Tag Archives: Milan

IKEA is NOT a Modern Art Museum!

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IKEA is NOT a Modern Art Museum!

“Where are we going?” I had to ask twice or, maybe, three times.

“To the opening of a modern art museum.”

Oh, OK. After all, I like modern art. It was in the Navigli area of Milan. We were in the taxi – I was in the back with Fi, F’s crazy friend from Austria, next to me and, next to her, M, a wealthy Russian who now lives in London (I found out later). Fi had come over for one night to meet up with M.

The roads were closed. We got out of the taxi and walked up at the top of the canals, where they come almost together and join in a basin called the Darsena. I remember now that this was the official opening of the Darsena – they’ve finally made it something of a place to go, creating walkways and parks. In fact, the whole of the Navigli is being “done up”. It will be lovely when they’ve finished. It should have been done years ago.

But there are so many people! The place is heaving.

Suddenly we meet some people. I kind of recognise some of them. F reminds me from where. For some it was Fi’s birthday bash in Vienna and for others the time we went to a sea-food restaurant (with about 30 people that Fi had invited (her dinners are rarely less than 10 people at a time).

F reminds me they are rich or “super-rich”.

To be honest, they look more like street people. Later, someone tells one of the blokes (who is in the “super rich” category that his trousers look good. At first I thought this was a joke. Thank God I didn’t laugh out loud!) They are black and loose, like a pair of jogging bottoms but with some 5 or 6 inches of rubber-like elastic bottoms. Underneath them he’s sporting a pair of “fashion” wellington boots. They look bloody dreadful. I wouldn’t wear something like that even if I was only slobbing out at home!

In fact, almost all the clothes they are wearing look as if they got them from a second-hand store. This is rich people for you!

Anyway, it seems that these people are the people we are supposed to be meeting up with. I wish that F had given me some forewarning as to who they were. Then I would have feigned remembering them which would have looked better, at least.

We wander down the street towards the station. There is a “temporary” IKEA store. Everyone goes in. It is IKEA but, given that Expo is opening in Milan in a few days time, it isn’t a normal IKEA store but just about kitchens and food – so at least the more interesting part of IKEA, I suppose.

We wander about for a bit and then go out. It seems the other rich guy, who looks similar to the super rich guy with the jogging bottoms, needs alcohol. I remember now, he drinks like a fish. They look the same – big noses which are red (from too much alcohol), short with particularly rotund bellies (probably from too much alcohol) and both wearing black. But they’re nice enough. And, apparently very rich. But, then everyone is very rich except us. They talk about going for an aperitivo (it is about 1 p.m. – whereas aperitivo time is after 5 p.m.)

We wander across the street and into a place that looks like a restaurant. Exposed brick inside to give it a rustic feel. We are shown to a table in the back room which is set out for 10 people or so. It seems this is what we were coming for. I don’t understand why someone didn’t say!

We sit down. 2 of the rich people (husband and wife – the husband being the one who drinks like a fish) are not staying more than a few minutes. They’re just having a glass or two of prosecco (well, in fact, she’s not drinking at all – he has a couple and then another from someone else.) They go and we start to look at the menu.

The prices are really steep. €20+ for a plate (not that big either) of pasta and €30 or more for a main dish.

It seems most people are having pasta. There are five people having that. The super rich wife is having two antipasti. I’m having the lamb. Of course, it is said that after the pasta they may take a main course. That will make me look rather foolish but, again, I didn’t know and F doesn’t tell me.

A guy has joined us a few minutes before. A tall guy bringing his small black dog. He also has a pot belly. Grey hair but thinning with some missing just above his forehead, the remainder tied in a small pony tail at the back. He’s loud and tends to dominate the conversation. He’s one of those who has ordered one of the five pasta dishes but he’s already says he’s going to have lamb afterwards.

We have to wait because, as stated on the menu, this particular pasta dish takes 16 minutes to prepare. They ask if it can be hurried along because M has to catch a flight back to London and has to leave by 2.30 p.m.

We have wine after the prosecco. There is no discussion on the wine. Super rich guy knows the people who own the restaurant. I don’t really care. I’ve been talking to M who doesn’t speak Italian but does speak English.

