Happiness is a friendly Italian Civil Servant

After those few days when we were granted a little foretaste of summer, the skies opened again yesterday and a Biblical deluge swept over Siena all day. But that didn't matter, because I had a very successful morning at the Anagrafe with my little lawyer girl Valentina, the one I was castigating so viciously last week...I now take it all back, unconditionally. 

The Anagrafe is the Registry Office, the place where you have to go when you want to become a resident. It is situated in the Palazzo Pubblico, above, and has been for the last 700 years- probably in the same rooms, even. I went there in October or November to ask how to go about becoming a resident, and was given an atrocious reception- multo antipatico! - which gave me a deep anxiety about the whole place, and actually made doubt my chances of ever being able to get anywhere in the labyrinthine bureaucracy which is the Italian civil service. 

But the meeting with the Capo, which had been arranged through Valentina, went swimmingly. He, also a lawyer, probably in his last couple of years before retirement, bespectacled and grey suited, was friendliness itself. We spent a pleasant hour in his office, which was of course much longer than what was strictly necessary to impart the information we needed. Nevertheless, since he seemed to enjoy our company, the conversation flowed happily, and  at one point turned to the laws and regulations which are changing in response to the developments in modern life, for example in order to accommodate the fact that Muslims are able to have several legal wives. This somehow meandered into  the gender debate. Even in Italy -quite a conservative country, after all-  there will have to be forms for people to fill in where the gender choice is not simply 'Female' or 'Male.'  The Capo then explained  that it would no longer  be necessary to go through a sex change operation in order to claim that one was the opposite of one's biological sex. One will  soon be able to claim it simply for reasons of personal preference.  I could, for instance, decide that I am  a man, and relatively soon I would be able to enter that on my resident application. No one would be able to dispute it, and physical evidence to the contrary would be disregarded. 

I am no philosopher, but this seems to be straying into areas of fundamental definitions of 'what is truth'?  And what if I decided that my personal preference was to be in possession of a PHD from Harvard University, would I have the right to declare that too? Now, let me explain that I have no problem with sex changes at all,  but I think that people  actually  have to have  the operation if they want to change their sex...At this point I, in my old fashioned way, exclaimed:

' Ma questo e completamente pazzo! 

Valentina and the Capo laughed heartily at this, because I think they  secretly agreed with me, although, being lawyers, they were not able to air their opinions so openly...The Capo ended up telling us exactly what we wanted to hear- he will personally make sure that I  get the residency and he will instruct his people to get on with it! I said I would make sure he was invited to the opening party at 11 Casato di Sopra.

After this charming interlude the blessed Valentina and I emerged from the dreaded Anagrafe into the deluge on the Piazza del Campo - she went on her way and since I had forgotten my umbrella I was forced to spend two hours in my favourite bar and have two Campari Sprizas!

 

Easter in Tuscany

Since I have now been the proud owner of 11 Casato di Sopra for over a month, I had hoped that we might have started to work on the extensive reshaping of the place that Paolo and I have planned... However, things move slowly here. Several permissions need to be granted first- such as the all important agreement from the other owners of the building; then there is the permission from the Comune to start the work, and to install a building rubble escape from one of the windows down to the Vicolo del Sambuco below- one of the most narrow and one of the steepest of all the Siena alleyways...

But there are other complications too. I absolutely have to have my residency here sorted out before building work starts.  This is proving more of a puzzle to solve than anticipated, and it may well be aggravated by my very nice lawyer girl- I call her a 'girl' because she looks as if she's just out of high school. When I present her with a problem or a question, she always says: 'Well, I don't know, but I will find out...' Now my patience is running short here. I would like a lawyer who says' This is how it is done'. Is that too much to ask? I might have to find someone else. In fact I WILL HAVE TO. 

But let's talk about something else:

Easter, for instance. 

Spring has just arrived properly to Siena. It is very warm in the sun, and in the evenings it has been warm enough to sit outside again. The streets of Siena are filled with happy people eating, drinking and celebrating Easter and the arrival of spring. 

But on Good Friday, at 21.00, just when all the happy crowds were enjoying a meal, they were presented with something which must have seemed rather chilling: 

I had gone to the Good Friday service at the Duomo, and did not realize I therefore become part of a 'Procession of Penitents'. I was given a candle to carry and told to take  my place in the congregation which followed behind  about twenty monks in hooded black cassocks  bearing lit torches and  three great Crosses.  During  our  slow progress through the streets of Siena the Ave Maria and the Pater Noster, as well as various mournful chants were intoned- we must have looked like a grim reminder of the Plague Year...or maybe, more pertinently, a reminder of the danger we all live under this Easter? Here below a bad picture of the Procession leaving the Cathedral:

Easter Saturday was filled with sun and light as I took the bus to Arezzo, deciding that I needed to explore more of Tuscany.  How lovely that Piazza Grande! 

                                      And of course the beautiful Piero della Francesca frescoes in the Basilica di San Francesco.                                                                                                 

The Easter Sunday Mass in the Arezzo cathedral was packed, an occasion full of light and hope, while  at the same time transfused with urgent prayers for  peace and for Ukraine... It was conducted by the Archbishop of Arezzo, an avuncular figure who strolled down the aisle and spoke to the congregation as if he was chatting to neighbours on a Sunday morning over the garden fence.

I found out something funny about Tuscany: it is a tradition to bring ordinary eggs to Mass on Easter Sunday in little parcels. They need to be blessed, and then eaten at Easter lunch, as a good omen for the coming year!
 

Palm Sunday as Eco Warrior and Beach Comber

 Palm Sunday was a lovely sunny day in Tuscany.  But I did not know that of course when the alarm went off at 5.20 and I stumbled out on the dark empty streets of Siena to board the bus to Colle di Val d'Elsa, where I met Caterina -in front in the picture above- who drove us to the little town of Cecina, in the Province of Livorno on the coast. 

I had decided to join her little group of  eco warriors https://www.plasticfreeonlus.it/ who wants to free the world of Plastic. We, however, contented ourselves this morning with the more modest task of freeing three parking lots in this small town of its plastic and other rubbish- it is quite surprising how much stuff can be collected in just a couple of hours- as the harvest above shows.

                                        

After the morning's effort Caterina and I felt we deserved some seaside fun- in the shape of a stroll along the beach, from which you can see the islands of Gorgona and Capraia.  Although the nights and mornings are still really quite cold here, as soon as the sun comes out it is glorious and warm. We saw only one intrepid swimmer,  while many people were snoozing in the sun and  getting ready for summer...

The beach at Cecina Mare is covered with strange , stripey, flat stones, and I was trying to figure out what I could possibly do with them- could they become a bathrooom floor perhaps? Or even the walls?
 

We then had Campari Spritz at  Da Antonio a Mare, right on the beach, followed by lovely seafood- I had Octopus and Caterina  had Mussels.  Polpo and Cozze,

Once back in Siena, I stopped in the Campo, which was covered with happy  people enjoying  the last afternoon sun of this glorious Palm Sunday.