Tag Archives: Milan

Non-dieting – Day 3

Posted on by
2

I’m afraid I had a bit of a setback this morning.

I would like to point out that this had absolutely nothing to do with my new, fictitious and completely made-up wine diet!

It was putting on a shirt. I found that, whereas, only last week no less, this shirt could be worn with the top button done up, now the button barely made it to the hole, let alone, through it! At first I thought that, perhaps, the shirt was riding too high up on my neck. So I made sure it was pulled down properly. Still no good. Trying to stretch the button to go through the hole and not just kiss it didn’t work either. I had a vision of the cotton threads doing their best to become elastic. Anyway, if I had managed to get the button through the hole it would, at some point during the day, have popped off in spectacular style, maybe even hitting someone in the eye, thereby alerting them to the fact that it seems I am getting fatter by the minute!

This was all somewhat of a shock.

So I am wearing a shirt with the top button undone and a tie that is, therefore loose. I feel untidy.

However, this lunchtime, again, I didn’t take any bread (although my hand did reach in for one); I had half the normal amount of pasta; 2 polpette and some spinach. Again, I do not feel as bloated as usual.

Tonight I have a student. He texted me at a quarter to midnight last night to ask if it was OK to come tonight at 7.30. He doesn’t come every week. I didn’t reply; I was almost asleep. I replied this morning. I then get this slightly strange message:

“I’m thinking to a new program of study! Than (sic) I let u know! See u later!”

He certainly likes his exclamation marks!!!! I guess I should talk to him about them :-)

Does that mean that he is coming tonight or not? A new program of study – is that a new thing with me or with someone else? Is it English or some other subject? And he’s going to let me know later today or tonight or sometime in the future? I have no idea what it means. He has only been with me for about 5 lessons so I have no idea how he thinks ….. yet.

Also, tonight, I’m supposed to go round to a friend’s new flat but no time has been set and, to be honest, it might not happen.

I have been promised Mirto. It’s an incentive that works for me. Maybe I should change my diet from a wine-diet to a mirto-diet? Of course, if she does food too or wants to go out for a pizza or something, I can’t really say ‘no’ – that would just be rude but it certainly won’t help me doing up the top button on my shirt, will it?

Mars Bars are Gay! Who knew?????? Please comment, I beg you.

Posted on by
20

Apparently, according to A, the only people who eat Mars Bars are women or gay people.

To be honest, when he said it I nearly fell off my chair!

We had texted earlier. I said that it would be fine to go out but I wasn’t going to have any beer and no food. I would just drink wine. I was on a ‘wine diet’. It was a joke but, as with many things, it was lost in translation.

A was in fine form yesterday being more outrageous than normal.

“Dogs are like women”, he says.

“Don’t say that to Fr!”, I cautioned.

But, apparently, he meant that dogs to me were like women to him. I laughed. His view of the world is a strange one.

But the ‘this is what a gay person is like’ thing was a recurring theme during the evening. I forget them all now but they’re not really important in themselves. He likes to have everything pigeonholed. Gays are different to him and, therefore, must be similar to women.

He needs to get out more.

I think he actually said it, more than once, ‘You are like a woman’. Yes, it does irk me a little but he’s A and, for all his faults, I know he has a heart of gold. It’s only his ignorance speaking.

And the fact that he is a stubborn bastard.

I did have a drink in Polpetta with him. Red wine. Pinot Nero. A had some fruit juice (orange, I think) with campari. I had to refrain from pointing out that if someone was looking at us, he would have been gayer than me with that drink.

And he ate. I wasn’t eating but he ate and ate and ate. I did wonder why he wasn’t the size of a house!

I had forgotten my wallet and so we came back to my flat (although I then forgot to give him any money anyway) and I opened a bottle of red wine. And this was when the thing about Mars bars came out. I told him I would blog it as it was, at the same time, outrageous and extremely funny.

And I forget why but we started talking about politics. This is not a good thing and I avoid it like the plague, here. After all, here, they are so right or left and so dogmatic that it is impossible to have any reasoned conversation.

