Author Archives: Andy

Be More Cheerful!

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Be_More_Cheerful

Yeah, right.

It bothers me that the blog may have become a little depressing. After all, I’m not sure that it helps and it must make for terrible reading. It’s difficult to make it more cheerful, to be honest. At least right now.

But, let’s look for some cheerful things to say. After all, we are into spring now. The forsythia is blooming, leaves are starting to show, the sun is shining and, for the first time this year, the back door is open as I type. See, already it’s starting to look better, isn’t it?

Back to the flat (the new flat). I had postponed the meeting to sign the flat until next Tuesday for various reasons. However, we have someone visiting the factory on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Originally, I thought that they were coming for 3 days, so sloping off a little early on day two would not be a problem. However, then they said they were only going to be here for two days and I do want to see what they say at the end of the visit – so, I got the MD to phone up.

But here’s where the slightly strange bit came in. When I first went to see her I thought she was the owner. It turns out she was the Administrator and she wanted her commission. I nearly walked out at one point but, in the end we agreed on €500, which I paid in cash and got a receipt. Because the figure was low (for her, anyway), she said that, once the contract was signed, we would tear up the receipt. In other words, it was to be “in nero”. No real surprise – we are in Italy, after all.

So, as I needed to move it to Wednesday and as it was because we had a visitor, I asked my MD to make the call. When she rang, what had originally been agreed was a little changed. Instead of getting some special savings-account passbook, I could bring a cheque. Then later I could get the passbook and the cheque would be ripped up! And, also could I bring €500 cash. When my MD got off the phone, she explained this to me saying that, apparently, I knew about the €500 thing. I thought it was very strange. I said that I certainly didn’t know about it and couldn’t understand what it was for. She kindly phoned back. Apparently the €500 I paid before was not the commission/expenses of the Administrator but rather a ‘deposit’ that would be returned to me at the signing of the contract. I would get this back and then I would pay the commission! What?

The reality is that either the old-lady Administrator forgot that I had already paid the €500 or she was trying to scam me for more dosh or this really was the way it works. But then, why tell my MD to tell me not to forget the €500 in cash if it was the last one? I won’t need the €500 in cash if she’s going to give me back the €500 I gave her! I’m going for one of the first two and I’m so inclined to believe it was the second one. Perhaps, in my old age, I’m just getting far to cynical.

Anyway, hopefully you found this post a little more cheerful. For those of who have it, enjoy the sun in the first few days of spring.

Nuffink Much

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So, there is some movement and I feel much more positive today – in general.

Before the Final Question can be answered, there needs to be some further dialogue – and dialogue without anger. We shall see. The email has been answered, ‘Re: Final Question’ as the title.

And now, due to work commitments, instead of Tuesday, I go to sign my contract for the perfect-flat-on-the-perfect-street next Wednesday. Hurrah!

This weekend, I will start to pack things up – the easier things, like books and things that are, obviously, mine. Maybe clear some crap out at the same time. Other than that, no specific plans although I may be out on Saturday night. Anyway, I must work on the website stuff and start the packing and, this week, take the dogs out a few times. They, too, have been suffering, as dogs do, with the all the things going on and deserve a good weekend. The weather has turned a little chilly anyway, quite suitable for walking the dogs.

Nothing very much, really.

Today

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The only thing to say about today is that it is the day after yesterday.

It has not gone well.

Having resisted, I find that I am now to blame for everything that is wrong. In some ways this has made the thing easier but now we are back to how it was when it all first happened, before Christmas.

I am tired of it. I am tired of the anger being directed toward me. I am sad and it is difficult even to write. In fact, right now I shall stop, post this and then that’s it.

Basta already!

Lying and the “HELP V” button

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I’m sorry, I lied. To you. Yesterday. I mean, the things I wrote were true and they were good things. But it wasn’t how I was really feeling.

One of the things about the blog writing that I like is that I can say what I want. And, I can use it as I want. Yesterday was, in fact, quite a bad day for several reasons. I use things to make me feel different than I really feel and one of those is to bury my head in the sand, a little, by not facing up to my fears (only sometimes and, I hope, under control). Another way is to think of only positive things.

Often these things work. Sometimes they don’t. I never know which way it will go.

As it happens, it got worse during the day.

It got better, though, that evening when, during a conversation with V, I realised that, perhaps, the light was beginning to dawn in his head and that he seemed to be trying to face up to his own responsibilities. Of course, this was mixed with the feeling of SO wanting to help, take him my arms and make everything all right for him again.

It’s a dangerous situation, I know. He has always been my wild, social side and I have always been his serious, logical side. Together, it worked for so long; apart, well……..

