And watch the pigs soar
Wow. It's only Tuesday, but I’ve gotten enough free time now to be able to write this. And if it takes me till 2 in the morning it will take me till 2 in the morning. I am not going to go anywhere until this post is done.
It has just occurred to me that this is LONG. And I'm only halfway through. And it’s about 6-7 pages already. So I'm posting half now, and I’ll post the other half when I'm finished writing it.
Quote #1: (from an advert for sky movies): Animals are in fact highly trained assassins, who brandish their own form of torture, without mercy.
Quote #2: Me (after about 3/4 bottle wine) I'm not ineb...iner...in... Drunk.
Quote #3: (Stargate SG-1 Blooper, from a series 1 ep. Carter and O’Neill are trapped in a glacier) O’Neill- I don’t know what to do.
Carter- You don’t know what to do?! You spent 7 years on MacGyver and you can’t figure this one out? We’ve got belt buckles and shoelaces and a stick of gum. Build a nuclear reactor for crying out loud. You were MacGyver. MacGadget. MacGimick. Now you’re Mr. MacUseless! DEAR GOD! I'm stuck in an ice glacier with MacGyver!
Song #1: Matchbox 20- Mad Season
Song #2: Pink- I’ Not Dead
Song #3: Pink- Who Knew
Album #1: Pink- I'm Not Dead
Album #2: Aimee Mann- the Forgotten Arm
Album #3: Natalie Imbruglia- Left of the Middle
Word #1: Numpty
Word #2: Vamoose
So I know I've been gone a while. A long while. But, not as long as some people have been gone, so that’s something at least. But now I've got my music, and my drink, and a good supply of chocolate (what?! My oh so observant brother pointed out earlier that I was a woman. I wonder what gave it away…) and I'm going to write.
So, last time I put a decent update up was at the beginning of august. (Crap… what have I done since then…? Oh yeah. Italy. Right.
Wed 9th August- The whole handcuff story, which I am sure will go down in history as one of the most embarrassing things to ever happen to me. Moving swiftly on… Flew into Rome ok. All the drivers there seem to think that they drive Ferrari’s or something. And tailgating seems to be the name of the game. Still, wasn’t long till we were on the way to Florence. Arrived there about 3 hours later, and met a one way system worse than Boston (US) and believe me they have a pretty weird system there.
Eventually found the street the hotel was on, then spent about another 10-15 minutes trying to find the way to get to the other end of the one way street so we could actually get to the hotel! (Is it seriously that wrong to go up a one way street all of 20 yards… you ARE going one way…)
Checked in. Had a break. Went out for a walk then to tea in one of the piazzas. Got back to the hotel room, went to bed.
Thurs 10th August- went to the Uffizi- the best art museum in Italy. Saw the queue and bought tickets for the next day instead! Went for a walk round the outside exhibits- Michelangelo’s David, Neptune’s fountain. There was a parade of some sort going on when we were there. Must have been a big deal cos there was a TV crew and the police and everything. Wish I knew what it was all about.
Had another walk around Florence, heading further than before due to change of plans with the Uffizi. Went back to hotel for a siesta, by far one of the best plans by mainland Europe. Headed up a hill that was famous for something that I forget. (What, I didn’t write it down!) Different restaurant for tea. Headed back.
Fri 11th August- Merchant Bridge by the Uffizi. Used to have cobblers etc on, but now has jewellers/goldsmiths etc. Pretty impressive. Then went to the Uffizi. Lots of paintings, where it was noted by Judi that Jesus seemed to have a fetish with killing birds. Seriously, over half of the one with him as a baby had him holding a bird by the neck! Oh, and the Madonna doesn’t like to smile. Dad set Judi and Mark a task (to keep them entertained) of finding a picture of the Madonna smiling. You’d think she was HAPPY her kid was the saviour of mankind, right?!
