Category Archives: Italy

Overall thoughts on Italy and things we do

Fighting with demons

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Yes, I’m sure.

It is, almost certainly, the drinking bit that’s the problem. I am British and it is the ‘British disease’ and I have definitely caught this and I need to find the cure.

It’s not that I’m an alcoholic. Far from it. No, I can go for days or maybe even minutes without alcohol.

I jest, of course. About the ‘maybe even minutes’. Did I need to say that? Probably not but I thought I would just in case. You never know who is ‘watching’. I do have ‘lurkers’ on this blog. People who come but never post a comment.

But when they put a bottle of some digestivo on the table and the other people insist on staying and talking, it seems only right to top up my glass. Several times. This is in addition to the two beers. And I didn’t really need the two beers. I just had the second because everyone else was having one. And I’m British, so one has to keep up, doesn’t one? And I should have just stuck with the one glass of the digestivo and then I wouldn’t have had to concentrate on keeping in a straight line for the five minutes it took to walk home. Sometimes, I’m even almost angry with myself.

And when I looked in the mirror this morning, I could see I had that old-age paunch. Part of me doesn’t care and part of me does. And I know it must be the beer. Too much. I should be sticking to my wine diet. I really should. That never made me fat.

Of course, it could be that I’ve reached that time in life and I have become fat because my body says something like ‘OK, well you’ve had it pretty good up to now but did you really think you could continue to eat and drink what you wanted forever? Well, …….. did you?’

And, yes, I kind of did.

Damn!

And damn the bottle of digestivo too. I bet that didn’t help.

Damn, damn, damn!

Signs; Four or three?

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‘Isn’t it usually darker than this?’, I ask myself.

It’s stupid o’clock when almost everyone is still in bed. Well, being Tuesday, not everyone. In fact, the market is already being set up by the stallholders.

But there we were, getting used to the light at this God-forsaken hour and then everything changes. However, it is the signal for me. I long for sandals and T-shirts. I long for heat; real heat when my skin seems to have a permanent ‘slickness’ about it. When we get up and the sun shines and I get home and the sun shines and, even in the middle of the night, it’s just sandals and shorts and T-shirts.

So, in spite of the fact that this is a crazy time to be walking around, I have a certain lightness in my step and I ache for the ‘sandal time’.

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I don’t say ‘I’m sure it will be soon’. I’ve been saying it for almost a couple of years. In spite of myself, I am slightly superstitious and I wonder if I shouldn’t say it – just to make sure it doesn’t come true?

The other day we went round to F’s flat for a few minutes. F had bought new toys. As we were in the lift, going up, Rufus got over-excited. In fact, I haven’t seen him this excited for a while. He knew where we were going and he knew it would mean biscuits and treats. He’s not stupid.

He tries to push the lift door open with his head, even as we’re moving upwards. He is desperate to get there. And, sure enough, when we arrive, he has biscuits and treats. The toys he’s not interested in, really. But then, they’re for Dino, really.

The floor, however, is a problem. And he is less steady on his feet. His legs give way and he is there, much like a spatchcocked chicken. I stand at his rear, keeping his back legs close together with my feet and put my hands underneath his all-too-obvious rib cage and lift him up. Within a few moments he is, once again, doing his impression of a parachutist in free-fall. F tries but hasn’t really grasped what I do. I explain and he almost gets it.

It happens a few more times and I decide to go. F can also see that it is difficult for him. Now, I think, there’ll be no stopping at F’s during the night. I did offer on Saturday night, since F did not feel so well but ‘no’ apparently because of Rufus.

Then, as I was on holiday yesterday, last night I had done stuffed pimentos. F had bought them back from Spain and I found a recipe that fills them with a fish stuffing and made some adjustments to fit what I had. It was after we had finished and we sitting drinking some wine and having a cigarette. Rufus did a little whine or two. I stroked him and he stopped whining. Then he got up or, rather, he tried to get up, his paws slipping on my floor, which is not really a slippy floor. But I know it is probably his arthritis playing up a bit. A change in the weather, perhaps?

And that’s when I thought that it wouldn’t be long now. The whimpering a sign of some pain. Not so much but just a little; the getting up made difficult by the stiff joints.

