Buon 2010!

What can be said in New Year rhymes,

That's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,

We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,

We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,

We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,

We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,

And that's the burden of a year.

(Ella Wheeler Wilcox)

End of year

Hi, I’m back in the UK. Hope you had a lovely Christmas and ready to "slide" into the New Year. We spent a few days in Italy with my parents, friends and family. It was nice but short and terribly cold. Freezing cold! We had to come back earlier as duty called. VAT, and of year account etc. cannot be completed if we are in Italy enjoying ourselves. The problem is that it's getting more and more difficult for me to leave Italy and above all my parents. They are not getting any younger (who is after all???) and I always leave them with a heavy heart. But we are back here now and all we have got left are a few photos to remember ....

The snow...

My "bestest" friends ...

The town music band in their festive attire...

The Town Hall "wrapped up" ...

A festive shop window ...

Some of my crazy family ...

No time

(My daughter's decorations made with felt and other recycled materials)

No time for anything. Time has passed so quickly from the beginning of autumn and now we are almost at the end of the year. I would have like to shared a lot more things with you before Christmas, but tomorrow (actually today! HELP!) I'm leaving for Italy and I realize there is no time left. The snow has caught me unprepared today and hopefully we will manage to get to the airport and catch our flight tomorrow (or today, whatever!) on time. I wish you all of you a wonderful Christmas together with your families and friends. I won't wish you a Happy New Year yet as I will be back home before then. All the best. Ciao.

Life is a bitch

The other evening I came home from work in a terrible mood. I had a stressful day. Nothing went the right way. My train was late both ways, I couldn’t find the test centre for my interpreting assignments and I got totally wet running around in circles, the candidates weren’t prepared so they didn’t pass the tests (although not my fault, it was still a bit upsetting). My son lost the house keys and my husbands forgot to pick up my daughter from football training etc etc. When I got home I was ready to explode and then it happened. My husband told me that our neighbour and friend whom we’ve known for 15 years had just discovered he has pancreatic cancer, probably not operable anymore. He’s 51 years old, he’s got a teenage boy and another son who’s just started working. He’s never smoked, took drugs, drank heavily or had an unhealthy lifestyle. He is actually quite sporty and is always been helping everybody. A nice person. His wife left him and the kids 18 months ago to go and live with someone else. Nobody knows exactly where she is now. She’s never got in touch with them again. On the surface she was the perfect wife and mother but deeper she was a different person. We spent the last 18 months trying to help him picking up the pieces of his life and now this. I know I do not need to tell you this, but I say it anyway: Life is a bitch. Awful and unjust.

Slow Down

In this very frenetic and hectic world, everybody needs to slow down a bit every now and then and this is what an arty group called the Cracking Art Group thought of to visualize this idea.

Twelve enormous pink snails have moved in to Milan city centre for a new outdoor art installation designed to encourage the fast-living residents of the Lombardy capital to slow down. Three metres long and two metres high, the huge molluscs are currently circling Piazza Scala in front of Milan's famous opera house, La Scala, and the nearby square in front of the Chiesa di San Fedele.

(Photos taken by my friend Giusy in Milan)

After their time spent “at the opera”, the snails will start moving (slowly of course!) towards the square in front of Milan's Palazzo Reale before making their way in single file to the central train station in January.

Stop Aids. Keep the Promise

1st December - World AIDS Day - "Universal Access and Human Rights"

Held on December 1st each year, World AIDS Day is dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV. World AIDS Day is about raising money, increasing awareness, fighting prejudice and improving education. It reminds us that HIV has not gone away, and that there are many things still to be done.

Every 15 seconds someone in the world dies of AIDS-related illnesses, but even more often a person living with HIV is discriminated against, judged, excluded, whispered about, fired from their job, arrested, beaten, or thrown out of their house.

The red ribbon is an international symbol of AIDS awareness that is worn by people all year round and particularly around World AIDS Day to demonstrate care and concern about HIV and AIDS, and to remind others of the need for their support and commitment.

There is no one official AIDS ribbon manufacturer, and many people make their own. It's easily done - just use some ordinary red ribbon and a safety pin!