After the Uffizi, dad and I went to bomboi gardens (or something like that…), while Judi and Mark went back to the hotel. Met up with them about 3 hours or so later. Just enough time to grab a shower before heading out for tea. Walking round and it began to rain. And not just a little bit… A LOT! So ducked into the next restaurant we saw that was open, which just happened to be the one we were aiming for anyway. (Useful, huh?)
Sat 12th August- left Florence and headed down to the Tuscany/Umbria border. Tried really really hard not to gloat when they got the distance between Florence and the villa wrong, but I think I looked a little smug. I DID manage not to say “I told you so” though… at least to their faces! That counts as trying, right?!
Decided to do a bit of food shopping before heading up to the villa. Food shopping. With Judi. Yeah. NEVER AGAIN!! She doesn’t like it when she isn't consulted don every single thing that is going into the trolley. Which is crazy cos she NEVER does the food shopping when we’re at home. God help her when she has to shop for herself at uni. Though actually, she’d probably be able to handle that cos it’s for her, you know?
Eventually reached the other end of the store, paid, left and had a picnic lunch in the car in the car park. (What? It was half 1 by this time, we were hungry!) Got the go ahead from the cleaner that we were able to go up, and headed out to the villa. Which turned out to be at the top of a very very very steep hill. Had Judi whimpering in the back about how the car wouldn’t be able to get up the hill and how we were all going to die etc. (as I've been complaining about her and I'm writing this, its safe to assume that that never happened!) Eventually got to the top of the hill and found the villa.
I want to retire there. It was AMAZING! Ok, so the master bedroom was a little small, but so what? I wasn’t in the master bedroom. Or the twin, cos, as I had been told on the plane, Judi was sharing with mark. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I had no problem with that. It’s just normally we argue about who gets the room to themselves, not who’s going to share with whom.
So yeah. My room. Double bed, big room. Very bright when the sun was on it. And right next to the bathroom too. See, perfect.
Sunday- sometimes being female has its advantages. I am not a pool person. I think I've mentioned this in previous posts. However, my siblings ARE pool people, and spend a large amount of their time when we are staying at a place that has a pool to try to get me in with them. But my luck being my luck, I had a great excuse until at least Wednesday.
However, sometimes it sucks being a female. Or more precisely, being a teenage female on holiday with their fathers, who, lets face it, bar an extreme minority (we hope) have not been teenage females. The day was going fine, spending it relaxing and just chilling out etc. and then dad got the camera out. Now, Judi, when it comes to photographs that include her, is a perfectionist. She doesn’t like it when the photo makes her look stupid or fat or ugly or, actually, at the moment, anything that isn't, um, provocative, seems to be a bad photo.
So she was quite upset when dad got the FILM camera out and started snapping away at us all. Now, I don’t mind too much about having y photo taken, but I DO draw the line when I'm goofing around with my sister. I like having those moments as memories, and not as photos. Memories you can tell the story however you want, and no-one knows if you're telling the whole truth or not, and you can decide who to tell and how far to tell the etc. But with photos you don't get any story. You get a picture. Of one second in time. And yeah, quite often those moments can be quite sweet and one off etc. but at other times those moments can be downright embarrassing. So when dad started trying to get some photos of us goofing, we didn’t want him to. And dad, being dad and not realising just how serious we take this sort of thing, took them anyway.
And that was the end of the nice friendly time we’d been having up until that point. It all got sorted out later though.
Monday um, did some work. Sunbathed. Played cards. And for some reason we always end up playing Hearts. And I the playing Hearts. Ok, no I don’t. I just don’t like the fact that no matter what I do, I ALWAYS end up losing. We play to 100, and in the space of oh, 3 hands, it has been known for me to have 156, and everyone else to either have 0 or negative values. (We play 2-10 hearts=1, royal hearts=5, QS=20 and JD=-15). So yeah, it’s not that I don’t like playing for the game… its just I SUCK!!
Despite all this, there is one thing I hate more than playing hearts with my family. And that is when we play hearts and they pity play me so I don’t lose a hand. And that hurts. I don’t mind losing when I suck at a game. But I don’t like not losing through people’s pity, you know?