“I’m not ashamed of Berlusconi”, he states. I find it impossible to keep the smile off my lips. He doesn’t like that but it’s either that or starting an argument which will have no end since his views are set and nothing will change it. I do say some things but not nearly enough. Anyway, it’s not my place to criticise his thinking, even if it is closed.

“He came from nothing and is a great entrepreneur”, he says, adding “the right have the right mind”. But, what was noticeable (at least when I thought about it this morning) was that the arguments (as usual when people talk politics) was not really a defence of Berlusconi nor his way of thinking (nor his Bunga Bunga parties) but instead an attack on the left and the magistrates.

“They are rich and live in nice houses (the left)”. I’m sorry but that’s not an argument to say that Buzz is great. Nor does it say that (the left) are not qualified to be speaking for the left.

“The magistrates are out to get him”. That doesn’t mean he has done nothing wrong. Nor does it mean that if he has done something wrong that he, just because he is Prime Minister, should not be held accountable in court. He’s not God however much he and his supporters think he may be.

In the end, I countered, weakly, with the fact that they (politicians) are only interested in what they can get for themselves, their friends and family and don’t care about the likes of us and that they were all corrupt.

“What we should do is exile them all and start again”, I concluded.

I was dissatisfied with my argument but I knew that I should not ‘get involved’ since, as I said before, this was not an argument where reason and logic would play any part. A lot like religion, really. After all, it’s a belief and beliefs have no sway with logic nor reason.

Still, we finished the bottle of wine. Which made me late. However, I think the ‘wine diet’ part is going rather well, don’t you?

However, given that Mars bars (and, in fact, sweet things in general) are, apparently only eaten by gay men and women, I need your help.

This is why I said I would blog about it.

Please let me know if you (being a straight man) or straight men you know (if you are a woman or gay) eat sweet things like Mars bars, chocolate or other such things. A seems to think the answer is no but, being a gay man, he refuses to believe me when I disagree as if, by being gay, it precludes me from knowledge about the world that is not gay or female.

I need to know. He will, in all probability, read this and your comments. Comment immediately ……….. please?

Weather, washing, whinging

Posted on by
3

“It was too hot”.

This was in reply to my “It was lovely weather but still too cold”.

Don’t ever think that as British, we hold the monopoly on complaining about the weather. We just have ‘more’ of it. Here, the weather is never right. It’s always too cold or too hot or too rainy or too much snow (well, this time last year, anyway). The only thing it rarely is (and so rarely complained about), is too windy.

I have a sneaking suspicion that every country is, more or less, the same.

When I replied that we still had to wear coats, the original quote was qualified with “Yes but it’s too hot for February”. There’s just no pleasing people.

And it was a rather splendid weekend (apart from the coats thing). The sun shone and it was almost too warm (outside my flat anyway) for a hat. Almost but not quite. If I was a truly British person I would, given the weather, have been out in shorts and a T-shirt!

_______________________________________________

It seems that my washing machine has all but had it. It doesn’t always spin. And, anyway, when it does spin it sounds like I also put a load of boulders in with the wash. It’s so loud that I am unable to hear anyone on the phone unless I move to the bedroom.

So I went to have a look for some over the weekend.

I was expecting to pay between €200 and €300 so I was a bit shocked when there really wasn’t anything below €400. Damn! But I AM NOT going back to hand washing and so, this week, I must just bite the bullet and get one. I don’t really want a crap one so you have to pay more than €400 but I could do without it right now. Damn again! And then, this year or next year I suppose, will be a fridge.

_______________________________________________

I feel better than I felt on Saturday.

Just thought you should know.

Perhaps I should apologise to A for being a miserable bastard when we went out on Friday night? We went to K2. I think I should revise my feelings about K2 as it really was quite good.

I am alive!

Posted on by
2

“Do you like it?”, he asked.

“It’s OK. It enables me to stay here”, I replied.

Thinking about it, it’s not really OK at all. But what can I do? He is determined ‘to be a writer’. But I remember, vaguely, some quote from an actor or writer that said, more or less, that they kept on saying that one day they would be a writer or actor until the time came to renew a passport and, since they didn’t have a ‘real’ job, they had to put writer or actor and then realised that there was no ‘big moment’ where they moved from being an aspiring whatever to the real thing.