In these chaotic and busy weeks/days pre-Christmas, I only wish silence and peace. I've just remembered a few lines from a poem written by one of my favourite poets, Federico Garcia Lorca, and I think it goes well with the above photo taken in my beloved Italian countryside last October.

(extract)

Listen, my child, to the silence.
An undulating silence,
a silence that turns valleys and
echoes slippery,
that bends foreheads toward the ground.


Oye, hijo mío, el silencio.
Es un silencio ondulado,
un silencio, donde resbalan valles
y ecos y
que inclina las frentes hacia el suelo.

(Federico Garcia Lorca)

For the love of ...

…my son I went to a football match for the first time in my life. I mean, a proper football match, not one of my son’s or daughter’s usual Saturday games. It was part of his 16th birthday present and his father was supposed to take him. But unfortunately (and conveniently) last Tuesday evening daddy was late or stuck in traffic (or both?) and it was up to me to take over this duty.


I was actually feeling rather unwell and I was hoping that being the evening so cold my son would desist too. But then I remembered a post I had read in lovely Jane’s blog The Small Fabric Of My Life about creating good memories for our children and I decide to take him. After all, it was only Leeds and there was too much to drive.

Covered with 5 layers of clothing there I was among shouting and chanting fans. My son’s favourite team lost but it was a good match (so he said at least!) and to tell the truth I quite enjoyed it. Or maybe I just enjoyed a bit of bonding with my very demanding teenage son.

Tear Down the Wall

(Checkpoint Charlie now)

I was already studying in Germany when Ronald Reagan made his famous speech in Berlin, on the Western side of the Brandenburg Gate (for years the city's symbolic dividing line) on the occasion of the city's 750th birthday urging the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall”. It seemed just as utipic at the time as it had been the idea of walking on the moon before 1969. I had stood many times in front (or behind) the Brandenburg Gate wondering what it would have been like if the two Berlins had finally come together.

I had crossed the borders at Checkpoint Charlie or at Berlin Friedrichstrasse many times to meet an East Berlin author I was writing my dissertation about. The contrast between West and East Berlin had always seemed huge to me. Walking the few meters into the East side was like walking through a time machine, like leaving the modern age behind and stepping into the past. The contrast was striking, almost unbelievable. I used to “smuggle” writing paper over the border. Can you imagine? A rather famous writer who couldn’t find writing paper and was forced to write on pieces of scrap paper. But that was only a small need compared to what every Berliner felt every day. Like open-air prisoners.

(Irgendwann fällt jede Mauer. Eventually every wall falls)

Twenty years have passed since that night when the wall was brought down. I wasn’t in Berlin that night, but about 100 miles away and when the TV images started showing I couldn’t believe my eyes. The impossible dream had come true. All of a sudden thousands and thousands of East Germans finally could move freely in the “other” Germany and I hoped that one of my East Berliner friends could also come over. He wanted so much to see Italy and especially Venice. But the year before that November 1989 he had been caught by the border police while hiding in the boot of a French car somewhere in Hungary.



Last time his family and friends heard from him he was stuck in a prison in East Berlin. When the wall fell and the political dissidents were freed he wasn’t there. Nobody knew where he was. No papers about him could be found, it was as he had never been there. And nobody knows where he is now. I still hope he’s somewhere travelling around the world as he always wanted to do.

That’s why I’d like to dedicate this memorable day to you, lieber Karsten, wherever you are. I hope you've finally found your freedom.

The Dream City

It is said that Venice is a dead city or at least a dying city, as it is slowly sinking into the marshy ground of the Laguna and because there are less and less “true” Venetians living there and more and more tourists every year. But from the first time I set foot in Venice long time ago, for me it was, it is and it will always be my dream city.

For me going to Venice is like entering a giant theme park, it's the place to get hopelessly lost for a day. Through the mysterious alleyways leading off from the city, endless mazes of backstreets and deserted squares, on a Venice trip, you'll find that this city is a perfect place to walk for hours on end, pretending to know where you are.

When we want to celebrate something important or just forget our tedious lives for a while my best friend and I treat ourselves to a trip to Venice. We don’t even need to stay over night, just a few hours to enjoy together.

