The Carù National Observatory

Hahahahaaa... Spring is in the air, the sun is shining brightly, the birds are singing... My whole body is awakening and above all, the part that wants to... construct something! And let us hope, without cutting in my hands this time... So, what could I make? A whopping 25" telescope? Ai... Christine throws the frying pan at my head and only misses me by a hair. OK, I cancel the telescope... for now... But what else could I do then? I've already finished the henhouse. The porch next to our house perhaps? Forbidden because Christine says that needs to be done "professionally", and she's probably right. What could I do... what could I do... my hands are itching...
- "Hey! Where are you going to?", Christine shouts at me.
- "I'm going to construct an observatory!"
- "But... an observatory??? And where exactly???"
- "Right there!", I say with a lot of pride in my voice, pointing at the top of the crest in our field.
- "There???", she responds in horror, "Straight in the middle of the view from our terrace??? No, it can't be true!"
- "But where do I have to make it then?"
- "A lot further away from our house! A lot!"
There's nothing more to do. Whatever Christine says is law. I walk about twenty yards further into the field.
- "Here?"
- "No! Still way too close!"
- "But... if I go even further, I'll be in that wood over there!"
- "That's fine with me!"
At this point there is a slight argument which I won't mention here because it is not intended for the faint-hearted. And because we're still "Belgians" (for the moment still), we make a compromise that is no good for noone but which assures a kind of armed peace. I can construct my observatory where I'm standing, and she can put a large tree in front of our house. You can imagine that I have always violently resisted this tree when I still wanted to observe the heavens from in front of our house. But since I can soon look at the stars from my observatory in the field, this tree doesn't matter at all to me anymore.
- "And you can put a nice climbing rose against my observatory. That way it'll not disturb the view as much."
Ah... I'm so brilliant, aren't I? I know exactly how to move my dear wife in the right direction.
- "OK... allright...", she says with a bit of doubt, "but first I want to know how much it will cost."
So, I start making a plan so I can give her an estimate:

On this page you can see the front of the observatory/shed, with a big double door 1,6m wide and 2,3m high. Big enough for my future 25" Obsession telescope. But Christine doesn't know that yet... :-)

In order to lower the cost even further, I've already begun to make a foundation which will cost us nothing at all. After the restoration of our house there was still some cement and sand left and in our field there was an entire pile of old terracotta tiles which we can't use anymore in the house itself. But they'll make an excellent observing terrace. I would have preferred to make it in wood, like teak or bankirai, because wood doen't absorb the heat as much and will create less turbulences inside the telescope. But this owuld cost us a fortune and above all, I'm having serious doubts about the origin of tropical wood.
So I started putting a layer or two of tiles to stabilise the ground a bit:

Then, I made the final layer on a dry mixture of sand and cement:

This is where I am at the moment:

Oh... I just can't wait to put my telescope there... :-)

Next week I hope to be able to get started on the shed itself but it's going to be bad weather for the next couple of days. Soooo frustrating...

We've won the first battle of the war!

"When will I get my money?"

It's last Thursday evening. Christine and I were enjoying a DVD, when all of a sudden Christine's mobile bleeped, indicating that she had received an SMS. Oh dear, Nasty Little Nezio was after his money again. Hadn't he warned us that if he hadn't been paid by the end of December, he'd take "further steps"? Well, if "further steps" means sending us an angry SMS every once and a while... that's ok with us. :-D We're actually beginning to find it amusing. At first Christine thought it wise not to respond. But then she changed her mind and wrote:

"When you'll finally reply to our sollicitor's letter."

By doing so, she thought she could kill two birds with a single stone. One, to shut him up for good, and two, to have him put something on paper we could use against him. Ah... isn't she a genius?

"So... is this how you want to play it? I thought that Danilo and I had come to visit you in order to work something out!", he still replied.

But we left it at that. The DVD was far too exciting and his text message was only a bad joke. It hardly brought a grin to our face. "Work something out"... huh! Did he really mean that? He's even more daft than we imagined. And that was already very high on the fruitcake-scale! Besides, our funny friend Nezio still hasn't got a clue about what else we have in store for him. Our sollicitor had already contacted an expert to come to our house and have a look at the damages. About time too because the water problem is getting worse. The man was shocked by what he saw and didn't leave a shred of doubt that it is caused by bad or non-existent drainage.