So, he is, in fact, a writer. A writer of books. Well, one book with another, he hopes, soon. I hope so. I wish it could be the same for me but I am not that skilled in writing that I could ever be a real writer. I’m just a blogger which is not the same thing at all. Anyway, I couldn’t do what he has done/does and my goal is not that defined. I have no goal. ‘Just living’ is the goal. Oh, yes, and eating and drinking and spending time with friends and the dogs and stuff.

Hardly the stuff of dreams.

___________________________________________________________

F is funny. When he meets any one of my friends (or, even in this case, someone I really don’t know), he talks. It’s like he can’t have a silence.

Of course, once he had found something to talk about, he didn’t stop. In this case, once Karl (this is NOT anything to do with the ‘Karl spark’ – it’s his real name and I’ll link to his blogs in due course – since the ‘Karl’ in the ‘Karl spark was, in fact, a guy with a real name beginning with J) had explained his ‘great plan’ (which is not a great plan as such – just an idea that will change as the year progresses), which is to visit as many festivals as possible over the world, F started to come up with all the festivals that Karl absolutely MUST go to. They were all music festivals and included, of course, San Remo.

I’m not actually sure that, even if Karl intends to go to San Remo, it will be quite the same as the festival experience he’s looking for. After all, it’s a little commercial now. I recall the Upton Jazz Festival. The first year that it was staged, the jazz bands played in the many pub gardens that are a feature of Upton upon Severn. Everything was free. The feeling that one got was fantastic, wandering from pub to pub, having a beer, listening to some live band – really ‘chilled out’. The next year, the bands were behind screens and you had to pay and, immediately, it moved from being ‘a night out with friends (even if you didn’t know the people nor the musicians) to being a commercial event. Not the same at all. A little like the Hay Festival or (I imagine) the Edinburgh Festival. Far removed from the original thing.

I think San Remo would be more like going to a book festival. Of course, to F, it is a wonderful thing. We shall watch it again, certainly.

Still, Karl took notes, which was kind of him even if some of them were almost certainly going to be dropped from the list even as he wrote them down.

As I predicted, F didn’t come and stay with me. He is quite strange sometimes.

This morning, I got up just after the alarm. The sambuca, the night before, didn’t seem to have the usual effect, which was good. The lack of enough sleep makes me tired – but it’s not really different from normal.

He said he slept well. I forgot to ask if he had managed to connect to the internet OK after I went to bed. I forgot to tell him to take tram 23 to the middle of town. Mornings are not really my best time.

But, in case you were worried, I am, in fact, alive.

So he wasn’t a crazed axe murderer after all. Nice guy doing this round the world thing. I couldn’t do it – I like my comforts too much, I guess. Still it was interesting and I wished him good luck with it all.

Everyone should do something crazy once in a while, don’t you think?

Posted on by
4

You don’t really ‘live’ without experiences. I mean to say, that’s what life is all about. For those of you who have read my blog for long enough, you will know that it was one of the reasons for coming here. To put myself in a strange situation and to ‘see how it went’.

As I’ve mentioned before, all those people who, when we told them we were giving everything up and going to Milan because we quite liked it said things like ‘You are brave’ whilst privately thinking ‘You are crazy’. Some time after we had been here, I came to that conclusion too, in that it really was quite a crazy thing to do but I don’t regret it and I wouldn’t change anything (well, almost).

So, yesterday, when I read that some guy that I don’t know was going to be in Milan for a night and was probably going to have to sleep rough, I suggested that he could sleep on the sofa. It was a simple comment made without any real thought. After all, I’d probably never hear from him.

Until, of course, I did. I read the email. Last night he slept outside. He said that he was still trying to get the chill out of his bones. I can only imagine.

I read the email again. Of course, I could pretend that I hadn’t read the email. I could say that, after all, it wasn’t ‘convenient’ (he had given that option in his email). He offered me a pizza and a beer.

I hesitated. This won’t be ‘convenient’ – I mean, An maybe celebrating as she hopes to sign up for a flat, round the corner from me (she is returning to Milan to work – leaving her husband in London); A has already suggested that we might meet for a beer; and then there is F who, if there is someone else in the flat, probably won’t want to sleep there (because he can be quite strange, sometimes) – and then there would be how to explain this person. It’s not easy. It’s easy for me, of course, but for others, there is the fact that they probably wouldn’t do it and so I would be ‘crazy’.

