Mercoledi

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4 - Mercoledì

It’s been a funny day!

It was overcast this morning with just a splash of sunshine in the distance on the surface of the sea below my balcony. At breakfast, “la signora” looked at the sky and announced “pioggia oggi – sole domani”, as she dispensed the cappuccino, rolls and a sweet apricot brioche.

It seemed to brighten up however and I set off in the car for Maiori, feeling that I might escape. Of course, I didn’t get to Maiori – not this holiday! – the road was blocked for repairs and I ended up back in Amalfi. I tried to park nearer the centre, but without success and settled for nearly the same parking space as yesterday. The sun was popping in and out, but it was generally quite cool. The sea was up and there was a wind, but being the fool that I am, I left the umbrella in the car when I went into town. Just after the first coffee and into a casual stroll, I realised what a mistake that was, as the rain cascaded into the narrow streets. I spent some time getting very wet, and then some time strolling under the awnings of souvenir shops, and then, just to show that someone up there does like me, at the height of the rain, I discovered that I was sheltering right outside an Internet café. In went in for half an hour or so, checked my mail, reported a lot of spam, deleted a lot of virus reports and answered one message enquiring about the school Intranet, (good old Simon!)

I then caught up on the news at the BBC site, reading in detail what I had seen on Rai Uno news last night. By the time I had finished, the sun was out again and after a stroll and a dry-off I went back to the cathedral steps for a pizza in the sunshine and, once again, started to feel a bit better about life.

One thing was troubling me however. I had ended last half-term feeling less than well and had to take the last day off with a chest infection. I started a course of antibiotics and by Sunday I was feeling a lot better. However, I had noticed over the last 24 hours that my chest was tightening and I was starting to cough again. I could also feel that my temperature was playing up, leaving me alternately shivering and sweltering at various times of the day. I still had a day of antibiotics left, but they didn’t seem to be working any more (was it the cold and the wet clothes?) I found a chemist and after a brief bi-lingual consultation (during which the chemist completely misunderstood and tried to sell me a second course of the antibiotic that wasn’t working any more), I ended up with a bottle of cough medicine. In England, I would have spent a lot of time inhaling steam, but in my hotel, there was no way to make steam in the rooms and the bar is usually unmanned during the day, so no luck there then!

I went back to the car at 2.25 (the time when the parking meter ran out – at 3 € an hour it’s hard to decide which is the greatest hindrance to staying in a town, the cost of the parking or the weight of the coins you have to carry to be able to feed the meter). I had to decide what to do with the rest of the day – the weather had definitely broken and I had run out of change for parking meters, so another town was not a strong option.

I was tired, hot, coughing and I decided that a holiday is about rest as well as travel and resolved to return to the hotel and put my feet up for the rest of the day, catch up with my reading, write up this journal and attempt to stay warm and comfortable for a bit. As I climbed the hairpins into Furore I drove up into the clouds of a major storm and this time, the rain in the car park was horizontal and you couldn’t see the hotel buildings because of the fog. When I got to the room, rain was seeping under my balcony door and the curtains were blowing in spite of the double-glazing. I hope “la signora” was right about “sole domani”.

I took all the pills and potions available to me and settled down for some serious reading. I was half-way through “Où est –tu?” the second Marc Levey book I had been recommended while in France (see “Le Tour du Passé”). It is an excellent, thought-provoking book, but a definite three-hanky chick-flick as well (recommended to me by a woman of course) and I felt that, uplifting though it was, it probably wasn’t helping my mood much. So, I set about polishing it off to make way for something closer to my usual canon, and by early evening I had turned the final page. I feel much better for having read it, and I would readily recommend it to others, (females) but if I had really known what it was about, I probably wouldn’t have started it. I shall probably go on now to read some relatively meaningless gratuitousness by Dean Koontz and thoroughly enjoy it, (I always do).

A propos (on the subject of gratuitous sex and violence) I have really noticed this holiday how easily I took to “driving on the wrong side of the road”. Much better than on my previous driving holidays. I put this down entirely to the many hours I have spent over the last month or so driving a variety of vehicles through ‘Vice City’ while playing “Grand Theft Auto 4”. Computer games really do help in real life! Now I just have to avoid instinctively overtaking on the inside, jumping red lights and I must start to pay some attention to whether I am going to knock pedestrians down if I mount the pavement!!

“Get me out of here – I’m a celebrity” was on TV earlier (Italian version, “Isola dei Famosi” or some such). The only difference is that all their celebrities have six-packs or silicon implants, wear skimpy thongs and disport themselves with great self-awareness, draping their bronzed bodies over palm trees and striking a pose whenever they talk. Sometimes they also do high-kicking dances in their bikinis (How natural! – I love Italian TV – it’s so crass and tacky!)

A long slow meal in the restaurant this evening. Yet again I have to ask for an Italian menu, not the English translation (which is a shopping list rather than a menu and not the least appetising). It also contains wonderful errors like “swarm fish” instead of “sword fish”, which conjures up some utterly surreal images. If I could be bothered, I’d offer to do a better translation for them, but I’m on holiday and it was probably translated by the patrono’s brother or daughter, so I doubt whether my ‘improvements’ would be well received anyway.

Sunshine tomorrow please. If so, I plan to spend the day in Sorrento.