"I'll come back within a couple of days with my wife, who also is a geometer, to take some pictures", he said and advised us: "Don't pay a single penny to anyone for now!"

Something which we weren't going to do anyway, so we liked his advice very much. He also asked us to make a hole behind the house so he and his wife could see actually how deep this so-called drainage was laid. I was about half a metre down when I found this:

You can see that I arrived at the gravel with which the "drainage" is covered. And with the gravel I found something which can rightly be called an underground lake. The more I removed the gravel by hand, the more standing water I found. Obviously this is the ground water level and when this level rises during moist days, it enters our foundations. When we've had a dry period such as the past two weeks, the level drops and our internal walls dry up again. Obviously, the "drainage" doesn't work at all! We have this Nasty Little... and Big Bad Danilo by the $ù=#(µ!!! The way things are looking now, it seems to become more likely that Danilo and co will have to pay us a lot more in damages than what they are still claiming from us.

When our sollicitor came to visit us with the expert, she even had more good news for us. The Rovigo judge has concurred with our argument that he isn't competent in this case and that it should be transferred to the court at the buyer's residence. He'll make his final verdict on... THE 12th OF DECEMBER!!! Well, err... if you must... :-D It's that 80-year old animal-mistreating bitch that's after her money, not us. We can wait... and wait... and wait... And so can little Flora! :-D

Back to school

This must be the first of September, the day that in Belgium the schools reopen after the summer holidays. The sun is shining brightly in the deep blue sky, but it's a bit chillier so this must be autumn indeed. I put my school books in my bag, together with a new pen and a new notebook, give Christine a last hug, and off I go. Back to school...

I arrive at ten 'o clock, perfectly on time (yes, today there are special hours...) and one of the assistents immediately directs me to my new class, being the third grade of the "scuola media". That's a bit disappointing because I had hoped to still have a bit of time to adjust myself to my new life at school, but unfortunately I wasn't granted any respite. I was pushed into the lion's den right away. The worst thing of it all was that this time I wouldn't have to sit in class, where I could blend very well into the background. No, this time I'd have to stand in front of it! And from personal experience I know very well what a handful 14 year-old kids can be. Then again, they say that poachers make the best game keepers so if that were true I should be more than allright. :-D Mara was already standing there too and she immediately pointed at the centre of the stage, meaning that I should do the main act this morning. That's what I was already afraid of, but I didn't have any choice. Twenty pairs of eyes were staring at me with big interest (perhaps the kind of interest cats display when they're looking at little birds?). I took a big sigh...

- "Goodmorning! I'm Peter!"

- "Goodmorning Peter!", all the kids shouted back at me most enthusiastically. Hmmm... that already went well, didn't it?...

I briefly introduced myself and then asked all of the children to introduce themselves too. I added some extra questions like "Have yo got any brothers or sisters?" or "What are your hobbies?" so that nobody would get away as easily as to just state their name. Then the tables were turned and the students were allowed to ask me as many questions as they liked. To my surprise I was quickly getting the hang of things and it felt again like more than twenty years ago when I was teaching Astronomy to children of about the same age. I truly enjoyed standing there in front of the class. Perhaps it was partly because of my urge for attention, something my disability often provokes and usually to my detriment. But mostly I felt glad that I could do something for those children. To help them and possibly even to give them a brighter future because obviously a decent knowledge of English will become ever more important. It's such a rewarding experience... Perhaps I also have to admit that due to my disability, deep inside, I have always remained a bit of a child, which in this case would be an advantage. It makes it easier to relate to the children, and vice versa. Yes, I truly felt that they considered me as "one of their own" in stead of "one of the teachers". The hour flew past and in the end the children all stood up and gave me a warm applause. I humbly bowed at such a token of appreciation. I felt deeply moved...

