the steps, I nearly needed a doctor to resuscitate me. We passed an old lady on the way up who was slowly climbing the stairs for her medical. She looked about 80 years old. When she finally entered the waiting room she looked 85 years old.
It is impossible for 20 Italians to sit in a waiting room and either sit quietly or to whisper to their partners. It took them about 3 nanoseconds to realise I was English.
Old Lady: “Your husband is English, Does he understand Italian?”
Mrs Sensible: “Yes he is English and no he doesn’t understand much”
Pecora Nera “I speaks Italian small small”
Old Lady “Ah! His Italian is very Good”
Mrs Sensible looked to heaven and I gave a huge grin.
Mrs Sensible then showed everyone in the doctors waiting room, my new driving licence photo. She used the following words as she handed my photo around e’ Brutto, e’ schifo.
The old lady laughed and showed her photo. A second lady who was sat across from us produced her driving licence. I would estimate her age somewhere between 65 and 70. Her photo showed a woman of 26 with a 1960s hairstyle.
Her photo was something like this
Pecora Nera “ That doesn’t look like her, how can the police identify her? I mean she looks like her daughter or even her daughter’s daughter; but with a 1960s hairstyle”
Mrs Sensible “In Italy we don’t need to update our photo”
Pecora Nera “Madness, so you can be 85 and use a photo taken when you were 18?”
Doctor “Next”
Pecora Nera “ I English I speaks Italian small small”
Doctor “Ok we speaks English, I speaks English little”
Pecora Nera “ Oh your English is so good, thank heavens you understand English”
I passed the medical and we went back to see Signore Cretino at the motorizzazione.
As we entered the office, the following conversation was taking place between a young man and Mr Cretino. Mrs Sensible quietly translated it for me, while I laughed into my hanky.
Young man: My driving licence was suspended by the Carabinieri. When the suspension was over I went back to the office to collect my licence. The Carabinieri in the office had lost it!! So I asked them what they intended to do about it.
The outstanding Carabinieri
Signore Certino: And?
Young man: The Carabinieri said “We won’t do anything, it is your problem. You need to sort it.”
So I asked how do I sort it, what do I need to do? The Carabinieri told me to come here and apply for a brand new driving licence. He said “take your documents and two photos.” I asked him if the photos will need authenticating, he said no, so here I am with the documents and the two photos.
Signore Cretino: You need to authenticate one of those photos; you need to go either to the Carabinieri or to the council.
Young man: But I have just come from the Carabinieri and they said it wasn’t necessary.
Mr Cretino: Well, they could have authenticated them, but they didn’t, so now you will have to go back to them and come back here tomorrow.
As regards to my driving licence, I am now in possession of a piece of paper with a sticker on it. This wonderful bit of paper is valid for 30 days and only valid in Italy.
3 steps forward and 5 steps backwards.
P.s Multifarious Meanderings is trying to get a French licence in France, go and read.
Following on from my post Solipsism, I have decided to discover who I really am. A few people who left comments on the post suggested that I really don’t exist. So who am I?
I would love to be an Expat, I even belong to the British Expat Forum. Although the moderators in their infinite wisdom, banned me, back in 2008 and I had to secretly reapply using a different name and e-mail address. But as a committed black-sheep (Pecora Nera) I was not surprised. Apart from being ceremoniously booted off the Expats website, there are also two other reasons why I don’t think, I fall into the category of Expat. The first one is, I was born in Malta and I am not sure if ‘us’ Maltese can be Expats, the second and fundamental reason is, I can’t afford to pay a Punka Walla, also Mrs Sensible draws the line at me sitting all day in the sunshine drinking gin and tonic.
Gin and Tonic plus a Punka Walla
Photo credit to Neither use nor ornament
This leaves me with either option two an immigrant or option three Zingero. I love the sound of Zingero, it is one of the few Italian words that I can pronounce. It also kind of fits in with the black-sheep image. Zingero is a derogatory term used to describe immigrants from Eastern Europe. However I think Mrs Sensible would throw a No 8 wobbly if I started filling forms in with Pecora Nera, a Zingero.
So I am left with being an immigrant. I have just read in the news that David Cameron our beloved leader is clamping down on immigrants entering the UK. Does this mean he won’t let me back into the UK when I need to stock up on Bacon and T bags? Life is so complicated. On Friday night, I discussed, who am I? with Marco over a couple of glasses of beer. We batted the question and answer back and forth as we shared a plate of chips. After much deliberation Marco gave his considered opinion. You are a stupid Englishman.
So now I know!!! When I fill out my application for my Italian Driving Licence I need to write Stupido Inglese.
This weekend was designated as a chocolate eating and a movie watching weekend. I ordered fresh supplies of chocolate and, armed with my trusty credit card, I purchased a selection of DVDs from Amazon.co.uk
Mrs Sensible likes British Costume Dramas
Another good film
This one was for me
And just in case we ran out of movies I bought this one.
I thought I had prepared the weekend to the last detail. All the films were in stock and would be delivered on Friday afternoon. I now had an ample stock of dark chocolate for Mrs Sensible and an adequate stock of milk chocolate for me.
On Friday afternoon I left the office early and drove home. I waited and waited, occasionally I glanced out of the window in search of the delivery van. At 6.43 I received an e-mail from Amazon, explaining that SDA could not deliver my DVD’s because my address was incorrect. Now this is strange because SDA have delivered to my house before and the gas and electric bills always find me.
Everything became clearer when I tried to input the tracking number on the SDA website, because SDA is part of Poste Italia. Poste Italia is the government-owned postal system that specialises in losing parcels and making grown men cry. I dropped a quick message to a blogging friend at Expat eye on Latvia and received the following.
useful advice
I was quiet worried; just to make sure I wasn’t a figment of my own imagination, I immediately pinched myself to see if I was real. I then ran outside to check that the house was still here and got a second opinion from Google maps.
My house exists!!
They also found me.
So here I am, Saturday morning on a non Chocolate and film weekend. It has turned into a let’s clean the house weekend. Curse you SDA!!! Debbs at Digging wiv Debb will be pleased because choosing between cleaning the house under the direct supervision of Mrs Sensible and planting some seeds in the vegetable plot I chose the latter. The race is now on, will the peas, lettuce and cucumber arrive before SDA find my house?
Please place your bets below.
Pecora Nera Driving Licence
I have created a new page for this post because I know this is going to be a long and painful saga. I will update this as I jump, dodge and get blown up by the Italian minefield of bureaucracy.
20/03/2013
Last summer I noticed that my driving licence would expire in May 2013. I searched on the internet whether, I could renew my licence with DVLC. Unfortunately this is not ‘legally possible’ because I do not live in the UK. I do have a house in the UK but someone is living in it. Further research seemed to imply that exchanging my UK licence for an Italian licence was easy. I would only need two photos, some money and a completed form. I should have known better, after all this is Italy, a country where I have been stopped for driving with a European UK driving licence.
The carabinieri who stopped me was not the brightest man alive, he tried to explain to Mrs Sensible that I, an Englishman was not allowed to drive in Italy with a Ukrainian driving licence. Mrs Sensible went straight into teacher mode and asked the poor carabinieri, (who was now asking himself why he had stupidly stopped me) when did the Ukraine joined the EU? Still pointing at the European flag on my licence, Mrs Sensible then explained to him, again in teacher style language, that the UK on my licence actually stood for United Kingdom, and no it did not need to have GB for Grand Britannia on it.
So here, we are fifty-eight days from my driving licence melting down; and I decide enough is enough. I asked Mrs Sensible to phone the local office that deals with driving licences and find out what documents I will need to take to the office and how much it take to change my licence.
OFFICE: Why does your husband want an Italian Driving Licence?
MRS SENSIBLE: Because his UK licence expires in May.
OFFICE: UK licences do not expire. Italy is going to change to licences like the UK one.
MRS SENSIBLE: My husbands licence expires on the 17th May 2013. it is clearly stated on the licence.
OFFICE: Really! Tell your husband to pop into the office this afternoon and we will sort it all out.
MRS SENSIBLE: Pecora, if you go to the office now they will sort it out for you… go now… go.
PECORA NERA: He hasn’t got a clue what he is talking about has he…. ALL RIGHT I am going.
Standing in the office the idota stupido helpful man explained that, for a small sum of money he could stick a sticker on my UK driving licence that would make it valid for another 5 years.
Words failed me, both English and Italian words. I phoned Mrs Sensible and said ” I don’t need a sticker I need a new licence. Hertz car rental is not going to accept an Italian Sticker stuck on my driving licence as proof that it is now valid for another 5 years. Please explain this to this helpful intelligent cretino. After Mrs Sensible had had a short telephone conversation with the man, the phone was passed back to me and I was told “He will have it all sorted tomorrow. You will need to call back tomorrow around four in the afternoon.
Tomorrow I will update part 2 after I have driven back to the office and had another discussion with Signor Cretino. Right now I am going to have a glass of wine.
Oh how the mighty have fallen.
Gilda in the dog house
I am sure you remember Gilder the short-legged but incredibly fat sausage dog who saved her owner from the snake attack last November. Well she is in disgrace at the moment. There is a wolf that lives across the road from us. It is a pleasant dog that although it is big, it only howls at night when it remembers that its mate has died. It very rarely barks. The only time it barks, and then it goes absolutely mental, is when Gilda decides to stroll down to the wolf, bark at him and generally wind him up. When the wolf is in a frenzy, and running up and down the garden fence searching for a way to get at the little fat dog; Gilda deciding her work is done for another day saunters back across the road up our driveway and across to Luiginas house. Her tail at full mast just to wind the wolf up a little more.
If you look carefully you can see the wolf across the road
Now winding the wolf up is one thing, her punishment will surely come when the wolf realises it can jump the garden fence and outrun a dog that relies on legs that are only 3 inches long and needs to breathe in to make sure it’s belly doesn’t scrape along the ground. No, Gilda was incarcerated for joining up with Lila, Luigina’s other dog, which is known for being timid, and Diana a lovely soft Border Collie that lives up the road. The three of them caused a jogger to stop in mid stride.
The terrible threesome, and Gilda was the ringleader decided to surround a jogger who was going about his business of jogging up our road, and bark at him every time he raised a foot, shouted for help or tried to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He was paralysed with fear. Mrs Sensible asked me who Gilda was barking at; I replied she was probably winding up the wolf. Go and have a look please she told asked me. I had a quick glance out of the bathroom window and spotted the jogger who was doing an excellent impersonation of a statue.