I guess that we know each other too well; know how to press the right buttons: know how to get what we want – apart from the things that we can’t control, like me giving in to the things (I mean physical things) he wants to purchase and him, maybe, giving in to a lifestyle that’s a little ‘older’ than he would really prefer.

Of course, as a result of last night we are on the way, possibly, to reconciliation although, given the seriousness of the problem, I really don’t know if it is possible or, even, desired. Is that terrible of me?

In any event, the reconciliation will be a long and, I suspect, painful process. The last time we went through something like this it took 10 months and for most of those months we never saw each other. This time, I suspect, it will be much longer and much more difficult.

Of course, it could be made longer/shorter by his need for help, which immediately presses my “HELP V” button. Bugger.

Yes, I know, Cecilieaux, you are probably screaming at the computer right now, as you read this ‘DON’T DO IT’. And, of course, you would be right. I know I should reject the calls for help, implied or explicit and I will certainly be struggling to ‘do the right thing’.

Anyway, I’m sorry that I lied to you yesterday but it did help me to remember the good bits and your comments about those good things were also helpful, so, thanks.

It’s warm enough for cooling.

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I forgot to tell you – and it was such an exciting thing!

In the car, the heater has been set, most of the winter to about 28 degrees. I really don’t like the cold.

Recently, on my way home, I have had to turn it down or, even, off. On Friday morning, as I was coming to work, it got warm enough and I turned it down to 25 degrees.

The heating works in such a way that, for the first 5 or 10 minutes, in the morning, the heater does not come on until the engine has warmed up enough. Therefore, I get to expect that there will be no heating until I have cleaned my glasses and am about to have my first cigarette.

On Friday evening, leaving work, I drove out of the gates and, as I was driving up the road, I noticed that the heating was on straight away. Then I looked at the temperature and saw that it was 24.5 degrees and it wasn’t the heating that was on but, rather, the air conditioning and the air was cool.

Fantastic! It’s now warm enough for cooling. I am very happy.

I understand a joke!

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Two men are in the desert.

One says to the other ‘I am very thirsty’

The other replies ‘eighty-eight’.

I am, of course, immensely excited. I cannot believe that I got it. It is, as you may have guessed, what they call ‘lost in translation’ since it’s down to a play on words.

My Italian improves but, oh, so slowly. Obviously it would help if I practised or studied it!

Every morning I listen to the radio on the way to work. I choose to listen to a music station, not unlike how I remember Radio One was before I switched to Radio Four. I would listen to the Italian version of Radio Four (if I even knew what it was) except that I don’t really understand Italian well enough.

So, here I am listening to Radio 105 (actually not on 105 but on 99.1 or something – don’t ask, we’re in Italy) and, every morning at about 10 to 8 they have a jokes section. People phone up and leave a recorded message telling their joke. They play about 5 jokes. I listen and try to understand. Sometimes I understand two or three sentences but never enough to get the punchline.

Mondays are when they play the kids jokes. I’ve been waiting for so long now to understand a Monday morning joke (on the basis that, if it’s kids, they will tell simpler jokes and speak in simpler Italian)

And, this morning I got this one.

OK. You may not think it is funny, however, you have to translate it into Italian to get it – which means it is even better that I understood!

‘I am very thirsty’ more or less translates into Italian as ‘Ho tanta sete’. Because the ‘h’ is not pronounced in Italian, it sounds similar (particularly to my ears) to ottantasette which is 87. Unsurprisingly, then, ottantotto was the response, meaning 88.

See, it just doesn’t work in English – but I got it! Finally!

It may not be the best joke in the world but it’s the first one I have fully understood and I didn’t even think about it in English!!!! I would like to thank the kid who allowed a stranger in a very strange land to have a first and start the week off so well.

There’s only NOW!

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“I’ve got €7 to last me until pay day.”

I am, due to the impending move, being very careful. It doesn’t mean I can’t go out; buy cigarettes; buy stuff I need, but I am just being watchful knowing that, although I have another pay-check to come before I move and yet another before I have to pay the first rent, I will need cash for the movers (I cannot do it on my own); pay the deposit; and, almost certainly, buy stuff where we only had ‘one’ of something (for example, a table to eat off – although I have plans to make that not such a ‘big’ expenditure).

And I would understand if [of V] it were just the one month because, for instance, paying a deposit or having to pay car insurance or something. But this has been all three months of this year, so far.

But, considering we are only half-way to pay day, I am taken aback.

Of course, it’s no longer my responsibility, in any way, but I want to ask things like “What have you spent it all on?” but, then, I think I know some of the answers to that already. A party at which few of the friends attended because the invites were only made the day before or, even, that day; a new tattoo (I think but this is pure guess on my part); going out with colleagues.