In this class there were a couple of children who were a bit behind of the rest. Some of them because they're a bit slower and need an extra bit of attention; but one had only just arrived from Macedonia and one even from Brazil. The Brazilian boy came to Mara and me in order to ask if I wouldn't give him a couple of private lessons because he was so eager to learn. I discussed this with him, Mara and another teacher who's responsible for looking after the kids who need the extra attention and I said that if there would be four or five children interested that I could do this for only a few Euros per lesson each. To me it doesn't matter if I have to spend the hour in front of two or five children, and five still isn't too much so that not everyone would get the personal attention required. All we still need to look into is a venue because Busana is more than a half an hour's drive. Perhaps if we could find something half-way we could go ahead with the idea.

Mara and I were about to say goodbye when I looked into the classroom of the second grade. All of the children were looking at me through the open door and making gestures like thumbs up and funny waves. I asked Mara if she didn't want me to briefly say "hello" to those children as well. And she immediately replied that it would be a wonderful idea. So there I went again. I immediately noticed that the class of the second grade was a lot more "lively" than the third, where most students were a bit shy. Not in this class! There were three or four real rascals here, but the "nice" kind though. :-)

- "If you could already introduce yourself", Mara suddenly told me, "then I can pop out for five minutes or so because I have to do something urgent."

- "Huh???"

There I was... all alone at the mercy of these children. After five minutes she indeed returned, briefly, just to see that I was doing allright and then leaving me alone for the rest of the hour! Well, there was absolutely nothing to be worried about. I introduced myself and they did the same. Then they started asking me questions. Lots of questions. Whether I liked "womans". I corrected the smartass and wrote "women" on the blackboard, stressing its correct pronunciation. I asked the entire class to repeat and they happily did. "Women" rolled like a thunder throughout the school building! I replied that I liked one "woman" in particular and again they enthusiastically repeated me. Then I threw the ball back at the smartass and asked him whether he liked women.

- "Yes!", he said, "Pamela Anderson!" :-D

- "But... she's old!", I replied, "she's even older than I am!" And then I mimed what happens when you've had a facelift and you're having trouble laughing. The kids thought it was hilarious. Obviously I wasn't going to demonstrate what else dear Pamela had already had lifted... :-D

Throughout the question session I also got to explain the expression "used to". Which turned out to be most helpful during the rest of the class because when someone asked me whether I liked Michael Jackson, I could explain that he used to be a singer. But not anymore. Because he's... dead (making cut-throat gesture). Obviously none of the kids were going to admit that they ever used to play with dolls or teddybears, although one of them was ready to admit that he used to play with Lego stones. "But not now!!!", he immediately added, "I'm playing with a Playstation now!" Well, they thought it was funny to hear me confess that I used to play with Lego as well...

Again the hour was over when I though it had only just started. The kids applauded even louder, if at all possible, than those of the third grade and they were begging me to stay. Mara came in and explained that this would not be possible. She had asked the head master for a few hours for the second class also, but the budget wouldn't allow it. After all, it's only a small school. I proposed that I would do the second class for free then. After all, what's most important for me is to give something back to the community, for as much as I can. This experience was so rewarding that I truly wouldn't mind doing it for free. And if I could do it on the same day as my lessons for the third grade, so much the better. Mara promised she'd take my offer back to the head master and let me know. Although she added that it may create a legal problem because normally, as a "third person", there are strict conditions before someone can stand in front of a class. But about twenty minutes later she already called me to say that the head master had agreed and that he wanted to thank me for my generosity. Well... How about that?... Again, I felt so deeply moved.

So that's it. I'm going to be an assistant English teacher at the Busana school and next year my hours will probably be doubled. But that's not all. In the evening I got a call from Cosetta's aunt, who used to be an English teacher but who's now slowly retiring. Whether I wouldn't be interested to take a similar position in a school in Casina. Of course I would! Five minutes later the head master of the Casina school called me to offer me a twenty hour contract! The nice thing is that it would be four hours for five saturdays in a row, saving me a lot of driving over and back. Tomorrow I'll be going to Casina to meet the head master and to discuss the details.

Slowly things are moving, aren't they? Oh... I'm so happy... :-)

Teaching English - Part 2

You'll remember that half-December I received a phonecall from an English teacher of a local secondary school, offering me a part-time job? Well, from thereon I hadn't heard a peep anymore. Slowly I began to wonder whether it had all been merely a dream and I was getting a bit disappointed. I had been looking forward to this opportunity so much... Anyway, I wasn't going to give up that easily and last week I drove to that school in person in order to find out if the offer was real and if it was still standing.

