No time like the present

Despite my best intentions more than a month has passed since my last entry; shame on me. I never would have imagined it during the flurry of my first few days and weeks of blogging. But for some reason or other no time has been the right time since 16 March. Until now! This Saturday night I have re-embraced my ‘no time like the present’ motto and decided to put fingertips to keypad.

When I first planned my sixteenth entry, in the second half of March, I was going to entitle it ‘Aprite le finestre, è primavera’ (‘Open the windows, it’s spring’). I’m not sure whether this is a line from a song or what, but in our house any reference to opening the windows usually gets the spring bit tagged on at the end. Anyway, it was the official start of spring (although personally I prefer to divide my seasons into more recognisable three-month chunks according to which spring starts at the beginning of March) and the windows were certainly flung wide open. The need for fresh air was actually brought about by the fairly noxious smells of the floor polishing man’s products. I don’t know what he was using but I get the feeling it was not organic. He was here for, what, two and a half days I think, and completely transformed the original 1950s ‘graniglia’ tiled floors in our orange room and landing. There are no more uneven bits where one tile was slightly higher than the next and the finished effect is bright and mirror-like. It was a very noisy and, as I said, smelly, process, and quite inconvenient with having to move every single piece of furniture and clutter from the areas to be treated, but worth it in the end. We’ll have the other two bedrooms and balcony done sometime later in the year, in two stages probably. In the meantime we’ve got a nice ‘before and after’ line on the threshold of each bedroom coming off the landing to remind us of the difference he has made. We’ll also remember not to paint until after he’s been next time as his toxic treatments and tools of the trade splashed stuff all over the bottom half of the walls, which we duly had to clean and repaint.

The electrician also came as and when promised so the room was ready to dress and impress by the end of the week. The finished result is fairly impressive too if I say so myself. Well, we like it. And the three guests it has hosted so far have also shown their approval. It’s a more grown-up, polished, version of the 2001 original: still orange and with the same furniture as before but a little more classy and coordinated. Something akin to me in my thirties (now) compared to me in my twenties (when we first decorated it), I might delude myself.

The first of the three guests to make use of the room was an Italian friend of our New Zealand helper’s, who stayed one night en route from Tuscany before they set off for Venice together in her brand new Audi. Tax advisers in Italy would appear not to have been too badly affected by the recession. She was very nice, and even brought Easter gifts for the children – a chocolate rabbit and chicken. They tend to see the characters before the chocolate though and so my little girl insisted on taking her rabbit to bed with her and was a bit upset when it had turned into a bag of crushed, melted brown stuff the next morning. I believe in them learning by experience.

The second guest was my cousin who arrived a few days ahead of our flight to England, direct from a work trip to Rome, injecting a touch of glamour into our lives with her lovely London clothes and talk of the by all accounts glorious British Embassy which she had visited before coming here. She was a great help around the house and with the children those few days before our departure. Two days after she arrived came the third guest, so my cousin was relegated to the couch. This third and final visitor was our first to have found us directly via our website and not a recommendation or return visit. So I was determined to make a good impression. I even washed and hoovered the car before picking her up from the station. I needn’t have worried too much though, she fitted right in and even helped out with kitchen chores and laundry in between sampling lots of local wine and home-cooked meals. We took her to our wine producers for a tour and some tasting as well as to the Imola farmer’s market and my mother-in-law’s for an Italian cooking lesson with our purchases. It was a bit like ‘Ready, steady, cook’ but we had about three hours rather than 20 minutes so we made tortellini from start to finish, including the filling, stuffed baked trout, an artichoke and broad bean side dish and dessert. We even started off a new batch of limoncello using the 90% proof pure alcohol bought in Imola that morning. It’s fairly expensive stuff, 15 euros a litre I think, but amazing that you can just get it off the shelf like that, and not even a high shelf out of the reach of children, when I think it’s proably illegal, or at least not readily available, in the UK. It’s the kind of thing alcoholics could kill themselves with I suppose. I was further reminded of the difference in Italian and English, or English-influenced drinking habits that day when my cousin, our helper and the guest, from Singapore, cracked open a bottle of wine to drink while cooking and my parents-in-law declined to join them. Drinking before lunch, without even a plate of nibbles to help soak up the alcohol? It’s just not the kind of thing they do.

