I’ve never worked anywhere that gave luncheon vouchers.

Here, we have a canteen that is, in my opinion, very good. Every day (more or less), I have a pasta dish and a meat dish with a vegetable. It’s good value for money in that only about 7 cents is deducted from my wages.

Also, our cook is very good and tries to be a bit imaginative, which I really like.

But we are into the holiday period and, I have been informed, the canteen is getting some sort of make-over. And, so, it’s closed in August – for the whole month.

Here, in Italy, lunch is provided almost everywhere you work. Provided for a small fee. I think this sort of thing happened in London, at least until the Inland Revenue saw it as a useful source of extra tax. If your company (in Italy) does not have a canteen, then you are provided with these tickets. The value depends on your company. It is usually about €7 or so.

And so, we have some tickets for this period. The value of each ticket is only just over €5. Some people are less than happy with that. To be honest, I don’t really care. It’s not so important. After all, this will give me the chance for a bit of a ‘diet’ for the week before I stuff myself with food for two weeks and a week’s ‘diet’ for the week after the two-stuffing-weeks. It may, after all, be quite a good thing.

So, I shall probably, for the first time in my life, be like so many other annoying people at the supermarket queue – using my tickets for the shopping!

I am very excited. Does it show?