Juliet writes (warning, very long and rambling): Well, dear friends, it has certainly been an eventful seven days, a week of ‘firsts’, keys, cheese, baffling bed linen sizes and a bit of a baptism of fire into Italian culture.
Firstly, there was the re-visit to our beloved Casa dei Lecci. As soon as we had unpacked, bought a few goodies and reassured Weed the cat (who has taken to hiding under the duvet during the day and bouncing on us at night), we drove 35 minutes along the now-familiar windy roads. We were so excited to be back… walking around ‘the estate’ (ok, a very overgrown field) in the glorious Spring sunshine, admiring the views and savouring the peace. It felt as if we had come home. Our elation took a bit of a knock when P observed that one major original feature – the beautiful campanello (doorbell featured in our slideshow about ten times) – was missing… mortificato! The rest of the afternoon was spent explaining this in faltering Italian to the gorgeous Fabio (our estate agent that all my single friends may fight over), who assured us that this was typical in Italy, and promptly involved himself in some very colourful phone calls to the owners, one of whom rather sheepishly confessed to the crime and has now agreed to put it back. Watch this space. It also took us half an hour to work out what Fabio was talking about when he kept referring to “the cheese of the house”. Had we overlooked the small print on the plans? Were we now owners of a buffalo mozzarella farm, along with the vines and olives? Thankfully not… we realised, with some amusement, that he meant the ‘keys’ (the letter K does not exist in the Italian alphabet and thus they find it very difficult to pronounce).
Then there was our christening into Tuscan supermarket shopping (at Conad in Aulla – the largest town in the area, sadly bombed by the allies during WWII so rather ugly). We were in heaven walking up and down the aisles, recognising most of the items on display, enquiring about those we didn’t and fondling the beautiful fresh fruit and veg to the bemusement of the locals. Peter had me in hysterics when he leant over conspiratorially and whispered ‘I think James Blunt is following us’, as we had heard his songs on the radio for about the fifth time that day (the only up-to-date music we have heard so far). We were even able to converse with a lovely assistant (Ricardo – turns out he is a wine expert and made many excited gestures and noises when he spotted the Brunello di Montalcino in our basket). This first dip into Italian life would have gone smoothly if it hadn’t been for the fact that P, in his infinite wisdom, locked the car keys (and house keys) in the boot of his beloved Jag. On a Saturday. At siesta time. No meccanico in the whole of Italy would have been available. And anyway, we didn’t know enough technical Italian words to save ourselves from being burnt alive in the midday sun. As luck would have it, there was one other English speaking person in the busy car park, the delightful Fiona (and her rather bemused daughter Carenza). We managed to find a wrench in the boot of her car and I wont begin to describe the look on P’s face as he had to smash a window to enable me to climb in and release the boot lock. Mamma mia!
Things did pick up when we met some of our lovely neighbours at the rental place in Careggia. We spent about half an hour admiring vegetable gardens, while they came to look at the plants I had bought for our little patio garden, and then swapped their fresh parsley with our sweetcorn seeds. They are so warm and welcoming, despite our obvious ignorance of the language. Maybe in six months time, we will all understand each other.. but until then, we are forging friendships through gestures and herbs :o)
One final event of note occurred last night, when we stopped by at the farmhouse of our flamboyant landlord – the affable and slightly mad Pier Luigi (who we have nicknamed Il Professori in honour of the fact that he was a teacher). He now spends his time keeping bees, managing an agritourismo and running around town in a Piaggio with his enormous, friendly and smelly Alsatian ‘Nero’ (Black) in the back. Organised by his almost English-speaking nephew earlier that day, we were due to just pop by at 7pm, pick up the key to the laundry room, drop off our rent money and maybe have a quick aperitif. Three hours, four courses and six drinks of homemade wine later, we were buried in the Italian dictionary, gesturing wildly and laughing so much, that Black got quite disturbed. Il Professori is indeed an excellent teacher and we learnt quite a bit that night – in language, etiquette, life and of course cooking. Including the old secret recipe of a delicious minestrone that “mamma used to make” (although we did pass on a panettone that came in a case large enough for a two week skiing trip). That is Italian hospitality for you: he made us feel like royalty rather than tenants. We hope to return the favour shortly and I am already plotting menus… oh the pressure of being able to match such a capable chef!
For the first time since we arrived, the weather is foggy today, so I am holed up at the house with a bad tummy (too much of Il Professori’s cooking?!), typing this in advance with Weed on my knee and awaiting hubby’s return from getting keys cut in La Spezia (a major exercise). But, that’s all I’ll bore you with for now. I wont even start on the subject of ‘How to get Internet up a Mountain in Italy: Lessons 1-57’ as I’ll be here all day. So I will just sign off by saying please bear with us if we are in absentia for a few days until we can get to the nearest internet café and in the meantime, please, please post your comments on this blog, send us your news via email/text/phone and even write us a snail mail letter. We miss you all dearly and hope to see you in the sunshine soon. (I understand from my mum that there has been 2+ inches of snow in Blighty – ah, smug, smug tanned us!)
Grande baci (Italian kisses) to you all.
Ciao per ora.
XXXX
Medicine – Weed’s version
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That’s it. I’m packing my favourite toy mouse and tin of crunchies and I’m
leaving. As if the introduction of the LBR, the lack of silver service,
inadequa...
15 years ago