Eventually (but a LOT longer than the 16 minutes quoted) the pasta, the antipasti and my lamb arrive.

Except there’s a problem. We’re short of one of the pasta dishes. There is a general “no, share with me”, etc. But it seems the guy with the ponytail is the one without.

He refuses to share.

But he has a tantrum. Really, he’s about my age but he starts acting up like he’s a 3-year-old child. Shouting about how he was hungry but now won’t eat anything. How they should cancel his order for the lamb (which he hadn’t made anyway). Not only is he cutting off his nose to spite his face, but he is making everyone uncomfortable. Many offers are made to give him their pasta dish. He refuses. Offers are made to give him a whole pasta dish. He refuses. He just gets louder and more obnoxious. Fi, who is sitting next to him, suggests he “lighten up” which enrages him further.

I keep my head down and enjoy my lamb which is, quite possibly, the best I’ve ever tasted in Milan. It comes with a small amount of minted bread (bread soaked in a mint sauce) and microscopic amounts of a thyme sauce. It’s beautiful, but it’s not a lot. I’m not sure it’s worth €30. I don’t think we’ll be taking anyone there, to be honest. Yet the place is busy, every table being taken.

Pony-tail guy eventually calms down a bit. Another bottle of wine comes. Everyone decides they have had enough. M leaves to get a taxi to the airport. More wine is drunk. Pony-tail guy hasn’t eaten a thing! Yet he’s been drinking. He’s calm now and back to being the centre of attention.

I go outside with super-rich wife as she smokes. We talk about (or, rather, she talks about) how Berlusconi stole from everyone and how he destroyed Italy. F comes out later holding sweet menus and tells me which one I should have. She tells F that it was her husbands fault. He wound up pony-tail guy by starting to eat his pasta before making sure everyone had some. I’m not sure why this should wind up PTG in particular but I can believe it.

We go back in and have sweets – except PTG, of course, although he does taste a bit of everyone else’s. We have coffees and a digestivo. Fi pays for everyone, as usual.

We say our goodbyes.

It should have all been lovely. Obviously, there was no museum involved so I’m unsure why it was even mentioned. PTG was a bit of an arse, to be honest. All the childish stuff was really not necessary.

Later he comes to our flat to pick up Fi to take her to the airport, which is nice. I don’t see him as I am busy. But I hear him. Fi comes in quickly to say goodbye to me. She’ll be back. She says so :-D

A night at the opera – Aida.

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The last two posts were about Friday.

It was a rather “full” day in terms of emotions.

But, I had J staying and, on Sunday, as her birthday/Christmas present we had tickets for the opera. She had told me, on her last visit, that, as a teenager, she had got a scholarship for singing at the Royal School of Music in London but that her parents thought it would be waste of time and, instead, had forced her to go to secretarial college. She had wanted to sing opera.

I had bought three tickets. It was going to be her, me and, of course, F. But the gods did not smile on us and, very unfortunately, F couldn’t be there. I decided to offer the spare ticket to FfC, who has been going through a rather rough time of it, as of late.

This was at La Scala, Milan. I’d been once before, having bought V to the ballet. We’d had seats in one of the boxes. He had the seat in the front and I right behind. But, should you be getting tickets, don’t ever get a box unless you’re right at the front. From the second row, you only get (in my case) a view of half the stage. For a concert or, even, I suppose, an opera, it’s not so bad. But, for a ballet, it’s truly disastrous.

Anyway, to be safe, this time I had bought tickets in the stalls, just about half way back from the stage.

F had said that you didn’t need to dress up. But, that didn’t stop some people. Next time I’ll know – dress up as much as you like! We were smart but you could have gone all the way.

We arrived about 4.30 and met up with FfC. We went in and I bought two programmes – one for J and one for FfC.

Just after we sat down, it started.

And then, just as you start enjoying the singing and the spectacle, someone coughs. And then again. They’ve got that awful, irritating cough. The one that won’t stop. I half expect the singers on stage to stop and wait for the person to finish coughing. The coughing stops. And then starts again. Obviously, this person has a problem. Every few seconds, the cough comes. I try to ignore it and I may have been able to but for one important thing. The coughing is from the person next to me. And the person next to me is FfC!

