Cutting wood

I met our neighbour in the Post Office today. He asked me if I’d done my pruning yet and I realised with a jolt that it’s no longer February, the ‘pruning’ month.

Then he told me that later today he would be cutting down dead trees for the man who bought the land adjoining our olive grove.

Sure enough, just after lunch, there was the sound of a tractor and all 3 dogs raced down the slope to meet them.

The new neighbour has a 4 month-old Maremmano which Kepler made immediate friends with. She isn’t ready and he isn’t able, but both of them are willing.

Dead cherry

The tree being cut into logs is a cherry. When I checked this, our neighbour was quick to point out that the tree was just beyond our property line, which amused me as I wouldn’t have minded if it had been our tree.

I started pruning in the orchard after that. I did most work on a Reinette du Canada apple and a Santa Rosa plum.

Tragic news at the Post Office

I went to Valtopina Post Office today to send a birthday card. Unfortunately it will be belated because I got caught out, as usual, by yesterday’s feast of the Immaculate Conception (a national holiday in Italy).

A boring stamp and a pretty stamp

I took the opportunity to see if I could find some attractive Christmassy stamps, but there weren’t any. There was a series of 3, all to do with cheese, and one celebrating the Botanic Gardens of Padua which I chose because it was much prettier than the stamps I already had.

The Post Office employee who served me was very patient. They aren’t usually but it’s a stressful job so I don’t blame them. They’re often multi-tasking times 3 or 4; sometimes the computer defeats them and they’re all on their own with no-one to help them; occasionally the computer doesn’t function at all and they have to turn everybody away.

On my last 3 visits to the Post Office I’ve carried a print-out of a map of Britain showing the counties.  The reason for this stems from the normal Post Office incumbent, a florid man in his late fifties or early sixties, telling me that he adored Britain.

Last time I saw him I gave him a postcard of a church in Norfolk, explaining that it was from ‘il mio paese’. I actually meant by this ‘my village’ or ‘my hometown’, forgetting that ‘paese’ also means country – an example of Italian word-doubling which in this case rather spoilt the point.

When I said the church was in the East of England, he started talking about  Essex. That is to say, I worked out afterwards it was Essex. His pronunciation was incomprehensible and he wrote it down for me as ‘SX’. I thought at the time it was some kind of code and all we managed to agree on was that we were talking about ‘the other side from Wales’.

On each of those last 3 visits there’s been someone else behind the counter and I’ve brought my map of the English counties home with me again. It’s not at all unusual for there to be a stand-in so I thought nothing of it. But today I asked after him. Was he on holiday?

“He’s dead,” was the answer.

“How come? What happened?” I gasped.

“Nobody knows.”

“Was it sudden? Was he ill?”

No answer. Only a rolling of the eyes.

“Was it a heart attack?”

A nod.

So the dear man I was just beginning to make friends with, who loved England and probably thought like every Italian does that it’s always raining in London, will never know that I worked out what he meant by ‘SX’.

Out with the old and in with the new

Spot the difference

Today was the 5^th day with no internet connection. Having phoned ICT Valle Umbra Servizi (our internet connection provider) on Friday and been told there was a problem with the transmitter for the Valtopina area, I assumed that the same problem was continuing over the weekend.

But when it was still down this morning, Monday, I phoned again. Eventually, in the afternoon, I received a phonecall from a technician who pronounced that an item of our own equipment has failed, so I must go to their premises for a replacement which naturally I have to pay for.

I won’t be going, though. This morning I took a letter to the Post Office to be sent by registered post asking to terminate my contract with them.

And this evening I bought a dongle all of my own so that I can stop borrowing Clive’s dongle – which I renewed at the same time.

We’re now a 2-dongle family.

Banging my head

What I've been banging my head against

Over the last couple of days, at all different times of day, I’ve been phoning the Postepay number I acquired, hoping to catch someone there. Today, out of the blue, someone phoned from ANOTHER number asking, like one of the 3 bears, who it was that kept ringing her phone?

 Normally if you want to know who’s ringing your phone, you answer it.

 That’s 3 phone numbers I have now, all for Postepay in Rome, and not one of them is ever answered.

 The bear looked in the corridor and found my original woman, who was so anxious not to spend any time talking to me, that I got nothing out of her other than that we will have to wait at least another 2 months to get our €1,200 back.

“We have so many of these things to deal with,” she sighed, by way of a response to my gasp of horror and disbelief.

So as to be sure not to leave any stone unturned, I went into the Post Office. There was a stand-in for the day (just my luck) who seemed to have even less blood in her than most of the people I’ve talked to.

“I was alarmed to hear that if we hadn’t put in an official claim within 90 days we’d have lost the money,” say I.

 “Oh, I know nothing about those systems. I couldn’t possibly comment,” says she.

 Anyway, she gave me a form to fill out – tiny print, blurry with too much photocopying. I realised when I got it home that it’s for making a complaint when a parcel has been damaged.

 After a bit of hunting, I found what I believe is the correct form on the internet, filled it out, and prepared the attachments to go with it. It comes to 9 pages.

I’ll take it to the Post Office and see if I can persuade them to fax it for me.

Postepay money-pit

The pre-paid card responsible for our woes

Postepay is a prepaid credit card issued by the Italian Post Office. It hasn’t proved itself a money-pit in the usual sense, of absorbing any amount of expenditure, but in a more literal sense.

2 of the credits we transferred onto it over the last couple of months would each, separately, have taken the balance over the limit allowed on the card.

We didn’t at the time know what the limit was. The card didn’t come with any instructions or conditions, and we misunderstood the information we’d gleaned from the internet.

The 2 credits, which together amount to over €1,000, have gone from the originating account but are nowhere to be found within Postepay.

I’ve now spent double figures of hours on the phone and in the Post Office trying to trace this money.

Each time we go over the same old weary ground, then I’m told a different story.

Today I spoke to 3 people on the phone. The first one was so rude (exclaiming “Jesus!” when I asked her to repeat what she’d said) that I asked for her name and she promptly put the phone down on me and then blocked our number for the next 15 minutes or so.

It’s possible (though I doubt it) that they sent a cheque to the address we moved from 4 years ago. This would have occurred because, although of course the application form asks for your address, they completely ignore the one you give them and take it instead from the register associated with the original issuing of your identity card.

That particular point got cleared up, but just at the moment we have no idea what’s going on and whether anyone is even trying to sort the muddle out.