The return and more bureaucracy to face. 6/5

The hills are alive with wildflowers. They have sprung since we left three days ago. The dandelions are like a yellow carpet, interspersed with tiny forget-me-knots, buttercups, daisies, primula, grape hyacinth and another natives I don't know the names of. The grass and trees have greened, the fruit trees are in flower and the lilac is just about to burst open. Big fat bees hover in flowers, drugged and heavy with pollen and nectar. Tulips, fat and looking hand painted are unfurling, black throats just visible. People are out in their vege patches, hoeing and there's a strong smell of manure around the town. I walk down to the shops through a field of wildflowers swaying in a slight breeze. This is living.

But anxiety looms. My sister-in-law ran this apartment for us, kept it clean, paid the bills from our account but I was to sit down with her and talk through what had to be done and how to do it but Covid stepped in and I never had that last talk with her as she died during the pandemic. I realise how spoilt I have been and am grateful for her help. I make an appointment to meet with a cousin of hers to talk it through. I think it'll take half an hour, an hour later and with a list two pages long, I realise I have a long way to become Italian.

But I take it a step at a time until 2 am in the morning when I think of having to do it all. In Australia I would breeze through it, here I have my broken Italian and a lack of confidence with a large dollop of nerves. I have to learn to pay my tax and the garbage and I have to be able to access my bank account but of course, that's not easy. I went to the bank a couple of weeks ago and they set me up with a new password to match my Italian phone but I wasn't brave enough to access it. A day ago I tried and all attempts to use the account ended in failure. I awoke early, had a short black coffee and headed down to the bank and my favourite bank manager, Alberto who is about fortyish and I fear lives with his mother. But he is kind and we try everything and then he gives up and sends me to the teller at the front who for a while has as much trouble as I had until finally, it's all set up. Codes here are 9 digits long, even bank pins are 5 long. We work it out and I'm operational.

Next to the comune or council which only sees people between 11 and 1. I ask a friend if I should just drop in and he says to be sure, make an appointment but he forgets so I just walk in and stepping over ammonites I am lead to Maria who solves all my issues. I have tried online to create a tax account and I've been told a password would be sent but that doesn't happen. Don't worry she says in her excellent English, I will fix. Of course, their wifi drops out but she does it all on my phone, after sterilising her hands and getting on with business. She gets me a password and I am tax and garbage payments on my way. The relief is immeasurable. I meet up with the daughter and we have a coffee but then at 11.30, we see an old couple ordering a Campari spritz! We feel we're in good company and so we order one.

The day has gone so well that I decide to brave the other issue I have. My second name has been discovered to have been spelt wrongly on important documents. An N is in position instead of an M. Catastrophe or catastro as the Italians so eloquently put it. I have been advised to see a man next to the flower shop. I take a deep breath and set off. He is in his office and so is his son who speaks English as I speak Italian. We manage to get the messages through. They can't help me but if I go up opposite the skating rink, there will be another man who may be able to help me.

I wander up and admire the lilac trees in bloom and find the next office. He takes notes, we discuss the problem in more bad English/Italian and he says he knows a man in another town. Leave it with him. And so I do.

I wonder home through the field of flowers and hope for the best. And then I think I should have another look in my sister-in-laws apartment just in case she has a file. She's big on files, it's a Sagittarian thing. And there it is, the will, the Successione with notes and the man we are looking for who can help us. It is my lucky day.

Between two worlds. 8/5

A strange sense of unease has crept into the world I'm trying to fashion over in another country. I so badly wanted to return to live as an Italian but I'm finding the more I try, the harder it gets. I feel like I've go one foot on the shore and the other on a boat that is just about to leave port. I don't want to go back but it's hard work being here. I should have worked harder on my Italian. But also when I did my DNA, I'm more Western and Northern European, more Viking than Mediterranean, more introvert than ex. How to fit in?

Today I woke and thought, no, I'm not going to pander to the anxiety, I shall paint my way through it. And so I did. Most things in the apartment got a coat or two of paint, all different shades. And then, exhausted, I succumbed to living between two worlds. I am English in an Italian world, we are two different species but I can be a little of both.

The next day, I painted more furniture and then turned to the daughter's room. Herein lies a monstrous wardrobe with matching bed, side tables and chest of drawers. It is from sometime in the 70's when people wore flared pants and had no taste in furniture. It's cheap, 'brutta' as the Italians say, ugly and with a veneer of fake wood. We had decided it was sensible to keep it even though the mountain man said he could remove it. I had decided to paint it a pleasing shade of grey to make it disappear in some way but I look at it and think this is a waste of paint.