So my last few days here at the end of March were fairly hectic but everything came together successfully – our guest was happy with her stay and we got paid, I also packed my cases and got my laundry done despite the rain that kept on falling.

I think I’ve written quite enough for now so I’ll add more about the following two weeks between then and now another day. Ciao ciao.

I don't want to make light of the current economic situation because I know it has created a lot of problems for a lot of people, and it may yet cause problems for us. However, it seems that there may be a slight advantage for our renovation projects. This week we called on the services of three different professionals who all responded in record time, giving us a prompt appointment to come and do the job; presumably because they don't have that much work on and can't afford not to. We rang the electrician on Monday, he said he would come on Thursday, and he did! He rarely turns up when he says he will first time round, without having to be chased up and pinned down. Then I called the septic tank emptying people on Thursday morning and they came the same day. On Saturday I got hold of the floor polishing man and he's coming first thing Monday morning.

So our orange room is coming on in leaps and bounds, once the floor's been polished there's just the window and door to finish painting, a shelf and curtain pole to put up and then the furniture can go back in. I went to IKEA on Wednesday for various accessories and ended up getting much more than I went for, as usual. Even a crate of beer which they were giving away because it was about to go past its sell by date. My husband and I don't drink beer but I thought our helpers would appreciate it. They still seem to prefer Italian wine to Swedish beer though. Our American helper left on Friday so now we just have our New Zealander, who's a really nice guy. The two of the them had been working together in the vegetable garden and herding goats as well as painting. The one who's still here is also really into cooking and made a delicious aubergine bake the other day. He's promised some sort of Nigella Lawson chocolate cake too, can't wait.

We had our friends and fellow Anglo-Italian family over for lunch and the afternoon today. They have two girls the same age as ours and the four of them had lots of fun playing in the 'sand pit' by the cement mixer, picking daffodil heads and generally messing about in the fresh, sunshiny spring air. We had lunch outside, finishing off with some fruity and creamy pasticcini they brought over, very nice too. Pre- and post-pranzo my husband and the helper were busy working in the barn conversion, building a stone base for the double basin in the bathroom today.

Speaking of building, that reminds me of another consequence of the recession which my husband is quite excited about: the government is talking about relaxing building regulations or planning permission (I'm not sure of the details, but then maybe they aren't either) so that home owners can add 20-30% to the floor area of their existing properties. Thus bringing a bit of business the way of the beleaguered building trade. Sounds a bit dodgy to me but we'll see.

First of all I must apologise to my regular readers (both of you) for not being a more regular writer. It seems the longer I leave between entries the shorter they are, the more I wait, the less I have to write. I didn't want to let more than a week pass though so here is a quick update:

 

Our Finnish helpers left on Thursday amid a final flurry of baking and me taking down the recipes. My husband was particularly concerned that I should get the instructions for their version of brownies. I think everyone must have their own best-ever brownies recipe, I already had mine, but each one is a little different and has its own merits - theirs was more cakey than mine and without nuts but did have a very nice glaze on top. So I'll be trying that and the biscuits, which were even a hit with the fussier of my two daughters. 

Our new helpers arrived on Saturday, two guys this time, the first male volunteers we've had since Christmas and the first time we've had two together for a long time it seems. So the boy/girl ratio has evened up, with three of each in the house now. I picked them up after going to the pool with my big girl only, the little one was sick again the night before. It was a fairly unruly session and my poor little flower got a huge spurt of water in her face courtesy of some young tyke. A stop at the nearby gelateria for a tub of fior di panna and sit on the ride-on mechanical animals soon cheered her up though.

Work is progressing on the orange room renovation, the boys have been painting the walls and the electrician is scheduled to come and do his bit on Thursday. I'm planning a quick jaunt to IKEA tomorrow morning to get some curtain material and other nice and more or less necessary accessories. I have to make the most of not having any looming deadlines. I had to translate ten thousand words of art criticism between Friday and Monday, not the most enjoyable way the spend a weekend. 

 Best get off to bed now, if it gets any later I'll feel like it's not even worth it.

Here is a quick update, describing the past week in terms of good news and bad news. With the good hopefully outweighing the bad.