The school is situated in the lovely little town of Busana. In direct it's only a couple of miles from our house. But unfortunately there isn't any direct road and in all it took me over half an hour in order to get there. That's because I have to cross the Secchia valley and there are only two bridges nearby, both of which take me to a totally different direction. But the sun was shining brilliantly again (actually, today we've got 25° in the sun!) and the road is just stunningly beautiful. When you're used to the nice, straight roads of the Flemish countryside, these winding mountain trails may come as a little shock. At first they seem tedious and nerve-wrecking. But as soon as you discover the beauty of the landscape you're cruising through, it becomes a totally different story and half an hour seems to go by in a whizz. The school is a reasonably modern building in red brick and all seemed perfectly quiet. I parked the car and walked to the entrance, where a man kindly greeted me. I explained who I was and asked if the job offer was still standing. The man turned out to be the head master and he told me that only Mara, the English teacher who had phoned me, would be able to tell me. He confirmed that there was indeed a project going on where they would ask a native English speaker to assist in class for a 16-hour contract, divided between this school and their subsidiary in Ramiseto. He gave me Mara's phone number and urged me to give her a call the following day, as she wasn't present at school at the time.

And so I did. Mara turned out to be the same enthusiastic person I spoke to over a month ago and I stressed how much I would love to take the job. But... there had been an unfortunate coincidence. Her Ramiseto colleague had already offered the job to another English speaker, without having informed her. But on the bright side, she would try to divide the offer between the two, so I'd get 8 hours in Busana and the other person 8 hours in Ramiseto. It only seemed fair that way. She also asked me to drop by at her house to discuss the matter in greater detail.

When I arrived, Mara was already waving at me from the door. She greeted me like if I was a king and kindly invited me in. She asked me about my past and about our decision to come and live in Italy. From her side, she told me that she had graduated from University twenty years ago and confessed that her English had suffered a lot since then because she hadn't had any serious conversations in this language anymore. As a student she still regularly visited London. But after that she had always remained in Italy. She also confessed that with the children in class you could still easily get away with an error but she realised that this was not the proper thing to do. I was very impressed about that because at least she admitted that she had a problem and was prepared to do something about it. Much unlike the teacher of the boy I'm still giving private courses to who insists that you have to pronounce "key" as "kay" and when asked "How are you?" you should just reply "Fine" and that "I'm fine, thank you" is actually wrong! Mara also told me that since my visit to the school the teachers are constantly talking about me and they would be so happy if I were to take the job! :-) So the first impression I made must have been quite positive. I also explained some of the ideas I had about teaching the children, with the aid of games such as trivia, "who am I?", snakes and ladders, role-playing games etc. and Mara was thrilled about this idea. In the end, she asked if I wouldn't be interested in giving a small refresher course to her and anoter colleague of her, which I gladly accepted.

So now the contract is signed. I officially have a job! :-) Oh... there was just one minor misunderstanding... It's not 8 hours a week. It's 8 hours for the rest of the school year, so only one hour a week from the beginning of March onwards. But that's allright. It's a start, isn't it? And most probably I'll get the Ramiseto class as from the next school year as well.

Mara urged me to go and talk to other schools as well, which I did. I already went to Carpineti's secondary school and also there I received a very warm welcome. Especially when I heard the primary school children practise the English alphabet out loud and commented to one of the secretaries how good they were at it. The secretary immediately went upstairs to the children and came back down with a little, black girl by her hand. The girl was obviously shy and held a big plastic bag full of sweets firmly against her chest. Oh... she was so adorable, with her hair tied in all these little tails. I asked her how she was (in English) and she replied with a frail voice: "I'm fine, thank you". Then I asked her about her name and she said, so faintly I could hardly hear it, that her name was Deborah. Then, she offered me the bag. I said (in total amazement) "Oh... is this for me???". She nodded. So when at the same moment the head master asked me to step into her office for a chat, I was still holding the entire bag of sweets. That should've gone down well as a first impression also. :-D In the end, I returned the bag because I wouldn't want to rob these little children of their sweets of course.

