It read -3°.  This was nearly mid-day.  WTF?

I was going out because I had promised.  And because it would be nice to see L before Christmas and because it was a park I hadn’t been to before.  When I texted, some 15 minutes after we were supposed to meet I had been half hoping that she would say it was too cold or too much to take the cars or whatever.

She didn’t.  I realised I had forgotten to put on my thermal socks and knew I would suffer as a result.

The park was lovely.  We had had a few centimetres of snow and the trees and ground had that festive feel.  I just felt cold, even if it was pretty.  We walked and talked.  We don’t seem to run out of conversation and, yet, I never feel as if she will be one of my best friends.  I wonder why that is?  Maybe because we met at her friend’s party in the summer, also L (although different – so L2) and L2 and I, introduced through N, never really hit it off.  I mean, we are cordial to each other but there’s this thing between us.  I think we both realise that we don’t like each other, not that there’s a good reason why, but we both know to avoid each other after the required greetings.

However, L & I did hit it off.  We have dogs in common.  But, also, for some reason, we don’t run out of things to say.  So, here we are, in the park, which, being slightly on the edge of Milan is probably around -5°, talking and walking the dogs – my two and the two that really belong to her boyfriend, D.

I ask her about the ‘not moving in together’ thing.  They have good reason as children are involved but we both also know it is an Italian thing.  But, at least I’ve told someone here, other than F himself.  And she understood me, her being American.

We spoke about carols (see the previous post) and she agreed with me. In fact, D had never heard of them until he met her. She said she had toyed with asking me to the Milan Anglican Church Christmas Carol Service last Sunday. I wish she had. It would have been nice for a change.

By the end of the walk, my feet (and most everything else but particularly my feet) felt like they are made of ice.  My mouth had stopped working properly, being unable to correctly form the words I’m trying to say.  Although it had been a nice walk there is nowhere to go for coffee and it means driving somewhere back into town and then there are the dogs and what to do with them and so we decide to skip it.

I get back home and spend a few minutes trying to thaw out.  When F left this morning to go to the new flat to carry on with the painting, I had agreed to bring him a panino later after going back to his flat to switch on the heating.  And, now, as L and I had left late and walked longer than I had thought we would, I am rushing.  Rushing to go to his flat to turn on the heat (rushing so much that I left my flat and had locked the door before I realised that I didn’t have the bag I was taking back for him nor, in fact, the keys to get in), taking the metro to Porta Venezia to get cigarettes for both of us, going to the supermarket to buy essential stuff together with a pack of four Ferrero Rocher, because I know he likes them.  It’s another food thing we have in common (and because we have so little in common with regards to food, each one is important, to me anyway).

I took a tram back home, dumped the stuff I had bought and went round to the café on the corner.  I got 2 panini – one cheese (for him) and one ham and cheese (for me).  I wasn’t originally going to have one but changed my mind.  I got them hot, as is normal here, in Italy.  Today they would need to be hot.  I regretted, for a moment, that he doesn’t really eat meat because a hot pork roll with stuffing and apple sauce would have been perfect – not that they do them here either, so although I hankered after one, it wouldn’t have happened in any case.

I went to pay.  The girl on the till didn’t understand a word of what I said.  For her, it might have been a foreign language.  The problem with my mouth not working properly meant that I couldn’t even get the words out in badly pronounced Italian!

I went to the new flat.  He stopped work whilst we had the sandwiches.  Nice crusty bread and still warm.  Then we had one of the chocolates each.  He asked if the babies (as he calls them) enjoyed the walk, which I affirmed that they did.  I told him about L and the fact that she was going to Vienna for Christmas because that is where her mother and grandmother live and all the family will be there.  He said it was really nice and he loved the place (he was there for a few years when he worked for Helmut Lang).  I said that L had said that they do great Christmas markets and he confirmed that it is really Christmassy there.

He added, ‘Next year, we’ll go to Vienna for Christmas, yes?’.  Yes, I agreed, thinking how nice it was to be talking about being together this time next year too.  And I looked at him with flecks of paint on his nose and hands, in a striped top, showing a little below the neck, the hair from his chest just visible, with his newly cut hair, sitting, crossed-legged on the floor and, really I wanted to go over and hug him and kiss him and tell him just how much I loved him and how much I loved the fact that he loves me too.