This time the weather was fantastic (we just missed the flooding a few days before) and although it was last Sunday of October it was rather crowded as the Venetian Marathon was on. But it was worth it. Just judge for yourselves!

Isn't this absolutely magnificent? I could spend hours and hours just watching gondole and vaporetti travelling up and down the Canal Grande...

The colours are incredible and even more sparkling on a sunny autumn day.

A hidden "canaletto" with the washing out to dry in the sunshine and boats "parked just outside the door!

And this is our own Gondolier! He didn't sing "O Sole Mio" or play the accordion to us, but what can you expect for only 50cents a ride??? Yes, a real bargain!

So happy to be there together!!!! When will you go next?

Gone away on a Gondola!

Back on?

I don't even dare to hope that all my Internet problems are sorted. I'm back on since yesterday night but I don't know for how long. I've been on and off, off an on for months now, so I really hope this is finally the end of my BT troubles. I'm totally drained from talking to BT Mumbai Technical Support and although I do not resent them (they need to earn their living after all!), I really think we should have some customer support in the UK too. How can someone miles and miles away sort out this kind of problems here in the UK? Anyway, let's hope they have succeeded in my case. For the rest, nothing new here. Apart from fighting BT and trying to keep on working (O2 mobile connection, friends and Pret-a-Manger), I've been enjoying watching the first season of Ugly Betty on dvd. As usual with this kind of popular shows, I was a bit skeptical but I have to say that I'm totally hooked.

Each episode is packed with well written stories and on top of all that the comedy comes fast and often. Betty is a girl with more inside beauty than out but but manages to make her way into the most superficial and beauty built industry in the world, Fashion. It makes you laught and cry and helps you to unwind totally, the right recipe for me!

In Limbo again!

Since last Thursday I cannot connect to the Internet again! I thought BT was the solution but clearly it isn't! I'm waiting for BT engineers to come and check my "physical" lines. A diversion after talking for hours with the lovely guys from Bangalore! The connection is here but I cannot get onto any websites! If anybody has an idea, pls let me know. I'd be foreI'm back to my usual hysterics as I've got deadlines and need to earn my livelihood and to do so I rely totally on emails etc. Not to mention my social life which (very sadly) depends on the Internet connection too! Well, I cannot survive much longer on the O2 (very slow) dongle! Until better news come up, ciao!!!

The Twilight Hype

So, my excuse for reading this book is that my daughter wanted to read it and I was a little reluctant. My thoughts of vampires involved darkness, blood, violence. I just couldn't imagine how it could be suitable for a 9 year old (now 10!). That’s why we agreed I would read it first and then decide whether she could read it. Maybe a little over-protective, some might say - my privilege!!

The plot is pretty simple. When Bella Swann leaves her mother's home in Phoenix to move in with her father in the small town of Forks, she is a bit apprehensive. This only gets worse on her first day at school when she meets the incredibly handsome, but stand-offish, Edward Cullen. There are rumors about the Cullen Family and they are considered outsiders, but when Edward rescues Bella from a freak accident they start to form a relationship. Edward is in fact a vampire, and Bella doesn't realize home much danger she is putting herself and her family in by starting this relationship!

I have to admit that I wasn't immediately hooked to this book, finding it somewhat boring and the storyline just a little too predictable. Having said that, by the time I'd got about a third of the way through, there was no chance I was going to put it down. This is mainly to do with the fact that Stephenie Meyer's creation of Edward is so brilliant that there is little most can do not to fall in love with him from the first page he enters Twilight, but also because (although she will never win the man-booker for her writings) she still produces a book that leaves you feeling warm and satisfied from head to toe. It's not the best thing that I've ever read, nor is it necessarily all that well written (getting somewhat repetitive in places), but all the same it is definitely worth reading if you're looking for something simple to leave you feeling stupidly happy.

Going back to my pathetic excuse to read this YA novel, I’m not sure if I’m going to allow my daughter to read it. All in all, I think it might be better for her to start with a book on first love without the added complication of a vampire...

Bye Bye Billy!

This was Billy, a beautiful and lovely kitten that belonged to my best friend. He was just a small bundle of fur but he gave us so much joy and ‘allegria’. Unfortunately Billy is no more. Some horrible car driver hit him and let him die on the small path near his house.