The good news is that despite the economic downturn I am continuing to receive lots of translation work, the bad news is that I’m so busy with it that I don’t have time for much else, like being a good wife and mother to my family, or writing blog entries for example.

The good news is that both my girls quickly recovered from the tummy bug which afflicted them last weekend and prevented their weekly trip to the swimming pool, the bad news is that I went down with it on Friday night so they missed a second week of water games and I felt like a four-letter word for 24 hours.

The good news is that we have heard back from one out of three carpenters with a quote for our shutters, the bad news is quite predictably that it is much higher than we’d hoped (double my own, admittedly optimistic, prediction).

The good news is that my severely decayed molar is still alive and can be saved with a filling, the bad news is that I’ll have to make a third visit to the dentist in two months and literally pay the price for my sweet tooth.

The good news is that my back is much better, no bad news (fingers crossed, spine straightened).

The good news is that one of our goats gave birth to twin kids on Saturday, the bad news is that one was terribly weak and died just a few hours later. The survivor is as fit as a fiddle and cute as a button though – one of our helpers commented that it looks like a puppy with its floppy ears, wobbly legs and wagging tail.

The best news is that I spoke to one of my dearest friends, and only transatlantic sister, who revealed that she has found love – something she so deserves (I'm really happy for you Meg!). No bad news!

I’ve been getting myself a nightlife lately. I don’t get to bed until around 2am or later about three nights a week and have been up till 4am twice this week. I don’t actually go out anywhere but if I don’t crash out with or just after the girls at their bedtime (a very Mediterranean 9-10pm most nights) then I plough right through that tired time and get a second wind that must be equivalent to gale force at least. I just don’t feel like sleeping after that and stay up instead, pottering, watching TV, working, writing these blog entries, whatever. I really enjoy my nocturnal habit - the silence, solitude and lack of interruptions feel just as if not more beneficial than sleep itself. I don’t even feel that tired the next day, although I generally alternate my early and late nights.

Tonight is a late night, I’ve done a bit of work and thought I’d write a few lines on here while I watch the fashion parade from the red carpet outside the Kodak Theatre. We went to watch the carnival parade in Imola today, my big girl dressed as Dora the Explorer and her sister as Little Red Riding Hood. The latter got a lot more attention with her red cape and basket as she was instantly recognisable to everybody, while Dora is not that well-known here, even among the under-eights. Most of the other bambine wore princess outfits but the boys were a bit more varied; we saw ninja turtles, Zorros, knights and a lot of more or less recognisable furry creatures (“..well, it’s got a long tail so it can’t be a bear..”). Children seem to grow out of the costume custom fairly soon though, there weren’t many even of primary school age (six plus) dressed up for the occasion.

So the pre-schoolers wore their carnival outfits and pretty much everyone else wore something purple. It is the in colour here this year, which goes to show that if anything holds more sway than superstition in Italy, it is fashion. I have an old English language course book with a reading comprehension entitled ‘The purple dress’ and my students would always react to that, amazed that anyone could actually wear purple, since it is considered an unlucky colour. Not this year though. Italians are generally conservative when it comes to colour, you don’t wear a colour just because you like it but because it’s the right colour to wear at the time. Black is always right of course. I once wore a yellow jumper to a lesson, which caused a bit of a stir. The colour conservatism isn’t limited to clothes either. Interior walls are nearly always painted white, or very occasionally off-white or yellow, so our house is considered quite alternative with its blue, red and orange themed rooms. A few years ago I was looking for a second hand car and the salesman at one showroom was quite apologetic when he showed me a red model: “Well, we have this one, but it is red of course”. Accepted colours for cars are black, white or grey basically. Only small cars can come in brighter shades because they are generally driven by young people who can get away with being a little wild.

It is now 2.20am so I think I’ll post this and start thinking about going to bed. I have to make myself otherwise I could just stay up all night, which wouldn’t be a good habit to get into. When I spoke to my doctor about my tumultuous state of mind recently he asked me if I had trouble sleeping, I said no because I always imagined trouble sleeping to mean that you lie awake in bed or wake up during the night and can’t get back to sleep. That’s not the case for me because when I go to bed I can get to sleep easily and I only wake up when my girls call me. I’ve always been a deep sleeper, it’s just that now I don’t always feel like sleeping, and it doesn’t feel like a problem so I hope it’s not.