But I don’t want to voice my concerns. F won’t handle this so well, I think. No, it’s better not to say anything. But I wonder if he’ll even make it until Easter, when we all go away? Or if it will just be the three of us?

Maybe it will all be alright again in a day or two. Who knows?

Signs and remembering

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There are things. Things that remind me of the past or a person. Very occasionally a smell or some music. In this case there is no smell nor music but just a sight.

Sometimes it is unexpected. I catch my breath. Like this morning.

The sight was something like this:

OK so not quite as nice as this one pictured – but you get the idea.

My maternal grandmother loved Magnolia. I think it was her favourite and they had one in front of their bungalow, right outside the lounge windows. And it is still there, outside the bungalow. We passed by the bungalow when I was boring F to death with the ‘….and this was where…..’ stuff last year when we went to the UK for the wedding. I didn’t really understand, all that time ago, because it had no smell (and I liked flowers with smell). However, my last house in the UK had one because I put one in. You don’t see them so often and they only seem to flower for a few weeks but they are glorious. And they are, of course, a reminder that spring is here. The only problem in the UK was that you were as likely as not to have a frost which would kill the blooms immediately. Here it is much less likely.

And, so, I was reminded of both her and, by association, my maternal grandfather whom regular readers will know, I loved very much.

And it was a nice thought on this fine, slightly-not-cold, spring morning and I thought I would tell you.

Bloody people.

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It has to stop. No, really it does!

I don’t really get angry. I just feel disappointed. I should feel angry but, you know, there’s just too much effort in being angry. And, anyway, it doesn’t solve anything. However, I could be, shall we say, firmer. You could say ‘more of a bastard about it’. And that would be true ….. to some extent.

But, overall, I’m just disappointed – both with the people concerned and with the resulting situation for me.

I don’t know why I do it really. The ‘planning’ bit. Even as I’m doing it I think, ‘don’t do this ‘cos it won’t all work out like this at all’. Still, I do it.

In this case, I’m talking about my students – but, to be honest, it applies to most things. One of them, who has to complete this test before the end of this year or else he loses his degree that he worked so hard for. But he doesn’t work hard enough (in his own time). There are excuses, of course. They are reasonable excuses – he works full time, also runs a business (a nursery) with his wife, has a baby daughter and fights with his wife most evenings. Oh yes, and he’s just bought a new flat which needs work to be done. Not really a recipe for success when the English thing is difficult for him.

So, as he hasn’t worked hard enough, he wants to stop the lessons. This is fine by me. His Monday, hour-and-a-half lessons at 9 p.m. were a real killer for me. It meant not getting to sleep much before midnight, making me have a lack of sleep that is showing in my face as I rapidly approach old age. He says he wants to self-study. He won’t pass his exam ….. even if he does actually take it. But he has no intention of using his degree; it’s too difficult for him to get work in his field without working for a while as an intern (meaning no money – which with all his other commitments is impossible) and he’s unlikely to get an internship at his age (being a few years older than is normal). Anyway, his long-term plans means that he doesn’t really need a degree. He wants to open a tobacconist (he works for the one below my house). You don’t need to be an architect to do that.

And so, he cancelled a lesson a few weeks ago and said he didn’t want to do any more. But he had pre-paid. I said he had two lessons left. And so, he booked for last night and next Monday.

I sit in my kitchen. Everything is ready. Well, I say ‘ready’. I have no real lesson plan. I’m not sure what he wants from the last two lessons. I will play it by ear.

F is packing for Spain and trying to do the music (see post below). He knows the lesson is until 10.30 so he isn’t rushing. He ‘does beauty farm’, as he says. After he comes (which is always after the lesson), we will eat the remains of the Cottage Pie. It is too late, really, but the other option is to throw it away.

I had, previously, rushed round to his place to show him a ‘solution’ that didn’t really work and rushed back to be sitting in my kitchen, with a cup of tea, by nine.

It reaches two minutes past nine. I have a ‘sense’. It’s not a good sense. I decide to text my student. I attach his message which gave the dates and ask ‘Are you coming or have you forgotten?’. I already know he has forgotten or, if not forgotten, chosen not to come.

I wait for no answer and am rewarded.