They do hit-and-run to people, so who would care about a little kitten?

40 but we don't show it!!!!

My “bestest” friend Giusy and I have known each other for 40 years today!!!! We were two little shy girls in reception class when we met and now we are almost old ladies but still young at heart. I’ve been so lucky to meet her and have her as a friend for all these years! Although we live in two different countries we couldn’t be closer. She’s always been there for me and I know she always will. We laugh so much together and have so many things in common that’s almost incredible! Together we’ve become so famous that we’ve even made it on the cover of Vogue!!!

My Perfect 10!

From the moment she was conceived she gave me problems. It wasn’t her fault but I was ill for most of my 8 months’ pregnancy. I had very bad migraines, digestion problems and in the last few weeks pre-eclampsia. My GP and the hospital staff managed to push me right at the end of the 36th week but no further. Then I had to have a caesarian section. It wasn’t nice, but she was finally there, my little bundle of joy that I had wanted so much! She was very small, but already very feisty. She was my little victory that I had fought for against all odds. That’s why I called her Victoria, my victory. And since then she’s never been anything else than a great victory for me. She’s the light of my life, the little hands stretched towards me when I’m sad or ill, my reason for getting up in the morning, my happiness when I see her smiling. And today she’s 10, a big girl who’s almost as tall as me, who’s got a huge social life, lots and lots of interests and friends, but still has time for her little mum.

Happy Birthday, my darling Vicky, from your mamma!

Thumbs-Up for BT!

(My last roses in the garden)

I don’t want to be too hasty but it seems that where AOL failed for almost two months, BT made it good. My new BT Internet Hub arrived on Tuesday and, although I didn’t manage to set up everything on my own, the BT technical support on the phone helped me to configure my network and all the rest. It took them quite a while, but the helpline is free so I didn’t mind too much. I must have spent a fortune on the 5p/minute AOL helpline in the last few weeks, not to mention the upset I had to endure talking with their representatives. To be fair not all of them were so bad or patronising, but mostly the female ones yes! I cannot understand why. Why is it that when you’ve got a female sale or support centre representative on the phone, it has to end up in tears? My tears. Maybe it’s only me. Maybe I’m oversensitive, as my husband says, but where has the female solidarity gone? Disappeared from all call centres?

I’d really like to know your opinions or experiences if you have any on this matter.

In the meanwhile, I seriously pray that BT won’t let me down! Or else.

The Mocking of Dorian Gray

I’d have a lot to say about this. But I’ll try to be concise. I was very much looking forward to seeing the film “Dorian Gray” as the book “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is one of my favourite works in English Literature and definitely Wilde at his best. But yesterday night when I finally managed to get to see it I was totally disappointed. It had a lot of potential and didn’t start too badly (apart from Dorian not having his blond and soft curly hair!!!) but then it degenerated in a cheaply horror approach that wouldn’t be out of place in a kids’ horror series. The acting was ok (Colin Firth is excellent as usual as the Mephistophelian Lord Henry Wotton) but the characters just seemed very 2D and I didn’t feel emotionally engaged at all. Ben Barnes (the boring Prince Caspian from the second Narnia film) tried his best to portray the transition from innocence to decadence and debauchery but the result is rather wooden. The screenwriter/director clearly decided to interpret Wilde’s classic book his own alternative way, cutting off and changing scenes even the timing of the story to his liking, but this wouldn’t have been too terrible if he had managed to keep the essence of the book. He didn’t. Just wait to see the cheesy B-movie horror ending! The only consolation is that I saw the film on an Orange Wednesday offer (ie. 2 for 1) otherwise I would have even dared to ask for my money back!

(PS. I’m still having Internet connection issues, but I’m hoping to migrate to BT Broadband next week and maybe it will get better. Fingers crossed!)

Still "unconnected"

I'm not gone AWOL but I've got Internet connection problems again. Now I am connected tomorrow I canno be sure! This is terribly vexing for me as I rely on the Internet/email for my work. Hope the BT engineer will get here soon to sort out my issues! Until then....Ciao!