Credits to Michelangelo. I think he was Italian
Armed with a sweeping brush, I gallantly went to the rescue. I didn’t really need the brush because the only danger from the three musketeers, would be a good licking. But as I had had to leave the comfort of my warm house, in my flip-flops, PJ bottoms and a coat, I was determined someone was going to suffer. Even if that someone turned out to be the jogger.
Having rescued said jogger, Mrs Sensible decided it was my fault, because I had left our automatic gate open. Please note the word automatic. We have the only automatic gate that is having hormonal problems and requires a good shove to get it to open or close. Friday it was raining and I simply refused to get out of my car and push our automatic gate closed.
Automatic, don’t make me laugh. they can’t even spell it correctly.
And that is why Gilda is in the dog house. A new motor for the gate will cost me around 400 euros (all donations to my paypal account please). The cost of keeping Gilda in Jail is significantly less. It’s a hard life when you are a jogger, wolf or a dog in jail.
Mrs Sensible sent me on an errand this morning. On the way to work I had to drop off a sample of her wee at the local hospital.
Mrs Sensible gave me concise instructions, she explained which room I had to go to, and that I might have to sign or complete a form or two, a lazy smile grew on my face. Italian form filling is not one of my fortes. When Mrs Sensible saw my grin, she gave me a stern look, Pecora it is important…
So armed with the plastic container and the necessary paperwork I set of for work hospital. When I reached the hospital it took ten minutes of circling the car park before I found somewhere to abandon my little mini. As I walked to the hospital carrying THE SAMPLE two thoughts jumped into my mind, First, how on earth did Mrs Sensible produce so much wee in 24 hours and second how did she manage to pee into the container, I know there was no funnel in the bathroom yesterday. She must be a better shot than I thought.
When I entered the waiting room, I was greeted by this wonderful little ticket dispenser.
The wonderful ticket machine
Press a button and it throws out a ticket, but which button should I press? I immediately dismissed button A. I spotted the word urgent, and although for me it was most urgent to get out of here and back into my Mini, I guess THE SAMPLE did not fall under the urgent category.
Closing my eyes, I played eeny meeny miny moe and randomly punching a button. The machine spat out ticket D, good choice I thought. I like the colour blue and I had spotted the word Biologici so I thought I was in with a good chance.
Settling down into a chair in the waiting room, I sat and watched the electronic display board. Lots of A, B E and F’s were called, but very few D’s. Eventually D08 blinked up on the score board, brilliant a wait of only fifteen minutes. Grabbing the container of wee I walked over to the cubicle with number DO8 flashing above it. I proudly laid THE SAMPLE and ticket DO8 on the counter and got ready to try and explain in Italian that this was not my wee but belonged to Mrs Sensible.
Mrs Sensibles wee container looked a little like this. Ok not quiet like this but it was big.
The nurse took one look at the container and my paperwork and shook her head. She took ticket number DO8 dropped it in her bin and said “è il biglietto sbagliato” What, what?? Wrong ticket! How can this be?
Feeling very dejected, miffed and unhappy I wandered back to the waiting room and the stupid ticket machine. I now had to choose another ticket, obviously not A or D. I thought about playing eenny meeny miny moe again or choosing my next favourite colour but there didn’t seem to be a red option. Punching every button I collected eight tickets, much to the bemusement of the little old lady who had been watching me puzzle over the machine and heard me muttering in English to myself.
As I sat down to play hospital bingo, ticket number D09 was called, uffa!! I screwed it up and shoved it into my pocket. F27 was next but I had F 35. Then wonders of wonders E24 as I checked my handful of tickets, I realised I was the holder of the golden ticket. Picking up Mrs Sensibles sample I walked over to yet another booth and silently praying, I handed over both the precious golden ticket and the sample.
Hospital Bingo
The nurse and I commenced the form filling. There seemed to be a little problem with the sample, the nurse, I think was trying to tell me that the container was too big and Mrs Sensible should have used one like this.
Mini wee bottle
I tried to explain that Mrs Sensible could fill twenty of those in one go and the doctor wanted a 24 hour collection, should Mrs Sensible have used 200 of those?
Huffing and puffing in Italian, the nurse stamped my paperwork and reluctantly took the gallon and a half of high-octane wee.
Later that evening Mrs Sensible asked me how it went, easy peasy lemon squeezy I said, but next time can you take your own pee to the hospital.
Mrs Sensible is her name and teaching is her game.
Mrs Sensible passed all her exams and qualified to be a teacher many years ago. Unfortunately so did many other people. Each year Mrs Sensible is given a ten month contract, working in one of the state schools. She is then laid off during the summer and we have to watch our pennies as she doesn’t qualify for holiday pay. We then pray that Mrs Sensible will be given another contract for the following year.
The Italian government has decided to change this nonsense and employ full time teachers for the 11,892 positions that are normally handed out on short term contracts. The problem is there are 172,248 eligible teachers who all want and need a job. Snr Profumo, some geezer in the government decided that what Italy needed was a competition, and so the Concorso Insegnanti 2012/13 is running.
Teachers in Turin waiting to enter the school for the 2012 School Contest
In December the first stage of the concorso (competition) took place. 50 multiple answer questions, were laid before the 172 thousand teachers. Only 33.6% passed, Mrs Sensible passed and was quiet annoyed with herself for only scoring 46.5 out of 50. She needed 35 to pass.
I have no idea how she managed to pass the first stage, since some of the questions were supposed to be based on logic but even Spock would have considered them illogical, and the maths questions… well let me give you an example.
Illogical Captain
5 trains leave different stations. Train A arrives before Train B, Train C was driving faster than train D. Train B arrived before train D. What did the driver of train C have for breakfast? Mrs Sensible knew the answer.
I like to think my lack of Italian played a small part in helping Mrs Sensible pass the exam. She is forced to use English if she wants any sensible answers from me, and so the English Questions that made up 25% of the marks was a piece of cake for the talented Bi Lingual Mrs Sensible.
Anyway at the beginning of this month she went to Torino to sit the written exam. I booked us in a nice hotel and went along for the ride. As I took a couple of photos a little lady whose name translates to Mrs Drinkwater asked me if I was a journalist. No no, my wife is a teacher I said, pointing at the mass of people who were trying to enter the building.
Mrs Sensible is in this crowd
“Come and have breakfast with me” she said. I often wonder if I have a note stapled to my back with the following printed on it STRANGE PEOPLE PLEASE APPLY HERE. On the way to breakfast Mrs Drinkwater acquired another friend who just happened to be standing near us. After breakfast and as we left the café I gave my excuses and said I needed to put some money in the car parking meter. Oh that’s ok we will come with you. Ahhuh… As the three of us approached my car Mrs Drinkwater, who by now had taken on the position of tour director, said There is a lovely church just past your car, would you like to see it?
Well I had 3 hours to kill, so stupidly I said yes. It was a lovely church and I wasn’t too put out as Mrs Drinkwater and our friend dropped to their knees to pray for their children who were at the moment trying to pass the concorso. I wandered off down the church to look at various paintings and sculptures. As I wandered back to the silently praying twosome, a priest entered the church and everybody stood up. Come on let’s go to the front, said Mrs Drinkwater. Aaahhhhh!!!
I know I shouldn’t have taken this picture. But would you have believed me?
We went to the front of the church, and I sat behind an old lady in a fur coat. The two priests took mass and communion, they said their Hail Marys and left the church. With Mrs Drinkwater in the lead we set off back to the school where Mrs Sensible was working hard.
Mrs Drinkwater stopped once or thrice to answer her mobile, she would have a loud conversation with someone called Giuseppe, and then set off walking again. We didn’t stop at the school, Mrs Drinkwater marched straight pass it, across the road to the University for physical education. Just before she entered the University she once more phoned Giuseppe. I naturally assumed that Giuseppe was waiting for us inside, we would be given cake and tea and take the load off our feet for a couple of mins. It couldn’t be further from the truth. We took a tour of the University trying various locked classroom doors, it was when she rattled the third door that I became a little suspicious that maybe Giuseppe wasn’t in the University and was more than likely sitting in Messina, Sicily, phoning his mum to make sure she wasn’t getting into any trouble.
We wandered down a long dark corridor, and I kept expecting to see a security guard who would shout at us and physically throw us out, or maybe something worse. At the end of the corridor was a gymnasium. Girls in leotards were engaged in some pretty physical jumping up and down and waving their arms around. Mrs Drinkwater put her shopping bags on the floor and decided to join in. Now finding myself caught up in a catholic mass on a Friday morning is one thing, and I am no stranger to surprises and strange circumstances but this was becoming a little too surreal even for me.
Mrs Drinkwater
The woman in charge of the aerobics class, pleasantly, if not a little sarcastically, asked if we would prefer to join her class rather than practising in the entrance. I made We need to go NOW signs with my hands and thought that if I started to leave the building Mrs Drinkwater and our friend would follow.
Safely waiting back outside the school for Mrs Sensible, the teachers started to emerge from the building. Some looked decidedly unhappy, one of them heard my dreadful Italian and she realised that I was English. She asked me to look at the answers she had given to the English questions. Now, I am not a teacher but the answers she had given were definitely incorrect. I shrugged. Mi dispiace, è sbagliato, I said as I shook my head. She looked stunned and wandered off. One or two others also asked me to mark their papers and I politely decline. I pointed at my wife and suggested they ask her. One girl bursting into tears was just too much for me.
There are two more exams to be sat before the 172 thousand teachers are weeded down to 11 thousand, I just hope and pray Mrs Sensible is not one of those that are weeded out.
In 2009 I left Piemonte and went to Sicily in search of work. This cunning plan, was to find employment in a hotel, or maybe even at the USAF base at Signorella, I could then persuade Mrs Sensible, to move south to be closer to her family, the sun, sea and beaches.
Mrs Sensible thought this was utter madness, most of the Italians were trying to move north in search of work and her crazy English husband was moving south!! However she did see a positive benefit to the exercise. One, she would sleep better without me snoring in her ear and two, I would be forced to learn to speak Italian. Especially if I stayed with Zia E.
Zia E is a wonderful lady, she is the oldest sister of Mrs Sensible’s Dad, and we love her to bits. The only downside was she spoke very little English, maybe as much as hello, goodbye, one, two and three. Which in fairness matched my Italian.
One evening Mrs Sensible phoned to ask me how the job hunting was going. Not bad I told her, Berlitz want me to teach English to Italian Businessmen. Your joking she said, you can’t spell for toffee and your grammar is appalling. It’s not a problem I said, I will teach them to spell fonetically phoneticallie phonetically. There was a long pause and then Mrs Sensible asked me, how was my Italian coming along? Cosi cosi I replied, I am working on it. But you should hear Zia, her English is improving in leaps and bounds. She can now count to 30 and can tell me it is too cold for flip-flops in English. Mrs Sensible let out another audible sigh.