Ten minutes later, I text again, this time putting a delivery receipt on the text. This one just asks ‘Are you there?’. He’s not. Or he’s ignoring me. Or his phone has been stolen. Or he’s arguing with his wife (again). Or he’s in hospital or dead or something. But his phone’s still working and there is a receipt to say the message was delivered.

I am a little pissed. At least have the decency to let me know you’re not coming? I had turned down a drink with A (who is away the rest of this week) because of my errant student.

I decide that I will charge him this anyway. Stuff him. Unless he has a really good excuse like he’s in hospital. Or his daughter is, or something. Then I couldn’t do it. There’ll be some excuse, for certain. Also I had told someone else they couldn’t have a lesson at that time. Goddamn them. Bloody people.

But this keeps happening. People cancel. At the last minute. Now I have to be upfront about this. I have to set rules. It will make me seem like I am a money-grabbing bastard. But so be it.

As I found when running a business before, rules only need to be brought in when people start taking the piss. And so it goes.

It’s bloody people that are the problem!

iTunes is crap!

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OK, so that’s not entirely true.

Actually, iTunes is a wonderful program. It does the things you want. It keeps all your music in one place, you can create playlists as you want, you can play songs in shuffle mode – and you can make CDs for people (apparently).

I don’t really use it much. I have moved all of my CDs onto iTunes and find it great to be able to play a certain album or track – easy to find, etc. The quality is quite good and, I suppose, if I could be half-arsed, I could set up my stereo to play the music through – except music is nice but not that important to me.

To F it is. F creates CDs for people. He used to DJ on a local radio station (local to where he came from) for a number of years and likes to create CDs where the music follows correctly. It is beyond my understanding, to be honest, but just because I don’t understand (why, even, one song follows another and another song cannot follow) doesn’t mean I don’t like the result. F has something over 2000 CDs and buys individual songs as well so has a collection of something like 15,000 songs on iTunes. He has given me an appreciation of Italian music that a) I never knew existed and b) I would never have had without him.

Since he’s always used iTunes (or, rather, used it for years), he loves it.

But ………

He wanted to download a special playlist to a USB key instead of burning a number of CDs.

And you can’t. Well, you can but you lose the playlist order.

He’s spent days doing this special playlist for someone and now he can’t give it to them. Worse still, whilst he was trying to do this thing, he nearly, but oh so nearly, lost all his songs – and, in the process, lost all his playlists – including the one that he had specially prepared.

And I have trawled the internet looking for a solution and can’t find anything that seems to do the job properly.

I had heard/read that iTunes could just wipe your music (if you were used to synchronising with your iPod) but since I don’t own an iPod (I know, you can hardly believe it,I know) I just thought ‘oh well’. Now, however, I feel bad for F who only wants to do something so simple and yet Apple won’t let you do it.

And so, my conclusion is that iTunes is great – as long as you just want to do everything within iTunes.

Whereas, if you want to do something a little bit ‘out of’ iTunes, it is crap with a huge dose of crapness on top.

What’s not to like?

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“Don’t you like my cooking?”

OK, so maybe it was a bit blunt but it needed to be asked. I qualified it: “because when I suggest to do something you say no”.

As on Saturday. I had been busy. I had started (and I know you’ll find it hard to believe) the bedroom. And by start, I mean I had started on the filing cabinet. The filing cabinet was full. There’s stuff from the early eighties in there. Of course, to me, the early eighties is not that long ago ……. until, that is, you say “it was thirty years ago”! Then, of course, you realise that it is more than half my lifetime ago. It’s a long time.

There is, of course, crap. Stuff which I don’t need to keep. There is stuff I do need to keep and stuff that, whilst I don’t strictly need to keep it, I can’t bring myself to throw out.

And, then, there is the stuff from my time with V. Some of it I can’t even bring myself to look at. Even after all this time. Some, I could. Now, I see things I didn’t see at the time. Well, I guess it’s normal but I did seem quite blind. Or, maybe, I just turned a blind eye?

So, not everything that could be thrown out has been thrown out. But a lot of it has. Three sackfuls, to be honest – and heavy sacks at that.

So, as I said, I’d been busy. It got to 7.30 by the time I sat down at my computer and F & I started chatting over FB chat. And then I realised I hadn’t done anything to eat. And I’d bought stuff to do a Cottage Pie. Anyway, I took soup out of the freezer. Neither of us was really hungry anyway.

