Forgetfulness

Well, I had ideas for 3 postings spring into my head over the last day or so – pretty good ideas too I think – but as I sit here at my laptop I can’t remember any of them. This happens a lot. I tell my grandsons that I can remember my first day of school quite clearly but can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday. They indulge me with their poor old daft grandad smiles as they think I’m kidding, But it’s true. And that line has just reminded me of what I was going to write about. Yesterday’s lunch. Ha, how’s that for irony Alanis?

You see yesterday I got this wistful feeling about being back in Italy again. Maybe it was the nice weather. I don’t know. It’s a feeling I get occasionally. It’s a nice feeling, a happy sense. Anyway yesterday it was just C and I in the house and she asked me what I fancied doing for lunch. Make something or maybe go out? ‘How about Arthur’s on the Green?’ she asked. But, as if justifying my pen-name, I just had this sudden urge for some pasta; and pasta as we had it at Gianni’s lovely restaurant overlooking the sea at Sirolo. Our favourite food place in the world. So I told C that we should go out and that I’d select the venue; it’d be a surprise. I had in mind a great Italian restaurant called Brocca Antica (it means old jug which isn’t half as romantic sounding is it?) in nearby St Margarets. We hadn’t been there for a couple of years and we’d always had lovely food there – it seemed the perfect choice….

So we drove to the restaurant and it’s always fairly busy around the centre of the village but I’m usually abbastanza bene at finding parking spaces (pretty damn good). However I’d forgotten (there’s that memory thing again) that today was St Margarets day fete and the place was mobbed. There was absolutely nowhere to park. Oh vaffanc*lo. I probably don’t need to translate that.

We ended up going to Richmond  and having lunch at Trattoria, one of Jamie’s Italian restaurants. I had prawn linguine with tomato sauce. It was alright; not quite as good as the vongole and red clam sauce pasta that Gianni would have offered me but, hey, I’d had my little fix of Italianness and a lovely lunch with my wife. Afterwards we met the kids and had a few glasses of wine at the Cricketers overlooking Richmond Green. Life in England is pretty good too. Si molto bene.

Now what was I supposed to be doing this morning….

pasta-replenished paulie

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