I feel two things. The first is that I feel so sorry for her. She’s been looking forward to this and it’s a really nice treat when she’s going through such shit – to be ruined by coughing. Of course, once you start, knowing that you shouldn’t, you cannot stop! And she can’t. I offer her a gum. She drinks some cough medicine. But it is being persistent. She just can’t shake it off. The other thing I think is that I’ve paid €300 for her ticket and, although she feels terrible, I don’t want her to leave!

Eventually, she decides she will have to leave the auditorium. She is told she “won’t be let back in” – but I can’t believe that!

Meanwhile, the opera continues.

It is glorious. It is spectacular. A translation of the songs, in English, is available from a little screen attached the the back of the seat in front of you. The set was minimalist but, to me, just perfect. I didn’t know the opera work but I had read a synopsis and it was a typical “tragedy”, of course.

FfC didn’t come back in.

At the interval, I went out for a cigarette, leaving J in her seat.

FfC texted me. She was in the lobby and, obviously, she could come back in for the second half. She offered to buy me a drink. She said she had had a cup of tea and felt much better and would give it a try. She had been watching it on a monitor. Apparently, at every performance they get 4 to 6 people who have to step out for one reason or another (but often for persistent coughing).

Although there was the occasional cough from her, she survived the second half. J loved it all which, after all, was the reason we were there. If I were rich enough, I would love to go more often. Ah, well, you can dream.

The finale was spectacular! Both in terms of the set and the singing. This was not some amateur affair (nor amateur prices, of course) and, anyway, we were at La Scala!

Afterwards, we went to a restaurant called La Torree di Pisa – not cheap but stunningly good lamb (my dish), so worth every penny of its expensiveness!

All told, a lovely evening and I would do it all again tomorrow!

p.s. also a nice change from the Friday, of course.
p.p.s. J got me to sign her programme the next day. I wrote a little message and then she started crying. You may remember Venice, last time. She does cry at the simplest things :-D Bless her.

It is as it is.

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Nearly, nearly done.

The cocktail cabinet is in the wrong place. And, by that I mean that we both agree that the place where I have put it is wrong. It will have to be moved and the chest of drawers that is in the hall will have to be moved to make room for it. Where the chest of drawers is to go, I have no idea!

The final bit is the final payment which will be done tonight. And then it is finished, done, complete. Phew!

F arrived home last night. PaC continues to go through good days and bad days. I asked how his mum was. He said that she seems OK but he really couldn’t tell. Sometimes, with the exception of his sister, they seem more English, with the stiff upper lip, than English people.

He should be going away to Venice at the end of the week but he’ll cancel. He should go to Greece next week but he’ll cancel. It’s all a bit uncertain.

But J comes on Thursday. And the weather is quite spring-like which seems likely to continue. I keep thinking of what to do when J is here. So, I thought maybe of going to the lakes (Lake Orta, Lake Maggiore) if the weather stays good. I had thought of taking her to Villa Litta where they have a fantastic water garden but, unfortunately, it is only open from May through to October.

But I have some ideas for a rather gentle time, strolling through Milan, etc. Nothing too strenuous. We shall see but, in any case, I’m looking forward to it. How much F will be here, of course, all depends but I’m planning that he’s away most of the time.

It is as it is. And nothing I can do will change this.

A long weekend with an old, old friend

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What I really need now is a weekend off.

I am, in fact, completely fucking exhausted. The last four days have been just constant activity. And, for almost all of it, F has not been here. PaC is not good so he was down there for a couple of days and then he had to go to London for work. So, it was just me and I feel like I just want to relax now.

But, back to the long weekend, (since Lola is so insistent). It was exhausting because D wanted to walk everywhere. I do understand but, obviously, for me, living here means that I don’t need to see everything so the metro is fine.

But we walked. And walked. And bloody walked. Then, whilst they were relaxing in their hotel I would be out walking the dogs, of course. And then walking them in the morning and in the evening. I actually feel like I don’t want to walk for a week.

Or eat for a week when it comes to it. From my usual one meal a day to breakfast, lunch AND dinner. I am stuffed.