Tuesday- sunbathed. Went food shopping with dad and Mark. (Judi had told us flat out that there was no way she would go down the hill unless she absolutely HAD to.) Was quite a fun experience at the shops though. Dad’s birthday was the next day, and you can’t have a birthday with no cake. So we had to buy some flour for the cake. Fine, no problem. Except dad couldn’t find the flour cos it was going to be a surprise. AND Judi also needed some plain flour cos she wanted to make pancakes. So not only do we have to get one lot of flour in, we have to get an extra bag or self raising, into the trolley, onto the conveyer belt, paid for, bagged, home and hidden without dad realising. Piece of cake.
We messed up the first time. I went off to get the flour when dad was looking at meat. Unfortunately, he happened to be back at the trolley when I returned with the 2 bags of flour. Used the fact that they were in Italian to hide the fact I brought 2 back, and asked him which one was the one we needed. Was then told to put the other bag back.
Luckily, for us, the Italian’s like their oil. Dad spent about 0 minutes trying to work out what oil he wanted to buy. Thus giving mark enough time to get the bag of flour, and me enough time to hide it in the trolley.
Got to the conveyer belt at the checkouts, and was faced with a new problem. How to get it on without dad spotting. See, normally if we do a shop at home for the 4 of us, we do a week’s worth. And there is usually too much for the one belt length, so dad goes down to pack bags and I keep loading up the belt. But, because we were only shopping for a couple of days, there wasn’t that much to put on the belt, and so there was no reason for him to leave and go and pack. Luck seemed to be with us that day though cos there were some pastry things that dad had decided he wanted. These happened to be big enough to hide the flour, both in the trolley and on the belt. And cos it was the last thing to go on the belt, dad was paying when they came through, giving me time to pack them before he saw the flour.
Got back to the villa, and managed to get the bag into the kitchen and given to Judi before dad had arrived in with the other bag of shopping. So, by the time he arrived, Judi and I were putting the food away, with the flour already been stored.
Had a little break, and then Judi and I started to discuss when she would bake the cake. Kept going on about how we could try to keep him out of the kitchen for an hour or so so she could make it then. I suggested making it that night after he had gone to bed, s o we could have it in the morning for breakfast. She looked at me as if I had grown another head and said it wouldn’t keep till Thursday if we did it that night. Pointed out his birthday was on WEDNESDAY, and we didn’t need the cake to keep till Thursday. After a quick no it isn't/ yes it is debate, which I won when I pointed out the date, we started coming up with ideas to get dad A) exhausted, and B) to bed early.
And I can say this… boy can my sister be persuasive when she needs to be! Dad was down by the pool, sunbathing, when I suddenly hear “dad… come in the pool. Come on come on come on. Fatty. You’ve only done 5 lengths today. I've done 50. Fatty. Lazy. Come in the pool. Please. Come in the pool. Come in the pool.” And after, oh, a minute, he agreed. (And people think I’M a terror…)
And then he gave us a big help on the whole get him exhausted thing by him drinking a bottle of wine (at a slightly more sedate pace then I have known to do…), and then after playing cards for a bit, Judi proved why she would really be an actress…. She started getting really moody etc, which she has known to do when she’s tired. Mark looked over to me and asked if she was faking it or not, and I couldn’t tell! Seriously! I’ve known her her entire life, and I couldn’t tell if she was faking being tired!
So then dad went off to bed, with a promise from me that I’d clean the kitchen etc. And then Judi came down, and we baked a cake.
Wednesday- woke up, got dressed, went downstairs and saw Judi and mark had finished setting up for the morning when dad got up. Of course, this just happened to be the day he DIDN’T get up at half 7am to go to the pool. Nope. He stayed in bed till about 9. Guess the wine had knocked him out a bit. Anyway. Long story short, ate cake, opened presents. Generally a good day.
Thursday (ok, my notes of the holiday have stopped here, so I'm just going from memory form now on…) Um, think we did some more food shopping. Sunbathed. Slight issue later on when realised that just cos its cool doesn’t mean the sun ain't out there. Seriously burnt top of thigh, but its better now.
