… and it’s not over yet!

I had thought that today would be a relaxing day where I could paint (yet I like to paint and not the house sort!), or relax and work. I even pictured myself floating about the YouTube perfect home wafting in and out of each room seeing how perfect everything was and enjoying the warmth of the sun as I floated onto my balcony.

Work went fine no comment to make. Now, I have to fill you in on my living situation.

I live in a foreign land in a very rustic place. I didn’t particularly want to divulge where in the world it was except that for you to fully appreciate my stories, I have to let you know.

I live in Italy. There, it’s done!

I may have mentioned it, but I have three grown up “kids”. We all live in a house made up of two knocked together one of which needs some renovation work. We’re one big and happy family with quite a lot of space our lifestyle works for us and I’ll tell you about it another day.

Anyway, my two daughters went out to do the weekly shop while I stayed in to finish work then enjoy an afternoon of leisure and hobbies.

Things started to go wrong when I was making myself a coffee with my Vietnamese coffee maker. If you don’t have one of these, you must get one. It makes the best cup of coffee ever, if you like it strong as I do.

This year there are so many wasps around there is no time to be scared. They don’t seem aggressive and I who used to have a real phobia of wasps, am ignoring them or telling them politely to go away. One of our little terriers wasn’t quite so blasé about them and was strangely brave. She attacked one, biting what turned out to be air before managing to get herself stung and feeling very sorry for herself.

About ten minutes later, just after I’d finished my deliscious coffee the phone rang and my daughter piped up, “I’ve got a flat tyre. It just popped what do I do? It’s completely flat.”

Well, me being a certain age and with not a lot of strength compared to my youth, went through the usual, you should have a jack in the car and a spare wheel. I haven’t got the strength to get the wheel off but I’ll come down and see what we can do.

The girls told me that they were at the side of the road, not really ideal since the roads around here are a bit on the narrow side!

While I was putting my lipstick on, you know, you have to present yourself in a certain way, they rang back. I’d also advised them to ask their friends if they knew anyone who could come and help etc..

One friend lives nextdoor to the best mecchanic in the world. He is actually honest and has saved our bacon previously. I was told to pick him up and he’d have a tyre to put on and we’d all live happily ever after.

When I eventually managed to extract the information from my very exited daughters, that he would be at his garage and not at home, I left and made my way down the mountain in my ancient Citroen car to pick him up and rescue my “distressed” girls.

My mecchanic is one of the most honest people I have ever met. He has one slight drawback, well it would be for some, he seems to have to go through the, “I’ve got a lot of work on”, or “why don’t you take it to the other place” or some such negativity before he actually gets on with doing the job. Today when I arrived and asked him if he’d had a call about my daughter and taking a tyre down to help her, he replied with “oh there was a call yes about something. I don’t even know what sort of wheel I need to take. What kind of car is it?”
There followed my frantically trying to call my daughter with my new number, followed by her not anwering because she didn’t recognise it, before I finally got through. She explained the type of car and my wonderful mecchanic picked up one of the many wheels from around the garage, and we headed down, even further down, to find the stranded girls.

We found them also with my son who’d been sleeping over with friends and needed to get to work. My mecchanic set to work, while I left with my son stopping off at the supermarket for some supplies to get him through the afternoon. It was when he was in the supermarket, that I noticed that I still had the tyre, and the mecchanic’s jack and other bits and bobs, in my car! What I dope I am.

After dropping off my son, I hot footed it back down to the scene where there was only one daughter waiting. The mecchanic and the other one were going back up via a different road, to the garage. My daughter said that it was hilarious as the car left. They’d discovered that the tyre in my car was the wrong size anyway and had to make an attempt to get to the garage on a flat tyre. As the car drove away she said that it sounded like a huge rasberry being blown and it carried on as they went off.

We made it back to find the car jacked up on the big jack, the wheel off and work in progress.

My fab mecchanic, honest and genuine is a good man as you may have guessed. My circumstances have been difficult over the years and even before I was a regular customer, in fact the first time I went to him for work, he allowed me to pay my bill in rates every month. He never took my name or address but he knew which village I was from and so he said that was fine.

He’s also done a similar thing for this job for my daughter. He will wait another couple of weeks for payment after she is paid.

It could only happen in a rustic community like ours.

We’re all back home now and I’m not going anywhere else. Fingers all crossed for a relaxing evening.

There is never, ever a dull moment in rustic land!

Oh and by the way, our little dog who was stung, is fine and running around as though nothing has happened.