Then F said “No, don’t do anything. We’ll go for a pizza”. To be honest, I was quite happy to do this but that made me ask the question on Sunday morning. It seems every time I say I can do this or that, he says ‘no’. I had to know – perhaps, really, he didn’t like my cooking and was just being too polite. Or am I imposing my character on him?

He says that it isn’t that. He just didn’t want me to have to do the cooking when it was late. He didn’t want to impose on me and that, yes, he liked my cooking – ‘otherwise, I wouldn’t eat it’, he adds.

And so, yesterday, after my lesson with S, I did the Cottage Pie. I also did the soup. There was supposed to be some special cheese to add into it – but I didn’t have that cheese. Instead, inspired by his starter at Porca Vacca (and originally inspired by A some time ago), I made grilled cheese ‘slices’. Just grated cheese put under the grill until it all gets hard (and crispy brown at the edges) and makes a really tasty thing to have with soup or some other starters (for instance a mouse). I’d never done it before – but, really, how difficult can it be? And, in fact, as I had guessed, it wasn’t difficult at all. And it used up some old Parmesan I had in the fridge.

The soup was Pumpkin soup that I had made a while ago (and had been in the freezer) and, even if I didn’t have celery, the Cottage Pie was wonderful. Slightly smaller than usual and a bit more improvised than I usually do.

F was quite impressed with the grilled cheese slices. And the soup. And the Cottage Pie. And we had the bottle of Lighea wine that we bought from the Lampara (restaurant) , last time.

And this time, when we got onto FB chat, I just said I had done the Cottage Pie rather than ask, as I do normally. It seemed to work fine and I am slightly relieved.

Porca Vacca!

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Tick ……. tick ………. tick ………. tick

The sound seemed so loud. I cannot hear it now but then, at 4 in the morning, it was so loud.

I am in the kitchen. It is dark. It isn’t exactly my fault that I’m up. As I said to F at the time, it was very nice but a little too salty. In fact, it was very salty and I am now paying the price. Damn the Italians and their seemingly passionate affair with salt. Why? It’s not necessary and it does take away from what would, otherwise, have been truly wonderful.

We had been to Porca Vacca, near my flat. I had a Groupon voucher. Of course, this voucher was not so fantastic. Only €40 off the meal. So, by the time we had finished, we still had to pay nearly €100. Still the food was lovely, beautifully presented, etc. The wine was good. But the salt in the main dish, for me, just far too much.

And so, here, at 4 a.m., I sit trying to take away my raging thirst and unable to sleep because of it. Damn, damn, damn (which seems appropriate given the name of the restaurant).

Update May 2015. Sadly, Porca Vacca has closed. We haven’t yet been to the restaurant that took it’s place – although we keep saying that we must go – as it’s the closest restaurant to us and is now a Tuscan restaurant!

Lo Strapuntino

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I didn’t mention the place that FfC and I went to for lunch. It was in quite a touristy area and it’s not that likely that I’ll go back there but ………….

I wanted wine. FfC didn’t. I didn’t really want a glass since I might have wanted more than a glass and it’s kind of annoying so I asked for a half litre. He said that he would open a bottle of wine and I would only have to pay for what I had. I was dubious about this but I was with FfC and I thought ‘Oh, what the hell. Why not?’

I’ve just looked at the bill. I had, more or less, a half of the bottle and they only charged me €5!

The food was not bad either.

We both had one of the pasta dishes of the day which was the shell pasta with a ragù sauce of wild boar (which I particularly like). The sauce wasn’t the best I’ve ever tasted but it wasn’t bad at all – and was only €5 a dish!

We did have sweet though. They had meringhina (it’s a soft cake thing – typical Milanese) and so we had some. With ice-cream. Very nice although they could have warmed it up a bit more – and I don’t think this is the right season for it. Still, very nice. It was the first time FfC had ever had it but as soon as I saw it I wanted it. F got me onto it.

Just in case, the place was called Lo Strapuntino, near Corso Garibaldi. Worth a mention, anyway.

So, maybe I will go back there again as it was all very reasonable.

Disaster strikes!

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Maybe I should put it in perspective.

