Strange thing, this ‘getting fresh air’ or, as they often seem to say here ‘changing the air’.

Now, I’ve never really been one for fresh air.  Too much of a good thing is bad for one and I count fresh air amongst those things.  Firstly, I have a problem with my feet and hands.  They get cold.  I’m sure this is exacerbated by smoking but the fact is that I have always had this problem for as long as I can remember.  So cold weather doesn’t really suit me.  Give me hot, hot, hot.  And the second thing is, particularly here, what bloody fresh air?

Here, in Italy and certainly in Milan, Italians have this thing about ‘changing the air’.  So they like to have windows wide open.  To me this is about the most insane thing they could do.  One, for the fact that it is too cold right now and two, in all probability, the stale air is being exchanged for heavily polluted air.  Every morning, on the windscreen of my car, is a thin but very noticeable, layer of what I can only describe as scum.  Like dust but sticky.  So, however smoky the living room gets, why the hell would you want to replace it for some carcinogenic, scum-filled, alternative?

And then there’s the idea of putting your washing out to dry on the balcony.  However dirty the clothes were before you put them in the washing machine, after a day on the balcony, they are almost certainly dirtier than when they went in the machine.

OK, so I don’t clean my car.  In fact, in one of those very weird psychological things, I feel that if I did clean the car, it would probably, finally, give up the ghost on me.  Every day I say a little prayer as I go to work and thank the car for getting me there.  So, after almost 18 months, the car is not white at all, but yellowy-brown.  Actually, thinking about it, it resembles the yellow substance left by cigarettes when they sit in an ashtray burning away.  Quite apt for me, undoubtedly.  However, the important point is that the car sits in the ‘fresh air’ all day and night.

And what made me think of all this?  Well, this morning, standing under a hot shower, regretting being so late last night as we had been out with A and F for a pizza, I thought that, in a month or so, I would be showering at least twice a day and not wearing socks.

For many of you this may not be strange, but in my world, until we came here, I would wear socks all year apart from about 2 or 3 days in the UK – and then, by the evening, I would have to put socks on to stop my feet from being cold.

Here, on the other hand, I don’t wear any socks, day or night, for about 4 or 5 months.  I love it. Of course, when it gets that hot we have to have windows and doors open – but only with the hope of catching a breeze, not for that fresh Milanese air.

Anyway, those thoughts led me onto the fact that, in my opinion, it is still cold.  However, the MD insists on having the windows in her office open – which just makes me colder.  And now, they’ve got the heating so that it seems to blow out cold air during the afternoons.  They’re all quite mad.

I guess, when it comes down to it, we should have gone somewhere much closer to the equator!