I didn’t secure a job in Sicily, however I did hear this wonderful story.
When Zia’s husband was alive, they owned a summer-house near a little village out in the countryside. Every year Zia and her husband would take a holiday, and visit the summer-house on the same 3 weeks every year. Life was fine, until one year they decided to change the dates of their holiday.
They arrived at the little summer-house 2 weeks early to find the front door was unlocked. As Zia and Zio entered the house, the aroma of fine Italian cooking wafted through the air to their noses. When they entered the dinning room, Zia was stunned to see a family of 6 sat at her table eating a meal. Zia asked the woman, who was sat at the table tucking into meat balls or maybe even spaghetti bolognaise what she thought she was doing .
Do you want to join us for dinner?? (Credit: Walt Disney Alice in Wonderland Brill film)
The woman stood up and said “we live here and are eating our meal. What does it look like; and who the hell are you?” (Obviously it was said in Italian, with a lot of hand waving)
When Zia told them she owned the house, the woman said you don’t live here, you only come for 3 weeks, and when you do we move back to the village. Why are you here now??
I think it was at this point that Zia blew a fuse and threw them out. She also decided to sell her little summer-house.
I did wonder how the family managed to live in Zia E’ house without her knowing. Zia explained that on her visits, she sometimes noticed the odd cup missing and maybe a rug not quite in the right position, but she just put it down to her memory and age.
Mrs Sensible is a wonderful cook, she makes a mean Indian Curry and of course thousands of Italian dishes. Unfortunately the odd dish includes bunnies or octopus. But last night she cooked PANCAKES. And pretty impressive they were.
I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the pancakes were divine, after all Mrs Sensible has mastered the perfect Yorkshire pudding. The above half eaten pancake was savoury, inside it was filled with mushrooms, Gorgonzola cheese and the bacon that I smuggled on-board my last Ryanair flight from the UK.
At last a picture of Mrs Sensible
I have been asked to post a picture of Mrs Sensible. Here you go.
And where did Mrs Sensible get her recipe for the wonderful, marvellous, fantastic pancakes?
1956 BE-RO Home recipes
From our 1956 BE-RO Home Recipe book
The following is taken from page 3 of the book.
The woman who can cook well and bake well has every reason and every right to be proud of her cooking. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred she has a happy home, because good cooking means good food, and good food means good health.
I love politically correct statements.
So you lot out there, are you a BE-RO cook or do you throw a Findus horse beef lasagne pie in the oven. 🙂
We are up to our necks in snow, well almost up to our necks, maybe a little over our ankles if the truth be told. The snow that fell on Sunday is the cold wet type that freezes quickly, makes your fingers cold and the roads in Italy even more dangerous than they normally are.
On Midday Sunday the weather man warned that it would snow, the competition that Italy is running to find out if teachers like Mrs Sensible can have a proper contract was cancelled due to the forecast of heavy snow. Luigina and I looked at the beautiful blue sky and poo poohed them. Mrs Sensible washed the rugs and I hung them outside, they are still hanging there.
Frozen rugs.
On Monday morning on the way to work, I managed to pirouet my little Mini on the roundabout, as the car slide and slewed towards the barriers, I could hear Mrs Sensible, she was somewhere deep in my head saying “I told you, you need to put snow tyres on your Mini” As I simultaneously asked God to stop the car from crashing and cursed the idiota who was trying to overtake my spinning car. I promised myself that I would change the tyres, immediately if not sooner.
Mrs Sensible’s Car
God answered my little prayer, both my little Mini and I survived our little spin on the roundabout. At lunch time I changed the tyres on both my impractical, but fun Mini and Mrs Sensible’s small but practical and economic Peugeot.
It was still snowing on Monday night when I was driving home,
Snow and a little pic of my thumb
My house is on the right, if the council used our taxes to install street lights, you would be able to see it. Luiginas house is also on the right. On the left is the house where the bereaved German Shepard howls at night. The dog started howling after its mate died. The only time the dog doesn’t howl, is when Gilda, Luigina’s short but incredible fat sausage dog wanders down the road to bark at it.
One of these days the German Shepard will jump over the little garden fence and we will see how fast Gilda can actually run.
The snow effects everybody, even my hens are not very impressed, I opened the gate to let them out and they just glared at me.
Two legged egg laying machines.
Even after I walked back to check on Mrs Sensible’s rugs the hens hadn’t moved.
Hens, not the brightest animal.
My little Mini was frozen solid. The doors wouldn’t open and the wipers were frozen to the windscreen.
Pecora Nera One
Last picture,
This is what Italy should look like,
OK, admittedly this was taken on the beach, but you get the general idea. Roll on Summer.
No comment!
This morning I received an e mail inviting me to make a 30% return on my investment. All I needed to do was click on a link and then enter both my e mail address and e mail password. Duh!!
The scary thing is; the e mail came from a friend (you know who you are 🙂 ) and therefore a trusted e mail address.
I bounced a message to my friend to let her know that her account might have been hacked; I then sat pondering how safe my accounts are.
Every so often I become paranoid regarding internet security and my passwords. I log onto my e mail accounts, bank accounts, amazon, facebook, wordpress oh the list goes on and on and change my passwords with some new and devious password made up of upper-case letters sprinkled with a few numbers and the odd Ὧ©ⅎ. The passwords become utterly unbreakable, even by me.
I then spend the next 3 weeks filling out the “have you lost your password again, stupid boy,” just so that I can log into my internet life.
Twit form
I have used passwords centred around the names of my children, wife and next doors extremely fat but short legged sausage dog. I have even tried dates of birth, marriage & birthdays, but boy did it get me into trouble when I asked Mrs Sensible the date we married.
In the end I have decided to simplify this password nonsense. I have decided to use the same password and phrase on all my accounts , one I won’t forget in a hurry. New password: Yourintroubleagain21
Mrs Sensibles mum and dad, live near Ragusa in Sicily. I have spent the past seven years dropping hints that it might be nice for us to live near them. It might save the 3000km road trip we take every summer and Christmas (not that I am complaining) So I was quite interested to read this article in the Times of Malta.
It seems that Malta is going to connect its electricity to the grid in Italy via Sicily. I really think one or two people will go grey before this project is finished.
I think the boffins in Malta should have a quick read of this, and then either scrap the idea or run a longer cable to Spain.
I love Italy and especially Sicily, but trying to connect an electrical cable between Sicily and Malta (the place of my birth) and expect it to work is utter madness. They should try something easier; maybe build a bridge from Sicily to Malta or solve the European debt crises.
I did a little bit of research and I will send my findings to the boffins in Malta.
Here is the connector that Malta has proudly designed.
Malta Cable
And here is the connector that Sicily is working on.
Sicily Cable
As you can see they are pretty close. I guess the boffins will have to go to Gatwick Airport and buy a travel adapter so that they can connect the two cables together.
I wish them luck.
Last night Mrs Sensible and I agreed to meet after work in the town centre. Neither of us wanted to cook, so we decided to blow the housekeeping on a well deserved meal out.
Our first stop was the Chinese restaurant near the hospital. I had promised not to order everything that appears on the menu. I tend to get a bit carried away in Chinese restaurants and order loads and loads. I then send Mrs Sensible completely batty, by complaining that I am too full and need to consider dieting.
Unfortunately it was only ten past six, and I am sure you are aware, Italians eat at strange times. The guy who was setting the tables said “Velly solly closed, open later…”
We tried Santa Lucia the Italian Pizzeria / Restaurant, which was also closed even though it stated on the door that it opened at 6.30 ….. I checked my watch and it was 6.50.
I said “ok lets go home and I will cook bangers and mash.”
Oh good Mrs Sensible said we have some nice sausages in the fridge.
“Really… I didn’t know”
Yes they are pork and ( I was waiting for the word apple) rabbit. RABBIT!!! Cuddly, fluffy rabbit.
Fluffy bunny
Frustrated peeved and miffed, I steered Mrs Sensible down the main street. Mrs Sensible walked into a shop that sold SLABS of pizza. She bought 2 pieces. I declined, I refuse to eat food that doesn’t look appealing and I was sulking.
They didn’t look as nice as this
As we walked back to the car, Mrs Sensible started to lecture me on why I did want any SLABS of pizza. She said I was behaving like a naughty spoilt child. I tried to defend myself by explaining that I won’t eat Mc Donalds or Burger King even if I am starving.
On the way back to the car park we passed Santa Lucia the restaurant. Lo and behold it was open. Food I said as I dragged her in the restaurant . Ok ok she said I will take the pizza SLABS to work for my dinner.
As Mrs Sensible disappeared to visit the little girl’s room I ordered a glass of red wine and for Mrs Sensible some fizzy water.
The food was great, and by the time we had finished the meal Mrs Sensible had forgiven me for sulking.
And the SLABS of pizza…. Mrs Sensible had put the plastic bag that held them on the floor next to her chair, and when we left the restaurant she forgot to pick them up….
It’s flipping cold, actually it is warm by Piemonte standards. Last night it was just under minus 1°C. Last winter it reached a staggering minus 22°C. Which amazed me, as I thought you had to visit the Arctic Circle to experience such low temperatures; not sunny Italy.
Anyway after completing my third day back at work following my Christmas Holiday, I decided I wanted a hot shower and a proper mug of English tea. I didn’t need a shower, but the heating had been switched of all day and I had the choice of a) going back out to the warm car and waiting for the house to heat up, b) disappearing under the duvet in the bed or c) having a hot and very long shower. Option C won the day.
I flicked the halogen heater on in the lounge, which is where I had decided to towel myself dry and drink my tea, and of course the heater in the bathroom, which is contra to good sense and most health and safety laws. I then quickly got undressed and just as I was about to step into the shower I remembered the kettle.
One of two heaters to help warm the house
We have amazingly big windows in our house, they are designed to let the heat escape during the winter and allow the sun to cook the house in the summer. As I streaked from the bathroom through the lounge to the kitchen I was praying that Luigina didn’t decide to walk past the house, the sight of so many wrinkles in full flight might have shocked her.
I filled the kettle, whilst hopping from one cold foot to another on the freezing kitchen floor and then flicked the kettle switch. After a quick streak back to the bathroom, I dived into the shower and stood in absolute bliss as the steam rose around me. Mrs Sensible was still at work so I didn’t even have to open the bathroom window. As I soaped my hair, I was contemplating how wonderful a hot shower really is, when the bathroom light went out. Strange I thought, then the shower started to blast freezing cold water onto me and the luxury steam vanished.