So, there it is. After around 30 years of not seeing each other, D was just the same. A little older, true, but really just the same. And I’d forgotten how much he talks. We would be in a restaurant and we (J, his partner and I) would have finished eating whilst he had been talking, so his food was cold (I imagine). And still he would talk. And talk.

And, what did we do besides walk and talk (or listen) and eat?

Well, not much as it happens. They didn’t want to go inside anywhere. I did take them to Villa Necchi – but I think I only got away with that because it poured with rain on the Saturday. And, so, being inside was a good thing. They said they wanted to soak up being in Italy, so I did my best to give them that.

On the first day, we walked to the centre of the city (via the flamingos off Corso Venezia), past the Duomo, into the Galleria to the front of La Scala then up to Brera where we had lunch. Then around Brera and on to the the Castle and then back down to the Duomo and back to their hotel via Via Della Spiga and the park. That evening we went to Ristoranti Al Grigliaro where we ate fish (this is because J really likes fish and so does F and F was only going to be with us for that night for certain.)

The next day, F was at work. I met them at their hotel which was close to our flat and we strolled through Porta Nuova (the brand new area of Milan), stopping for ice-cream (it was J’s first time in Italy), walking down Corso Como (we stopped in to take a look round Corso Como 10 a famous designer shop/café/restaurant which also has a bookshop and an exhibition space) and then on to Eataly where we had lunch. From there, down Corso Garibaldi and back to the centre and straight back to Corso Buenos Aires. That evening we went to eat at the Cantinetta Belle Donne so that F could get home easily if it got late.

The next morning, early, F left for London. I had some errands to do so I ended up at their hotel about mid-day. We went to La Belle Aurore for a simple lunch and then to Villa Necchi Campiglio (the villa that featured in the film I Am Love). The nice thing was that, this time, we had the tour with a guide who spoke English (rather than a recorded tape) and, as there were only 6 of us, we saw a couple of rooms that I hadn’t seen before (the bigger groups don’t get to see them). In addition, they had finished the work on the basement so we got to see the Butler’s pantry and what had originally been the changing rooms for the swimming pool and the snooker room. That evening, in spite of the persistent rain, we went down to Navigli (we took a tram) and had an aperitivo (with mountains of “free” food) and then a pizza at Fabbrica – they loved the pizzas.

By the next morning, it had almost stopped raining. By 10.30 we were on our way to via Paolo Sarpi, the “Chinatown” of Milan for the New Year’s celebrations. We got there early and walked about. We couldn’t get in to any of the Chinese restaurants but went to a Sardinian place off piazza Gramsci (Ristorante Giulia) and came out just before the parade started.

As J comes from Taiwan, he was able to explain the procession – the Emperor, the concubines, the courtiers, the common people, the wedding party with the bride and groom, etc. So it made it much more interesting.

Then, even before the thing was over, we were back on the bus to their hotel as they had a plane to catch and I had a lesson.

It was really nice to see D again, after all these years. And J, his partner was lovely. There weren’t any “difficult” moments and it was all very easy (if exhausting) and I think they enjoyed it very much. It was unfortunate that F didn’t get to spend more time with them. But I think they did get a flavour of Italy, which was important.

And in a few weeks, my friend, J, is coming for a few days and a trip to La Scala, so that will be nice.

A change in feeling

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So, I mentioned before that a friend is coming to Milan who I haven’t seen for more than 35 years. And, I mentioned that I was a little bit apprehensive. After all, we’ve kept in touch by Christmas and birthday cards only. Not even letters or stuff. So I don’t really know much about him over all these years.

At one point, the cards started to come with J’s signature. I guess that was about 10 years ago or more. I’ve seen some Facebook stuff and J appears to be Chinese or of Chinese origin (in fact, I learn, Taiwanese.)

They’re coming tomorrow.

We’ve exchanged phone numbers. And last night, we talked. It was so strange. It was him and it seemed like, apart from knowing almost nothing about each others’ lives over the intervening years, we’d always been in touch. Which, of course, is very good.

In his words, they want to “soak up the atmosphere.” They mean, of being in Italy, of course.

