Finally Installed
FINALLY ORGANISED –
We are Given a Bigger Bedroom
19th September:
It was a relief to be finally organised – moving all our stuff (luggage, clothes, make-up, etc.) into the bigger bedroom, leaving the small one for our great friend Lolly, who was due to land at Bari airport the next evening.
I was immediately charmed by watching the swaying, just outside our window, of the huge leaf of a large tree fern that reached up from the ‘jungly’ garden a good way below. We would watch this every morning when we woke up.
A large, ornate bed, which was marred by missing and peeling walnut veneer, dominated our white-painted room – it must have been beautiful once. Flanking it were two rather grand oak and marble bedside cupboards, also dried-out looking, and with small parts missing. Clearly no one had lived here for any length of time in many years.
A very modern LED ‘half-coil reading’ lamp had been placed on each cupboard, for which we were grateful. There was also an Ikea chest of three drawers. It was some time before the spare linen was moved out of the central drawer but eventually I was able to completely empty our suitcases. A rack of five coat pegs hung on one wall, and throughout our stay that was our wardrobe.
The fly screen in the window failed miserably to keep out the vicious tiny mosquitoes, and the ointment we had brought with us, also a spray we were given, failed to divert them from Graham’s flesh, apparently more appealing than mine. They feasted on him throughout our stay. Even Giuseppe got bitten because, he said, they are a new strain come over from Africa. A result of Global Warming.
(NOTE: And I found three after we got back home; two just alive on our bathroom window in late December, and one dead corpse that fell out as I hand-washed a sweater in January. They are quite different from English mosquitoes – much smaller and blacker).
We saw Mother Cat that morning. Half feral, she came to partake of the dogs’ food, and sometimes to steal from her offspring.
ELENA WANDERS OFF.
In the afternoon, we left early to meet Lolly’s ‘plane, leaving time to explore the wonderful old inner city of Bari before locating the edge-of-city Ikea, to buy cutlery and saucepans for our kitchen at Giuseppe’s request.
We had timed our day in order to walk round and see the sights. First, we enjoyed a leisurely lunch, seated in an outside ‘enclosure’ on the grand main street of the city.
Giuseppe had asked us if we would give Elena a lift in, and bring her back with us.
She declined to lunch with us, preferring to go off on her own, saying she had friends to visit. As we got out of our car Graham explained very carefully that she must be back by the car by ten to four pm, as our parking ticket ran out by then, and there would be delays and a very large fine if we did not move off.
Elena showed us her mobile phone, and Graham took down her number, and wrote ours down for her, again emphasising the need to return to the car in time. She laughed gaily and trotted off.
We hardly got beyond the gates of the old city because we were anxious not to incur a fine, and we had to find our way back to the car. It took a while; the streets back to the main thoroughfare were long, and they all looked very much alike.
It turned out that we spent almost the entire afternoon driving round and round the modern city trying to find the Russian girl who had blagged this lift and then made off without any attempt to meet us, as per our request, back at our car before our paid permit ran out.
WE ARE SAVED BY AN OOMPAH BAND.
Inching round and round the city in rush hour traffic, we eventually reached her via mobile phone; (hers had been switched off until five minutes to four). Not that much use, because she could not tell us where she was. We were both fuming, but Graham swallowed his fury and calmly asked her to look for some landmarks.
Suddenly she was drowned out by a brass band, enthusiastically oompah-pahing at very close quarters to both phones. I had to laugh, and so, reluctantly, did my thunderous husband, but it was thanks to that band that, standing up in the car, he eventually spotted her.
In a very bad mood Graham drove straight to Ikea where we raced around to buy stuff, because that evening we must drive on to Bari airport to meet Lolly, arriving for a week. Wouldn’t you know – that wretched girl disappeared again in the vast recesses of the Ikea store?
Once she was found and, I’m afraid, forcibly told off by me, we all had a very hasty snack in Ikea before hurrying off to the airport some miles away. Lolly’s plane would land at 8.40.
A RED-HOT MAMMA SASHAYS IN.
Lurline Soignet has been our dearest friend since 1980. We met her on our very first night in New Orleans, having slept all evening, exhausted after our journey to Gatwick, and then the flight to Miami, and changing planes for New Orleans.
New to the country, let alone the city, we awoke hungry. Graham remembered seeing a “greasy spoon” just up the road, with a sign announcing ‘Open 24 hours.’
‘I think they just serve hamburgers,’ he said. “I know you’re not keen – but at least they’re food. And they are probably better here in America. I mean – they are a way of life here.”
So we tidied ourselves and dragged ourselves up to the top of that block of St Charles Avenue and entered ‘the Frosttop’.
The smell coming from burgers sizzling on the hotplate was surprisingly appetising, but we could see no one to serve us. Suddenly one of those cute white forage caps appeared above the counter, followed by long blonde hair framing a bright red face atop a very impressive bosom. The lady was no taller than me – and I am 5ft in my socks.
“Why, hell,” she drawled in a voice that was deep, like thick, smooth chocolate. “Haven’t seen you folks before. Waddya want?”
As soon as Graham opened his mouth she crowed with delight. “You’re English. Wonderful. How long ya’ll staying in Ny’Awlins?”
When we explained that we had come to settle, and that Graham was to start work the very next day she said ‘then y’all need to get to know folks. My name is Lurline Soignet” (she pronounced it ‘Lorreline’) and you sure are welcome to our city.”
She expertly flipped our burgers, and turned to face us.
“Tell me where y’all staying and my friend Judy’ll come collect you on Saturday morning, so you can meet the Neighbourhood Nuts.”
Sure enough, at about 11am Saturday morning there was a hammering on the door, and a lady stood there with a grin almost as wide as her ample frame. This was Judy; we got to know her as a most generous hostess, who could throw a party at the drop of a hat. She was a wonderful cook (I can dream of her barbecued ‘shrimp’ even now; swimming in butter and garlic – oh boy.) None of the ‘Nuts’ were well off; Lolly was a divorcee with no alimony; so she had four jobs in order to keep her four kids decently fed and clothed.
Our friend has a heart as big as a house; She loves everybody, and judges nobody, so she is in turn loved, even when, as she says ‘My craziness drives you all off the wall…’
It was our great pleasure to invite her to stay for a week with us in Italy, a country quite new to her. She was just finishing up her summer sojourn in a pretty little town near Frankfurt, where her youngest brother, a professor, taught students on the American Air force base in the area.
THE BARRIER.
Lolly’s brother Gary had seen her off in Frankfurt. Knowing Lolly’s happy-go-lucky nature, he had insisted she travel ‘wheelchair’ because that way she would be supervised and not go wandering off and miss her ‘planes. She had also recently had a series of tummy operations.
Bari is a small airport. I stood by the rope barrier in the outer hall. Passengers filed past me after collecting their suitcases, and over the rope barrier I could see Lolly sitting in her wheelchair, waiting for someone to retrieve hers for her. (She brought two sizable suitcases for one week in the country!).
All the passengers had passed me, but I did not dare duck under the rope to go and help my friend, sitting helplessly making faces and hand gestures to me, although in that laid-back town I reckon I probably could have. So it was about 9.30 when we left, and Graham had to negotiate endless road works and deviations on the way back. We arrived after 11pm to that yapping, nipping dog, which rushed at tiny Lolly. She had brought gifts for us; mine being a welcome thin and loose tee shirt and a very pretty matching necklace and bangle of white, black and silver beads. I wear them every day with my light summer clothes.
Text by – Jackie Usher, SWWJ. (aka author Debbie Darkin, & ‘Graham Liverpool’ on Trip Advisor.)
Photographs by – Graham Usher.
