Hellooo. I went home to Milan and back to see my ‘congiunto’ whom I hadn’t seen for more than 70 days, and that was a good excuse to collect some summer clothes and drop the furry lined parkas etc which do not go down very well by the pool.
It was really strange to get to Milan, where I normally live, and see people wearing face masks everywhere. I am going to try to explain. I got really used to people wearing face masks here in the country, it was a gradual process and here is not ‘my normal’. Little by little everybody got to wear them outdoors and all handymen etc do wear one when they visit your home. But this is a holiday home, a weekend getaway, so in a sense it is acceptable in its lack of ordinariness. But Milan is my home. And normally people there show their faces. But now, all of a sudden tey have their faces covered. It felt a bit as if I popped in a Silence of the Lambs scene. Or Handmaid’s Tale. Something weird. Really weird.
But now I am here again, and happy to be. As of today we are in the next phase, which I am not sure it is phase 3 or phase 2.2. There have been more video messages from our Prime Minister who is inordinately fond of Facebook (his Communications Manager was a contestant in Big Brother, so maybe that explains it). But the details, the modus operandi, the agenda is so unclear. We now have a new Prime Minister Decree which is 400 pages long, and which has changed several times in the last few days and whose final version was apparently only confirmed at 3.30 am today. The health minister could not take it any longer and went to bed after switching his phone off, so our poor PM was left all alone to fend off the regional governors who all wanted tailored solution for their very special regions.
One thing is sure. The media talk about today as the ‘Liberi Tutti’ phase. The best translation I can think of is Ollie Ollie Oxen Free. Restaurants are now open and bars too. Unsure as to how many meters distance we need to keep from each other, but I am sure someone is going to get fined soon for doing something stupid. So to celebrate Ollie, my congiunto and I went to the closest restaurant for lunch. We asked to be sat outdoors and beautiful it was under a jasmine pergola in full bloom. The expectations were high. I am sorry to report that I got so used to eating good food at home that I hated it and couldn’t wait to get back home.
To make things worse the only other customers were a bunch of fascists, the most vocal of whom stated (looking at us) that he goes to pay homage to Mussolini’s tomb six times a year. No comment. Tolerance. Kept my cool. Idiot. He then started talking about Silvia Romano, at which point I gave him a serious warning to stop right there in his tracks. This was a big man accompanied by other three thugs. But my tone was bigger than them. I think they got the message, excused themselves and left.
Then we had the War of the Roses.
Back home I decided to do some mild rose pruning. It rained in the past couple of days and some of the roses looked a bit sorry for themselves so I cleared mine, the next door neighbour’s, then I moved further away and got close to a rose bush outside the no vaxers territory.
I cleared the dead heads, and then saw two really yummy roses, cut them and then walked back home to put them in water in a vase. I kind of sensed the Yeti had woken up and was trying to stand next to me in all his height (unfortunately for him shorter than me). I behaved as if he was a grizzly bear, did not run nor acknowledged his presence. Went home, put the roses in a vase, went out again and there he was standing looking at me. Ignored him.
Then I received two messages in which he asked me not to cut the roses, because he takes care of them and he likes to look at them (although they are not in his garden, there is a plethora of roses and I only took two and I am the one who does the pruning as he is incapable). I said sorry I didn’t know they were his roses. It would have stopped there, but some people do not know when to stop. Pity in fact that he added that I should cut the roses in my garden which are so very beautiful. Yes I said, they are so beautiful that your wife really likes them and comes to cut them… it went on until I blocked him.
So pathetic. The misery of life. The war of the roses in the time of coronavirus.