I mean I don’t actually know him. I’ve read his stuff. He’s quite famous (been on TV and stuff) but only with a bag on his head. I’ve read about his latest ‘escapade’ and, to be honest, like me coming to Milan, he’s quite brave (or crazy). I think he’s dropped using the bag now :-)

But I’ve never met him, haven’t spoken to him and, but for his blog, wouldn’t even know anything about him – and, anyway, his first blog was, in reality, one great big lie to be precise – so who’s to say this latest one isn’t?

But I only hesitate for a few moments. After all, if you don’t actually do things then you can only regret not doing them in the future and you would never know if doing it would have been good or not. Whereas, if you do things then, at least, you have a 50/50 chance it will be good ……. or interesting ……….or exciting …… or amazing, perhaps?

And so I said ‘yes’. Why not? Perhaps he will kill me in my sleep? Perhaps he will be as boring as they come? Or stink? Or, perhaps, he will just be an interesting, nice guy with whom I hit it off?

Who knows but it seems it is set. I await his call.

Now, how do I explain this to F ………….?

The Return

Posted on by
4

“I want to sleep with you.”

His English is not perfect, I know. He doesn’t say “I miss you” or “I can’t wait to be back with you”. It’s what he means though. He doesn’t say “I love you” but uses other ways to say it.

It’s been 11 days. He misses me. He wants to come over and stay with me but he also has a lot to do. He has to do the washing and get it all dry before ‘the bitch’ comes in on Thursday. The bitch is his cleaner. It’s her nickname and he doesn’t really mean it. She will do the ironing on Thursday, if it is all dry.

He will be tired. Normally, in the past, he would not have come to my place. I like that he says he wants to come because I know that he means it and I am happy for that. But, now that Rufus is better, I may suggest that we go to him. We shall see.

In any event, I am, almost, excited. In just a few hours I will see him coming through the airport arrivals door ………..

Good? No, bad, bad, bad!

Posted on by
Reply

I put my hand up. I probably shouted ‘Me! Me! Me!’ It was my first (and only?) time at the ‘top table’. We had our lunch first, before others were served. The headmistress was an old dragon but I got my chance. I would get a second serving of the baked potato.

There was a problem, of course. I was 5 or 6. My stomach could not take 2 baked potatoes. And I struggled to eat it. In front of everyone I was told that as I had asked for it, I must eat it. I was in tears trying to stuff potato into a mouth that certainly did not want it.

It was a lesson, for certain. To me it seemed cruel. I don’t think I ever sat on the top table again. I’m pretty sure I never asked for seconds again.

But, nearly 50 years later I had forgotten that lesson and that incident …………. until yesterday.

In the canteen, at work, there were chicken slices in a tarragon cream sauce. In addition, left over from yesterday (because less people had come into the canteen than was planned for), were some meatballs in a tomato sauce. The meatballs had been rather nice. I asked Gina for a meatball too.

“Can you eat two?”, she asked.

“Yes, sure”, I replied and then, as I was taking my tray to the table, I remembered the first incident like this. And, as I ate the first and then second meatball, I remembered the whole horror of it. But now I am older and I had to finish it as Gina was also clearing the plates so would know it was me. It was delicious but I simply must be more careful in future :-)

Actually, thinking about that school, where I was for a couple of years only, I can remember nothing good. Only two bad things. The lunch I’ve just mentioned. Then there was the time when the whole school (it was only small) was playing rounders one afternoon. We were in two teams and our team was batting. I got a little caught up in the whole match. One of our girls (much older than me) hit a ball and started to make a run for it. Meanwhile, the fielders were trying to get the ball back to get her out. It got very exciting, everyone was shouting and cheering and encouraging their side and then, as our girl was almost at the last post, the fielders managed to stump the post and she was out.

I had obviously completely forgotten that I was on the batting side and was cheering along with our opposition. I don’t remember anything that was said but I do remember the stern look from the headmistress and I know that I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. It seemed that everyone had stopped cheering and I was left as the last person still cheering.

