A little nostalgia is a fine thing.

I went into Manchester again the other day, this time to pay for my visit to Italy which is coming up shortly. I had been unable to pay for this earlier because the CDLCI, Centro di Diffusione della Litteratura e Cultura d’Italia, won’t accept payment by card, by paypal or by any other electronic or internet means. Oh no! They only accept cheques! So I was unable to meet their deadline for payment because I was in Spain all through the summer and they simply had to accept late payment from me. This is the only organisation I know of which wants payment by cheque. I would undoubtedly have forgotten how to make payment that way if it weren’t for my Italian conversation classes. 

Anyway I went along to hand over my cheque and found not only the secretary of the place but my Italian teacher so I stopped for a chat. Two Italian ladies taking a look at their holiday photos on the computer and exchanging notes on how their husbands (one English English, the English Italian, born in the UK of Italian parents) just don’t understand the importance for them of returning to their home country and indeed their home town. Just like the Spanish, they have a great attachment to their place of birth. 

In fact we got round to talking about the whole experience of living in another country. We came to the conclusion that it is perfectly normal when you spend time in two countries to miss things about the one you are not in while you are in the other and vice-versa. One of the main things they miss about the UK when in Italy is “la cortesia”. They went on to list the aspects of bad manners that annoy them most in Italy: the way people don’t say thank you when you stop to let them go by; stopping to chat in the middle of the street regardless of any other people who may be inconvenienced; the inability to queue. This list sounds so familiar. Anyone who has lived in Spain will recognise this behaviour. 

My Italian teacher talked about cringing at a Sicilian buffet where when the food was announced, instead of forming an orderly queue in the English manner, the guests all rushed to grab as much food as possible as quickly as possible, just as though they had not eaten for a week. But the story I liked best was about her experience of driving in her homeland. She has driven in the UK for so long now that British habits have become ingrained. Consequently, when some other driver waited to let her go first she would wave her thanks. Whichever Italian friend was accompanying her would immediately ask if she knew the driver. After all, why else would she need to greet him? 

Not only do their languages have a lot in common but so does the “culture” of Spain and Italy. And I really love both places. They even have the same occasional disregard for rules and regulations, when it suits them. The charming lady who is the secretary of the CDLCI is a smoker who believes that if she wants to smoke in her office she can do so. What? It’s against the law to smoke in the workplace? Nonsense! And who is going to report her anyway? So as she about to light up I took my leave. 

Making my way home I had further confirmation of a fashion trend I have started to notice here. Young women are wearing leggings or possibly just opaque tights with a jumper that goes down to the waist and no further. Now, I have been a mini-skirt wearer in my time and would defend any girl’s right to show off her legs. Short shorts with tights I have come to accept as normal wear. I quite like leggings under skirts or dresses. However, wearing a top that leaves the tights or leggings-clad bottom completely exposed is a step too far, no matter how shapely the bottom concerned. Have these young women just forgotten to put their skirts on?