Giusella

Friday 2 March

First thing I noticed when I woke up this morning was the silence. It was so quiet I could hear the high pitch humming of the TV on standby from the other side of the room. Seriously, there is no sound outside this room. I had to open the window to check the world hadn't stopped. Luckily a crowing cockerel told me otherwise.

Clarissa came home for lunch at half 12 but then went back to school for the afternoon. Giorgio and Dominga taught me the Italian definite articles (they're more complicated than English and French put together!). At 4:20 I went with Dominga to get Clarissa from school and then, loaded with her little money purse, Clari and I explored the village of Montu Beccaria. Giusella owns the 'odds and sods' shop on the hill and Clari came bounding in Ciao! Ciao! Ciao! desperate to find something to spend all her money on.

That was when she bought, (and opened) a pot of flourescent pink goo. It went all over her hands and she just looked up at me like 'oh!'. Poor Giusella, she was so tolerant of us despite Clari running around everywhere. And she was so friendly! As we were leaving she kissed both my cheeks in a French gesture, clasped my hands in hers and gave me a postcard of Montu Beccaria, for free, that I could 'send to my mother'.

Everyone seems to be so friendly in Montu Beccaria. In the florist, Clarissa had no money to buy flowers so the old lady gave her a plastic one for free, which she told her was 'slightly old' but looked as bright as ever. In the bar, Clarissa bought some sweets (they looked like cola bottles but didn't taste of cola at all...) and everyone in the bar was just so friendly to us.

I feel like such a bum not speaking Italian. Giusella and the old lady in her shop, the group of people sitting in the bar; they all sparked up a conversation to me but all I could do was stand there like a lemon not understanding a word! I then caught 'diciannove?' and could only reply with 'diciotto' and then ciao. And that is the extent of my Italian skills.

Clari had a judo lesson which I went to with Dominga and watched. In the car on the way back, Giorgio told me that apparently I had 'KO'd' one of the young judo instructors but I didn't really catch all of what he said or what he meant. He said I should be flattered because Feli (their last German au pair) went to Clari's judo class three or four times and wasn't noticed at all - apparently only the old man on the fruit stall took a liking to her.

I gave Clarissa a bath (although she knows she is supposed to have a quick shower after judo, she doesn't like having quick showers, she prefers to have a bath and she got in trouble for showing me how to run her a bath). I just about missed having a bath myself (but with the amount of water Clarissa was tossing about I may as well have had one). I pulled the plug, dried her hair and we went to dinner.

It was nearly nine when we finished eating; Clarissa's bedtime so I was able to sneak back away to the silence of my room.