Actually, I can remember almost nothing good about any of my schooldays. I hated school – not for the lessons but for all the other bad shit that happened. Whoever said that your schooldays were the best days of your life was either completely off their head or didn’t go to any of my schools!

Well, they’re fashion people of some sort, I suppose (but how would I know?)

Posted on by
4

Well, I guess that I should be telling you about meeting some of the good and the great of the fashion industry.

Except that, apart from them all appearing to be very rich, I haven’t the faintest clue who they were. There were some fat men. There were some, ahem, ladies past their prime. There was a hat designer who came late, sporting a hat that (for those of you from the UK) would be best suited on some working class, washerwoman – a lot in the style of the wife of Andy Capp or, even, not unlike the way that Hilda Ogden used to be dressed on Coronation Street (but without the rollers in her hair).

Some woman, of a certain age (which was, actually, very uncertain – but O L D nonetheless), with a bright orange bouffant but very thinning hair-do and a very pale complexion caused either by her being very ill or by her applying a whitening mask to hide the liver spots, which, by the way, was unsuccessful, thought that the hat was wonderful. She is like Anna Wintour, apparently. Everyone had to agree with her even if they, secretly hated it (and, certainly, the few people around me DID hate it).

Some woman next to me kept jabbering at me in Italian. I understood some of it. We had a conversation …… of sorts. F says sorry to me for having to be somewhere where everyone is speaking Italian. I tell him not to worry and that, if it becomes a problem, I will tell him.

I was there, after all, not for my pleasure, exactly but to be introduced (or should it be ‘shown off’) to some friends of his.

“It will be very fashion”, he tells be beforehand. Everyone will be from the fashion world. Although, as it turned out, there was also C, Fi’s husband and he’s NOT fashion but a chef. These were the people with whom we were supposed to spend Christmas and New Year. Apparently, they had organised a special party for New Year, in F’s honour. He is their ‘jewel’, so I was told.

I am to like P, even if I don’t like her. She is part owner of a rather large business in Italy. She has a house in Venice. And a ‘Guest House’ nearby. This Guest House is lavish and huge, apparently. F wants to take me there. P says that she doesn’t like Venice apart from going there a couple of days every so often. I don’t say it but for me it is the most romantic city in the world. It beats Paris, hands down.

We are at a ‘chic’ restaurant. Ristorante da Gaspare. I won’t link to it as it would be unfair. I am led to believe it is expensive. We had some antipasto of shrimps and clams. Some pizze and foccia. And then the biggest branzino I’ve ever seen was wheeled to our table – then taken away to be served up in smaller dishes so that we could help ourselves.

I don’t know how much was paid but I think it was a lot. The branzino was wonderful – but I didn’t get much. Nor did most other people (except the fat bloke almost opposite me – which explains his fatness, I would think). A couple of people had sweets. I tried one. It wasn’t up to much. The rest of it I could take or leave, really.

The atmosphere was great – for the people we were with. The place itself lacked atmosphere being bright and more like a canteen. I’m sure the fish was very fresh but it wasn’t really anything special.

Fi and C were lovely. They bought presents – for us for Christmas – some stone dogs which, apparently, in Austria (or in one town/village in Austria anyway) people put outside their houses to warn people that they have a dog. It was sweet of them. There was one for me and one for F. F pointed out that, if we put them outside our front door they would be nicked. Fi hadn’t thought of that. There was also a special cake for F’s birthday. Bless them. They think the world of him, I can tell. I think I passed the test :-) I think they liked me.

They were all nice people, really. Even the small fat guy who, if I hadn’t been told he was married – with a grown-up son – I would have placed as being the most gay of all gay people at that table (there was only F and I). He wore, round his neck, a black scarf – no, more like a shawl – with beads round the edge. It was more feminine than all of the ladies at the table! His wife was lovely.

F told me that the lady wearing the Missoni dress was a journalist. Married to the old guy with the pin stripe at the other end of the table. I’m guessing he was ‘something’ in fashion. I was more amazed that it was a Missoni dress. It looked much like something you could pick up in a junk shop – something from the 70s. I didn’t say anything. F surprises me sometimes and he obviously has a great deal of knowledge about his industry – but doesn’t say anything to me, much.