Exiting a shower is a very simple process, you simply slide the door to the right or maybe it is to the left and then just step out. However add the fun of dancing around the shower cubical in the dark, whilst trying to avoid the jet of freezing cold water, plus a little soap in the eyes oh! And add scattering and kicking various potions, shower gels, shaving cans and hair shampoo bottles that are normally stood in the corner of the shower tray and you find exiting the shower in the dark is no longer quiet so easy. From the lights going out, to the first blast of cold water, and finally exiting the shower must in reality have taken a little over five second. I certainly didn’t have time to swear more than three times.
Grabbing a towel and putting on my trusty flip-flops and still dripping wet; I went to the fuse box near the front door. The little red LED that flashes on the fuse box was not flashing, and the trip switch was still in the up position. So I grabbed the nearest coat, one of Mrs Sensible’s and set off outside to reset the main trip switch on the fuse box which just happens to be not only outside, but through the gate and stuck in a box on the front of the house.
The switch had tripped, and as I was resetting it Luigina said “Ciao Peter, come stai” As Gilda Luigina’s dog decided to lick my wet toes I answered “Fantastic, sempre bene, molti bene, e’ lei?” She looked at me as I stood there with shampoo in my hair, Mrs Sensible’s coat, flip-flops and bare legs; while her stupid dog was weighing up if my toes were edible or not. She smiled, handed me 6 fresh eggs from the hens, wished me goodnight, took one last look at me called the dog and walked back to her house.
Had Mrs Sensible been home when I decided to have a shower and make a cup of tea at the same time, things would have gone differently. First she would have made sure that the bathroom window was open so that the steam wouldn’t build up, second I wouldn’t have had to streak to the kitchen as she would have prepared the cup of tea for me and thirdly and most importantly, the electric would not have tripped out. Mrs Sensible knows to turn off the two heaters before attempting to boil a kettle.
If you have seen Electrickery you will know I am not a supporter of Italian Electrics, and in our all singing and dancing Italian house there are 15 switches in the lounge that enables me to operate not only the SINGLE light in the lounge, but also the lights in the kitchen, bathroom, hall, front door light, outside security lights, and in all probability several lights in Luiginas house, but if I try to boil a kettle and run two heaters whilst having a hot relaxing shower the fuse box throws the trip.
Simple arithmetic
First Halogen Heater 1.2 KW
Second Halogen Heater 800 w (one bar is non functioning)
Kettle 2 KW
Light bulb sweet fanny adams
Total 4 kw (ish)
Maximum allowable kw into the house before the trip has a tizzy fit and trips, 3KW
I don’t know why it didn’t trip when I first switched the kettle on, maybe it is Machiavellian and thought it would be better and more fun to wait until I was in the shower and had soap in my hair. Who knows in Italy?
I am the only Englishman in our company, we have a lot of Italians, one Albanian and two savage cats. But only one Englishman.
Every year just before Christmas, everyone receives a large Panettone. This is very much like a cross between a soft bread and a fruit cake. And please don’t you Italians get your knickers in a twist over my description because I like them as much as the next Englishman Italian.
Throughout the year, we play quite a lot of practical jokes on each other. Nobody has yet beat my lesson on English swear words. But they do try.
This morning we all received our Panettone, and I had a little gift prepared for them; ten 200 gram tins of Heinz Spaghetti Bolognese (Spag Bog)
As I reverently, handed them out. I was greeted with amusement, bemusement and the odd remark of “ma que skifo” Marco wanted to know if the pasta in the can was dry and did he have to add water, while Lorenzo discretely tried to abandon his can on the desk.
I tried really hard to convince them that this is how we prefer our Spaghetti Bolognese in England.
Merry Christmas to you all.
Pecora Nera
One of the engineers in our factory, asked me to teach him a few English words. Ok I said what do you want to know.
English swear words please.
I decided to help Lorenzo out, because I am that kind of guy. So while we were stood by the coffee machine I started his first English lesson.
Lorenzo the first and most important swear word you will need and use in the factory is… nasty. In England we use this word all the time. For example, when a car driver cuts you up, we shout out of the window “you are nasty” and if someone spills wine on you, you may call them nasty. “Is it like stupido he asked” oh no much worse, it is very vulgar.
I then leaned closed to Lorenzo, making sure I didn’t spill my coffee on him and conspiritally whispered, “There is a really bad English swear word but if I tell you it, you must never use it, when Mrs Sensible is in the office or I will be in big trouble.”
Lorenzo’s eyes lit up. And I whispered “naughty” or if you want to be really rude say “you are very naughty” With a straight face, I spent a good ten minutes making sure Lorenzo had mastered how to pronounce these two swear words and then I walked back to my office.
Later during the morning, I wandered back through the factory to the drinks machine. I fancied another coffee, I seem to live on them while I am at work. As I took a sip of the coffee, I heard Davide shout “Sei nauoooty” and Lorenzo reply non è vero. It seems the new swear words were working their way around the factory. I am sure, the infatuation with my new English swear words will die out on Thursday. Because on Thursday Marco will be back at the factory and his English is pretty good, and besides I taught him a whole list of proper swear words one evening over a beer.
But for the moment I can’t walk down the factory without grinning as the engineers call each other nauoooty and nasty.
A couple of days ago Mrs Sensible went to the doctors. I am not sure why she went, I prefer not to discuss dentists or doctors, as there is always some pain involved, and the pain is normally my pain. However Mrs Sensible returned with a hypodermic syringe that was sporting a rather long and dangerous looking needle.
Big pointy needle
What is that for, and where did you get it I asked, while silently praying it wasn’t for me. My wife takes great care of my health by monitoring my crisps and alcohol consumption.
From the doctor Mrs Sensible calmly told me. It is my anti flu jab, do you think you can give me the injection? Me! Give my wife an injection and be responsible for the pain it will involve. I refuse to even hurt spiders, ants or even daddy longlegs. The only beast I will kill or hurt is the blood sucking mosquito.
No sorry, can’t do it. No way I blustered. Why didn’t the doctor give it to you? He is the doctor after all.
Mrs Sensible explained that the doctor gave her the prescription and by the time she had cashed in the prescription for the lethal pointy looking syringe the doctor had gone home. And besides in Italy it is not uncommon for members of the family or maybe a friend to be a dab hand with the syringe. Mrs Sensible’s mum would do it if she was here.
I am your typical Englishman I frown on pain and syringes. Apart from our scary dentist, the last time I received a needle, was some thirty-one years ago when I had my last and hopefully only tetanus jab. We English take aspirin and a glass of lucozade when we have the flu I tried to explain.
All an Englishman needs when he is ill.
It is now three days later, the needle is nowhere to be seen and Mrs Sensible has not gone down with flu, so maybe she asked our neighbour Luigina to give it. After all Luigina is Italian, she is a dab hand with a pick axe in the garden and has written many books on Italy. I would think a simple injection would be a piece of cake for her.
On a footnote I have looked at our medicine tin that used to contain nothing scarier than a pair of nail scissors and a pack of plasters. Under the control of Mrs Sensible, it has grown to a medicine draw and looking at it we could probably survive a nuclear war.
Mrs Sensible read my blog at the weekend and told suggested to me that I write something useful. Something that would help anyone who decides to travel to Italy. So here is my price comparison post.
Mrs Sensible is responsible for making sure I eat properly and she therefore buys the groceries. I don’t really take much notice of the cost of mundane things, such as bread, milk, cheese and butter my interest, is in the cost of wine and grappa. However in the interest of blogging I have made an effort.
Benzina or petrol as the English call it, is rising at an incredible rate. I was amazed to find out why the Italian government justify some of the taxes on a litre of Benzina.
Here are some of the taxes that make up the cost of petrol.
0.00103 euro for the War of Ethiopia 1935 – 1936 (yep, Mussolini started the trend)
0.00723 euro for the Suez crisis of 1956
0.00516 euro for the Vajont dam burst of 1963
0.00516 euro for the Florence floods of 1966
0.00516 euro for the Belice earthquake of 1968
0.0511 euro for the Friuli earthquake of 1976
0.0387 euro for the Irpinia earthquake of 1980
0.106 euro for the Lebanon war of 1983
0.0114 euro for the intervention in Bosnia/Herzegovina 1996
0.020 euro for renewal of transport workers (autoferrotranvieri) contract 2004
0.0073 euro for conservation and maintenance of ‘beni culturali’
0.040 euro to finance influx of immigrants due to Libya crisis 2011
0.0089 euro Liguria/Tuscany floods autumn 2011
0.082 euro Save Italy decree 2012 (Not sure it has worked)
Near my house there are two petrol stations. Tamoil charges €1.82 a litre for petrol and TE who are less than 100 metres away charges €1.69 a litre for petrol. Now you will be wondering why there is such a big difference in the price. Let me enlighten you.
Mrs Sensible uses TE,
Mrs Sensible’s Garage TE. €1.69 a litre
This is an unmanned garage.
Mrs Sensible can’t buy important things like chocolates, sweets or drinks because no one works here.
Mrs Sensible has to pay for her fuel using the little machine.
The garage attendant
She then has to don protective clothing and fill her own car up.
Protective Clothes. PS This is not Mrs Sensible.
When this is done she walks back to the machine and collects her receipt. It may even be raining, it does sometimes.
Mrs Sensible’s receipt
I on the other hand prefer to use Tamoil
My Garage, as you can see sometimes it is not sunny in Italy
At this garage I don’t even have to leave the comfort of my warm car. Maria will fill up my car, clean my windshield take my money and return with my receipt. I once discussed the benefits of both garages with Mrs Sensible but she has this strange fixation with the difference of 13 cents a litre.
My receipt a little less fuel for my €20.00
I once asked Maria why her petrol was so much more expensive than the garage down the road and she shrugged her shoulders shook out her hair and said “non lo so”
Maria my garage attendant
I know I have just done a post about dogs but Gilda the extremely fat but short legged sausage dog yesterday saved the life of our neighbour Luigina. I know I hinted that Gilda was a good for nothing fat little eating machine but yesterday at about twelve minutes past two in the afternoon she saved her owner’s life.
