I Was Only Going Out to Buy Some Milk

Why “Five Minutes” in Italy Rarely Means Five Minutes

I drop Sophie off at school, give her a big hug and a kiss, and listen one last time to her animated explanation of the picture she’s going to draw today. I chat briefly with her teacher, wave goodbye and walk briskly back to the car, determined that today, for once, I am finally going to get everything done on time.

In my head, the day’s appointments are already lining up like dominoes. I need to call the builder, confirm a meeting with a surveyor, pay taxes, chase up the pool maintenance man, send out a few invoices and somewhere on the other side of Lake Trasimeno an electrician is waiting for instructions. In between all of that, I only need to pop out for some organic milk. Just for a minute. By now, I should know better. In Italy, those are dangerous words.

Before I’ve even started the engine, my phone rings. “Sei ancora vicina alla scuola?” “Are you still near the school?” My boyfriend. “Fancy a coffee?”

I glance at the clock, then at my diary, and then back at the clock again. The Dutch part of my brain immediately starts calculating. Twenty minutes here means twenty minutes less somewhere else. My carefully planned schedule begins to shift, the phone calls pile up and before I know it, the entire day threatens to collapse like a house of cards.

On the other end of the line I hear nothing but a relaxed laugh. “Dai… cinque minuti.” Five minutes. Anyone who knows Italy knows those words have very little to do with time.

Ten minutes later, I am sitting beneath a faded parasol on the terrace of the local bar, where the aroma of freshly ground coffee mingles with the scent of warm cornetti and the gentle clinking of cups and saucers. An old Ape trundles across the village square, making far more noise than speed, a dog lies stretched out beneath a Vespa and two elderly men are arguing with such passion that you would think the future of the Republic depended on it.

My cappuccino arrives and is almost immediately forgotten. The barista asks how my little girl is doing. The owner of the hardware shop asks how the construction of my house is progressing. The lady from the tobacconist’s happily tells everyone that Maria has finally come home from hospital. An old man grumbles that the olives will ripen far too early this year, while two ladies at the next table debate whether the mayor really has nothing better to do than cut ribbons at local ceremonies. Behind me, someone whispers that the butcher’s daughter is marrying a boy from Perugia, which apparently outweighs every other piece of news in the world.

Within minutes, everyone is talking over one another. About the heat, the drought, a minor accident on the provincial road and the neighbour who has bought yet another tractor before paying off the previous one.I sit back, smile and realise that I have already heard more local news than the regional newspaper is likely to publish all week.

Meanwhile, my phone vibrates without pause.

An English client wants to know whether the pool maintenance man is definitely coming today because unexpected guests are arriving this afternoon. A builder asks whether he can move a wall without consulting anyone first. The plumber sends me photos of a leak that looks catastrophic but will probably be fixed with a new rubber seal. An estate agent wonders whether I could “just quickly” open a house on the other side of the lake for a viewing.

In between, a worried homeowner messages to ask if I could possibly check why his hydrangeas are looking so miserable, while another wants to know whether anything can be done about the mosquitoes ruining his daily aperitivo.

At the next table, however, the conversation is still about Maria: her health, her optimism and who will be bringing her soup over the next few days.

Over the years, I have somehow become a bridge between different worlds. Between deadlines and village gossip, between leaking swimming pools and hospital visits, between international homeowners who expect everything to run like clockwork and Italians who first want to know how your mother is doing before discussing business. The remarkable thing is that those worlds never seem to clash. They simply pull up another chair at the same coffee table.

Fifteen years ago, I would have swallowed my cappuccino in three hurried gulps and rushed back to the car with a knot in my stomach. These days, I simply slip in my AirPods. While my cappuccino slowly grows cold, appointments are rescheduled, payments confirmed, messages sent and problems solved. I call a colleague who just happens to be heading towards Cortona, send a quick message to a builder and reassure a client that everything is under control.

Remarkably, by the end of one of these coffee breaks, I often realise that I’ve accomplished more than I used to during an entire morning spent rushing around. Technology certainly helps, but people help even more. Neighbours who have a spare key, colleagues who happily make a detour and craftsmen who know one another and are willing to step in without hesitation when needed.

Italy has taught me that the best network isn’t Wi-Fi, it’s people. People who know each other, trust each other and quietly help one another without making a fuss about it.

It has also taught me that urgency rarely comes first here. When I first moved to Italy, it drove me absolutely mad. Why can nobody simply tell you what time they’ll arrive? Why does “five minutes” always turn into half an hour? Why does everything seem to happen differently from what was planned?

Only much later did I begin to understand that it has very little to do with carelessness or indifference. Here, the clock simply occupies a different place in life. People come before schedules, conversations before minutes, and when someone genuinely needs your attention, you don’t cut them short because there’s an appointment waiting somewhere else.

On the way, someone runs into an elderly neighbour who asks how his mother is doing. At the café, a friend has just received bad news and needs someone to listen. The butcher wants to tell everyone that his son has finally graduated, while at the bakery a spontaneous discussion breaks out about the referendum taking place that weekend.

To a Dutch person, those are interruptions to the day’s schedule. To an Italian, they are the schedule. Life doesn’t happen in between appointments. Appointments simply find their place around life.

By now I know that a cappuccino here is rarely just a coffee. It’s a neighbourhood meeting, a news bulletin, a therapy session and a family gathering all rolled into one. You sit down intending to stay for five minutes and get up forty-five minutes later with the latest village gossip, an invitation to a First Communion celebration, the phone number of a tiler and the comforting news that Maria is back home again. It never feels like wasted time.

Sometimes I need those conversations myself. Sometimes it turns out that someone else needs a listening ear. Nobody announces it; it simply happens somewhere between the first sip of cappuccino and asking for the bill.

By the time I finally walk into the supermarket, the clients have been helped, the electrician knows where he needs to be, the builder has his answer, the payments have been made and the leak has been dealt with. I’ve missed lunch yet again, although, judging by my figure, you probably wouldn’t guess it. How that works remains one of Italy’s enduring mysteries, but that’s a story for another Lavender Note.

Meanwhile, my own paperwork is still sitting on the kitchen table, my house rarely looks as though anyone who loves order actually lives there, and the washing machine has an uncanny habit of starting its cycle only after the entire village has gone to sleep.

The Dutch part of me still makes endless lists. The Italian part of me is still easily tempted by a cappuccino, an unexpected conversation or an elderly neighbour who simply wants to tell me how her granddaughter is doing. After all these years, those two sides of me still don’t live together in perfect harmony, but they have reached a workable compromise.

When I finally get home, I put the milk in the fridge and pull a large bunch of basil from my shopping bag. Maria’s sister-in-law pressed it into my hands only moments earlier, insisting that it “smells far better than anything you’ll find in the supermarket.” The fragrance instantly fills the kitchen.

My phone has finally fallen silent. The builder knows what to do, the electrician is on his way and my clients can breathe easily again.

I look at the basil on the counter and think of Maria, safely back home, of the butcher’s daughter who is about to get married, of the neighbour with his brand-new tractor and of the cappuccino that had long since gone cold.

I left home intending to pop out for some organic milk. I almost never come home with just the milk. I come back with a story, a smile, someone else’s worry, an unexpected encounter, a meaningful conversation, a bunch of basil from somebody’s vegetable garden or a memory that lingers far longer than the groceries I originally set out to buy.

The milk eventually ends up in the fridge. The rest stays with me for much, much longer.