Before the event, though, he did say that, as it was very ‘fashion’ I should dress accordingly. I dressed in my normal ‘smart’ way – as I would for any night out with friends, or, even him! I don’t know whether that was right or not. He doesn’t ever tell me and I don’t want to ask.

We are, apparently, to meet up for an evening out with P. She seems nice although with her head somewhere else half the time. Still, I don’t dislike her and she is a good friend of F’s – or maybe Fi’s – I’m not really sure.

Fi didn’t really stop talking. She is almost as bad as F’s sister! We are to go there in May or something, when the weather is better. And, probably, after Rufus has left us.

This morning I took F to the airport. He is away for 11 days. I can’t wait for him to be back ……. already!!!

p.s. below is a clip where Jennifer Saunders is wearing almost the same hat as I mentioned above – except hers is a dark colour and this one, the other night was bright pink! Enjoy the clip anyway, it is very funny.

French and Saunders version of The Exorcist!

Euronics – yes! Darty – never, never, never again!

Posted on by
3

I never did like Darty. Or Marcucci or whatever they were called before.

We bought our television from them when we first came here. It was the first ‘electrical’ shop we saw. They were, to be honest, quite unhelpful. As were their fitters. When part of the ‘system’ broke down I went back to the shop to try and find a fix. The staff were unhelpful, to say the least.

Then Darty took them over. I went back there, hoping that a change of ownership would improve the staff. It didn’t. I suppose it would have been like Fortnum and Masons taking over Woolworths – nothing could have been done about the uselessness of the staff. And so, nearly always, I go to Euronics and, over the last few years they have had quite a bit of business from me.

Not only are the staff at Darty unhelpful but they are also very rude …….. to me. I am mindful that it might just be me, though. Several people have mentioned going to Darty. I always try to avoid it. F suggested we look for irons at a Darty store at San Babila (as we went that way anyway). It wasn’t difficult. I wanted a fairly cheap iron and I wanted a Phillips since the last one had lasted so long.

I’m not really what you would call a ‘shopper’. I go in, see something I want and buy it. Unless I need a specific thing and am unsure, I don’t ask. I didn’t even know that this Darty store existed in San Babila! It’s not a real surprise for they have taken one of the entrances to the Metro and you enter into the shop that way.

Ah well, this is San Babila. Perhaps this will be different?

We go in. We find the area for irons. We see the Phillips brands on display. There isn’t much of a sale going on but there is one which has about 10 Euro off. I want that one. We check the boxes below and find the right model. OK, good. I find some new arial cable as well. We go to pay.

I pay but I think to myself that it is slightly more than I thought it would be. I check the receipt. The price is the original price and not the sale price. I call to the lady. She continues to walk away and ignore me. A man near her looks up. He looks like the store manager. He deigns to come over to help me. I explain that the price of the iron is wrong as it is shown at a reduced price on the shelf.

We go over together (including F, of course). As we start down the aisle, he asks a girl who works there about it. She also continues walking away from him, shouting over her shoulder that it was only the green one that was reduced. It was reduced because there is no box. I shrug and say OK, I’ll take the green one.

The girl switches direction and goes to get the green one from the display. As we walk to the cash desk, F gets involved.

I don’t understand all he has to say. There’s something about the ‘customer is right’ and that something is ‘not good education’ (our equivalent would be ‘not good manners’). This comes from both F and the ‘manager’ – to each other. There is some talk about giving us our money back. The argument is fairly short (a couple of minutes) and quite heated. The manager goes to a till and gives me money.

F is incensed. He explains all to me. Apparently he was not happy about me having the iron without the box and the instructions. He didn’t feel that it was right that is came without a box. The staff (including the manager) couldn’t have cared less what he thought. So he got me my money back.

He says he is pleased that he’s found out that they are not good. He will never shop there again. I explained that I knew this and never used them. He asked me why I hadn’t said anything and I explained that I thought it could just be me, being a foreigner and all. I was actually quite pleased that, with not a hint from me, he had ‘found out’ that they are crap.

