#52: Arrivo, Eh!
Buon Ferragosto!
We survived the end of days here in Italy on Thursday - spending time by the pool with Australian friends up in the mountains a few kilometres north of Lucca. After weeks of interminable sunshine, the day ended up being quite overcast. There was even a few drops of rain and some distant thunder. We celebrated with a BBQ (old habits die hard) and, with no one around to judge us apart from ourselves, we dropped ice cubes in our wine to keep it cold. It was absolutely lovely.
The weekend brought a classic Italian beach day on the Saturday, also with friends. We booked a couple of ombrelloni at a club in Marina di Pietrasanta. It was perfect. There was a pool on site, so we were able to rotate between the fun of jumping the (very small) waves in the sea, and relaxing in the pool.
On land activities consisted of heart-starting shots of espresso, icy glasses full of spritz, and a lunch at the very casual bar that could have easily been served up at one of Melbourne's best Italian restaurants, such was the quality. I know this is mean, given your shellfish allergy, but I had a squid ink chitarra with clams and prawns that brought tears to my eyes. An occurrence that I'm sure the generously-poured spritz contributed in some small part towards.
The beginning of a new week has brought with it the signs of an economy creaking back to life. The work site at the end of our road, which has been as silent as the grave for a fortnight, is back in action. Albeit for very reduced hours. Today I think they clocked off after about 90 minutes. The crew appear to be adding a new curb to the side of the road, but for some totally unknown reason (eye roll) this is taking many months to accomplish.
These are not the only workers to be back on the tools.
I was highly amused yesterday when I came home from an outing with the children, to find a couple of gardeners doing a serious amount of pruning of the very tall hedges around our building. They were being carefully overseen by the three male occupants of the other apartments in our block. Plenty of (un?)helpful advice was being given to the poor young men. I was most tickled by the knowledge that, it being 2pm, our elderly neighbours had clearly decided to forgo their otherwise religiously observed daily naps on the couch post-lunch to supervise.
My other favourite moment this week has been courtesy of Leo, and his current propensity to parrot everything he hears.
When we receive any sort of delivery or mail, the driver will ring our buzzer downstairs. The intercom doesn't seem to work reliably, so instead we do what all the other neighbours do, and stick our heads out the window and shout "arrivo, eh!" before making our way down to meet them at the door. The literal translation is "I arrive", or a kind of a shortened version of "I am arriving now". But a word of warning, when an Italian says "arrivo" they could be anywhere from 3 seconds to 20 minutes away. Time is a very fluid construct here.
Anyway, on Monday we had a couple of deliveries. Each time, one of us shouted over the ledge that we were coming. Leo thought this was hilarious, and he spent the rest of the afternoon standing on the balcony shouting "arrivo, eh!" at every single person who passed by. It was beyond adorable. I loved watching people searching for the source of the tiny voice, only to eventually spot two little hands and the very top of a blonde head peeking over the edge.
All my love and hugs, as always.