Luigina who is a spritely 87 years old was brutally stalked and then attacked by a very long snake as she walked across the garden on the way to feed the chickens.The beast of a snake was slithering through the grass with the intentions of impaling its fangs into Luigina’s heel. Fortunately Luigina saw the snake and realising she was in mortal danger she let out a piercing scream and clutched her hands to her breast, OK my imagination is running away a bit but she did shout bestia and wave her hands about a little. (A picture of Luigina can be seen here L’orto and the Fairies)
The snake was badly mauled by Gilda so this is the best I can do
Gilda who heard her mistress’s distress came running to her rescue. Her tail was in the full mast attack position and her belly was clear of the ground by at least 2.5 centimetres. Gilda pounced on the snake and pinning it down with her front paws, she sunk her teeth into the middle of the snake and gave it a really good shake.
Donna our guestaway who is not scared of snakes dead or alive estimated the snake to be about this big.
Upon further inspection by our resident expert (again Donna) the snake was deemed to be a Natrix Natrix or to the uneducated who don’t speak Latin the common grass snake, but as Luigina pointed out it could have been a Vipera Aspis (viper).
I couldn’t find a picture of a Vipera aspis. But this is a Dodge Viper and it will have to do
Luigina is full of praise for Gilda and the snake is still on show for anyone who wants to come and have a look. This coming Saturday Luigina will bury the snake with full military honours near the black fig tree behind the chicken run. Attendees are expected to wear black or full military dress uniform.
Black Truffles
I have put my foot down and told Mrs Sensible that I am buying a puppy, well maybe I haven’t told her but I have dropped enough hints. One of our neighbours has a dog and they go truffle hunting, the pair of them run up and down the trees at the bottom of the vineyard making lots of noise digging around in the trees for truffles. It looks great fun.
One morning as I stood watching them I asked Mrs Sensible who our neighbour sells the truffles to and does he make much money. Restaurant pay a lot of money for truffles she told me and with one of her school marm looks she asked me why.
Just wondering I answered.
A while ago I broached the subject of buying a puppy and Mrs Sensible pointed out that we already have two dogs. “Really?” I answered more than a little puzzled. “Of course we do. we share Luigina’s dogs”.
Luigina has two dogs, a short fat dachshund called Gilda or sometimes called streger (witch) or even stregona whose only claim to fame is she will eat anything she can catch and despite her short legs and fat body the incredible ability to outrun and outpace anything that tries to catch her, this includes the huge German Shepherd that lives up the road and Luigina armed with a brush.
Her other dog is a one hundred percent pure breed mongrel named Lela or gamba lungo. Lela is a very timid dog that can jump over every fence on the land including the chicken run fence, which she does once or twice a week when she decides she wants an egg.
Lila & Gilda.. the photo doesn’t do justice to Gilda’s belly
Neither of these two dogs are good material for truffle hunting. Lela is impossible to train, she even dares to ignore Mrs Sensible, even I don’t do that. As for Gilda I know she would make a great truffle dog, with her short legs her nose is already dragging along the ground. The problem is any truffle Gilda found would disappear into her belly before I could shout Oye.
So I have decided to get a small sensible house trainable truffle hunting dog.
Meet Fleabag
Meet Fleabag
Now I have heard that it is easier to beg forgiveness than it is to ask permission so I am going dog hunting and later hopefully truffle hunting.
Peach
Uttering the words Italian and customer service in one breath is as bad as using King Herod and child care in the same sentence they just don’t go together, except in the case of our local macellaio. Mario knows this particular pazzo Inglese can be forced to buy his wonderful homemade sausages, fillets of steak and other tasty produce, all Mario has to do is point at them and say ancora? And I will nod happily and say si si.
I also receive incredible service from the local corner shop. Maria who serves behind the counter always serves me before anyone else in the shop. It doesn’t matter who is waiting to be served or how many people are queuing to pay she always says prego prego as she gestures me to the front of the queue. No no io sono bene. I will reply. But the other women who are either gossiping about local village life or queuing to pay soon join in prego prego they chant.
So I am forced to go to the front of the queue and using my appalling Italian start purchase my shopping. When Maria and the women first started to invite me to queue jump I initially thought it was due to the respect Mrs Sensible holds as the local school teacher; she is not called Mrs Sensible in the village but Maestra. It took the episode of the peaches for me to realise why they always let me go to the front of the queue.
Mrs Sensible sent me to the shop one afternoon to purchase five peaches, now I know you normally buy fruit by the weight but I am aware of my limitations when it comes to ordering in Italian so I began with Io Bisogno cinque pesche per favore, (I understand that I should us “vorrei” and not bisogno but it never sounds right when I say it) Maria gave me one of those looks that are saved for the village idiot, I hadn’t noticed at this point that one or two of the women were already giggling and snorting into their handkerchiefs, I just thought there was a cold going around.
Maria disappeared into the back of the shop where the freezers are kept. I thought this was really odd as the peaches were in baskets just to the right of me. Stupid old bat I thought. Maria returned with one box of fish fingers, one frozen fillet of fish in a box and what looked like a piece of old shoe leather that might or might not have been dried fish.
Fish Fingers
Erh no no!! I said, pesche I repeated pointing at the basket of peaches cinque pesche. Maria grinned and said pesca Peter pesca.
The women behind me were dabbing their eyes and thinking the pazzo inglese never fails to let us down this time he ordered five fish instead of five peaches. With as much dignity as I could muster I worked my way through the rest of my shopping and thankfully left the shop.
Sauna German Style
Last time I was in Germany I visited a spa and sauna centre, and after the swim I decided to try my first ever sauna so wrapping my towel around my waist I went in search of the sauna rooms.
The first wooden door had a sign with DAME and although my German is limited to words learnt while watching war films, I thought it was prudent not to enter that particular door. The following door had Finnish printed on it, so very slowly I peeked inside. Four huge male Germans were sat on the wooden benches buck naked. It was only as I entered the sauna that I realised that although they were naked, under my towel I still had my trunks on. I am not sure which would be more embarrassing, caught wearing trunks in a German sauna or sitting there naked with a bunch of Germans.
I decided that they were men after all and we are all made the same, just slightly different in places, so I excused myself and retreated back to the changing room to ditch the trunks. Knowing you are nude under a towel as you walk through the swimming pool area while everyone else has a costume on is a very nerve-racking experience, once or twice I nearly chickened out and went back for my costume.
Swimming Trunks
When I returned to the sauna the four Germans were still sat cooking away, so ditching my protective towel I sat down on one of the benches as far away from them as I could. It was hot and I mean really hot; after walking out of the sauna once I knew I would have to stay at least 5 minutes or if I was lucky I might manage to leave when the Germans had had enough. As I sat watching beads of sweat miraculously appear on my arm I decided that protocol or no protocol, I desperately needed to leave the sauna. It was just as I started to stand up that the door opened and three pretty women walked in. One lay down on the bench and the other two sat across from me.
No one uttered a word; none of the Germans said the girl’s sauna is down the corridor. I couldn’t say anything, my German was limited to halt, ausfart and bitte and all I could think was they are naked, nude, no clothes and oh lord so am I. I was already cooked to a crisp and wanted to leave the sauna, but now I would have to stand up in front of these women, and no way was I about to wander out with nothing to cover my modesty. My hands had moved from my knees and were now strategically covered myself, which wasn’t really necessary because it is amazing what heat and fright does to a man.
As I sat there pondering what my options were, the sauna door opened and one of the attendants appeared. I immediately thought he had come to shoo the girls out and send them back to the girly sauna, but with quick clever flicks of a towel he forced some of the heat out of the sauna and into the corridor. I thought I could therefore manage a couple more minutes in the reduced temperature.
The attendant then closed the sauna door and tried to cool the room down by splashing water onto the bricks in the corner, lots of steam filled the room and to be honest it didn’t seem to get any cooler in fact I got the impression that the room was getting hotter. Grabbing his towel the attendant started to wave it in the air above the girls, I glanced across at this spectacle but it wasn’t erotic. To be honest I was too busy trying to work out my exit plan to be worried over erotic thoughts.
The guy then moved around the room to the Germans I waited with bated breath for him to reach me so that I could receive some cool air. When it was finally my turn he started to wave the towel above and in front of me. This guy was either a sadist or stupid what was he trying to do kill me? I had to take a look at his towel to make sure it wasn’t a heat gun; I swear I was receiving third degree burns.
Third Degree Burns
When he had finished his little act everyone clapped, I have decided that the Germans are mad.
I left the sauna as soon as the attendant opened the door and showed the girls a clean pair of heals as I escaped down the corridor. In the corridor with my towel securely fastened around my waist I realised that it hadn’t been as bad as I thought, no one whistled or laughed as I exited, I am sure they would have in England, it was all just so .. normal maybe a bit surreal. I wandered down the corridor and came across two old dears both very old, very naked and very wrinkled who were chatting away sat on their towels next to the biggest Jacuzzi I have ever seen. There were already ten people in it and space for at least another fourteen. So I made up number eleven and ditching my towel I entered the Jacuzzi.
As I sat amongst the bubbles feeling very relaxed my mind drifted to my wife Mrs Sensible who would be ironing or cooking parmigiana. I am sure she would love to sit in a sauna and relax in a Jacuzzi, but I know there is no way she would do it nude. It is just not done in Italy or for the matter in the UK.
Thanks to Pixby Shumbles for inspiring my post. I did write a post about swimming in the spa but it has disappeared.
Snow Chains
Now is the time of year when Italians dig out their snow chains and put them in the boot of their car. Snow chains are a fiendish device; they were invented in 1904 by Harry D. Weed in New York. See I have done my research this time and even added a link to the Wiki page.
We have two sets of chains, Mrs Sensible has some in the boot of her car and I have a set in the boot of my Mini. Despite the fact that last year we had snow up to our armpits, I have never successfully managed to fit a set of chains to either car. Under careful supervision I once managed to fit one chain onto the spare wheel while Giorgio my instructor helped to pull and stretch the chains into position. But it is important to note that the spare wheel was not connected to the car, nor was it cold and wet, nor was I up to my armpits in snow and there were two of us unhindered by wheel arches slush and passing motorists.
Last February under protest I did get out of bed at 6.00 am to fit a set of chains to Mrs Sensible’s Peugeot. When she had finished her breakfast and entered our garage at 7.30 am to drive the car away I was still sat amid twisted chains cursing both the car, Mr Harry De Weed and the beautiful snow that carpeted our garden.
I suggested she took my mini as it was great fun pretty good in the snow. Fifteen minutes later I received a tearful phone call from Mrs Sensible who had embedded my Mini in a snow drift and successfully blocked the main junction at Rosignano. Half of the villages of Rosignano were in their cars stuck behind her and the other half were stuck in front of her.
