So we have a few issues. The heating system in my daughter's room isn't working. We need a plumber. I text a cousin who says her brother can help. I also need furniture and rubbish removed. Texting the cousin downstairs again, she suggests the brother. That night the brother arrives. He's a mountain man of many secrets. No one knows what he does in his spare time. He looks so sweet and he is so helpful. He will find a plumber, he will take apart the furniture, he will remove the rubbish. He has a truck, he wants no payment. He takes his masculinity out of the house and we know everything will be fixed. He leaves a trail of dried mud flakes behind him.
Then we can't work our the removal of rubbish. We don't have our own bins. I have to text a woman to ask. Armed with info, I walk up a very steep hill with two different bags of rubbish. By the side of our house there is a bin for vegetables etc. To take rubbish to a tip, you need a special card. The cousin will let us use his. We are becoming Italian. All this was done before by my sister-in-law. I realise I didn't thank her enough for what she did for us. I grow up overnight.
I have to go and see another cousin who managed everything when we were stuck in fortress Australia. He and his wife speak not a word of English and they speak in dialect. I have to work out how much I owe them. Luckily the man is organised, he gives me the account and everything is filed. They tell me stories and I nod and understand half of them (I make a note to increase my Duolingo time). We have had three people come every year for the month of August and the rent from that pays all the bills. Somehow I come out with an envelope with money left over. Today is our lucky day. I go to thank my friend in the town, the font of all knowledge. He says: Let's get a gelato. And off we go. On the way home, I see a Hotel Vecellio. This is our town.
That afternoon I have to go back to Cortina (up another winding mountain road, 45 mins away) because the winter sheets I bought are missing a bottom sheet. I get in the car at 3 (shops here open in the morning and then shut for a long siesta and wake up at 3.30) to travel almost an hour away. (In Sydney, it is rare for me to go shopping in the afternoon, especially during Covid times and never an hour away!). Halfway up the mountain, it starts to sleet and the trees are white with overnight snow but I soldier on as if this has been my life forever. (It is also the first time I have driven alone in a hire car, I usually have the daughter). I feel so grown up and brave!
When I arrive, the shop assistant tells me these sheets don't come with a bottom one, I need to buy one that will match. He picks out a couple of colours of beautiful organic cotton jersey sheets and I think, this will be expensive but I have to have one so I choose and he says that it is a gift. I look at the price and indeed it is expensive. This is a day that just keeps giving.
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