Friday- more sunbathing. Dad caught a hornet in his glass of wine at lunch, suffice to say that convince the rest of us to eat INSIDE, thank you very much! Sunbathed. Slight burning issue. Must watch that in the future. Yeah, that pretty much covers it.
Saturday- left villa. Judi freaked on the way down the hill in the car. But not as much as she did when we arrived. Headed down to Rome. Found Rome likes one way systems almost as much as Florence does! After checking into the hotel, we all went to drop the car off, cos the rooms weren’t ready. So then spent, oh, about an hour going to the train station, which was oh, 50 yards away on foot. Eventually parked the car and went into the station, found the desk and was told to move the car to just outside the office, where we ha passed about 40 minutes before.
We were not impressed. To top it off, we had gone to Rome on the hottest day recorded that month or something like that. It was HOT! If there is one thing you learn to appreciate when you’re away on holiday, its Air con! Especially air con in rooms. Got back to the hotel, and led up to room. The guy was saying how we had the best room in the hotel etc etc. we just smiled and nodded and let him lead us to our room. Actually, he didn’t lead us to a room. He led us to an APPARTMENT! The only thing missing was a kitchen area. There was a dining area, a lounge area, a bathroom, 2 bedrooms, 1 en suite… it was like a frigging APARTMENT!! And of course Judi, being Judi, took the smaller of the 2 bedrooms, and cos I was sharing with her that took the choice away from me.
Once settled, spent a little time just cooling down, before heading out for some food. Ate at one of the restaurants in the Piazza Novona. It used to be where they held Olympic like competitions in the times of the emperors. Now it’s surrounded by restaurants, and often has painters and the like set up in the middle area. At the centre of the piazza is one of the fountains by Bernini. (NB: I don’t care what Dan Brown says in his novel “Angels and Demons”. There is no way to climb to the top of it. At all. Actually, it’s hard to say how he could climb to any of the things he was meant to climb to the top of in the book. I've seen a lot of them. It just WON’T happen. Unless he’s Batman. Or Superman. Or something.)
Sunday- went for a tour round Rome. Not an actual tour, cos there’s never enough time when you do it like that. Went to the Colosseum. ALWAYS wanted to go there. They’ve started to rebuild some of the parts that were taken away when there was a stone shortage or something. Also put in a floor over part of the, well, floor, so you can see what it would have looked like back in the days it was in use. After that, went up through the Forum. These roman ruins where Emperors etc are buried. (At least I think that’s what the Forum is famous for…)
Went to see the Fontana de Trevi. One of the most famous fountains in Rome. Has Neptune and a load of horses coming out of the waves. Really beautiful sculpture. After that headed to the Pantheon. Didn’t stay long there though cos there was a service about to start. (Apparently it became a church when Christians walked by and said they felt the presence of the devil. Made perfect sense to make it a church huh?)
Monday- Welcome to what all males will tell you is a living hell. Shopping for shoes for teenage girls. Course me and Judi didn’t see it that way at all. We were thinking more along the lines of “I wonder how much we can get daddy to spend on us… (What? My birthday was coming up, and he said he wanted to buy me something in Rome!)
We found this really nice shop just by the Fontana de Trevi. Judi tried on some boots, but decided they were too “evening-y” for school. Since I was looking for some “evening-y” boots, I tried them on instead. And so I know own a pair of Italian leather boots.
Called into the Pantheon again on the way back cos there wasn’t a service on. Saw Raphael’s grave. Quite a beautiful church actually. Just don’t ask me what happens when it rains. There’s a big hole in the ceiling…
Tuesday- got up. Packed. (Ok. The guys packed. Judi had us basically living out of the suitcase since arriving in Rome. But then cos of out new purchases (she got some boots too), we had to repack the case slightly. So we had been fully packed since the evening before, only needing night wear to be added. The guys were nowhere near ready. Much to Judi’s chagrin. So yeah. Packed. Had breakfast. Caught taxi to airport, then had to hang around for a bit before plane home.
