Monday 16 August 2021

Good bad and ugly

We went this morning for our covid tests, it was amusing that the man applying the tampone as we call the probe up the nose was wearing his mask below his nose and smoking between customers.  Despite the woman before me making an big fuss, and having being told the sensation was like being stabbed in the brain, the process was completely painless.  We waited at the house of our Danish friends, shared a delicious relaxing breakfast of home baked rolls, salami, cheese and coffee provided by them and fresh croissants we brought from our local and favourite bar.  Afterwards we had a swim then returned to the clinic for our negative results in English, job done.

We had noticed on our drive to the clinic that the air conditioning in the car wasn’t working, it wasn’t working on the way back either, by which time it was mid day full on heat.  We were both drenched in sweat, I felt sick and the two garages where we stopped for help were both closed for the holidays.  

MrFF decided the best course of action will be to leave at 4 am tomorrow to get as far from sweltering Italy as possible as quickly as possible.  So we have uploaded our test results to our euro tunnel booking, found a hotel in France for tomorrow evening, visited three neighbours delivering tomatoes, saying arrivederci and asking them to look out for the cats.  At Giovanni’s we found Enrico reclining in the shade and discovered he is being fed there as well as at Anna’s, chicken and lamb last night with lots of water.  We’ve had the too much luggage, what’s in that case argument, it’s going to plan. 

We are worried about the wine and olive oil in our car, we are worried about ourselves too.  Years ago there was no air conditioning in cars, my 21 year old Lupo has none, in fact I can remember cars without heaters.  I’m sure we shall survive, I shall think of it as a mobile sauna, roll on tomorrow evening where the forecast is for 21 degrees and the hotel has a pool.



5 comments:

  1. I hope it is an uneventful drive. I will think of you setting off when I go to bed tonight and send you good thoughts. Hope they work!

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  2. Hope all goes well. I used to have a Citroen Dyane car that came with a little scrap of fabric muffler that you put over the grill in the winter. Even so I was always frozen, the heater only ever started to warm up once I'd arrived at my destination!

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  3. I have fond memories of camping holidays in Italy, back in the 80's, long before air conditioning was a thing in most cars. Oh the heat!! We took it in our stride, we thirty somethings but I wouldn't like to be without it now. Good luck for the journey, with every hundred miles north it gets a little cooler!

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  4. So it is welcome back to Ilkley for a while. Not warm here at the moment so you will notice a difference. If you decide to have a drive up through the Dales the kettle is always on here - just let me know and I will give you my address so that you can call in. Safe journey.

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  5. I hope your journey home is trouble-free. Look forward to hearing that you're back in Yorkshire. xx

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