Sometimes you should just stay at home

I‘ve just come back from a week in Italy. I went to visit a Canadian friend who was spending two months there. I hadn’t seen her since before the pandemic and I love Italy, so it was a perfect opportunity to spend time with an old friend in a beautiful country. Things don’t always go according to plan, however. Sometimes the stars are aligned against you.

Trouble started before I’d even left the country. As I arrived at the train station, I received a message saying that my train to Gatwick Airport had been cancelled. Fortunately, I ended up talking to a couple who had been planning to take the same train, so we decided to share a taxi. They turned out to be really interesting people, who had just driven to Ukraine in a convoy of trucks piled high with supplies, left everything there, including the trucks, made their way to Krakow in Poland and then flown home. They said that the Ukrainians immediately unloaded all the supplies, spray-painted the trucks with camouflage colours and drove them off to the front. They could see that their aid was going exactly where it needed to be. The 90-minute trip to the airport flew by in their company and we were in plenty of time for our flights. Maybe not such a disaster after all.

I arrived at Turin Airport, bought a return ticket for the shuttle bus to the city centre and found the bus stop without any problem. All went to plan and I arrived in plenty of time to meet my friend at the train station and board our train to Genoa. I was just thinking how well all this was going (pride coming before a fall and all that) until I got on the train and realised that my bag was open. My wallet had been stolen. Fortunately, this is the first time I’ve ever encountered a pickpocket. Robberies are another story and my past is full of unfortunate events involving insecure student houses and opportunistic thieves.

So I phoned my husband, the fixer, who cancelled everything for me, but I wondered how I was going to manage with no money and no credit cards.  Although I was supremely grateful that I still had my phone and passport, and that my friend was with me. She said not to worry, she’d pay for everything and give me some cash, which was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I also discovered a credit card on my phone that hadn’t been in my wallet, so things could have been so much worse. Still, I was paranoid that someone might try to steal my phone, so I kept it right at the bottom of my backpack, which was highly inconvenient, but made me feel better.

Having said all that, it was lovely to spend time with my friend (we figured that we hadn’t been away just the two of us since we were 20) and Italy is beautiful. The sun shone, the food and wine were delicious, the buildings were exquisitely Baroque, the churches were ridiculously ornate and there was even a chocolate festival taking place in Turin. Should I mention that I came home with a cold that turned out to be Covid? Perhaps not.

I am not travelling anywhere else for ages. Being at home is so much easier. Admittedly, Newbury lacks Baroque buildings, but the Christmas lights are being turned on next Saturday and the Living Advent Calendar starts on December 1^st. Who needs to be anywhere else?