So yeah, that was Italy.
It has just occurred to me that this is LONG. And I'm only halfway through. And it’s about 6-7 pages already. So I'm posting half now, and I’ll post the other half when I'm finished writing it.
Quote #1: (from an advert for sky movies): Animals are in fact highly trained assassins, who brandish their own form of torture, without mercy.
Quote #2: Me (after about 3/4 bottle wine) I'm not ineb...iner...in... Drunk.
Quote #3: (Stargate SG-1 Blooper, from a series 1 ep. Carter and O’Neill are trapped in a glacier) O’Neill- I don’t know what to do.
Carter- You don’t know what to do?! You spent 7 years on MacGyver and you can’t figure this one out? We’ve got belt buckles and shoelaces and a stick of gum. Build a nuclear reactor for crying out loud. You were MacGyver. MacGadget. MacGimick. Now you’re Mr. MacUseless! DEAR GOD! I'm stuck in an ice glacier with MacGyver!
Song #1: Matchbox 20- Mad Season
Song #2: Pink- I’ Not Dead
Song #3: Pink- Who Knew
Album #1: Pink- I'm Not Dead
Album #2: Aimee Mann- the Forgotten Arm
Album #3: Natalie Imbruglia- Left of the Middle
Word #1: Numpty
Word #2: Vamoose
So I know I've been gone a while. A long while. But, not as long as some people have been gone, so that’s something at least. But now I've got my music, and my drink, and a good supply of chocolate (what?! My oh so observant brother pointed out earlier that I was a woman. I wonder what gave it away…) and I'm going to write.
So, last time I put a decent update up was at the beginning of august. (Crap… what have I done since then…? Oh yeah. Italy. Right.
Wed 9th August- The whole handcuff story, which I am sure will go down in history as one of the most embarrassing things to ever happen to me. Moving swiftly on… Flew into Rome ok. All the drivers there seem to think that they drive Ferrari’s or something. And tailgating seems to be the name of the game. Still, wasn’t long till we were on the way to Florence. Arrived there about 3 hours later, and met a one way system worse than Boston (US) and believe me they have a pretty weird system there.
Eventually found the street the hotel was on, then spent about another 10-15 minutes trying to find the way to get to the other end of the one way street so we could actually get to the hotel! (Is it seriously that wrong to go up a one way street all of 20 yards… you ARE going one way…)
Checked in. Had a break. Went out for a walk then to tea in one of the piazzas. Got back to the hotel room, went to bed.
Thurs 10th August- went to the Uffizi- the best art museum in Italy. Saw the queue and bought tickets for the next day instead! Went for a walk round the outside exhibits- Michelangelo’s David, Neptune’s fountain. There was a parade of some sort going on when we were there. Must have been a big deal cos there was a TV crew and the police and everything. Wish I knew what it was all about.
Had another walk around Florence, heading further than before due to change of plans with the Uffizi. Went back to hotel for a siesta, by far one of the best plans by mainland Europe. Headed up a hill that was famous for something that I forget. (What, I didn’t write it down!) Different restaurant for tea. Headed back.
Fri 11th August- Merchant Bridge by the Uffizi. Used to have cobblers etc on, but now has jewellers/goldsmiths etc. Pretty impressive. Then went to the Uffizi. Lots of paintings, where it was noted by Judi that Jesus seemed to have a fetish with killing birds. Seriously, over half of the one with him as a baby had him holding a bird by the neck! Oh, and the Madonna doesn’t like to smile. Dad set Judi and Mark a task (to keep them entertained) of finding a picture of the Madonna smiling. You’d think she was HAPPY her kid was the saviour of mankind, right?!
After the Uffizi, dad and I went to bomboi gardens (or something like that…), while Judi and Mark went back to the hotel. Met up with them about 3 hours or so later. Just enough time to grab a shower before heading out for tea. Walking round and it began to rain. And not just a little bit… A LOT! So ducked into the next restaurant we saw that was open, which just happened to be the one we were aiming for anyway. (Useful, huh?)