One thing's for sure: I'm definitely going to find my way in my new home country. Not that I intend to work full-time again because I've learnt the hard way that this will be impossible for me. But I'm still going to contribute to society as much as I can.

The Italian judicial system

Yesterday was a very big day for us, and more specifically for our little Flora. We were summoned to go all the way to Rovigo, a two and a half hours' drive, because the judge wanted to see me in person. You may recall that the malignant cow who sold us little Flora was a bit upset about me asking (and receiving) my money back through VISA because to me (and also to VISA) it was a clear case of internet fraud. The most important victim of which was a poor little kitten, almost starved to death and with a severe infection on her lungs, nose and eyes. "Well, if half of the truckload of kittens coming from Hungary dies, that's just too bad. As long as enough survive which I can sell for an exuberant price via our fraudulent websites". Yes, you read it right. In the mean time I've discovered no less than four different websites, possibly more, all from the same vendor and all showing the same, heartbreaking pictures and clips of the most adorable pups and kittens. I've decided to name and shame them after all, hoping that this message will spread and that this horrific animal trade will be rooted out. Idle hope, I know, but doing nothing would be even worse, wouldn't it?

http://www.vendita-cuccioli.com/

http://www.venditacaniegatti.com/

http://www.venditacuccioli.com/

http://www.vendita-cuccioli-caniegatti.com/ (now all of a sudden closed)

So as I was saying, Christine and I drove all the way down there, to arrive at the local courthouse. "Courthouse" is in fact a bit exaggerated because it was just the first floor in what rather looked like an appartment building. The only things that betrayed its true nature were the Italian and European flags which were proudly decorating the façade. By the front door we saw Floriano, one of our two sollicitors, making a call on his mobile. We had been a bit surprised that both of them would be present here because also for them it was a long drive. Well, as long as the other party will be paying the bill... :-D Sabrina, our other sollicitor, warmly greeted us when we arrived on the first floor and explained that it was better that they'd also appear in person, rather than to hire a local sollicitor for this session. The judge had after all summoned both parties "in person". Then again, we were in for a little shock. The corridor on the first floor was absolutely packed. Sabrina told us that our case was number 66 in line, whereas they had only just begun case number 34! We had anticipated on a little wait, even though the invitation had carried a specific time. But the way things were going, we would be standing here until nightfall. Oh bother... Sabrina tried to console us by telling that this is mostly what a sollicitor's life in Italy is all about: waiting. By a strange coincidence, the police had chosen the very same morning to present all of the pending fines to the judge. In Italy there's no such thing as a "police judge"; a person who only deals with traffic fines and incidents. All traffic cases are presented to a common civil judge, who in this case happened to be ours. And it goes without saying that all of these fines took presedence over our case. Grumble... The only wicked sort of amusement we got was staring at the faces of the people coming out of the judge's office. Most of them looked as if they'd just done the latrine's job in a major pig stable. Their noses pulled up high and their mouths closed so hard that their lips went all white.

We had been ordered to be there at 11:40, but by 01:00 we were still standing there, together with a whole bunch of other people who still had to present their civil case. The judge, obvioulsy concerned about his lunchbreak, then ordered all the remaining people in at once. It didn't look very good but Sabrina and Floriano assured us that they would press the judge to still hear our case. After all, we had come all the way down here on his orders. Alhough Sabrina wondered how the judge could still be all ears to our story if he had just had a hell of a morning with about 70 traffic cases to do.

The judge's office was, well, like a normal office. It certainly wasn't the sort of court hall that one could expect. Needless to say that when all of the remaining people were in, there was hardly any room left to breathe. The judge put the files of all of the remaining civil cases on a big pile on his desk and started to call all of them, in order to see who was still there. About half of them turned out to have already gone out for lunch! The remaining half were then divided between urgent and not so urgent. Meaning, to be postponed until March or some even until September! "My agenda is totally full", he apologised. Well, if it had to be September also for our case, personally I wouldn't mind. It's that wicked bitch who wanted her money, not me. Although we're still hoping to have all of the veterinary expenses refunded of course.

With those non-urgent cases out of the way, he still had half an hour to deal with all of the rest. "I'll continue until half past and that's it", he said.

