Back home, and back to reality, there are several “housekeeping” tasks on our todo list.
First, of course, is to secure a permesso for Mike. This is a card from the state police, the Questura, that ensures his Italian residency. Now that I’ve been recognized as an Italian citizen, his status changed slightly, so we think there was some confusion at the Questura about that. But now it all seems to have resolved itself. Hopefully in a week or see he will get a new card and all will be well.
I had my driving exam on Wednesday, 4 October. I really had hoped to have my Italian driver’s license for our road trip to Naples. But it was not in the cards. The examiner took one look at me, asked me a question I couldn’t understand, and told my instructor that since I don’t speak Italian well enough, I can’t drive in Italy. My instructor stood up for me, but the guy had already made up his mind. He asked me so many questions about the car, had me show him how to check the oil, read the registration card and the insurance card, and tell him what the numbers on the tire mean. He was not nice. He asked me if I knew what to do if he told me: “accosti a destra” and I couldn’t understand him. I thought he said “costo” which of course is different. I thought it was funny. He didn’t. My scuola will reschedule another driving exam with a different examiner sometime soon, I hope.
Next on our list of big things to do is to find a new place to live. You may know that the owners of the house that we rent plan to retire next April and will be spending more time here. They live in Berlin and will continue to keep their house there, just float back and forth at their leisure. Because things like buying a house take a long time in Italy, we are starting our search now. This is a big decision for us: apartment or house? I’m guessing that when we see it, we’ll say: “This is it!” I sure hope so….
Life continues here in Casalanguida. September was the grape harvest, and now it’s the olive harvest. The trees on our property were pretty skinny this year so we’re not expecting much oil. Here's a video of Mike struggling with the rake in the strong winds.
But the two trees near our patio are full of plump olives. Mike spent a good deal of time today hand-picking them. Maria is going to show me how to cure them. Last year I was overwhelmed by plums. This year, I made apricot jam from Cathey’s trees, and now I’m going to learn to preserve olives.
My crochet group has started working on making Christmas decorations. They are building fake picture frames to fill with crocheted items. I am challenged to make crocheted snowflakes.
Sadly, the husband of one of the members of the crochet group died suddenly. They are British, and not Catholic, but members of our community and her family from the UK all pulled together and held a very moving memorial service. The cemetery in Casalanguida is beautiful, and there is a small chapel there. We are all very sorry for this loss.
We are grateful for our Italian community and the friends we’ve made here. It will be hard to move.
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