It took me 35 minutes to walk to her through the snow. By the time I had arrived some thoughtful but angry residents had dug my Mini out and pushed it away from the junction. It was not Mrs Sensible’s fault as she is a good driver, and it wasn’t my fault for not fitting the chains on the car it was Mr Harry D Weeds fault for inventing something so stupid.
Although this morning to comply with Italian law, I have put a set of chains in the boot of both cars I have made a solemn promise to Mrs Sensible that I will buy her a set of winter tyres at the weekend.
The snow chains pictured are not mine, I never intend to see mine again. I have pinched the picture from another WordPress blogger called Salish Sea who it seems has managed the art of fitting snow chains.
I have stupidly accepted a challenge from Adventure in Croatia at stake is a lot of money, one thousand lira. All I have to do is find one Italian who likes Marmite.
I personally don’t think it will be very difficult, I mean come on Italians eat all sorts of things, squid octopus, asino, cavallo ( I have used the Italian of donkey and horse so as not to upset the more squeamish among you)
I will update you as soon as I have won my one thousand lira.
I get asked what do I miss about the UK. I normally respond nothing just my children who still live in the UK oh and perhaps Fish and Chips and a decent beer.
I don’t miss the rain or the non arrival of summer, I even enjoy the manic Italian driving. Mrs Sensible prefers English roads and drivers. To be honest Mrs Sensible is more British than I am in attitude, I think I have easily slid into the Italian style of life.
I miss everything that is in the picture but my poor suffering children and friends are forced to bring me supplies in their suitcases when they come visiting. Lucy managed to fit all the above in one suitcase and her clothes in her hand luggage. It did cost me a small fortune in Italian summer dresses for her while she was here but it was well worth it.
It is nearly November and my little vegetable plot is still providing cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries and aubergines for the kitchen plus eggs from the hens.
Earlier this year I found a great way to keep my cauliflower, broccoli and potatoes pest free. Spray them once a month with the DIY organic pesticide. I found the following recipe on the internet, and at first I was a bit dubious but it works for me. I have added an ingredient because it is important to tweak a recipe and make it your own.
Recipe
Four chilli peppers.
One clove of garlic.
Half a pint of water
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 to 2 glasses of red wine.
Method
Step one
Chop up the chilli peppers and place them in an old jam jar or honey jar, we have plenty because for some reason Mrs Sensible washes jars and stores them in the cupboard. I think she is a secret hoarder.
Step two
Take a sip of the red wine, this is a very important part of the recipe and it is important to get it right, if you are not sure you have done this properly take another sip to be sure.
Step three
Chop up the garlic and place them in the jar with the chilli peppers.
Step four
Repeat step two but this time really savour the wine. It is impossible to add too much wine at this stage.
Step five
Add the olive oil and fill the jar with water. Leave for one week.
Final step
If you have used up all the wine well done, maybe you might want to add just a little bit more to the glass so that you can stand back and admire your jar of organic pesticide with a contented glow. If you did not use all the wine you really ought to change your wine supplier. I would recommend Marco Bellero.
Application
Strain the liquid into a spray bottle, be very careful not to spill any of the liquid on your hands or the work surface because you will stink of garlic and peppers for days.
This is the first year that I have attempted to grow vegetables. I love wandering down to the L’orto to see if there are any strawberries hiding under the leaves. I have been very lucky and everything I planted has grown. So much so that I have decided to go into wine production.
Planting my first wine tree
I survived my five days in Serbia as the translator for Franco our engineer. We flew with the Serbian national airways JAT and we were treated not only to a sandwich but a glass of pop and a cup of tea. I also noted that the airhostesses didn’t spend the flight trying to sell me lottery tickets, bus tickets and smoke free cigarettes. It was a pleasant change from Ryanair the company that I normally use to move around Europe.
We rented a little Chrysler Spark from Unirent at the Airport, Alexsandar charged me 10,500 Dinar for the 5 days, it sounded like an enormous amount of money until I converted it to euros a paltry €90. Alexsandar said he would only charge me for 4 days because today is nearly over. It was only 8pm!!
Alexandar, Franco and I walked around the slightly battered car adding scratches and dints onto the rental form, there were so many I nearly just coloured the form in. When we reached the bonnet I pointed out a whole host of dents that did not appear on the form. Alexsandar raised his eyes to heaven and said “why should be on form, it is stone chip no? how stone chip be fault of driver?” Even so I coloured them in.
Sitting in our 90 euro hire car I tried to find the hotel on our Tom Tom, despite various searches it, failed to find the road I then tried the address of the factory which is the largest building in the city and only 2 kilometres from our hotel, again Tom Tom couldn’t locate the road. After twenty minutes of fiddling with the Tom Tom I walked back to Alexsandar in the airport to see if he could help.
Alexsandra greeted me with a smile and “ah! you still here” I explained our predicament and he replied “Tom Tom no good in Serbia, only has big road on it” So our carful preplanning in the office and the €30 euro we paid to add the Serbian map onto the sat nav was a total waste of time. In the end we in-putted the city of Kragujevac and decided to just head for the centre and by a map.
Driving down a dual carriageway, miles from any civilisation and surrounded by very dark countryside my fantastic Tom Tom suddenly announced “you have reached your destination” Franco looked at me shrugged his shoulders and started to fire off a load of questions. Scusi non capisco I answered. Not really a good start to my week as his personal translator.
The following morning we tried once again to locate the factory with my beloved Tom Tom and failed miserably so we asked the nice lady in the hotel reception to arrange a taxi for us. Five minutes later we climbed into a Taxi that was even tattier than our hire car and set off in search of the Factory. Our driver was obviously practising for the Le Mans as he raced off through the chaotic streets. I don’t scare easily but I did whisper the odd prayer. The taxi cost a staggering 230 dinar, not only that but we had arrived at the wrong factory gate.
A second Taxi arrived and I flagged him down and shouted TAXI. The driver got out of his car and walked over to me and in pretty good English he said “where you go” I really couldn’t concentrate on a suitable answer I just stood there staring at him with my mouth open while his taxi slowly but surely rolled away down the road without him. His previous passenger was still in the car and didn’t even bat an eyelid, maybe it is a common occurrence in Serbia. Franco broke the spell by pointing at the departing Taxi and shouting attenzione, attenzione.
While I suggested to Franco that taking this Taxi was not a good idea the driver set off running down the road after his Taxi. We did eventually arrive at the factory gates in one piece and another 81.20 Dinarios out-of-pocket.
Two taxis one heart attack total cost 2 euros 68 cents.
Oh Lord please help. I have been a good boy today so why did I have to receive a phone call from Mrs Sensible at 13.50 today to remind me that I have to visit Roberto our friendly dentist. Lord I am sure you remember the pain and suffering he put me through before. If you can’t remember please plug in your laptop and read this This might hurt a little.
Why Lord did you help my wife to remember the dentist appointment? Did I not pray hard enough on the way to work asking you to make her forget.
Lord if I have to go tonight please either make Roberto too ill to be there or let him decide we need to wait a day or six.
I promise I will be a good boy for the rest of the week.
P.S
Just in case you can’t make Roberto ill and he does decided to drill and fool around with my teeth I am going to take some pain killers before I go. I know I promised I wouldn’t. But these are hard times.
God bless everyone except dentists.
English weather in Italy
It has taken me four months to get around to fixing the curtain rail and Sunday afternoon seemed like the ideal time. One reason was it was pouring down with rain so there was no hope of pottering in the garden and the second reason was my wife has started to use a peg to close the curtains at night. Not any old peg, a big red plastic peg. Mrs Sensible is big on hints.
I personally don’t see the need for curtains in the bedroom. The only person who overlooks the house lives one kilometre away on the other side of the valley and I like the curtains open so that I can watch the sunset in the evening. I don’t know how good the sunrise in the morning is because unlike my wife who allegedly has seen it nearly every day. I am never awake in time to experience this profound and moving spectacle.
Sunset from the bedroom window
Back to the problem of the curtain runner. The curtain runner is very simple device, two little plastic pulleys, lots of plastic hoops with wheels on, one technical piece of cord and two plastic thingamajigs that should whizz along the runner enabling the curtain to open for the sunrise and close and shut out the wonderful Italian sunsets.
I laid the contraption on the floor of the living room and slowly started to disassemble it. Quiet straight forward to be honest, no screws just pull the plastic ends and it miraculously falls apart into lots of little plastic runners and assorted bits. While Mrs Sensible was in the kitchen baking apple pie and biscuits I sat pondering how this simple device that contained two pulleys and one technical piece of string worked. It is in fact quiet ingenious and totally baffled me. I could see the hole in the plastic thingamajigs where the technical piece of cord should be attached. But once re assembled it still didn’t operate.
I kind of thought it couldn’t be that simple, after all it is Sunday afternoon, it is raining when it should be sunny and I had forgotten to include all the little plastic hoops that the curtain hangs from. I think subconsciously I left the little plastic bits out because I knew from bitter experience that nothing ever works first time.
From the kitchen my wife heard me struggling and also the new names I was now using for the technical piece of cord. She suggested I strip down the one from the guest bedroom and see how a good curtain runner works. It sounded like a great idea. After all that is all the Chinese do isn’t it. “Please to send curtain rail, we make copy, cheaper and quicker.”
So I did as my darling wife suggested. I took the step ladders into the guest bedroom and started to remove the curtains and then the curtain rail. There was a split second as I unscrewed the curtain rail when I asked myself how this simple ten minute DIY job of rethreading a piece of cord was suddenly becoming so complicated and time consuming. Maybe I would need to call in an expert or allow my wife to continue to use the red peg to close the curtains.
I placed the good curtain runner from the spare bedroom next the devastated curtain runner on the lounge floor and slowly I took it to pieces. I made sure that I kept the plastic parts separate. I examined how the technical piece of cord was attached to the runners and how it looped around the two pulleys, I handled it as one might handle an unexploded bomb, and very slowly I reassembled it making sure I included all the little plastic hoops and bits. Testing it by pulling the technical cord I was not at all surprised that I now had two curtain runners that didn’t operate.
As I sat glaring at the assorted plastic parts scattered in various piles around the lounge and wondering if Eunice had another red peg available for the Guest bedroom, my darling wife was quick to point out that she had also suggested that I should have just swopped the curtain onto the spare curtain rail in the bedroom and not had to mess at all.
You see we have two curtain rails on each window. One for the curtains and a second inner curtain rail to hang heavy curtains to keep out the winter cold, the cold winters of Italy has been quite a shock to me I thought I was escaping the UK to the land of sun. It was a shock when the first winter reached minus twenty degrees centigrade. I refuse to hang the heavy winter curtains; they are ugly and have a peculiar smell. I also did not want to use the heavy curtain rail as I initially wanted that feel good feeling every man receives when he completes a successful Sunday DIY job.