Sat 12th August- left Florence and headed down to the Tuscany/Umbria border. Tried really really hard not to gloat when they got the distance between Florence and the villa wrong, but I think I looked a little smug. I DID manage not to say “I told you so” though… at least to their faces! That counts as trying, right?!
Decided to do a bit of food shopping before heading up to the villa. Food shopping. With Judi. Yeah. NEVER AGAIN!! She doesn’t like it when she isn't consulted don every single thing that is going into the trolley. Which is crazy cos she NEVER does the food shopping when we’re at home. God help her when she has to shop for herself at uni. Though actually, she’d probably be able to handle that cos it’s for her, you know?
Eventually reached the other end of the store, paid, left and had a picnic lunch in the car in the car park. (What? It was half 1 by this time, we were hungry!) Got the go ahead from the cleaner that we were able to go up, and headed out to the villa. Which turned out to be at the top of a very very very steep hill. Had Judi whimpering in the back about how the car wouldn’t be able to get up the hill and how we were all going to die etc. (as I've been complaining about her and I'm writing this, its safe to assume that that never happened!) Eventually got to the top of the hill and found the villa.
I want to retire there. It was AMAZING! Ok, so the master bedroom was a little small, but so what? I wasn’t in the master bedroom. Or the twin, cos, as I had been told on the plane, Judi was sharing with mark. Hey, don’t get me wrong, I had no problem with that. It’s just normally we argue about who gets the room to themselves, not who’s going to share with whom.
So yeah. My room. Double bed, big room. Very bright when the sun was on it. And right next to the bathroom too. See, perfect.
Sunday- sometimes being female has its advantages. I am not a pool person. I think I've mentioned this in previous posts. However, my siblings ARE pool people, and spend a large amount of their time when we are staying at a place that has a pool to try to get me in with them. But my luck being my luck, I had a great excuse until at least Wednesday.
However, sometimes it sucks being a female. Or more precisely, being a teenage female on holiday with their fathers, who, lets face it, bar an extreme minority (we hope) have not been teenage females. The day was going fine, spending it relaxing and just chilling out etc. and then dad got the camera out. Now, Judi, when it comes to photographs that include her, is a perfectionist. She doesn’t like it when the photo makes her look stupid or fat or ugly or, actually, at the moment, anything that isn't, um, provocative, seems to be a bad photo.
So she was quite upset when dad got the FILM camera out and started snapping away at us all. Now, I don’t mind too much about having y photo taken, but I DO draw the line when I'm goofing around with my sister. I like having those moments as memories, and not as photos. Memories you can tell the story however you want, and no-one knows if you're telling the whole truth or not, and you can decide who to tell and how far to tell the etc. But with photos you don't get any story. You get a picture. Of one second in time. And yeah, quite often those moments can be quite sweet and one off etc. but at other times those moments can be downright embarrassing. So when dad started trying to get some photos of us goofing, we didn’t want him to. And dad, being dad and not realising just how serious we take this sort of thing, took them anyway.
And that was the end of the nice friendly time we’d been having up until that point. It all got sorted out later though.
Monday um, did some work. Sunbathed. Played cards. And for some reason we always end up playing Hearts. And I the playing Hearts. Ok, no I don’t. I just don’t like the fact that no matter what I do, I ALWAYS end up losing. We play to 100, and in the space of oh, 3 hands, it has been known for me to have 156, and everyone else to either have 0 or negative values. (We play 2-10 hearts=1, royal hearts=5, QS=20 and JD=-15). So yeah, it’s not that I don’t like playing for the game… its just I SUCK!!
Despite all this, there is one thing I hate more than playing hearts with my family. And that is when we play hearts and they pity play me so I don’t lose a hand. And that hurts. I don’t mind losing when I suck at a game. But I don’t like not losing through people’s pity, you know?