  

This week I am mostly translating other people's words rather than writing my own. About 2000 today, 1500 more to do for Friday and 3800 for next week, not counting the others that are bound to come in before the deadlines are up, or the two jobs with no deadline, which are starting to haunt me and will probably be the subject of a reminder email any day now. 

I'd prefer to be concentrating on the words I have to adjust and key words I have to add to our farm stay website but I will get round to that too, spurred on by my great friend and web designer who is enthusiastically developing the site and working hard to get us right up there on the google rankings (thank you!).

Meanwhile work continues on our orange room renovation - the orange ceiling will stay but the walls and woodwork are to be repainted and the retro details revamped a little. The Finns sanded down the door and window frame yesterday, adding some temporary orange artwork to the walls as they worked. None of the words in their finger-written poem are at all recognisable to me. It's the same when they chatter and giggle away together, I'm not sure whether I want to understand what they're saying or not. But I'm glad that they seem to be enjoying their stay. We are enjoying it too - they had a day off today but went shopping for ingredients and baked some Finnish mardi gras/Shrove Tuesday buns and cinnamon rolls, which were delicious. 

The shutter people came to measure up for their quote while I was out teaching but my husband was not really impressed with them as they didn't seem to understand that we want rustic-looking wooden shutters, not PVC or metal ones. So I need to phone some more names from the yellow pages tomorrow and pester the electrician, who didn't return my call yesterday.

The good news is my big girl seems to be happier this week and is looking forward to her carnival party at school tomorrow. My back is also much better although I don't want to speak too soon... 

 

 

While I have not been getting round to writing anything here for the past few days I have been getting round to other things. I have also been suffering from a bad back, which has prevented me from doing yet more things. So, just a quick update as it is getting late:

Wednesday – felt that all too familiar lower back pain make a twinge of a comeback as I picked up my little girl, felt a sharp, shooting pain in the same place as I bent over to tie up my shoelaces later today, carefully levered myself in and out of the car (the worst possible movement for making the pain flare up again) and did my lessons sitting blot upright, bought special anti-inflammatory plasters to try and relieve the discomfort; solar power people came over to work out a quote for fitting electricity producing panels; door and window people phoned to say they would come next Wednesday to work out their quote for making shutters to go on our bedroom windows and a French window/door to go on our extension; spoke to my lovely Swedish friend on the phone.

Thursday – continued to suffer with my back; did some translation work; had one lesson cancelled while my other outside student surprised me with proper afternoon tea all laid out on her kitchen table; my big girl came home from school in tears saying that the other children had ‘told her off’, her grandmother had picked her up and thought it was something to do with her trying to write her name and not getting it right, but none of them are taught to read or write anything yet, even their names, so I don’t know.

Friday – more translations; more back pain, decided against yoga as a precaution; had one lesson at home in the afternoon and one in town in the evening (should have been pre-yoga), also didn’t want to leave my girls for too long as the big one was having another sensitive day.

Saturday – still some pain but getting better, used the last plaster today; made ragù (Bolognese sauce) in preparation for Sunday’s dinner party; played English games and then went to the swimming pool with my girls and our Italian friends.

Sunday – played outside with my girls: fed the goats, filled in some holes, enjoyed the sunshine, had friends over for dinner: the Anglo-Italian couple with their three girls, including the teeny-tiny baby, and our former helper who returned here to teach English and is going back to New Zealand next week, plus her boyfriend and former student of mine. Enjoyed their company over polenta and ragù, barbecued pork, sfrappole (deep fried, icing sugar coated carnival pastries), wine, limoncello and the last pandoro left over from Christmas. Girls had a great time playing together despite some tired tears and spilt bubble mixture.

Monday (today) – went to the comune (local council) to ask about chopping down the big tree right next to our house – will probably be given permission, also asked about putting up a big covered tunnel to keep animals or farm machinery in but was told it would not be allowed; did the LIDL shopping; went to sign my little girl up for nursery school from September; had a new student this afternoon: a chef who wants to go and work in Edinburgh; took my girls to the carnival carousel in town, watched their gleeful little faces as they rode around in a pink carriage and a spinning teacup, promised we would come back again soon; solar power man came back and gave us a €30,000 quote for setting up our very own carbon neutral electricity production plant, sounds great but €30,000? I don’t think so somehow.

