Getting started..

So, here we go kiddies, here is your latest instalment in the seemingly never-ending Wellborne Papers. If a sense of frustration pervades through my writing, it is merely because the laptop I am writing on has truly given up on life, and isn’t even trying anymore. My computer isn’t just depressed, it is distraught, in fact, I would go as far as to say I am perhaps the only person in the world with a Nihilist Computer. Which is all very well for the computer, but damn frustrating when the power just conks out, half way through writing, or watching a film.
Ok, back to being a writer and looking grown up and other such fun activities. I am now going to give a brief summary of where I am, what I’m doing and maybe why. If, by some chance, you haven’t read last year’s blogs, you may want to start at the beginning, in which case I’ll see you in a few months once you’ve caught up.
I am back in Italy; Lido di Jesolo to be precise. Last year I was a travel rep, which was an interesting experience, but not at all financially rewarding and often just an excuse to have people moan at me 24 hours a day. Don’t they know I’m the one who does the moaning?! This year I have returned as a tour guide, the company that employs me is Atlas Italia, and they are stupid enough to pay me to go to Slovenia, Trieste, Venice, Verona, Lake Garda, the Dolomites, Portoguraro and the Islands of the Lagoon. Oh, and the opera in Verona in July and August. Non c’e male. Pretty much all of the excursions you can find described in my previous blogs, so I’m not going to do all that again, but I will be talking about them, just with a very different perspective.
On the 14th April I left English soil for what is potentially a couple of years and flew from Bristol to Marco Polo airport, just outside Venice. Enacting my triumphant return was of course something I had been dreaming about for 7 months - since I’d got back to England, really. EasyJet really are bastards though, and if you are planning on a triumphant return of your own I would suggest a more glamorous method of transportation than an orange box packed with very unhappy and equally tight buggers (why else would we fly like that?). As a result of EasyJet, whilst I looked suitably heroic emerging from the arrivals lounge, I was walking like I’d had a night out with the boys from the Navy in Canal Street, after saying ‘Oops I dropped my wallet’, such are the seating conditions for a lanky sod on budget airlines.
It was undeniably exciting to arrive back in Venice, it was late evening by the time we landed, but still light, and I had the enjoyable and unique experience of being met at the airport by a friend (normally I’m flying daft places and don’t do getting met at airports), who was also to be one my housemates. We did cheek-kissing and talking absolute piffle on the ride back to Lido, and it was then I decided to break the bombshell and explain that I didn’t drink anymore and hadn’t been since December.
“What?! But I’ve told the guys that you are a proper English[sic], and that you can drink better than everybody!”
Now this kind of flattery wasn’t going to work, I’d survived working in a pub in Tisbury for three months, where the temptation to drink was so strong that sometimes I’d wake up and in my sleep I’d carved in the wall a perfect rendition of The Last Supper, however instead of disciples and Jesus there were different varieties of bottled beer and they were all eating a kebab. It was, however, well, flattering, but I said ‘no, I’m being strong’ and other such admirable intentions.
It was on the drive home, however, that Alice dropped her bombshell, which did not leave me best impressed. I had arranged to live with her and 3 other Italians, before in England and she had said ‘it’s fine, we’re just getting someone to move out, if there’s a problem, I’ll let you know.’ This is Italy though, and ‘I’ll let you know’ doesn’t specify a time. It was when I had bloody arrived that Alice told me that the old lady was still in the house and would be for at least another 2 ½ weeks, but it was all ok because I’d share her room. That did not amuse me in the slightest. I have been living out of other people’s houses since I got back to the UK, and whilst I had my own room in the pub and was employed there, I was still living in someone else’s household. One of the things that I was looking forward to the most was being independent again, having my own space for my own things and actually doing what I wanted.
This is the first point at which my laptop has died, but I only lost a paragraph. Grr.
As we tore past the lagoon and my memory of Italian driving was refreshed (Italian driving is like the worst kinds of modern art - people pretend to understand it, but essentially it’s just crap), my mind was franticly racing, weighing up pros and cons and possible ways out, but before long we were at the palace - what was to be my new home - Piazza Manzoni.
