Curious as to what was within the little shop in Roccamonte, we cycled over first thing in the morning to explore. We needed a few diverse essentials (beer for Ian who was coming to lunch, potting compost for my seeds and a plug adaptor for the spare room), and from the display outside Niccoli's shop it looked as though we'd achieve success in all three. And we did. Well, apart from the beer, but we got that in the little allimentary next door. Niccoli's was indeed an Alladin's cave. You want it, he had it. If it wasn't on display then it would be in one of his many boxes behind or under the counter. A great little gem that would save us many a trip into Pescara or Scafa. And cycle-able too! What a bonus. Although I'm not sure KP agreed when I dumped the sack of potting compost into his rucksack. Tee hee.
The rest of the morning was spent on our projects until Ian arrived for lunch, when it was down tools to just chill, chat and eat outside in the sun. Getting into the swing of the Italian way of eating, we spent a couple of hours over an light anti pasti of salami, pancetta, cheeses, eggs and anchovies. The main course had more of an English leaning as Ian doesn't like pasta. Very odd for someone living in Italy. Not only doesn't he like pasta, but he doesn't drink wine either. So jacket potatoes and a meat and tomato sauce it was, with home-made passata to give it a bit of Italian authenticity.
Neatly rounded off with a little snippet of Grappa with coffee we had a very pleasant afternoon. I could get used to this life.
The time was getting on when Ian left so, rather than return to my painting, I took the opportunity to have a good old clear up as KP put the finishing touches to the tin stripping and started sorting the log pile. A couple of hours later we had a squeaky clean house and the start of a very neat wood pile in it's housing under some reclaimed tin.
Time for a swifty at the bar before a quiet evening and an early night.
Ha ha.
Who should go past in his truck but Florin the Romanian. Spotting us outside he pulled up and joined us for a beer. Before we knew it, and we did try to protest, he'd ordered three more. Oh God, I could see where this was going. We were all getting far too comfortable and the chat and banter was flowing, great for our Italian but not for our early night!
We learnt so much though. Hang the language teacher idea, the best way to learn a language is in the local bar!
And then he did it again. Before we knew what was going on, three more beers appeared. I don't drink beer (apart from a small thirst quenching bottle every now and then) and this guy had just made me drink three pints. I was fit to burst.
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| Is this what its come to?! |
Somehow we ended up being pulled into one of his money making ideas, hypothetically, I might add, not literally. A classic pikey, Florin has his fingers in many pies. This one involved buying a fleet of Mercs and BMW's from the UK, transporting them to our house in Italy before onward sale in Romania. Cars being cheap in the UK but very expensive in Romania. Apparently. Florin was clearly very excited to have found the missing link, ie us who could do the negotiating in English, and promised to be round first thing in the morning to pick up the rest of the tin and jump on our Internet to start the car purchase part of the plan.
Oh dear. Second hand car dealing with a Romanian pikey, amusing though it would be, doesn't exactly fit with our Italian dream. Luckily KP felt the same.
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