During the past few days I also got round to chasing up some overdue payments and even did a little bit of work on one of my deadline-free tattoo translations, before some more urgent jobs came in. Did some dusting and more in-depth tidying than usual before the dinner party too. Feeling fairly positive, and my back is getting better but think I might have to invest in some sort of support for it. Hmm, might double up as a sort of tummy-training girdle I suppose.

Now it really is late. Buona notte. 

Yesterday my parents left and the pig arrived. This evening my parents are back at home after two days driving and a 90 euro speeding fine, while the pig has been turned into chops, mince, sausages and soon to be salami. Our Finnish helpers have worked hard today, helping my husband with the pork processing from 2pm till after 9. One of their main tasks was watching the fire upon which was balanced a big black cauldron containing the various parts of the pig’s head. These are cooked down and then scooped out into a bag to make the ‘coppa di testa’. The jumbled cocktail of meat and more or less fleshy parts cools and solidifies into a tasty mass that can be sliced and eaten with bread or crackers, while keeping an eye out (boom boom) for the odd tooth, which may have got lodged in there.

My husband is saving his favourite part, the brain, for tomorrow. It is currently sitting in a bowl on our kitchen counter, much smaller than you would expect for what is often said to be an intelligent animal. It is certainly no bigger than my fist. We had two customers, the man from Puglia and our neighbour, who came over and filled their buckets with a meaty pick and mix. We had some nice fresh pork chops and burgers for dinner too. I think I must have had quite a smug, self-sufficient grin on my face as I cooked the meat and heated some lentils on top of our wood-burning stove. Although the pig was not actually one of our own it was very local and was all butchered here, in my husband’s record room of all places, amid the classic vinyl and vintage film posters. The scene is now nicely set with a row of looped salamis hanging from the ceiling like a surreal version of a Christmas garland.

 

The girls' second swimming session went well although my little one proved herself to be rather overconfident this time and got too big for her regulation pool flip flops. Before they'd even started she followed another little girl around to the wrong side of the pool and had to be ushered back to the pint-sized group for their roll-call. Then once they had actually begun she kept going off where or when she wasn't supposed to and had to be called or hauled back. The worst moment (and my worst nightmare) was when she wandered off from the rest of group in the pool, slipped and lost her footing on the bottom and was there, head under the water, arms flailing, trying to get herself back upright. I gave her two split-seconds then rushed over myself (luckily she was by the edge so I didn't actually have to get in) and lifted her up before the instructors had seen what was happening. She didn't seem too traumatised at the time - there were no tears - but she has spoken of being scared since. I hope it doesn't put her off going again. Although it didn't put me off when I did a similar thing aged four, whilst on a family holiday in Canada. It's one of my earliest memories, wanting to go swimming in the lake after having a picnic lunch on the pebbly shore, my parents telling me to wait, me ignoring them and stomping in anyway, losing my balance and going underwater, becoming one with all the wavy blue and green until my father waded in and pulled me up and back out into the light. My mother reminded me of that very occasion as we watched her younger granddaughter at the pool: 'She's just like you were that time....'. From the pool we took a long, scenic drive home through the hills so the girls could have a much-needed sleep and I could have a relaxing read in the car as they continued to doze when we got home. We had a feast of pizza, gelato, wine and limoncello with our Shanghai friends in the evening, talking more about life in China, Italy, the UK and Finland - in general and now in particular, with the crisis and our uncertain future never far from most people's thoughts. More than ever it seems that there is no time like the present; like we have to appreciate, enjoy and make the most of what we have, who we know and where we go. Today is Sunday and we drove down to the coast for a seafood lunch in Rimini. We'd been to the same restaurant years ago and remembered the food being really good. Which it was this time too. I didn't remember the TVs though - it had two big screens beaming down on the upturned faces of the diners, who ignored the others at their table to see what was happening in the world and then watch some poor excuse for entertainment. It was one of those horrible, Sunday afternoon shows they have in Italy, this one revolved around football and had various 'comedians' dressed up to impersonate certain, mainly footballing, celebrities. I think I recognised one as Morinho (the sound was inaudible at least so you could try to ignore the invasive presence). Then there was a man with his white face all blacked up, dressed as a man of the church. I suppose he might have been impersonating the black Catholic priest who became infamous for his illicit marriage a few years ago. But whatever, I didn't think that kind of thing was done anymore. Is it? Am I just not up to date with what is acceptable or politically correct? Is it okay in an ironic, post-modern kind of way? Or is just that Italy is way behind the times? Since our return home this afternoon my husband has been busily preparing for the arrival of a dead pig tomorrow. He is buying one in to butcher while we wait for our own two to get a bit fatter, such is the demand for home-grown pork among his regular customers. Well, one regular customer in particular, the former police officer from Puglia to be precise. (Think up your own pig joke to insert here.) So it should be an interesting day, albeit a sad one as the grandparents are leaving in the morning. Quite a sad day for the pig too I suppose. Oh well.