And that made me think. I’ve been here so long now that I don’t see things as different or strange. Or, at least, not so much. So I’m having to rethink. To try to remember what makes Italy different from being in the UK. What makes you go “ooh!”

Aperitivo is one thing. I’ll have to pick some places to go. Eating outside isn’t really on right now, unfortunately. Ice-cream, of course. Pizza. Coffee at the bar. Coffee near the Duomo, sitting and watching the people, even it’s it’s outrageously expensive. The places we should go.

I’m gong to take a couple of days off work. F doesn’t really understand this. He thinks it strange. But, then, even if he’s lived in the UK, he doesn’t quite understand us that well.

Anyway, he’s hardly going to be here. Sadly, PaC is not good and he’s going down for a couple of days. Then, on Saturday, he has to go to London for meetings. I’m not sure when he will be back. Possibly Tuesday. So, in the end, he’ll just have dinner with us a couple of times. But that will probably be enough for him.

So, now I’m quite looking forward to seeing D and meeting J. It should be nice.

In which I learn another new thing about where I live.

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This is a good picture of it:

Statue of Madonnna on Milan Cathedral

I remember visiting V’s new flat about 4 or 5 years ago.

It was in a modern building, on the 7th floor or so. He had had a new kitchen (not that I have any idea how he had afforded it, nor did I ask) but most of the furniture had been “ours”, of course. What wasn’t “ours” such as the sofa, were brand new.

The TV was a huge, flat-screen thing on the wall, connected to music. The whole thing was nice but definitely NOT my taste. However, the thing he was most excited to show me was that, if you went out on the balcony and peered round the corner, almost hanging over the railing, you could see the statue of the Madonna on top of the Duomo. “THIS,” he said, “is what makes this flat so wonderful.”

I was less than impressed but said all the right things, of course.

I’ve never been that bothered about it. After all, I live in an area of the city where most of the buildings are Art Nouveau or Art Deco and, so, to me, they are really beautiful.

However, the other Saturday night (the “party” thing, you may remember), one of our guests went out onto our balcony and urged me to come outside.

Looking left, he pointed out that we, too, have a view of the Madonna statue!

We’ve been there almost 7 months and I had never noticed! OK, so, even if we’re quite close to the centre, the statue doesn’t look like the one above (from where we are), but rather like this:

Can you see it?

Can you see it?

It looks a little insignificant, to be honest. Still, it does look rather nice (now that I know it’s there) in the night, all lit up. It’s more or less in the centre of the picture, between the tree branches. In this picture, I’ve circled it.

Can you see it now?

Can you see it now?

So, not spectacular at all, really. But there. I might try a night-time photo so you can see it gleaming. If I get one, I’ll add it to the post :-)

Rubbing along, sometimes more like a cheesgrater rub!

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“Tell me when you’re ready.”

I had started to take the glasses out of the cupboard. We’re putting some place mats into the cupboards so the glasses can sit on top of them.

Can I be really honest? I don’t know why. For me, to have theses place mats in means that we just have something else to clean. But, it will make him happy so it’s OK.

I clear the first shelf of the cupboard. I haven’t shouted that I’m ready yet. I want to clear the whole cupboard first.

I start on the second shelf.

He arrives, with cloth and ammonia to clean. He sits in front of the open cupboard, right in my way.

So then he starts handing me stuff to put on the table temporarily. I am, just a little, fucked off by this. I hold my tongue but, for a moment or two, I think about going somewhere else. To not be there. FFS – say one thing and do another! It drives me mad. But not so much, as long as I don’t react.

Then he cleans all the shelves, then adjusts the top one so we can put the wine glasses at the top. Then the place mats go in and then I start handing the glasses back.

There are an extra four place mats for us to use on the table. They match the upholstery of the sofas and are the other shade of blue than the seats in the dining room. Now, much later, he has laid the table. There are the place mats and a couple of candles, a slightly darker shade. I must admit, it all looks rather nice.