Looking at the two broken curtain rails I decided I would have a better chance of fixing the guest bedroom curtain rail because I hadn’t really tampered too much with it. So again I slowly stripped it back down to its basic components. As I reached the plastic thingamajig I spotted that the technical piece of cord was trapped between the runner and the aluminium rail thereby causing a massive component failure. I think I remember studying about component failure during a sigma six course whilst working for Vickers Pneumatics.
I slowly reassembled the curtain rail making sure that the technical cord was not twisted and was able to run smoothly in the pulleys. As I pulled the cord I was pleased no not pleased I was overjoyed that the plastic thingamajigs not only whizzed closed but also whizzed open. Fuelled by this success and by my mounting confidence in my ability as a DIY expert I successfully reassembled the other curtain rail.
As I eat Eunice’s wonderful apple pie and type this post I am sure there is a moral to this story but I am stuffed if I can figure it out.
Winter is not too far around the corner and we have been warned it will be as bad as last year. It is already becoming difficult to dry the clothes outside. In our old house we had a wood burning oven (stufa) in the lounge in an attempt to warm the house while keeping the gas bills to a minimum. I had devised a wonderful method of balancing the metal clotheshorse on the stufa in an attempt to dry our clothes.
As with all great ideas it was unfortunately fraught with problems not just scorched bed linen but the odd accident.
One evening as I removed the fully loaded clotheshorse from the top of the stufa I turned to my right to stand it on the floor. With amazing speed the stupid thing managed to concertina in on itself crushing four of my fingers between the metal legs. I looked at my fingers which were now securely trapped as if in a giant mouse trap. Then the pain moved from my fingers up my arm and finally started to registered in my brain. I looked at Mrs Sensible and shouted “ah ah ah ah!”
She looked back at me still holding some wet washing in her hands and replied “What what what what” I was desperately trying to prise the clotheshorse legs apart with my elbow and left leg but every time I moved my body the maiden managed to close a bit more. Grimacing and looking to see if there were any of my fingers on the floor I managed to shout “FINGERS FINGERS AHHW AHWW FINGEERRRRRS”
Finally she got the message and understood that I was in some kind of pain she dropped the washing on the chair and grabbing the legs of the clotheshorse she tried to prise them apart. Finger finger argh I shouted. She was pulling them in the wrong direction and was helping the maiden to remove my fingers.
Quickly swapping direction she managed to prise the legs apart enough for me to pull out my mangled and twisted fingers. I immediately shoved them in the safest place I could think of, under my right armpit.. Mrs Sensible ran into the kitchen and came back with an ice pack. “Let me see” She said. “Ok but no touching.”
“Which finger have you hurt? “This one” She asked pointing to my little finger that was already starting to turn black. “No” I managed to reply “Is it this one” she asked pointing at yet another red and crushed finger, “Nope”. “Which one of them then.” “All of them” I whined. “Why are you grinning if it hurts so much.” She asked “Because I am wondering how this will sound in my book.”
I am not a hoarder or a collector of clutter, ok I lie I hate throwing anything away. I have also been known to save items that other people would consider to be junk. For example I brought to Italy my dad’s spanners and old tools even though they are imperial and not much use to man nor beast, especially in Italy where everything is metric. But I still have them.
I also have 18 wine bottles that I salvaged from the local recycling bottle bank. I don’t normally collect wine bottles but these looked interesting. My wife was a little confused when I returned home from the bottle bank with 18 dirty, manky wine bottles, when I had been sent there to dispose of 7 wine bottles and 2 jam jars. When I struggled through the doorway under the watchful gaze of Mrs Sensible with a huge plastic bag full of bottles I was once again transformed back into a little boy again, trying to explain to my mother why I thought it was ok to bring an old bees nest home. Mrs Sensible was watching me as I cleaned them in the yard, I promised her that I would either recycle them back were they came from or if they were as interesting as I thought, I would keep them.
I sent a number of photos to the Sheffield Museum to see if they could give me some idea to the age of my bottles. A lovely lady called Clara Morgan sent me an e-mail confirming my wine bottles were hand-blown, and she said they dated from 1750 – 1800, nice.
The next question that I asked myself and in fact the question that Mrs Sensible kept asking me was “now that you have spent an afternoon cleaning them what are you going to do with them and are they worth anything?” I decided to store them in the attic while I pondered the question.
Drilling a hole in the base of each wine bottle and turning them into lamps was a sacrilege; besides when we had guests over for dinner they were a great talking point. That is until Mrs Sensible became tired of dusting around the bottle that I had strategically left on top of the bookshelf.
In my humble opinion Marco Bellero produces the best wine in Piemonte, he will also deliver wine to my doorstep just like Ernie the milkman in the UK used to do, until the supermarkets pushed him out of business. All I have to do is phone Marco and say 6 Barberra, 3 Grignolino and 2 San Pietro please. And the next morning the wine will be waiting on my doorstep.
One morning I showed Marco my antique bottles and asked him if he could fill them with his famous Barone di San Pietro especially as earlier that week I had tasted the wine while it was still in the oak casks. Marco thought it was a great idea and he agreed.
Eighteen bottles of fine Barone di San Pietro turned up on my doorstep complete with labels but no plastic caps. The bottle necks are too big for my caps he said apologetically. We haggled over the price and he kept saying no no e regalo, e regalo. My wife later told me the 18 bottles some 150+ euros was a gift or regalo.
Marco asked me when I was going to open the first bottle. On my birthday which this year falls on November 3rd and I will open another bottle every birthday so I have enough wine to last me to the ripe old age of 69.
It’s great to look forward to something on your birthday.
This is a long post but it is for Jennifer at http://laavventura.wordpress.com who is yet to visit an Italian dentist. The follow is an extract from a book I am attempting to write, please excuse the grammar.
I have suffered with intermittent toothache since arriving in Italy. This is partly because of the bureaucracy and the necessary completion of various forms and to be honest my aversion to pain. I don’t even want the state to pay; well it would be nice if they offered but it is highly unlikely. I needed with the help of my wife Mrs Sensible to work through loads of forms just to enable me to visit a private dentist.
When I first arrived in Italy Mrs Sensible and I went to see a dentist recommended by Angela our landlady. “Go see Dottor Roberto” she told Mrs Sensible, “he is cheap and good; you can’t miss his surgery it is based in the old folks home in Giarole.” If you are reading this book while sat in an old folks home in England or are waiting to be admitted to one put the book down and go and request a transfer to an old folks home in Italy because they don’t smell of wee and old people.
As we entered the reception area of the old folks home we found the door to the surgery situated on the right hand side of the reception area. But before we could enter the surgery we had to walk past a group of old people sat outside the surgery door on chairs and in wheelchairs. Their highlight of the day was to say ciao and come stai? to all the unfortunate patients of Dottor Roberto.
After I had reluctantly sat in the dentist chair my wife explained in Italian to Dottor Roberto why we were there. To involve myself in the conversation I helpfully pointed to the tooth that was throbbing away. After I had shown Dottor Roberto the molar which was hurting he proceeded to poke and then tap each of my teeth in turn with a small metal bar to satisfy himself that I wasn’t kidding.
He started from the right and slowly worked his way down my teeth as a musician might on a glockenspiel. As he got close to the painful tooth I started to become a little stressed. He gave the painful tooth a whack and I yelped; Dottor Roberto smiled with satisfaction. “Ecco!” he said.
After explaining to Mrs Sensible the treatment I needed and after filling out more forms he said he would drill and fill my tooth with a temporary filling. Sitting up in the chair and getting ready to leave I was quite shocked that Dottor Roberto was intending to start the treatment straight away. I protested that there were other patients sat in the waiting room and I even tried pleading with Mrs Sensible that we had only come to have it checked and to see how much it would cost but to no avail.
Doctor Roberto administrated one and then after much pleading a second injection of anaesthetic. He then set about drilling my tooth and putting in a temporary filling.
Charging me eighty Euros for the temporary filling Dottor Roberto then quoted a further 230 Euros to finish the treatment. He explained that I had to be registered with the local health department for him to finish the treatment but not to worry as the temporary filling was ok for two months which should give us enough time to register with the local health authority and to fill out more forms.
The following day my wife and I went to the main administrative building for health in the centre of Casale Monferrato. We asked the woman in charge if we could have the necessary forms so that I could continue my dental treatment. The woman asked to see my medical card. I produced with a flourish the battered cardboard card the UK National Health Service had issued to me many years ago. She took one look at it and shook her head. “It needs to have the European blue flag on with all the stars, like this one” she said producing from her purse her own plastic medical card. I muttered to my wife “that my card had been issued before we got dragged into the European Union by Maggie Thatcher.”
Leaving the building without any forms I was still muttering as we got into our car. “I will get my dad to organise a medical card for holiday makers abroad. We are after all in the European Union and then we can wave that under the nose of that stupid woman.” My wife said something about it was me that wanted to live in Italy and so I should stop complaining.
Thinking that 230 Euros sounded a bit steep for a filling and as I was due to visit Sicily where everything is cheaper I managed to delay the treatment even longer.
In Sicily I received a second opinion from my father in laws dentist in the little village of Giarratana. Following a quotation of 120.00 Euros the dentist told Nuccio that he needed more x rays of my tooth before he could continue. Nuccio turned to me and said “Come on we have to go to the mayor to get an x-ray of your tooth.” It sounded a bit strange to have to go to the mayor for an x-ray but this is Sicily after all. When we had located the Mayor I found out that he also doubled up as the local radiologist.
This dentist with his good looks and black wavy hair that is only obtainable from the best Vidal Sassoon hair stylist looked, more like a rich playboy than a dentist. He quickly looked at the x-ray and said to Nuccio “Ha bisogno di una canalizzazione.” As the dentist shoved his syringe and gloved hand into my mouth Nuccio calmly informed me that the dentist said I needed root canal treatment.
As he started to drill my tooth I immediately noticed the absence of any dental assistant. Normally there is a pretty female assistant to take my mind off the pain the dentist is trying to inflict on me. She normally sits there smiling and handing over the tools and operating the various suction pipes. Maybe the playboy dentist was going to involve my father in law who was stood watching. I am pretty sure Nuccio would have jumped at the chance of helping as he stood gazing into my mouth. I also noticed the almost total absence of anaesthetic even my lip wasn’t tingling.
