Absent

I have been a bad bad blogger!

I could explain it by saying:

• The dog ate my hard drive
• I am SO busy
• I don't know where the days go
• The kids are taking up all my time
• I have been such an attentive mom and actually cooked for the kids recently
• Oh the people in my life are so demanding
• I have lost my mojo

Or I could just say

I will return so please be patient!

Left vs Right and somewhere in between

I have just done a very interesting 2 half day seminar with the kids about the brain! Basically you can be Left Brained or Right Brained and you can fall anywhere in between - Far far left is an Aspergers Brain and far far right is an Autistic Brain and in the dead centre is your ultimate boring fence sitter! That is my sum up of the seminar for the purpose of this page - now I will tell you how this affected me in Venice!

Burano

We went to this beautiful little island called Burano which lies off Venice. It is a tiny place consisting of amazing coloured buildings and I immediately thought that it looked like the whole island fell into a Dulux paint factory! Fairytale like and romantic, it is quaint and awesome and produces stunning hand made lace.The biggest seller seems to be lace toilet roll holders which do not blow my hair back, but I thought that this would be a perfect place to buy a tablecloth for my new dining room table.

After the humming haring and being taken to a second shop by the sales lady I found THE table cloth. It was not cheep but then quality is not cheep! I loved it and wanted it and was prepared to take the plunge and sell a body part to buy it and then I made a fateful mistake! I turned to the Hubby and said "What do you think?" and so began the Great Lace War of 2011. He of No idea what things cost/No use for things not 100% practical/No likey spend money told me just what he thought - "For that price you can buy 300 beers back home! Or even 66 beers here in Italy at their over inflated prices" Well I did ask!

By the time the calculators had been whipped out and fabulous discounts had been offered he was already out the door and heading towards the first restaurant that sold the beer he had been reminded of, and he is not even a huge drinker in his maturer days!

I am right brained, I am more creative and imaginative and impulsive than my left brained hubby who is analytical, needs all the facts and needs time to think about everything before it is done! I am astounded when he says - I think I may have coffee today instead of tea so I am not exaggerating!

He needs to hear about the table cloth, decide the value of the table cloth, compare prices of other table cloths, see the table cloth on the table, and decide that we can afford the table cloth if we save for 6 months THEN decide if we should buy the table cloth!

I need to get the table cloth because it is pretty!

WHY?

I was going to bombard you with Italy and food and fabulous but life got the better of me this week! I will bore you to tears with more soon but today I need to put this out into the universe! It may only help me but here goes:-

People be nice to each other! Revel in each others glories! Hold hands when support is needed! Cry over sadnesses! Drink coffee or wine and be with them when they need someone to be with! Love their new hairdo's and outfits and cars and be glad for them that they got them! Be happy when they do something wonderful! Or go somewhere you want to go to! Or chose to share a bit of their lives with you! Speak well of them and praise them when they need it even if you feel they may not deserve it!

I have seen a lot of strange things this week and do you know what -life can be hurtful and mean and cruel! Be nice to each other - Why? - it may impact on you next!

Torino Torino Torino

The thing about going to Italy that excited me most (as with most places I have to confess) was the FOOD!  I am a Foodie, a Food Lover, A Gastronomic Finder! I am a Taurus and I think with my stomach! This is probably the reason that I battle to stay a size 10! 

The first part of my holiday was the Hubby's business trip to Turin where I was his Plus 1, and we stayed in a rather southern part of the city and this did not excite me until we drove past this place!

Eataly

It might not look like much from the outside but when you walk inside . . . Well I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It is a supermarket, deli, market, food store, restaurant (well about 7 restaurants) and and Italian "Woolies" all rolled into one! And I spent almost a whole day 'window shopping' as I knew that we could not buy anything with 2 weeks of travelling ahead of us.

Just hams

Pasta, Pasta, Pasta

ONLY Parmesan Cheese

A small sidebar here:- The people of Turin do NOT speak much English. They are friendly and try, but international tourism is not like the other cities in Italy and so I did a lot of pointing, grunting and nodding.

After all the food staring and salivating I decided to have lunch - this is where the sidebar comes in handy - the menus were all in Italian, and there were things I just did not know how to translate. There are about 7 restaurant stations within this gastronomic sanctuary and the only non Italian speaker was Spanish!

