The entry on this blog for 4th November has GOT to be the funniest I have read. In particular the conversation with the drunken customer about the pizzas (or, more correctly, pizze) and, more specifically, this bit:
There are moments when I am happy to be alive and, particularly, happy to be here, in Italy and, for that matter, in Milan.
Mantova, Festivaletteratura.- The last Sunday.
Peter Florence (Hay Festival) was there and we spent some pleasant hours with him on Friday and Saturday. He was doing a couple of the events, interviewing some people. But, from the moment that I looked at the site, Christopher Hitchens was the one event that I was not going to miss. It was just after lunch on the final day. Peter was going to be interviewing him (rather him than me). We hadn’t seen Peter since late on Saturday night (after my experience of playing chess with Boris). We got up late, wandered around town for a bit and, as we were travelling back to Milan later, decided that a proper lunch would be a good thing. We went to Griffone Bianco, our favourite restaurant in Mantova
Obviously it was busy – very busy. However, this year, M had bought us (with L from Hay and Juan Hose from Spain) a meal there on the Thursday night and when she was paying I went up to remonstrate with her about her paying the bill and was introduced to the guy behind the desk, who runs the place, and she was telling me they were great friends.
Well, summer has truly started. Not only is it hot, and I mean hot all the time, even during the night, but the mozzies are well and truly back – big time.
In the UK, if someone suggests a trip out, where you were going to travel for two hours to get there and two to get back, you would tend to make a day of it. So, for instance, when we lived in Herefordshire and you decided to go to, let’s say Aberystwyth, you would set of at, say, 10 a.m., reach Aberystwyth, have lunch, enjoy the afternoon having a walk around and set off home at 6 or 7 p.m.
So, it’s Bank Holiday in the UK with cold, wet weather – there’s a surprise! If it’s any consolation to you, we too have colder and very, very wet weather as I write this. The difference is that it is not a Bank Holiday weekend so I am at work.
N was telling me last night about her successful cockroach killing secret weapon. It seems that they have had a couple of them in her flat and it’s not just her apartment, but the whole building. The landlady gave her some bait to put down, which she duly did and then she saw the cockroach come along, dance for a while around the bait and then scamper off!
Yesterday, as I was posting the post below and changing a few things (because WordPress does funny things to the post sometimes – I think it’s the font that causes the problem), I checked my visitors and found someone else reading my blog at the same time! This is quite freaky. Those of you who have blogs that actually have visitors all the time may not appreciate how exciting this can be. I mean, we’re on the site exactly at the same time!
Finally, as the temperature had reached a whopping 32 degrees C, the air conditioning has been switched on! Hurrah!