So all of us had to go out again and wait for our turn. In the mean time Sabrina had already pointed out the vendor's sollicitor to us. A nasty old, little man; exactly the sort of person who'd make the kinds of remarks that we found in his reply to our defence. But there was another interesting detail: the vendor herself hadn't shown up, even though also she had been summoned. This normally shouldn't go down too well with the judge. I had been looking around to all of the women I saw, wondering who it would be. She certainly wouldn't be very young because setting up the whole animal trade business would take a certain amount of time. And it had to be a person without a heart. I can't imagine any other person doing the things she does for a living without the slightest sense of remorse. In the end I asked Sabrina if she could find the lady's age in the file. And indeed she could. Apparently, the vendor was born in... 1931!!! That bitch was eighty years old!!! Sabrina grinned that she'd probably provided her sollicitor with a medical note so she wouldn't have to appear. I said that perhaps they'd have to wheel her in on a wheelchair. Christine on the other hand wondered how such an old lady could still be running such a big business. Obviously she'd still be in charge on paper but leave the running itself to someone younger, like the nasty man who had delivered our Flora. In any case, even if she'd only be responsible on paper, that's exactly what she is and she'll have to bleed for what she did (and is still doing to other unfortunate animals).

Finally, at 13:25, it was our turn. We all went in apart from Christine. The case was started against me personally so she wasn't allowed to take any part. The judge began by saying that this was a "compromise" meeting. Sabrina immediatly intervened that if this were so, we hadn't been informed about any possible "compromise" by the other party. The judge said that in that case he'd propose fifty-fifty, which neither I nor the nasty sollicitor could accept.

- "If that cat were really half-dead as you claim, then why didn't you inform my client about it?", he said in a very arrogant way.

- "As a matter of fact I did", I replied, "I've tried to contact her for days on end!"

- "That's a lie", he said.

- "No it is not!", I replied and Sabrina added that we have copies of the e-mails to prove it.

The nasty sollicitor went on and started speaking to the judge.

- "That man", pointing at me, "just wanted to buy a cat from my client without paying 5 bloody Lire for it! If he's truly so unhappy, then he should give the cat back."

I was perplexed. How low can anyone go? As if Flora is just a stupid cupboard! A heartless stone which you can chuck away if you grow tired of it! This was indeed the "compromise" he proposed.

- "And what about all the medical expenses then?", Sabrina also mentioned. The other sollicitor didn't care to reply. Sabrina took the conversation back to the heart of the matter we wanted to discuss here. The European consumer's law stipulates that, unless otherwise agreed, any dispute following a purchase should be treated by the court at the buyer's residence.

- "Can you believe that?", the nasty sollicitor intervened, laughing and looking at the judge, "They'd want this case to be treated in Belgium!" He shook his head in mockery.

- "Or in Castelnovo ne' Monti", Sabrina went on without paying any attention to that prat, "the court where our client now resides."

The judge, clearly tired and unmotivated, said that he wouldn't take any decision now and that he'd let us know. He typed the names of the people present in his computer and added a note about our sollicitor's claim about the transfer of competence to either Belgium or Castelnovo. He would let us know as soon as possible. And we were sent out again.

Now we'll have to wait once more. Probably for months, but I don't care. Sabrina said that technically the judge wouldn't have any other choice than to declare himself "incompetent" in this matter and to pass the case on to Castelnovo. This would already be a big blow to the vendor. Sabrina added that she'd then have a word with the Castelnovo judge, apparently a good lady with a heart for animals, and that she'd have high hopes. Although she warned us that the Rovigo judge might still decide to keep the case at his court and that he may summon me again. Perhaps - if he's really stupid - to treat the entire case and at the end declare that he's incompetent after all so the whole thing will have to be done over again by another court. It's like looking at teabags for the moment.

But in any case, I'm not afraid. And above all, NOONE will ever take our Flora away from us. Even if we have to send her temporarily to Flanders or whatever. She's OUR little baby now and we'll never allow anyone to take her away. We love her with all of our hearts and she loves us back at least just as much. Every evening while we're in front of the telly she comes jumping on our laps, rolling about and thoroughly enjoying our caresses and the brushing of her tummy with a special cat brush. Oh yes, she definitely loves her daily beauty treatment! :-) And isn't she a beauty indeed?