Piazza Manzoni is about 30-45mins walk away from the area I lived in last year, and as a result is quieter and has a different atmosphere - it’s a little bit more local (until the season really kicks off). We’re on the third floor, with a long, stretching balcony overlooking the square (which is more of a roundabout and a small stage, actually). I was introduced to my housemates, which included Erica (whom I’d met on my birthday, Eri for short), Alessandro (Ale - pronounced Allay) and Mattea. I didn’t meet the final housemate for a few days, the old lady (ok, 55, but everyone else was 20’s), but I was a bit worried about that because I was replacing her. As it turns out, she was living there because her son had sublet her the room, which was all kinds of wrong, and as a result I was being part of the long arm of the law in removing her, which was another fact I would have been grateful to have known before arriving.
As in January, my confidence with language took a real hit, as I could understand a fair bit of the Italian everyone was talking (only Alice speaks English), but I could barely say my name, let alone construct a sentence, which was driving me crazy. I was welcomed warmly as soon as I entered, which was a very nice feeling and one that contributed to my decision to stay in the house. It was then that Mattea pressed a cool bottle of Becks into my hand.
“I don’t...I can’t...er....no thank you.” That was my resistance, that is what I managed to say. After less than a minute the top was off the bottle and it’s contents were entering my system. In absolute honesty and fairness, I couldn’t refuse that beer, it was a housewarming toast, it was bought especially for me, and it would have been incredibly rude to have refused it....and it was only one beer.
The feeling of that first mouthful of cool lager is almost indescribable for me, and the sensation that it gave me didn’t half make me worry about drinking again. It was a rush, it was like being set free - it was relaxing and exciting at the same time. I felt like the bottle looked, with condensation running down it’s green glass sides, fizzing slightly at the top. Anyhow, I had just one beer, and that was it.
Side note: When I write these things I often like to listen to music, today being no exception. I’ve suddenly started to get really into Nick Cave, it having taken years to absorb the obscene amount of his music passed onto me, and I had a real hankering to listen to ‘The Boatman’s Call’, especially the opening song ‘Into My Arms’, which is a truly beautiful song. I clicked the appropriate buttons, headphones on and no noise. It is only just now, after 5 minutes of enquiries, and time wasted not writing, that I have found that for some reason my bastard, bastard laptop has uninstalled its sound drivers, or at least temporarily decided to ignore them. If I was a diva, I would ask ‘how can I be expected to work like this?’. But, seriously, how can I be expected to work like this?!
Being utterly exhausted it was time to head to bed, which was a bit of a strange experience, as Alice and I were to share the same bed. Now one of the liberating (and apologies, slightly disgusting) things about having your own room is it a place where you can fart, snore, talk in your sleep (apparently I do, but I do have a lot to say), roll over and lie on the bed in a utterly awkward but comfortable position and sleep for as long or as little as you want. This you cannot do if you are sharing a bed, or at least if you are sharing a bed with someone you are not, or don’t have any intentions, of becoming intimate with. Furthermore, everyone has their own habits for getting to sleep. For me, I read or listen to music, or I’m just plain exhausted from fighting off the masses of young Italian women who are so excited at my return (ok, maybe the last one is a slight exaggeration). Some people watch TV. Alice watches TV without the sound on...ALL NIGHT. How in God’s name anyone can sleep through that, I don’t know - constant flickering of light, combined with a very quiet electronic hum...grr. I couldn’t say anything, as it was her generosity that meant I had somewhere to sleep, but it did mean I was grumpier than the Cookie Monster on Atkins all night and the next morning.
The next morning was to be an exploratory day - I called Helen, my boss, who said that she would be back in the office in a few days, I visited Stefano in the Marco Polo and then Max & Francesca in the Black Cat and generally just wondered around causing mischief and inspecting my beloved Jesolo. It was dead. Very little was open, the weather was gorgeous though so I was content to stroll around in 25 degrees and not worry myself with anything in particular. It wasn’t really a full day’s wandering, as after Alice had left for work at 8am I turned the damn TV off and managed to sleep for a couple of hours, but I did manage to keep myself occupied until I met her and a very old friend at her office, at 18.30 that evening.
It was, however, the events of that evening, that were to signal my downfall and resurgence, as well as my true arrival in Italy.
I’m afraid, however, you are going to have to wait until the next exciting instalment of the CdeMW Papers, to find out what happened.

Roodles and a-toodles,
Monty x

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