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Buondì.
We drive a twenty-year-old Fiat Punto, primarily because we have what insurance companies term ‘a young driver’ living with us (Tom, voice of EasyItalianNews.com, not Bug, who’s not yet three, so not, in theory, allowed behind the wheel.)
Having an old car doesn’t reduce the premiums that much, but insuring it RCA only (‘Responsibilità civile auto’ – what’s known in Britain as ‘third party’) keeps the cost below a thousand euros a year.
Of course, if Tom (or Bug) drives the Punto into a wall and writes it off, we’ll have lost the five thousand we paid for it – three or more years ago – and the thousands we’ve spent keeping it on the road since then.
Though at least then we could take out an auto loan and drive a (fully-insured) Range Rover, or some model equally appropriate to people of our status.
While the Punto sums work, for now, a particular irritation is its air-conditioning system, which has a leak. Bad for the ozone layer, obviously, but no mechanic seems interested in fixing it.
Re-filling the cooling system with damaging refrigerant fluids is profitable, takes a couple of minutes, and doesn’t involve getting dirty. While finding and fixing the leak is a long, hot, and possibly fruitless task.
So, in previous super-hot weather, when the Punto’s fan has started blowing out air at the same temperature as the oven fumes which shrivel my nasal hair and eyebrows as I’m cooking pizza, we’ve had the system refilled with fluid and hoped for the best.
Last year we only had to fill it up twice. This year we took it to the garage back at the start of May, hoping for at least a couple of months of not-too-hot-to-touch car seats and steering wheel.
The air-con worked for just a couple of days.
The REASON we need a car at all, given that we never go any place nice, is just that I have to pick Bug up from his petting zoo, on the other side of the city, each afternoon at about five p.m. Which, with Bologna’s tram works clogging everything up, is a right pain in the butt.
With air-conditioning, at least I could stay cool, listen to the radio for half an hour (sometimes in Swedish or French). Plus it got me away from the computer.
Stefi, Tom, Bug and I live in an old, brick-built house which is part of a former agricultural complex.
When it was built, in the nineteenth century, it was out in the countryside, on the road from Bologna to Ferrara, and probably very quiet. There would have been bees buzzing, a healthy smell of horse excrement, and just the occasional cart or peasant passing by.
On one side there was a barn, a stable, and what I suppose would have been the master’s home (all now reconstructed as apartments). On all the other sides, apart from the entrance (under an arch supporting an elderly lady’s bedroom) were workers’ homes. With ensuite animal accomodation – my ‘study’ still has metal rings set into the walls, for tying my horses or cattle to.
‘Hai presente’ (‘are you picturing’) then, a red-brick complex, entered through an arch, enclosing two courtyards? Bene, that’s where we live.
It sounds quaint, and I suppose it is, quite. Except that the city spread outwards to enclose us, the endless tram works run right past our door, and the historically-interesting courtyards are now a parking lot and potential killing ground for careless yet fast-moving young animals such as Bug.
Several of the neighbors’ cats have been crushed over the years.
Also, there’s no shade.
Many of the ‘vicini’ (neighbors) drive to work, so the ‘cortile’ (courtyard cum parking lot) is emptier during the day. A few decades ago, landscapers planted trees, but the spindly vegetation doesn’t offer much shade, and none at all when the sun is high in the sky.
Our house is on the corner between the smaller and larger ‘cortili’, so a death-trap when it comes to creatures with no awareness of the dangers of traffic rushing out the open door and straight under the wheels of ‘vicini’ who don’t understand the ‘Vehicles at walking pace’ notices. Or, in their anxiety to secure the parking place right outside their front door, don’t care.
But ‘casa nostra’ does have a shady nook right next to it. In fact, it’s the only shady nook in the entire complex.
So, normally, we’d park the Punto next to the kitchen window, just a couple of yards from where I’m typing this. That way it’s protected from the sun most of the day, so when the time comes for me to go pick up Bug from the other side of the city, it’ll be at ambient temperature, rather than burning hot like my pizza oven.
Except we have one ‘particular’ neighbor, who shall remain nameless as I have nothing polite to say about her.
She lives opposite us, above her garage, in which she keeps her motorcycle and other immaculate bits and pieces. Having no kids, she’s very regular in her habits, and very careful to keep her things in good order. Fair enough.
So, ‘the bitch’ (oops) normally drives to work, and while she and I compete for the only shady parking place – adjacent to my kitchen window, remember – it’s usually a fair contest. Sometimes I get it, sometimes she does.
However… when the weather here gets hot, hot, hot, ‘i Bolognesi’ jump onto their motorcycles and scooters to commute to work each day, leaving their cars at home.
And our odious neighbor, at the start of motorcycle season, goes one step further – she’ll park her car in the courtyard’s only shady spot, putting fancy covers over it to protect it from the heat, thus signalling that it won’t be moved for weeks or months.
The other day, when it was time to go get Bug, the Punto’s dashboard thermometer showed 47 Celsius (116.6 Fahrenheit). My rear was over-heated, opening the windows simply added mosquitoes to my torment, and my temper neared, or possibly exceeded, boiling point.
There was one shady spot, and one car occupying it, complete with reflective, anti-thermal covers. Just like yesterday, the day before, and doubtless tomorrow, too.
So, I totally know that I shouldn’t let her tires down. Or slash them.
Or encourage Bug to stuff things into the exhaust system.
Or do anything vindictive and petty at all.
Yet neither should I release yet more pointless pints of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere…
Guess I need a new auto after all.
Alla prossima settimana!
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Offer ends at midnight on Thursday 11th June 2026.
P.S.
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Daniel says
Sorry about all the typos in this! I fixed about four after the mailing system had already sent it out. Apologies.