SO, I did what I thought I would only ever do at a Chinese take away, I ordered a number 3 - I had recognised prosciutto as ham! I was offered wine with more gestures and hand signals which I refused - the look of horror was something I thought I would only ever get from my kids when I tried to kiss them goodbye in public so I took the wine. What a fabulous call! The food and wine both danced on my tongue.

I wondered if I could tie myself to the chair and beg for Gastronomic Asylum!

I Am Off To Italy!

I will see you when I am back.

Don't miss me too much

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italy

Having a bad hair day? My Bug List for the week!

• "Drop and go" lane means "DROP AND GO" not get out the car and spend 6 minutes getting junior out of the car, adjusting uniforms, chatting, etc etc then waiting till they are almost in the classroom before driving off. There is parking if you wish!

• When you pay HUGE money for a hairdresser, and his assistant does all the work and only then does he appear, blow dries your hair, and cuts your fringe and makes it wonky so you need to sort it out with nail scissors at home!

• Son 1 who thinks it is OK to be rude to the mama because he gets too much homework - I dare you to talk to your teacher that way my boy!

• My kitten who likes to catch baby birds and torture them! BAD BAD Max!

• The Visa company who tells me I will be collecting my visa and passport AT THE AIRPORT just before I board an international flight - way to get the stress levels up

• My beloved dad who tries to be helpful but does not like to commit to time! It is hard to pick up the kids at 3ish! They (the school, oh and the kids) frown at that!

• Schools who plan things when I am going to be away so makes the planning for the trip more complicated! A field trip, a uniform change and a grade certificate assembly not to mention two grade 4 tests and a book report! EEK Good luck granny!

Is it Wine o'clock yet?

Ciao Baby!

At last a reason to be thankful for the amount of overseas travel that the hubby does! The next trip to Italy includes ME - Thanks to Voyager miles and a birthday. But it leads to the crazies as I need a visa as I am a South African passport holder! So a few calls to my long suffering Travel Agent and throwing myself at her feet while in begging mode I get her to find me a Voyager flight which is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack! Mel, you are a star!

Now a Schengen Italian visa requires you book and pay for your flight, you need a trillion Euros worth of travel insurance, ALL hotels need to be booked, e-mail confirmation from the hotels is required:

(DEAR SIRS/MADAMS  I AM CONFIRM YOU WITH PLEASURE YOUR BOOKING RESERVATION OF 1 DOUBLE  ROOM FROM  FOR 2 NIGHTS AT THE RATE OF EUROS x PER NIGHT INCLUDED A RICH BUFFET BREAKFAST AND PARKING UNTIL AVAILABILITY.RESERVATION NO IS BEING XYZ IN OUR SYSTEM, RESERVATION IS BEING ABC

WE WAITING TO WELCOMING YOU AS OUR BEST GUEST WE REMAIN FOR THE MOMENT WITH OUR KINDEST REGARDS MARCO)
as well as needing everything bar a blood test and my bra size - THEN you may apply to reserve a place to have your visa reviewed! And I have 24 hours to do it! But at least I will be the best guest - thank you Marco!

I am now an expert on the various cities in Italy that we are visiting, the proximity to landmarks and train stations (Oh yes I have to CARRY my own luggage - *GASP*) Hotels range from the flea pits we can afford, to the luxury we desire and about a bazzion in between - so I put a pin in the computer screen (which is never a good thing for the computer screen) and book us the lower-mid-range-pray-for-no-fleas-and-more-than-a-stodgy-roll-for-breakfast Hotel and pray. But I think HEY it's ITALY is there such a thing as a bad hotel? Dodgy, sure but bad? Anywhere in Italy is going to be wonderful (such an optimist!)

But I do these things along with finding passport photos that vaguely resemble me, to getting out my passport with a photo that is so hideous that I just hope that the immigration staff just think I REALLY need a holiday, to booking hopefully undodgy hotels, to getting a flight to.....the list goes on along with looking after the offspring, having the hubby overseas for the 27000th time this year, having some in-laws arriving and having my two kitties "fixed", baking for a cake sale, booking hair appointments and seeing a dear friend out from the USA - oh yes and having to organise the kids for the time we are away remember, I got the crazies and said to the hubby "Shoe! But this is stressful!!" to which he replied from the comfort of the 5 Star hotel in which ever city he was in at the time "Oh this is supposed to be fun, so relax!" 

I may be speaking to him by the time we board for Turino!