I am of the opinion that a dentist should not be allowed anywhere near me with their drills and other instruments of torture, until my lips are all rubbery and I have lost total sensation in at least one of my ears. So it was with no surprise that I jumped as he broke through the temporary filling and hit the nerve. My reaction did the trick; the dentist declined to complete the treatment claiming the nerve must have an infection. As this was translated to me, I told Nuccio to tell him I will be ok if he uses some anaesthetic.
After hastily inserting another temporary filling the dentist told me to come back in three weeks after the infection had gone. Mr Playboy then handed me his card and said if the tooth gives me any problems I was not to hesitate to call him, although this weekend he was going to Monaco to watch some racing.
So here we are another 6 months later back at the old folk’s home with Dottor Roberto who is no playboy. Indeed I may be mistaken but he looks as though he may have gained a few pounds around the waist but it has been a while since he inserted the temporary filling that was only supposed to last me 2 months. Dottor Roberto asked me which tooth was hurting. I replied “The one with the white temporary filling.”
Just to make sure he tapped each tooth in turn with his little steel rod. I don’t flinch or jump as he gave the bad tooth a whack. This was because I had taken precautions. I had dosed myself up with the best anti-inflammatory and pain killers I could find prior to leaving the house.
When Dottor Roberto found out about the pain killers he was not very impressed. After giving me a lecture on painkillers and the protocol for visiting the dentist which Mrs Sensible dutifully translated for me, (my wife hadn’t known about the pain killers either) she was giving me that you’re in trouble when you get home look; the dentist continued to explain that it is important that he can tell which tooth is hurting. Now I have always believed there has to be a streak of sadism in every dentist and this episode only goes to prove it.
My wife explained in mitigation that I have a very low pain threshold and he could see that I was looking a little worried so he obliged me by using enough anaesthetic to kill all the feeling on the left side of my face even my eyebrow was a little dead it seemed to be stuck up at an angle like one of Sean Connery eye brows. That coupled with the assorted pain killers I had taken before leaving the house I thought I would be ok.
My wife is as always the interpreter, she explained that if I feel any pain I was to raise my left hand. If I feel any pain he would know before I had had time to raise my left hand that’s for sure.
The Dentist with the help of his young assistant placed a piece of latex across my mouth and securing it in place with little rods that somehow must have been secured in and around my teeth. He then used what looked like a mini pastry cutter to cut a hole around my bad tooth and pushing it in place secured the latex. It was great, no debris from the drilling would drop into my mouth and the dentist wouldn’t have to stare at my tonsils. Although he needn’t have bothered as my tonsils had been removed twelve months previous when my nose was re-bored to stop me snoring like a pig. I have also for many years had trouble breathing just through my nose hence the nostril re-bore.
The latex had effectively shut off the air supply to my mouth and as I still have trouble breathing through my nose, every time I inhaled and exhaled the air that was forced in and out past the latex made a sound not unlike a whoopee cushion. After a little adjustment both the dentist and I were a little happier. Dottor Roberto held out a hand mirror so that I can watch him drill my tooth. But with a shake of my head I refused it. I like to keep my eyes tightly closed as I grip my hands together in my lap in a difficult effort to control the panic and my natural response to leave the surgery.
As he started to drill I knew that if I relaxed everything would be ok but my nerves were straining; waiting for the inevitable pain. Meanwhile my wife is entertaining him with the tale of where, when and how we met and why we are now living in Italy. I lay there in the chair with my mouth wide open and a corner of the latex tickling my nose every time I breathed in or out, wondering if the dentist could concentrate on my teeth while chatting to my good wife.
The assistant had noticed that I had opened my eyes and that I did not look entirely relaxed and happy. She asked my wife “Lui va bene?” My wife said “Are you ok?” I managed to reply through the latex “Urrrmppph!” At that moment a mobile phone started to ring, it wasn’t mine or my wife’s as just before we entered the surgery we had switched them both off. The dental assistant calmly picked up the offending mobile and passed it to Dottor Roberto… “Pronto, ciao Alberto, come stai. si ok dove si va bene…..”
I was gob smacked; truly astounded not only was my dentist talking on his mobile, he was still drilling my tooth. I tried to signal to my wife with my eyes that I was not pleased and the panic I had managed to hold just under the surface was close to escaping.
After what seemed like an eternity the assistant spotted that I was a little stressed and that my eyeballs appeared to be popping out of my head. She calmly ushered the dentist who was still talking on his phone out of the room.
Italian phone calls are never short and end with lots of goodbyes ciao baci arrivederci si domani ok capisco ciao ciao.
I was still in the chair with the tube sucking away in my mouth the latex burping away happily as the doctor reappeared to frosty scowls from both the assistant and me.
The good news is I survived the procedure. The bad news is I had another appointment in ten days time for him to finish reconstructing the tooth. As I left the surgery I promised the dottor that I wouldn’t dose myself with pain killers next time if he promised not to answer his phone while he was drilling my teeth
I am as sick as a dog today, I really want to be left alone to lie in my bed and sulk, I don’t want lots of hugs and sympathy from Mrs Sensible, and I don’t want strange Italian medicines or to visit the doctors to make sure it is not terminal. It is not necessary to take blood, urine or any other sample to establish that I have a bad case of man flu.
When Mrs Sensible is ill she requires 24 hour around the clock loving and affection, someone to fetch, carry and generally be there to hold her hand. It is a huge and basic difference between us and more importantly how our mothers dealt with illness. Her Sicilian mother (who is just wonderful and has adopted me) would sit with my wife and make her sweet honey tea, feed her little bits of food to keep up her strength and generally love her better. On the other hand my mum would banish me to my bedroom with a bottle of lucozade and an aspirin. And as soon as I was well enough to sit downstairs in front of the telly, I was well enough to go back to school.
I don’t think the way Mrs Sensible and I deal with illness is just conditioned by our mothers but because she is Italian and I am English. Before I moved to Italy I had never heard of the many illnesses that befall Italians. The Italian illness that immediately springs to mind is cervicale (stiff neck), the slightest wind even in high summer can trigger it. Leaving the house with damp hair will not only get you into trouble with mama and nona but you will certainly contract cervicale. Prevention is the best cure hence all Italians wear scarves even in the summer.
During July a small spider bit my leg and I think I developed a small allergic reaction to the bite, similar to the reaction I develop to tiger mosquito bites. My leg swelled and a little boil appeared. The boil kept popping and growing a little bit. Mrs Sensible told me I needed to go to the hospital emergency department. I laughed and declined, I explained that you only go to the emergency department if a paramedic has just cut you out of a car crash or if you sever a tendon in your hand while cutting gollywog tokens from Robinsons jam jars, something my dad did in 1984.c
Later that week a colleague at work noticed I was limping a little, and after looking at my leg and tutting she told me to andare a pronto soccorso ospedale. So I went and the doctor and nurse who saw me did not mutter about time-wasting but quickly and efficiently cleaned my leg they then took numerous blood samples, gave me a course of antibiotics and told me to return to the emergency department the following day!!!
On my return to the hospital I received my blood results and once again my leg was cleaned disinfected and re bandaged. The doctor gave me a copy of the blood results and an invoice for 25 euros. Not bad really. It seems Italians will have a blood test every three to five years whether they need one or not, very much like the English renewing their tetanus jab.
Every summer we go to Sicily to stay with the family, which is just great because they just love me to bits. My new-found family will take my side in an argument and will scold my wife even though they haven’t a clue what we are arguing about. The slight downside with staying with the family in Sicily is although the temperatures reaches above 40°C Mrs Sensibles mum and dad will still try to persuade me to wear a vest under my tee-shirt and to always wear slippers in the house. Wearing a vest I am told will protect me from colpo d’aria or roughly translated a puff of air. It seems even if the air is hot colpo d’aria will bring on a bad case of cervicale the ailment most Italians suffer from.
A couple of months ago I found a site called www.workaway.info
The workaway concept is very simple. There are hosts who need some help and there are workaways who need somewhere to stay while they backpack around the world. No money changes hand, just a maximum of 5 hours work per day Monday to Friday in exchange for meals and a place to sleep.
I had a trawl around the site and found most of the hosts had organic farms and needed someone to help sow, dig, build or do something to earn their keep. There were also families who wanted help with looking after children and one or two old people who wanted help looking after themselves… I could probably fall into the later category but I have Mrs Sensible to look after me. Accommodation for the workaway ranged from a Teepee,(no kidding) to a self contained flat.
I thought is was a really good idea and decided to upload a couple of pictures of our house and announce that we needed domestic help in the house. After vetting one or two people and I have to say Facebook is really useful for this task because it is amazing what people write on their pages I accepted a young woman called Chloe from Tasmania. Normally I would change her name but I have nothing but praise for Chloe.
That night I thought I had better tell Mrs Sensible about my experiment….
Part of the discussion with Mrs Sensible was, “but she is on the way and you hate ironing just as much as I do”.
Mrs Sensible really couldn’t get her head around the workaway concept, maybe it is an Italian culture thing or maybe it was her friends who made remarks like, so how long have you known her, and what if she goes rummaging around in your knicker drawer. A week before Chloe was due to arrive Mrs Sensible said “if this girl is arriving on Monday we had better spend the weekend tiding the house and getting it ready!!!!! It is defiantly an Italian culture thing, “we have a guest coming, you start cleaning and I will start baking”. No amount of protesting from me about the lack of work there would be left for our workaway experiment cut any ice.
Even after Chloe arrived there were problems. My wife was mixing up the concept of workaway and guestaway. Due to Italy’s Ferraogosto the two-week period when Italy grinds to a halt and everyone heads to the sea, both Mrs Sensible and I were at home while Chloe was with us. So Chloe managed to do a maximum of around 1 to 2 hours work a day the rest of the time we spent showing Chloe places like the King Palace in Turin, wine tasting at the local cantina or we went out to eat at our favourite pizzeria. We also spent a fine Sunday morning sat in a cafe drinking aperitif. In the house the two of them sat and watched videos or disappeared and went shopping. My wife would say Peter please go and fetch the washing in and I would splutter but but we have a guestaway…
Both Mrs Sensible and I are back at work and today I received another application from a workaway, Miss X from New Zealand is due to arrive on the 12th of this month. I will warn Mrs Sensible after the weekend because no way am I spending this weekend cleaning the house. I have sent a very detailed e-mail to Miss X from New Zealand with the work that is involved including, ironing, cleaning the bathroom & kitchen and mopping the floors and under no circumstance must I have to fetch the washing in or should she spend the day shopping or watching videos with my good wife Mrs Sensible.
Englishman in Italy 