Thanks, Sicilian builders, ‘Beach Reads’ promo

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Buondì.

I’ve been a bit overwhelmed lately, first by some horrible virus, then as a result of having a home full of Sicilian builders for three days over the holiday weekend.

Stefi decided that Bug and I would be more comfortable in the hot summer months if we had air-conditioning fitted downstairs, and a friend of a friend offered to do the work for us, a former ‘muratore’ apparently, highly-recommended, and cheap.

She then took herself and Bug, driven by Tom of EasyItalianNews.com fame, down to the Adriatic coast for the three-day holiday weekend, leaving me to nurse my tender insides and open the door to the workmen as and when called upon to do so. Win win.

Now there’s one thing you should know about Italian builders/muratori: it’s against their sworn code of brotherhood to just mount a cooling appliance on your wall, run an electric cable to the nearest socket, and make a small hole through a wall for the collant tubes and condensation pipes to reach the external fan unit.

Oh no, mio dio, that would not do!

It would be ugly, it would be unprofessional, it would be illegal even. More to the point, it would take about ten minutes, rather than three whole days.

Much, much better to break open the century-old brick walls – creating buckets of waste and kilos of dust in the process – so as to hide the cables, tubes and pipes within the wall, then fill in the holes, plaster it over nicely, a coat or two of paint, and Bob’s your uncle!

Sicilian builders are an irristable force, so I just sighed and got to moving furniture that had not been touched in two decades, piling up Bug’s chew toys in one corner, Stefi’s wool mountain in another, shifting the decades-long accumulation of dusty paperbacks into the garage, sweeping up dessicated mouse droppings, and so on.

The work began on Saturday morning, surprisingly early. Today’s Tuesday (Wednesday for you) yet things still aren’t back to normal…

The walls look great!! Better than before, definitely.

But where the two cooling units are supposed to be, there are just neat holes, with tubes and cables sticking out of them.

No problem, apparently. Actually putting them up will be child’s play!

At least, it will once the guy who has the permit to fill the system with greenhouse gases can be persuaded to do a little overtime, in what is his busiest period of year.

No matter. The REAL WORK was the muratore part, and that’s all been done, see?

It’s thirty-four degrees Celsius (93.2 Fahrenheit) here in Bologna today. It’ll be the same tomorrow. Our Italian school has air-conditioning in each classroom, by the way. There are pictures here: https://madrelinguaitalian.com/madrelingua-italian-school/

So anyway, many thanks to the people who responded to last week’s article by leaving a comment at the website (rather than emailing…)

If you have the voglia, read nine comments on that article here: https://onlineitalianclub.com/the-club-vibe-and-why-you-should-invest-in-it-not-email/#comments

Some people also commented on the previous week’s article. Read those here: https://onlineitalianclub.com/why-you-should-quit-studying-italian/#comments

On the site, comments are shown in date order from oldest to newest, so scroll down to follow the conversations, such as they are.

By the way, to find out if club members are commenting on things elsewhere (usually not, but who knows…) there’s a clickable widget on the homepage, where it says ‘Join the conversation!’, showing the newest comments. Find that here: https://onlineitalianclub.com/

To add a comment of your own, follow the instructions in last week’s article: https://onlineitalianclub.com/the-club-vibe-and-why-you-should-invest-in-it-not-email/

25% COUPON CODE FOR EBOOKS

One of the things I was supposed to be doing over the weekend, instead of sweeping up brick dust, was to launch our ebook store‘s ‘BEACH READS!’ summer promotion.

Look on the shop website and you’ll find no mention of it.

While the promotion officially started on Tuesday 3rd June, I won’t be hitting the ebooks store mailing lists with the coupon code until at least tomorrow.

However, I have got as far as to create and test the coupon code, which is valid for a discount of 25% on anything/everything you find at EasyReaders.org.

It’s

2025-Beach-Reads-25%-Off

and the catalog page, where you’ll find ebooks for people learning Italian (organised by type and in level order) is

https://easyreaders.org/catalogue/

There’ll be more on that promotion, both here and direct to the ebooks store’s mailing list, over the next few weeks, as the promo doesn’t end until Tuesday June 24th.

E così. Gotta go collect Bug from the petting zoo.

Alla prossima settimana!

Or possibly sooner if I get time to work on the ebooks promo…

LAST CHANCE FOR Half-price Ebook of the Week, ‘2 giugno 1946’ (A2/B1), £4.99

The half-price promotion on our ebook 2 giugno 1946 will be switched off in the next few days, so if you didn’t get your copy…

June 2nd seventy-nine years back was a historic moment in Italy, and this ebook celebrates that, as well as providing invaluable and enjoyable skills practice for students of Italian.

The level of this one is A2/B1 (pre-intermediate/intermediate). Do check out the Free Sample Chapter (.pdf) (which includes a link to the free online audio for the entire story…) to see if the material is right for you.

Bologna, 2nd of June 1946. Italy is slowly recovering from the devastating effects of World War II. A referendum has been organised to decide whether the reborn state will be a republic or continue as a monarchy. And for the first time in history, Italian women can go to the polls! Newly-wed Marcella is so excited at the prospect she barely slept last night. But her husband, Antonio, is unconvinced…

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 8 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at any level
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Buy 2 giugno 1946, just £4.99! | Free Sample Chapter | History/historical ‘easy readers’ | Catalog

Or find more ebooks, organised by level, then type: A1 | A1/A2 | A2 | A2/B1 | B1 | B1/B2 | B2 | B2/C1 | C1 | C1/C2 | C2

How do I access my ebook?

When your order is ‘completed’ (normally immediately after your payment), a download link will be automatically emailed to you. It’s valid for 7 days and 3 download attempts so please save a copy of the .pdf ebook in a safe place. Other versions of the ebook, where available, cannot be downloaded but will be emailed to people who request them. There’s a space to do that on the order form – where it says Additional information, Order notes (optional). If you forget, or if you have problems downloading the .pdf, don’t worry! Email us at the address on the website and we’ll help. Also, why not check out our FAQ?

P.S.

Many thanks from the EIN team to everyone who donated during the appeal last week.

They couldn’t produce the thrice-weekly text+audio bulletins without such support from Italian students around the world.

Not familiar with EasyItalianNews.com?

Take a look at their website and get started on improving your Italian, FOR FREE (there’ll be another appeal for donations in July…)

Better still, get all three text + audio bulletins of ‘easy’ news emailed to you each week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays by subscribing (also for FREE!)

Just enter your email address on this page and click the confirmation link that will be sent to you.

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