Member-only story
Of Mice and Murder in Tuscany
MONDAY
I’ve been waiting three days for the local hardware shop to open. Three days since we came home from holiday and discovered our house had been done over by a gang of mice (definitely a gang). So as the bell tower in our Tuscan piazza rings out four times, I’m here waiting with one other customer for the door to open. I want to buy mousetraps*.
Along comes the owner — I don’t know her name yet but she’s the young, busy, bustling, bespectacled type that makes you feel at ease and she has a Florentine accent you could spread butter with. We bustle in after in.
I love this shop, in fact I love all Italian hardware shops. It’s covered from floor to ceiling with stuff, and all of it is useful. In fact the shop is called a Utilità (meaning Usefulness, in this case just Utility).
In this, or any, Italian hardware shop, you can step in and embrace the visual jumble, browse the mugs and tablecloths, mango slicers and egg timers, Beatles mugs and non-stick pans, fresh-cut keys and shoe polish. There are wonderful things in plain sight which you didn’t know you needed, and others you desperately need and only she can find for you (at a good price). She…