Earlier still, we had been for breakfast – the rain is persistent, constant and heavy. We go to the supermarket. I had nearly said that I would go later but, as it was raining so much, I thought better of it. In the supermarket, after a few minutes, he tells me to go and do my own thing. I guess he finds me as frustrating as I find him. That doesn’t make it better, of course. I worry a little about our lack of synergy . I mean to say, on a practical level, day to day, we don’t really have the same ideas or, if we do, we would go about them in a different way. And, yet, we kind of rub along together quite well. Later, in the supermarket, when we go to scan our items through, I tell him to pack. He doesn’t want to. I explain that I don’t want him complaining like last time so he must pack. He does but grudgingly. However, this time, at least he couldn’t blame me for anything going wrong! Not that it did, of course. After all, he had packed everything :-)

And so, tonight, we have our second dinner party together. There’s some chickpea soup that he’s done, the fishcakes and then a lemon meringue pie which I have made because one of the guys likes it so much and made a specific request that I make it.

Everything (more or less) is ready to go and we’re three hours away from them arriving so it should be fairly easy. I hope.

Noises are not good.

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He presses into my back but he can’t settle.

Two or three times, he turns around, each time, pushing himself into my back. Trying to get closer still.

Eventually, he decides it’s not enough and he steps over me and tries, again to settle.

This time between us. Having something on both sides must be better, I suppose.

I realise that something is wrong. There are two possibilities. One is that he is ill. The other, that he is frightened. I wake myself up, enough so I can tell the difference. There are noises. Bangings, from time to time. It’s the wind. The tail end of the hurricane must have reached us. He is so frightened. He gradually moves up between us until he is almost sitting on the pillows. Then lying on the pillows. Then up again, sitting but anxious. Panting because he’s hot but there’s no way he’s going to move from this place of safety.

I hear a banging from, what I think may be the bathroom. I get up. I close the bedroom door which shuts out (a bit) the noises of things being hurled around the courtyards below. I go to the bathroom and see that the window I left open is banging shut from time to time. The wind is strong and very gusty.

I go to my studio and shut the windows there too. This, effectively, closes the back of the flat.

Back to bed and I have to move him to get back into bed. But he is not, just NOT going to be moved far. After getting into bed he starts inching up again towards the pillows at the next sound.

F is awake too now. Piero cannot settle and, I’m sure, would prefer to be under the covers with us protecting him. F says we should shut all the windows. He says he’s worried about the stuff on the balcony from the kitchen. We keep the rubbish bins out there (he doesn’t like them in the flat – the smell, you know?) As well as a ton of other things. I go and shut the lounge and dining room windows first. I go to open the closed shutter in the kitchen but he is there first. He always complains that it is too heavy to open so prefers it open. I close it in the evening as I go and switch on the coffee in the early morning and don’t want other people to see me before I’m fully dressed. I go to take over from him but, as usual, he won’t let me help. I shrug my shoulders and walk away. It’s one o’clock in the morning. I don’t even have words to say. He opens it and the door and checks the balcony but leaves everything out there and just closes the door.

I go to close the shutters. He says to leave them open. I try to explain that I don’t like them open until I’m dressed. He says that no one will notice which is probably true. But I’m funny like that. But I can’t be bothered to argue. I get the clothes I will now need to get up and put on before I go and switch the coffee machine on. I am pissed off. Royally pissed off but I say nothing.

We both get back into bed, sliding in next to Piero. Piero can still hear bangs and clunks from outside and he just won’t settle. I consider that, if I can’t get to sleep, I’ll get up, have a cigarette and some milk and read some of my book (Gone Girl, btw – I want to read it before I watch the film) but I try to crush those thoughts.

He gets up again and tries to call Piero but Piero ain’t budging. He goes into the kitchen, opens the door and brings everything inside, closes the door and then the shutters. He does, kind of, listen to me but only grudgingly and with bad grace. It doesn’t matter. I know he has done this by the noises from the kitchen not because I saw him do it.

He comes back to bed. Piero doesn’t move but accepts his strokes and affection. After a while, I go to sleep.

The alarm goes off. I feel like I’ve slept for about 5 minutes. It’s going to be a crap day. And it’s still very, very windy. But the sky is clear, which is something and, although it’s colder, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be.

Later, by message, he tells me that he’s going to leave a window open. I say no because Piero will still be frightened. Even with them closed, he’ll be frightened but, hopefully, less so. Tonight he’ll be as attached as a limpet, I’m sure.