Tuesday- sunbathed. Went food shopping with dad and Mark. (Judi had told us flat out that there was no way she would go down the hill unless she absolutely HAD to.) Was quite a fun experience at the shops though. Dad’s birthday was the next day, and you can’t have a birthday with no cake. So we had to buy some flour for the cake. Fine, no problem. Except dad couldn’t find the flour cos it was going to be a surprise. AND Judi also needed some plain flour cos she wanted to make pancakes. So not only do we have to get one lot of flour in, we have to get an extra bag or self raising, into the trolley, onto the conveyer belt, paid for, bagged, home and hidden without dad realising. Piece of cake.
We messed up the first time. I went off to get the flour when dad was looking at meat. Unfortunately, he happened to be back at the trolley when I returned with the 2 bags of flour. Used the fact that they were in Italian to hide the fact I brought 2 back, and asked him which one was the one we needed. Was then told to put the other bag back.
Luckily, for us, the Italian’s like their oil. Dad spent about 0 minutes trying to work out what oil he wanted to buy. Thus giving mark enough time to get the bag of flour, and me enough time to hide it in the trolley.
Got to the conveyer belt at the checkouts, and was faced with a new problem. How to get it on without dad spotting. See, normally if we do a shop at home for the 4 of us, we do a week’s worth. And there is usually too much for the one belt length, so dad goes down to pack bags and I keep loading up the belt. But, because we were only shopping for a couple of days, there wasn’t that much to put on the belt, and so there was no reason for him to leave and go and pack. Luck seemed to be with us that day though cos there were some pastry things that dad had decided he wanted. These happened to be big enough to hide the flour, both in the trolley and on the belt. And cos it was the last thing to go on the belt, dad was paying when they came through, giving me time to pack them before he saw the flour.
Got back to the villa, and managed to get the bag into the kitchen and given to Judi before dad had arrived in with the other bag of shopping. So, by the time he arrived, Judi and I were putting the food away, with the flour already been stored.
Had a little break, and then Judi and I started to discuss when she would bake the cake. Kept going on about how we could try to keep him out of the kitchen for an hour or so so she could make it then. I suggested making it that night after he had gone to bed, s o we could have it in the morning for breakfast. She looked at me as if I had grown another head and said it wouldn’t keep till Thursday if we did it that night. Pointed out his birthday was on WEDNESDAY, and we didn’t need the cake to keep till Thursday. After a quick no it isn't/ yes it is debate, which I won when I pointed out the date, we started coming up with ideas to get dad A) exhausted, and B) to bed early.
And I can say this… boy can my sister be persuasive when she needs to be! Dad was down by the pool, sunbathing, when I suddenly hear “dad… come in the pool. Come on come on come on. Fatty. You’ve only done 5 lengths today. I've done 50. Fatty. Lazy. Come in the pool. Please. Come in the pool. Come in the pool.” And after, oh, a minute, he agreed. (And people think I’M a terror…)
And then he gave us a big help on the whole get him exhausted thing by him drinking a bottle of wine (at a slightly more sedate pace then I have known to do…), and then after playing cards for a bit, Judi proved why she would really be an actress…. She started getting really moody etc, which she has known to do when she’s tired. Mark looked over to me and asked if she was faking it or not, and I couldn’t tell! Seriously! I’ve known her her entire life, and I couldn’t tell if she was faking being tired!
So then dad went off to bed, with a promise from me that I’d clean the kitchen etc. And then Judi came down, and we baked a cake.
Wednesday- woke up, got dressed, went downstairs and saw Judi and mark had finished setting up for the morning when dad got up. Of course, this just happened to be the day he DIDN’T get up at half 7am to go to the pool. Nope. He stayed in bed till about 9. Guess the wine had knocked him out a bit. Anyway. Long story short, ate cake, opened presents. Generally a good day.
Thursday (ok, my notes of the holiday have stopped here, so I'm just going from memory form now on…) Um, think we did some more food shopping. Sunbathed. Slight issue later on when realised that just cos its cool doesn’t mean the sun ain't out there. Seriously burnt top of thigh, but its better now.