If we were comparing it to, say, an earthquake followed quickly by a tsunami (the pictures and the videos are harrowing to watch, aren’t they? And, is it just me, or do there seem to be an awful lot of major natural disasters going on – besides the man-made ones?) or, even, a traffic accident which would leave one paralysed or in a coma, when I say disaster I mean, of course, minor inconvenience.

Still, given that I am not suffering from the after-effects of a quake and a tsunami (thank God), nor from possible radiation sickness, nor from an accident that has left me in a coma, this is quite high on my list.

I go to the cupboard. There are none. I forgot to get them yesterday evening, after lunch. Damn! How can I have forgotten? I go to my bag, knowing, as I do that I took the last packet out yesterday. I look in it anyway in the vain hope that I put the packet back or one has been ‘born’ overnight. I didn’t. It hasn’t. I rack my brains for a place I might have left packet. I already know I haven’t done that.

I kick myself for being stupid.

The problem is that it’s a holiday here and so many places are closed. Like the place round the corner that I walked past this morning after we had been out for breakfast.

So where can I go? I think of a place up the road. At this point I don’t actually care if it’s my usual brand or not. Damn, damn, damn! The place up the road is my only hope.

Then I think about Porta Venezia. There’s bound to be somewhere open there, surely?

I walk out. I go along Viale Regina Giovanna. I recall, now, the places I have had to find in the past. Maybe the bar will be open.

It is. It is a bar and tobacconist. Thank goodness. I buy three packs. Enough to keep me going until tomorrow (or even Saturday, to be honest).

As I walk back I am struck by the strangeness of this country. In the UK, every supermarket, pub, newspaper sellers – would have them. Here, you have to be a tobacconist.

But I am relieved all the same. It could, after all have been much worse.

Of course, it is not like I have lost my home, members of my family, can’t find food or shelter and have a nuclear reactor about to blow up and poison me. At that stage, worrying about whether a tobacconist will be open on a public holiday may not be foremost in my mind. I guess.

Raining. Really?

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Well, since I live here, I suppose I’d better wish Italy a very happy 150th birthday.

In the mean time it is ………. erm …….. raining. Again.

It seems like it’s been raining for a month, even though that isn’t true.

The clarinet is playing above me. I mean, the clarinet is being played by someone above me. I think it’s the girl that I see every morning, more or less. I should ask, really. She speaks some English. Or maybe it’s an oboe. Today, I can hear she is playing a record or a tape and playing her instrument to it. It’s kind of jazz or blues – I can’t hear it so well. Still, I like the sound of her playing. It’s kind of mellow.

F has gone home to make some CDs for someone. It’s a customer from Barcelona who keeps offering him a job and, as he says, you never know. I said I could always teach English, which is true, although the real meaning behind that, I think he missed. Or maybe not. He’s difficult to fathom out at times. He said ‘yes’ anyway.

And he’s working tomorrow, he said. Although one can never be entirely sure. I used to like to know what I was doing. To have some plan. But I gave that up, mostly, when we moved here. Now I don’t plan so much. It’s not really important anyway. And things keep getting in the way of plans. It’s better to ‘go with the flow’. It’s more relaxing. It makes me more relaxed.

Yesterday, in spite of the teeming rain, I went for lunch with FfC. We talked about many things but nothing really important. I had wine. She didn’t. But I’m on holiday and she’s not. Still, it was lovely to do that. She’s working today and tomorrow since she has to work when the stock exchanges are open – which is most of the time.

I had been doing lessons last night and F came round early or, rather, earlier than usual. He wanted to see some of the stuff I had done. Particularly the correction of errors. He is funny. For most of the errors, he corrected them or said them in a different way. His English is quite good really. Being as competitive as he is he wanted to be better than any of my students. Which he was, more or less. But he was far better at the listening exercises that he did. He makes me laugh. He wants to be the best all the time. Sometimes I think that we have absolutely nothing in common. But, when I look at him, playing games on my computer, as this morning, I truly adore him.

And now I really must do some things – put away the ironing that my cleaner guy did yesterday, do some computer work, maybe, even, make a start on the bedroom.

And so, I leave you for now. For those of you who are Italian, I hope you have a lovely celebration day. And for the others a nice day anyway. I hope the weather is better where you are than it is here!

Auguri!