Lost property

On Sunday afternoon we had a walk out, skirting the village and taking the road up the mountain.  We stopped at a picnic area where I found a nice leather wallet sitting on one of the tables, there was no one about.  For some reason being in possession of someone else’s lost property makes me uneasy.  Once in Edinburgh on my way to work I found in the road a wallet containing a lot of money, I picked it up and walked to my office, holding it at arms length in case I might be accused me of theft if I concealed it in my bag.    Fortunately it had the owners details and he was able to collect it from me. 

Being in Italy this wallet contained an identity card and other important documents for the owner who lived down below the village near the builders yard we use a lot.  We decided to deliver it to him rather than wait to take it to the police office when it opened on Monday, if it opened on Monday because even when it’s supposed to be open it isn’t always.   

The number of the house was 67, easy you might think, think again.  There is no logic to numbering here, no odds at one side evens at the other.  There are four houses in our road, the bottom one which closes off the road is 2, the other 3 houses are on one side, we have no idea what our number is.  We drove past 41, then 64, then 59, all in the same side of the road in that order and many houses had no number on display.  By this time is was dark and though we stopped and got out of the car to peer at names on door bells we made no progress. 

We got back in the car and drove a little way then we stopped to ask a couple walking their dog and they didn’t seem to think there was a no 67 in the road.  I explained about the wallet and said whose house we were looking for, they snapped into action.  They phoned the father of the owner, who it transpired was out with his son searching for the wallet.  The wife/mother was at home and we were told we should go to the house, the dog walking couple offered to go on front of us to show the way and set off at a jog down the road.  We would never have found the place, it was up a track and happened to have a little cantina selling their own production wine.   We had stopped the car at the bottom of the track, got out to speak to the dog walkers and for some reason Mr FF set off without me but the husband kindly accompanied me up the dark track.

The mother was there to meet us and very grateful to have the wallet back, she said it wasn’t the first time her son had lost it.  She chatted away, asked us if we were on holiday, was interested to know where our house was,  said we must like the area if we kept coming back.   She insisted we should have a little gift and produced two bottles of their own wine in a nice box.  Then the husband and son returned, more thanks, the father said he was so happy that good people had found the wallet and the son thanked us in English.  

Driving home we saw the dog walkers again, told them everything was sorted and thanked them for their help.  They thanked us.  What nice people they all were, we felt happy we’d done something good and were glad we didn’t have to spend the night with lost property on the premises. 

Incidentally I checked out the website for the cantina when I got home, it said the house number was 54.