Friday- more sunbathing. Dad caught a hornet in his glass of wine at lunch, suffice to say that convince the rest of us to eat INSIDE, thank you very much! Sunbathed. Slight burning issue. Must watch that in the future. Yeah, that pretty much covers it.
Saturday- left villa. Judi freaked on the way down the hill in the car. But not as much as she did when we arrived. Headed down to Rome. Found Rome likes one way systems almost as much as Florence does! After checking into the hotel, we all went to drop the car off, cos the rooms weren’t ready. So then spent, oh, about an hour going to the train station, which was oh, 50 yards away on foot. Eventually parked the car and went into the station, found the desk and was told to move the car to just outside the office, where we ha passed about 40 minutes before.
We were not impressed. To top it off, we had gone to Rome on the hottest day recorded that month or something like that. It was HOT! If there is one thing you learn to appreciate when you’re away on holiday, its Air con! Especially air con in rooms. Got back to the hotel, and led up to room. The guy was saying how we had the best room in the hotel etc etc. we just smiled and nodded and let him lead us to our room. Actually, he didn’t lead us to a room. He led us to an APPARTMENT! The only thing missing was a kitchen area. There was a dining area, a lounge area, a bathroom, 2 bedrooms, 1 en suite… it was like a frigging APARTMENT!! And of course Judi, being Judi, took the smaller of the 2 bedrooms, and cos I was sharing with her that took the choice away from me.
Once settled, spent a little time just cooling down, before heading out for some food. Ate at one of the restaurants in the Piazza Novona. It used to be where they held Olympic like competitions in the times of the emperors. Now it’s surrounded by restaurants, and often has painters and the like set up in the middle area. At the centre of the piazza is one of the fountains by Bernini. (NB: I don’t care what Dan Brown says in his novel “Angels and Demons”. There is no way to climb to the top of it. At all. Actually, it’s hard to say how he could climb to any of the things he was meant to climb to the top of in the book. I've seen a lot of them. It just WON’T happen. Unless he’s Batman. Or Superman. Or something.)
Sunday- went for a tour round Rome. Not an actual tour, cos there’s never enough time when you do it like that. Went to the Colosseum. ALWAYS wanted to go there. They’ve started to rebuild some of the parts that were taken away when there was a stone shortage or something. Also put in a floor over part of the, well, floor, so you can see what it would have looked like back in the days it was in use. After that, went up through the Forum. These roman ruins where Emperors etc are buried. (At least I think that’s what the Forum is famous for…)
Went to see the Fontana de Trevi. One of the most famous fountains in Rome. Has Neptune and a load of horses coming out of the waves. Really beautiful sculpture. After that headed to the Pantheon. Didn’t stay long there though cos there was a service about to start. (Apparently it became a church when Christians walked by and said they felt the presence of the devil. Made perfect sense to make it a church huh?)
Monday- Welcome to what all males will tell you is a living hell. Shopping for shoes for teenage girls. Course me and Judi didn’t see it that way at all. We were thinking more along the lines of “I wonder how much we can get daddy to spend on us… (What? My birthday was coming up, and he said he wanted to buy me something in Rome!)
We found this really nice shop just by the Fontana de Trevi. Judi tried on some boots, but decided they were too “evening-y” for school. Since I was looking for some “evening-y” boots, I tried them on instead. And so I know own a pair of Italian leather boots.
Called into the Pantheon again on the way back cos there wasn’t a service on. Saw Raphael’s grave. Quite a beautiful church actually. Just don’t ask me what happens when it rains. There’s a big hole in the ceiling…
Tuesday- got up. Packed. (Ok. The guys packed. Judi had us basically living out of the suitcase since arriving in Rome. But then cos of out new purchases (she got some boots too), we had to repack the case slightly. So we had been fully packed since the evening before, only needing night wear to be added. The guys were nowhere near ready. Much to Judi’s chagrin. So yeah. Packed. Had breakfast. Caught taxi to airport, then had to hang around for a bit before plane home.
So yeah, that was Italy.
posted by Chibi at
11:28 pm
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