It's raining. Again. It has been the wettest winter I've ever experienced in Italy. My mother-in-law informed us that Italy has had an average rainfall of 38cm since mid October, which would only mean something to me if I knew the usual average rainfall from mid October to February, but by the way she said it it's obviously a lot more than you would expect around these parts. It feels a bit like Italy is getting rainy seasons and dry seasons rather than spring, summer, autumn and winter. It was really wet all through May and the first half of June last year, then dry until October. I swear I'd never known more than a few consecutive days of rain before that. I may as well be in England, except you don't get entirely dry seasons there. And now they've had snow for days on end. Something is most definitely up.

Had the first lesson of my new yoga course last night. I felt that it was beneficial although it wasn't quite the holistic experience I was hoping for. My inner peace was disturbed by the vehicles going past in the rain, especially the high-pitched moped. The instructor had a nice calming voice and put on some appropriate background music but she stayed at the front the whole time. I, being a shy new girl, was quite near the back. She said to put up our hand if we needed her but then she told us to keep our eyes closed the whole time and it looked like she was doing the same when I peeked to check I was putting my limbs in the right places. Anyway, I did enjoy it, just not as much as the class I did in Exeter all those years ago. I may have elevated the two hippyish instructors to Indian god-like status over the years but I do remember them as being very interactive and encouraging and the whole thing being very positive. Nonetheless I shall persevere and get as much as I can out of this course.

A combination of the effects of the yoga and two very tired little girls meant that I got a good night's sleep last night. The children had a fun day with the grandparents, who took them to the children's library in the morning and played with them here in the afternoon. The little one flaked out when I got home from my afternoon lessons. She never wants to have an nap after lunch now and it's hard to force her without any bars on her new bed. She often gets so tired by late afternoon that she falls asleep on your lap, whilst telling you she is NOT tired. It's always a great feeling though, like she is an angelic little baby again and you lay her down, happy in the knowledge that you should get at least an hour of relative peace, no sisterly squabbles anyway. 

So now it's Saturday - no proper lesson as I've changed it to Thursday evenings - just a little pre-school English, swimming and then our Shanghai friends over for pizza tonight. I don't even have any translations (unless you count the two tattoo articles without a deadline, which I really ought to get round to), just a quote to work out. Should be a good day. And now it's time for some breakfast!

Il buon giorno si vede dalla mattina. 

The grandparents sped down from the Franco-Italian border and got here just in time for lunch, arriving to bright blue skies and a temperature of about 15 degrees. I think all four guests were happy to have shaken off all that snow and their heavy coats. Non-Italians did not even need a jacket today.

It has been a busy day for me, finishing off a couple of translations, tidying, dusting, hoovering and making Bolognese sauce this morning, then teaching two lessons out this afternoon and two at home this evening, with just enough time in between for a cup of tea and a bit more translation work. The Finns and my husband have been working outside, collecting vine clippings and clearing the yard. The grandparents and grandchildren have been entertaining each other, with the little one falling asleep on Gran's lap just before dinnertime.

We had a very unsettled night last night, I spent it in the girls' bedroom, snatching sleep on the sides of their beds, blowing noses, offering water and giving cuddles. Hope tonight is better, don't want to say any more in case I tempt fate but I think I will say ciao ciao for now and try to get a good night's rest. Sorry, too tired to write anything more inspired (but glad to get a couple of rhyming words in there).