And so begins the attempt to undermine it's structure. It has things I can unscrew and strange contraptions that flip up with heavy equipment. All of which I do but it doesn't budge. I fear it has been glued but nothing can be seen. I go back to the paint job but unhappily and then I have the bright idea of asking the mountain man if he knows how the strange screw contraptions work. He texts back and says that he'll be passing through in twenty minutes and duly he arrives and looks into the cupboard and pushes the walls back so that it comes apart. I had only undone two clips and once all four are open the walls come apart. I am jubilant. The beast shall be conquered and taken apart and removed bit by bit down the four flights of stairs. Ikea will be contacted again. Probably the same men will deliver to this part of the world.

Oh, but that was just the start. The brute came down and then the bed looked terrible. I looked at the screw situation and it was a different conundrum to the wardrobe. The mountain man was consulted again, photos of the weird screws were sent. "Will be there in 20 minutes" he said and he was and he showed me how to undo an Italian contraption and the bed fell apart. Luckily the wardrobe was in pieces at that stage and he took the heaviest pieces. Getting the large panels down the staircase with it's low ceilings was a feat of engineering that the daughter and I hold as a special moment of collaboration in our relationship. The brute was dissembled, Ikea was on it's way!

And then the fun began. We ordered two wardrobes so that when we rent the apartment, we can store our things in one. The assembly was extraordinarily intricate even by IKEA standards. Panels put in and then having to be removed. Screws in, screw out but we finished on a high until we realised we had to put the chest of drawers together. We held it together without losing it. Alcohol was needed. We surveyed the new domain and headed down to our bar for a Negroni, didn't matter that it was a bit too early. Oh, and I forgot to mention I found a beautiful little shop with quirky lamps and other crafts and arts and I bought this (minus the crystals)!

Ikea assemblage and other fun.

Inspired by the Easter break, I finish painting the hall and then I start on the daughter's room. Once I start I can't stop but then exhaustion hits. Painting with lime wash using the big brush is so much harder than using a roller but the house is now fully painted and I can move on to the furniture.

And then the second Ikea delivery arrives, boxes and boxes of the one large sofa lounge I ordered. They stack them in the lounge room and the daughter and I survey them. Half the job with Ikea items are unpacking them and working out how to dispose of the cardboard and plastic. Especially here where there are no council pickups. You have to be a resident to go to the tip. I have to ask the mountain man again if he'd take the cardboard which almost fills a small room.

I start on the armchair and manage most of it on my own. Stepping back I realise it leans to the left, but I blame the floor and the fact the only 3 out of 4 plastic discs were in the pack (a rare event I have to say for Ikea). It takes me a long time to realise that there are two small legs and 2 larger ones and I have them mixed up. I remedy this.

And then I begin the unpacking of the large lounge, that takes an hour. I make a rookie mistake with the cushion covers. First you unpack the cushion inserts that have been vacuum packed and supposedly take 72 hours to inflate. They lie. I unpacked all nine and left them to their business and we started on the lounge. An hour later, I went to put the covers on and it was almost impossible because they had inflated with apparent vigour.

But I digress. The daughter is an expert Ikea assembler. As I unpacked, I put the implements and tools with the correct booklets. But this lounge was a lounge like no other. It was a bit of a mistake order but I couldn't think of how to change it with my limited Italian so here it was. A three seater with a double bed on one side. Hard to imagine, harder to assemble but we set about it with determination but the booklet guides started to ramble halfway through the procedure.

First we had to assemble the bed part, open it up and then close it, then just after we closed it, it said we needed to open it again and put the mattress on, it showed a drawing of a man lying on the mattress, this seemed like a good idea, we certainly felt that that was something that should be done at this time, preferably with a glass of wine. But we were not put off, even when they then told us to put it back up again!

The third chair was a separate identity and it was then affixed to the end and we finally stood back and watched as slowly the cushions plumped up and out even more, filling the covers and removing all creases. The job was done. The lounge looked perfectly sized and no regrets were aired.

That afternoon the mountain men came and removed all the cardboard and the bulky sofa in the kitchen and we were halfway to completion.

And next to paint the kitchen cupboards and the rest of the furniture.