What will happen when the rent becomes due every month (and the flat he chose was, in my view, too expensive, even for me!) and the bills, every two months? And, I know too, that there will borrowing ahead of the salary; borrowing to stay afloat meaning that the following month there will be less available; and so on and so on. A spiral of debt leading, almost inevitably, to a disaster. Oh, I hope not but I just know.

And, even if it is not my responsibility, I still feel responsible. How crazy is that? Worse, if I had the money, almost certainly, I would be offering (yes, you read rightly – offering) to help! But it would be help for ever.

This is what it must be like when you have kids who go out into the world but never really cut the apron strings.

In any event, over the next two weeks, I shall be buying the coffee, the milk, the wine, the food – in addition to my own expenses.

I don’t mind and I do mind – all at the same time. I can’t NOT do it. I wish I could. Does it make me stupid? Some kind of fool? Yes, I guess so. But I am unable to do anything else.

And, when we are in separate flats, what then? Will I be tapped for a few Euro here, a free meal there, coffee at my house because he doesn’t have any? Or worse, “Can you just lend me a few hundred to pay the electric bill; the rent; the loan?”.

And the answer will almost certainly be ‘yes’, even if it means postponing certain purchases I want. There’s just no planning; no thought of anything other than the “now”.

I can’t live like that and yet, through him, I still do!

Let’s talk about Net; It’s hardly working; Still, ‘no’ won’t come out of my mouth

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Lets_talk_about_Net_Its_hardly_working_Still_no_wont_come_out_of_my_mouth

You have to sing the title to the tune of “Let’s talk about sex!”, if you see what I mean. At least, that was what was going through my head as I thought of the title.

Firstly, sorry to those of you who couldn’t read my blog yesterday. There was going to be a post but at about 9.30 a.m. or so our time, my blog went off-line. There then followed a slightly bizarre exchange of comments between me and the hosters of this site – 000webhost.

It started off OK. Instead of saying that the website was down, which is what I usually do, because I knew it was something to do with the database, I went for that instead.

They replied that I would have to upgrade if I wanted help with scripts. I didn’t as that wasn’t the problem. But then I had to go into more lengthy explanations as to why it was down.

Eventually, at about 3 in the afternoon they came back with “it will be fixed very shortly”.

By the time I got home and got my creaky, old laptop up and running, it had been about 3 hours. I rated this as a reasonable time to start asking again.

I got the reply that “it can take up to two hours”. Now I know that this is hosted somewhere where English is not a first language and it is completely free, so I feel I have to cut them a bit of slack. And, having taught English as a Second Language, I am aware of the way that something can be miss-said. So, I didn’t go mad but thought that, perhaps, what they really meant was that it might take up to another 2 hours. I responded to clarify my thinking.

It seems I was right. But the reply was a typical, non-mother-tongue-English speaker, using the word hardly instead of hard. It happens a lot here too. The response included the line “Our head admin is hardly working on it”. It makes me laugh every time. At work or with friends I do, gently, correct them. For those of you who are Italian it should read “Our head admin are working hard on it” or, even better, “Our head admin are working very hard on it”; hardly being very little – almost nothing and hard being very much.

So, this is being written at home and I may get it up there tonight but, probably, it will be tomorrow (i.e. Saturday).

So, I apologise for being off-line but that’s life and the hosting people are, overall, one of the best free hosters I’ve come across. I am toying with the idea of paying for it and moving more sites there but I will wait a little longer.

In other news, you’ve probably read about the British arm of Google/You Tube cutting off the supply to premium British content over the wrangling about how much they pay the artists. Now, in my opinion, there are pros and cons for both sides. However, the Music Industry need to get real. If you can’t find it on You Tube, because it’s been blocked, the obvious place to go is one of the more illegal download places – and then the Music Industry lose the money all together. It all seems a bit crazy to me. A little like the Luddites from the past. I realise that someone has to work out a new model but burying your head in the sand is just not the way.

And, as I suspected, I was asked something else – not the same as before (and that question may, even, still be open) – but very, very similar. Of course, I could not refuse but it makes me very, very nervous. And, of course, if I get let down again, this time, it will make things much more difficult in the future but, at least, I shall be more likely to say ‘no’, I guess.

Well, if it all goes horribly wrong then I shall, no doubt, lose my new flat and then I am likely to be very angry. However, all things being equal, I sign up a week on Tuesday and move in on the 15th of next month. I can’t wait! It will be home, at last, in a country that should feel home (and does, when I’m away from it), rather than a place of transience.

Tonight (or last night as you read this) we are off to FfI’s for a supper and drinks. It should be nice.

Update: Up early this morning. Worried about the question asked. The things that need to be done. There’s a lot of reliance on me; a lot of trust that I need to have but is, sadly, lacking. And yet, still I can’t say “no”. Damn!