Alla prossima 

Early this morning four intrepid travelers got up and braved snow, ice and freezing temperatures in the dark to begin their journey south, to Italy. Two greying grandparents in England and two fresh-faced volunteers in Finland. The former chose one mode of transport - their trusty dark green Audi - and have yet to arrive, while the latter took a variety of vehicles - bus, train, car and plane - and got here just after dark. Both sets of guests were bearing gifts - the grandparents have promised to bring such rarities as dark brown sugar and Walker's crisps, while the volunteers surprised us with Finnish bon bons, chocolate and classical music.

Like their much appreciated presents the Finns seem sweet, satisfying, intriguing and not at all intrusive. They have already shown willing - they started the washing up even before I'd finished cooking dinner and appear to be the 'ask not what your host can do for you but what you can do for your host' type of helper. It is early days of course but I hope we'll get along well for the month they are here with us. Communication may be a problem at times though, their accent is a little confusing and when one said they didn't drink alcohol but presumed that wasn't a problem, I thought she said they didn't drink olive oil, which would have been a slight problem as it goes into or onto pretty much everything we eat.

Now we are looking forward to the arrival of the English grandparents sometime tomorrow. They are fast asleep up in the French Alps right now and I should be fast asleep up in my bed so that's where I'm headed, hoping not to be disturbed by the children tonight, uh-oh spoke too soon, the little one has just started crying....

coraggio 

I have not posted anything for the past few days as I've been busy finishing off a big translation job and it's taken up every spare moment. It often feels like I have to do my translation work in my 'spare' time, the time that is not taken up with childcare, lessons, cooking, errands and such like. I did manage to add in a couple of more enjoyable free time activities over the weekend though - more about those in a moment.

Saturday started off fairly stressfully, with the children here, my husband at work, a lesson scheduled for 10 am and not much time before or after it to get the house clean and tidy. As usual the reason for such frantic dusting, vacuuming and putting random items that have no home - or whose homes are already overcrowded - into bags and then into cupboards was the expected arrival of visitors in the afternoon. I got the rooms that would be visible into as good a shape as I could in the time available but was painfully aware, as ever, that they were nowhere near Italian standards of cleanliness and tidiness. I don't know how Italian women do it, and it generally is the women who deal with these things (in fact the most common term for a cleaner in Italy is 'DONNA della pulizia'), especially if they work and have children. Granted, many of them do have small reserve armies of cleaners, babysitters, relatives and so on who help them out but not all of them can afford such luxuries and not quite all have their families nearby. However I do have one female student whose fairly small (but perfectly arranged) flat I go to for private lessons and she does not work, has just one 15 year old son and still employs people to help her on occasion. She has very high standards though and I'm glad she doesn't come here for her lessons. She has many interests and activities to keep her occupied but told me she was put off any kind of exercise class where she had to get on the floor because she couldn't stand to see the dust! She wouldn't have to get on the floor to see the dust here.

After lunch I took the girls to their first swimming lesson since last May and my little girl's first ever in the water without me. I was worried she might not want to go in, or would slip over unnoticed by the instructors but she proved me paranoid and went off hand in hand with one of the three young women leading the class, followed the exercises and joined in all the fun, making me very happy. I was more dumbfounded than happy when she asked to go to the toilet halfway through, she usually has to be persuaded to sit on the potty and has never warmed us of an imminent wee. So I thought it would be a waste of time taking her all the way back to the changing room toilets/holes with footrests either side and struggling to pull down her wet costume and swim nappy but she amazed me once again by doing the deed. Give her a couple of years and she'll be weeing in the water with all the other potty trained children. My big girl made me equally proud as she has always been a bit shy and reluctant to join in the activities in the past but she had a whale of a time too, splashing, singing and semi-swimming with the best of them.  

An Italian friend took her little boy too, he's the same age as my big girl, four coming up five, and they called round on the way back (the aforementioned visitors). The object was to introduce him to a bit of English so we played some games using numbers, colours and a few names but he was more interested in the girls' improvised shop, full of a variety of miniature wares from knee-high orange Barbie boots to a plastic T-Rex. We're going to try again next week but before the pool. I might have to start the clear up on Friday evening.