The Untouchable

"The Untouchable” is watching you from the streets of New York. "The Untouchable” is in this case none else than Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s controversial prime minister whom everybody’s got to know now due to the news spread out all over the international papers, of the despicable forced resignation of Dino Boffo, the editor of the Catholic Church's daily, L'Avvenire. Boffo announced his resignation following a campaign against him in Il Giornale, the newspaper owned by the Berlusconi family. With this resignation, Berlusconi was able to claim the first scalp in his rapidly escalating battle with the church and the media, which began when a string of sex scandals struck Berlusconi himself. I don’t usually like talking about politics in this modest blog of mine and even in private unless something really strikes me hard. For years now my country has been putting up with this disgraceful individual that is ruining the dignity and pride of his own nation.
But he was voted with a significant majority at the last elections and he seems difficult, if not impossible to get rid of. A friend of mine who lives in NYC saw one of these posters scattered around the city and emailed me a photo. Nobody knows exactly who’s behind this campaign. But it’s good that Berlusconi’s true colours are revealed abroad as well. Who knows, maybe sooner or later the untouchable might get what he deserves, exactly as it happened to Al Capone to whom this poster is inspired.

PS: Another friend of mine from Italy has just told me that these posters are already all over the Italian papers. So it wasn't a "scoop" after all!

Different views

My daughter never takes “normal” photos when we go around. She’s not very interested in monuments, scenery etc. but she likes taking pictures of what she thinks it's a bit unusual. Here are some examples of “different” views of Edinburgh.

The sign of a Scottish pub.

At the top of too many steps we had to climb to get from Princes Street to the Royal Mile.

The "Grey Lady" at the Fringe Festival on the Royal Mile.



Bagpipes, of course!!! But in a frame...

And she couldn't miss any kilts, of course, lot and lots of them... Tempting, but no!

And a seagull resting on this (for us) unknown statue...

Another street entertainer at the Fringe....

I assure you, we saw much more than this in Edinburgh, but these are Vicky's memories!

Spooky Tour

For our Bank Holiday Monday we decided to go for a day trip to Edinburgh by train. It only takes 2 ½ hours from York and the train journey is pleasant as you go through Durham and its great cathedral, Newcastle and its impressive bridges, along the breathtaking Northumberland coast, through Berwick on Tweed and finally Edinburgh. Although I’ve been to Edinburgh many times, I always find it fascinating and I discover something new each time.

One of new experiences in Edinburgh this time was to go on the Real Mary King’s Close Tour. Beneath the City Chambers on the Royal Mile lies Edinburgh's deepest secret - a warren of hidden streets where real people lived, worked and died between the 17th and the 19th centuries. Now a new attraction allows visitors to step back in time to walk through these underground closes and witness some of the dramatic episodes and extraordinary apparitions from this site's fascinating and historically rich past.
These buildings were inhabited during the Plague, and a lot of people died in the close. This has led to many ghost stories, which the guide was brilliant at explaining to us.

You are guided round the old houses and work buildings, which are still mostly intact - it's amazing to see the different rooms in the houses, and the old work-places. These have some (scarily life-like!) models put in to help you imagine how people lived. The atmosphere is brilliant, very electric, due to the huge number of recorded ghost-sightings. This is helped along slightly by the guide - at one point the tour were ushered into a room, in pitch darkness, and a ghost story told, along with sound effects – it was rather scary!!

The celebrity of the close's supernatural resident is Annie, a ghostly pre-teen who (so the story goes) scared the daylights out of a Japanese psychic in 1992. This lady had been unimpressed by the tour until she arrived at one of the many small rooms. There she was suddenly struck by an overwhelming feeling of sickness, hunger and cold and, when she tried to leave felt the ghastly tug of a ghostly hand on her leg. Poor Annie's spectral life has now been fleshed out and it is believed that she had been left to die by her family. Since then, people from round the world have come to "Annie’s room". Many have told tour guides of seeing impressions of the spirit in the room; some visitors, treating the room as a shrine, have left gifts for the little girl out of affection.

This was an absolutely fabulous tour, definitely one not to be missed if you're going to be in Edinburgh. And if you wish to listen to the audiotour in Italian, well, that's my voice!