And so we go to Euronics. This is out of our way. We ask someone about the cable as we cannot see it on the racks. The guy says that they have run out of the cable we want but there is a shop down the road that will, probably, have some. We find the iron section. I pay a few Euro more than the full price at Darty for the same iron. But I am happy with that as I feel Euronics, where the staff are always so helpful and the service is very good, deserve to have the money that Darty have lost.

I am now doubly sure that I won’t use Darty again, in future. F certainly won’t. All for the casual, unhelpful rude and indifferent attitude of the staff. So, don’t go to Darty, people. Go to Euronics instead :-)

F’s Birthday and stuff

Posted on by
6

Well, further to my post below, Rufus seems much better. Ain’t it always the way? But I know better than to assume that he will remain this way for long.

Last night we went to Giacomo – it was F’s birthday. I had raw scampi to start (and some of F’s raw tuna) and branzino (sea bass) with artichokes as a main. F had the mixed raw fish to start and then a cooked tuna steak (he loves tuna and has it whenever he can). A nice bottle of wine, some mirto and then home.

This being a restaurant that is, as F would say, very fashion, there are the great and the good of Milan and many of the rich tourists or others who are here for business. In this case, there was a model who, apparently, used to work for Helmut Lang. However, I didn’t even recognise the name. Apparently, Giacomo has opened a new restaurant near Piazza Duomo, with views over the city. We are to go there for my birthday, I am advised :-).

Yesterday, I went to see FfC and go out for lunch. She is getting ready to return to work next week after months off whilst she had a baby. The baby is about 7 months old now. He is big. She suggested he looks like his father and asked me what I thought. As I’ve said before, babies, to me, just look like babies and not like either of the parents or anyone else for that matter. So that’s what I said.

Then, later, after we had been out for lunch, she was sitting on one of the sofas opposite me and the baby waved at me. Apparently they’ve been trying to get him to wave for a while so she was delighted that he had, finally, done it. She was going to phone R, the father, as soon as I had gone, to tell him.

She told me, during lunch, that she had, really, given up on the idea that she would become a mother and that was when she found herself pregnant. Maybe there’s a thing about trying too hard. We also spoke about FfI. FfI went back to her home country for Christmas and New Year. She planned to spend Christmas with her family and then New Year with her daughter who is in another part of the country. Her common line is ‘I hate Milan’, quickly followed by ‘I want to go back to my country’. I always thought – well, go then!

I email her to wish her a happy New Year. She emails me back to tell me that she cried every day (and that everyone except her one brother, she had fights with), she spent New Year’s Eve in a motel room all alone and that she was cold and miserable and couldn’t wait to get back to Milan. She also promised that she would never say that she hated Milan again. We shall see. To be honest, I feel sorry for her. What a dreadful way to spend Christmas and New Year! But FfC and I were talking (and we have much the same views on most things) and agreed that it’s really important to be ‘happy’ with what you have and where you are.

Milan may not be the most beautiful city in the world, nor with the best climate but it has charm and a character of it’s own. Without coming to Milan there are so many experiences that I simply would not have experienced, both good and bad, things that I would not have enjoyed and have made my life richer and more fulfilled as a result. Of course, the main thing is that I would not have met F and, for that, I would never want to change the past because it is the past that has led me here and to this point.

We also spoke (FfC and I) about V. She was quite disappointed when he didn’t turn up one evening because he was shopping for a new outfit for Christmas, after she had prepared food and everything – and he didn’t even text or phone but relied on FfI to tell her. It made me so grateful that I am no longer responsible, in any way, for him. I explained to her that my thinking on the reasons why he had, effectively, cut me off from his life was that (and I learned this from FfI) he had been telling the new boyfriend that ‘the breakup had left him with so much debt’. She was as incredulous as I had been. But it is his way and if I were too close, there would be questions from other people which would lead me to tell the truth and the truth would not be what he wanted others to hear. Ah well. At least, now, I can understand the reason even if it’s a poor one. I remember telling him, when there was the previous boyfriend – ‘don’t lie about stuff’. For lying always, at some point, bites you in the ass further down the line. But, with him, he always seems to get away with it. He is, as FfC says – always being ‘fabulous’. Fabulousness is all about show and does not necessarily have any substance. And it’s so true of him. I just hope that the fabulousness doesn’t wear off any time.