We had Sunday lunch at the in-laws and left the children there so I could do some work on my translation before meeting up with some friends for a aperitivo at 5 pm. I actually opted for a nice gloopy hot chocolate rather than an aperitif proper, nice and warming after we came in from the cold, sleety drizzle. Caught up with our Italian friends who currently live and work/study in Shanghai and are back home for the Chinese New Year holidays. It was good to hear all their stories and compare notes on our respective expat experiences.

So that just about brings me up to date, I finally finished my big translation this morning and received, completed and sent back three short, urgent ones (the kind I usually get) during the day. Spent the rest of time with my girls, the big one was home all day too with a bit of a cold but I think she's well enough to go back to school tomorrow so I've got the manic morning rush to look forward to. Now I just have to stoke up the fire so the water's hot enough for a shower then I'm off to bed.

Ciao ciao 

It has been a day of simple pleasures, simply the best pleasures: 

- Going to the supermarket where the checkout girl knows all her regular customers by name, including my little girl 

- Seeing a friend and fellow Englishwoman-married-to-an-Italian and having a chat over a cup of tea

- Holding said friend's tiny new baby, watching her funny faces and listening to her squeaky, snuffly sounds

- Hanging out my washing out in the open, under a bright blue sky, rather than in a cramped corner of our cluttered living room

- Seeing my big girl enjoying the world around her - inspecting a rosemary bush up close and telling me it looks like a forest, then presenting me with some fragrant, wild narcissus picked with her father on the bank above our vineyard

- Singing along to Amy Winehouse in the car and my girls not telling me to turn it off

- Baking biscuits with my big girl and the smell that tells you they are ready to take out of the oven

- Feeling the warmth emanating from our wood-burning stove as I sit next to it and write this. (How glad I am to have a laptop this winter!)

 Che piacere! 

 

 

One of best things about living in Italy is of course the food. No great revelation there - I think most people who live in Italy feel the same, not least the Italians themselves, who are rightly proud of their cuisine. Sometimes wrongly suspicious of any other country's cooking but that's another story. Not only is their standard diet very tasty, it is also very healthy on the whole. To the extent that when you ask them to say whether specific foods are healthy or unhealthy they always look a bit flummoxed. This is a fairly typical theme in English language textbooks, the authors presumably include it as a good way of getting students to repeat the names of different foods in a conversational context. And maybe because it highlights such cultural differences and sparks debate too. I had one such lesson yesterday but as usual the girl in question did not give the expected answer that a burger was unhealthy - she was obviously thinking of a typical Italian burger (which they actually call a 'Svizzera' i.e. 'Swiss' but anyway), made of good quality lean beef or other meat and not much, if anything, else, possibly freshly patted into shape by her own mother's or grandmother's hands). And in a balanced diet there isn't much wrong with that. Which is the key - Italians seem to have an innate knowledge of what constitutes a healthy, balanced diet. It isn't so much individual items that are unhealthy, because if eaten in moderation - little and not very often - they can still form part of a healthy diet. So I had to ask which foods would be unhealthy if you ate A LOT and very often.

Having said all that I think I have the most balanced diet in my family, despite my husband and daughters being born in Italy and me being born in Britain, where a healthy, balanced diet is not necessarily the norm for everybody (I'm trying hard not to use stereotypes here). My girls are not fruit and vegetable lovers, nor is their father in fact, but he is aware of the consequences and does eat the odd plate of lettuce or other raw greens and will get through kilos of apricots and clementines during their respective seasons. My little girl has a fairly unhealthy obsession with chocolate and sweets at the moment, which I hope she'll grow out of before her milk teeth start falling out, either naturally or because they have been eaten up themselves by tooth decay. I asked her what she wanted for breakfast this morning and she said 'Tinger egg' (Kinder egg), a request which was obviously refused, and regularly asks for 'Sarn-teat' (something to eat) during the morning but she seems to think the only things worth eating are Chupa Chup lollies or various other forms of sugar that go by another name. Oh well, the stash of sweet treats leftover from Christmas and the Befana will soon be gone so then we can go back to tantrums for her and a clean conscience for me.

Alla salute! 

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