All blown up

Another lovely Spring day and Mr B kindly took me shopping for whitegoods. Thought we were all sorted in one shop – after some prevarication I picked out the right fridge and washer for me and thought “Yaye” at the 50% discount the store had advertised everywhere, only to get to the till and discover that the (very) small print meant my chosen whitegoods would have ended costing way more than I’d budgeted for. Caveat emptor, of course, but as neither of us had clocked the conditions, I said no thanks…getting very flustered and embarrassed in the process, and speaking a kind of awful English with an Italian accent.

A soothing lunch was required, and I was soon revived by pasta with rape (a gorgeous green, a cross between spinach and broccoli), followed by stuffed peppers and cabbage, and then coffee that came close to stopping my heartbeat, with a cherry gelato chaser. The sun was shining, it had to be done.

I mention to Mr B that I have to find a cash machine – I now have my Italian bankcard so am armed and dangerous – plus I need to pay my rent. Mr B, always in the know, is one of those amazing people who doesn’t just drive past a shop and wonder what it’s like. He stops, he shops and he gains local knowledge; and by doing so he has got to know his way around this area. I really want to be more like that – explore, take my time, let this corner of Chieti unfold gently. So we drive past a few ATMs with me unhelpfully going “Look there’s one” as we motor past it. “Don’t worry,” he assures me, “…there’s one just a bit further down on the left”. When we get there, there is indeed a machine that gives withdrawals. Not a bank, though. The bank that used to be a bank is now a pharmacy, and the ATM as was is now a condom machine…so not quite the withdrawal I was thinking of, unless money gets tight and I go into a whole new line of work.

He looks at me, I look at him, we roar with laughter and head to the bank we’d just passed. One with money and not prophylactics.