Ironically I never wanted to return to Italy, we have a lovely tiny place by the beach, a seriously great place for holidays but not somewhere I ever thought I could live in. Italy, especially south of Rome is like accidentally coming across a third world country disguised as Europe...I'm not kidding. In the summer these places work as they are full of tourists and the sunshine covers up the cracks, try it out of season and you are in for a shock, it's almost apocalyptic, the streets are deserted day and night, there are massive holes in the road destined not to be fixed until pre-tourist season and only very shifty looking characters are out and about huddled in small groups smoking endlessly. No money in this country? The tobacco industry alone is kept upright by Italy. Oh, and they still have internet cafés. I rest my case.
Am I selling it yet?
So no, I did not think that moving to Italy would be a wise choice and I dug my heels in anytime the subject was raised. Eventually though, even I knew that something needed to be done. We were living in a place which (although had been very good to me over the years) was indeed the personification of 'Middle England' in it's worst form. When The Boyfriend was held hostage in the local garage because he had a blank when it came to entering his pin on the card machine, we knew that things had gone too far. As I tried explaining to the jobsworth over the phone that he was driving a company van with the logo all over it with a company card of the same name and we lived less than a mile away, this 'individual' screamed back that he could not risk letting someone go who had not paid for their petrol, I figured it must be company policy. Talking to others it became clear that it had happened to them without any issue, and they had returned later and paid for the fuel. The Boyfriend is of different stock to me, I would have been mortified, he cares far less, he took great delight in adopting the phrase 'Is it cause I is Italian?' but we both knew why it had happened as it wasn't the first time. I had watched on many occasions as people became frustrated that he was unable to understand everything or keep up, talked over him, or ignored him. It's not pleasant whatever form it takes or whatever you want to call it.
When he called that day in October 2015 and described the place he was standing in, castle walls, the blue skies and the sunshine and the average rent for an apartment overlooking the lake, I was sold. Mostly on the rent factor, also the idea of the much better and cheaper red wine but mainly the average rent. Seriously, the UK government needs to have a word with itself, rent is a vicious circle for anyone outside of the housing market, and that was our biggest motive for moving. We had considered moving to another city but our rent would have tripled, and the whole point of a move was to improve the quality of our lives, not to work every hour possible in order to live in a place close to that work to be able to work every hour....a real life version of an Escher painting. Everyone rents in Italy, once they have moved out in their late thirties, but that's another story. The point is that both the rent and the general cost of living here is affordable. I had already mentally packed my bags.
Besides, we figured that as we were planning on getting married in Rome, being over there would make that much easier too. Yeah right...