Unseasonable weather; the sorting of many things; illogical obsessions.

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Well, let’s do the weather first. 29°C! That’s what my car said on Friday afternoon! That’s Friday halfway through October. Incredible!

And we’ve been having some lovely weather although the mornings are a little cool and sometimes there’s a dampness in the air.

Anyway, back to Friday. That is, Friday 17th. I went to get the rugs, which had been cleaned. This was going to be the weekend of finishing (well, almost) the flat. I picked up the rugs and, whilst I was paying, some other customer mentioned that it was Friday 17th. Which is like Friday 13th in the UK and nobody had mentioned it at work and, so, I didn’t remember – until that point. I said that, for the English, it’s Friday 13th so today I’m English but on Friday 13th, I live in Italy – either way, they’re OK. It got a laugh, anyway – or, maybe, that was my bad Italian?

Marco Felegname had been round to fix the cupboards and the rest of the lamps.

Saturday morning, we went to get the kitchen table, donated by a friend/colleague of F’s. It’s an IKEA table, white and has a kind of 50s look. Perfect. After we got it back I went for a haircut and tried to find something to send BM for her birthday. I got one stupid thing and then, as I couldn’t find anything really suitable, ordered a book, online, when I got home. The book was The Humans by Matt Haig.

By the time I got home, I felt like crap. The onset of ‘flu. So I said I was sorry but I just had to go to bed for a bit. I felt so tired, all my bones ached and I felt “‘fluey”. I dozed, on and off, for a couple of hours. After that I felt considerably better. Not really well, but better.

In the meantime, the rugs were down and the table set up. Also, a few more pictures had been hung. Things were moving apace. Almost everything had been moved from the kitchen worktops into the cupboards. Not what I wanted but I’m not arguing about it. It makes him happy and it’s not like I use everything every day (or, even every week!)

The next day was more “organising”. I put up another set of drawers for my studio; he moved the towels and sheets from the cupboards in the bedroom to a new one in the hall.

“Can I move my books, yet?” (into the cupboards in the bedroom that were now free) I asked.
“No, I need to clean behind the cupboards first,” he replied.

Later, I start moving my books. “Don’t you want to clean the cupboard first?” he asks. “I thought you did it,” I respond. “No, I cleaned behind them,” he said. “I’m sorry my English is no good,” he continues, irritated that I would put the books away without cleaning. Whenever he says about his English being no good, I know he is pissed. I refrain from saying that, if the cupboards WERE dirty, then so were the sheets and towels that we just moved and that, surely, they all needed washing, then? He’s just manically obsessed by this cleaning everything lark. I say I will clean the cupboards (even if there is absolutely no need) but, because of his stroppiness, he starts cleaning. I walk out of the room – after all, there’s no point in arguing. Not only doesn’t he listen but the whole thing makes no logical sense.

Later, he hangs all my pictures. There are four that he groups together. “I don’t really like these,” he tells me. “That’s OK. Don’t put them up – or put them up in my studio,” I don’t really mind. Eventually, they are put up in the hall. It seems he doesn’t really hate them. Or he puts them up because they’re mine. I don’t know. From time to time he says, “Do you like this (picture here)?” “Yes,” I say. “Or is it better here?” “Either looks good to me,” I reply. Which is true. He’s the one with the eye for detail, not me. In the end, everything is put up.

By the end of the day, we are really almost finished. Even the wire connecting my computer to the television in the lounge is fitted (although not tested yet.) Now there’s only the curtains and the sofa bed to get. Maybe, also, a new filing cabinet. And some new (more) rugs? This was F’s idea because he realises the dogs suffer a bit with the slippery floors.

And then we’re done.

But he’s already very happy, so that’s good. The party will be in December. Apparently.

There was discussion on Saturday evening. “Shall we do an aperitivo or an after-dinner party?” I had always assumed an aperitivo. “But will people come to after-dinner?” I ask. It seems that they will although I am not convinced. Anyway, by the end of the discussion, it seems aperitivo has won the day – although it’s not really fixed. Later, over dinner with friends, he says there’ll be about 40 people coming. even I am surprised. We shall see.