When you’re a kid you’re always told not to wish your life away.
I thought this would have stopped by now.
It seems not.
The seconds drag like minutes and the minutes like hours. It’s like you’re stretching your fingers out as far as you can and only another inch would be enough.
F is at home and is ready. He waits only for me. Me and then me and the dogs. I wish I was, at least, on my way. It’s the sitting around thing that gets to me.
Ah well, there’s another minute closer ………..
Well, I suppose I should mention it, shouldn’t I?
The end of the world. The end of the News of the World, that is. A lot of people are gloating about it. 250 people, who are about to lose their jobs aren’t really gloating though.
Of course, there are now the calls that ‘It’s a different paper now’. Ah yes, that old chestnut – it was terrible before but now we’re really good. The soon-to-be ex journalists of the NOTW are saying that it’s not fair. But, then, they’ve hardly been very fair on the people they’ve been hounding all these years; the people who have had their phone messages read; their emails read, etc. Of course, they had to ‘earn a living’, didn’t they? Ah well, what goes around comes around as the old saying goes.
Of course, for the readership of the NOTW, they need to find another Sunday paper that can give them all the tittle-tattle and gossip. It’s like a drug, I guess. However, they may be OK with the Sun on Sunday – supposedly due out soon. In any event, there’ll be some some rag to fill the space.
The MPs, who could have taken some action years ago (or at any time up till recently); the police – these people should also be losing their jobs but I guess that won’t be happening any time soon.
Which newspaper will be next, I wonder?
Superstitions are strange things, really, aren’t they?
Take the one of spilled salt. I think (but I’m not really well up on these things), in the UK, if you spill some salt, you’re supposed to pick up some of the spilled salt with your right hand and throw it over your left shoulder. Or the other way round. They have a similar thing here, in Italy.
Then there’s the black cat. In the UK, if a black cat crosses your path, it’s considered lucky. Here, it’s unlucky. Does anyone know why (either is though)?
And then there’s the new car. I’m not sure it’s an Italian thing. It might just be a superstition within my company.
Anyway, to avoid having an accident in your new car, don’t worry about your driving. Instead you should bring in cakes and drink to share with your colleagues. This, apparently, will ensure that you don’t have accidents.
Who knew? I always thought it was careful driving and a bit of luck (that there aren’t any crazy drivers on the road – which is quite difficult to ensure here) that meant you didn’t have an accident. Stupid me.
One of the girls, N, who was with us had said, apparently, that she didn’t know who he was.
She meant, of course, she didn’t know his songs. But everyone knows a few of his songs, even if you don’t think you do.
And, so as this 83-year-old man shuffled on stage last night at the Milano Jazzin’ Festival, although I knew that I knew many of his songs I was blown away by both him, his playing, his songs (I knew all except a couple of them) and the atmosphere which was much like a party.
It was fun.
It’s difficult to pick just one song since there are so many of them. As it is, I shall pick two.
The first, although first sung by Dionne Warwick, was a hit in the UK by Cilla Black and so Cilla and this song always go together for me:
The second is a song that I don’t know that well but it’s sung by Elvis Costello – God Give Me Strength (although, obviously, not last night):
Burt sung some of the songs and he can be forgiven for not having the perfectly strong voice of a young man.
His contribution to the world of music is immeasurable and I am so happy that I’ve been to see him since you don’t know if he’ll ever be back in Milan. Although, if he is, I really want to be there 
I have to make an apology. To all ladies/women/girls who may read this. It’s an apology in advance. In advance of me writing the thing for which I am apologising.
So, I’m sorry.
It’s just that, this week, it’s been terrible. Well, not all of it. But it’s like I’m going through my period. Even if, quite obviously, I don’t have them. OK, so I’m not getting the stomach cramps (ache, as it used to be before it became a new thing to differentiate it from the less serious and rather ordinary ‘ache’) but I am so irritable and irrational.
But, only at work.
I’m fine when I’m out of work. Or, rather, I’m fine when F is there, with me.
And now I know why this is. And I tried to explain it last night when we went out with An, his friend who used to live in London. We were talking about past relationships and I learnt a little more about the breakup between him and S. He was saying that he has remained friends with all his ex-boyfriends. I wish I could say the same. And then we were talking about friends, in general.
And I tried to explain that it was him that was the key to this on-going friendship he has with so many people. He was saying that it takes two – which it does but, a little like the guy C, who is my ‘official’ boss at work, sometimes, you’ve got to look at the common factor.
In his case, he is a useless, self-important, misogynist, bigotted, racist, pig of a man. Nobody likes him and he has many arguments with almost everyone. And, if arguments keep happening and there is one person who is almost invariably part of the argument, then you’ve got to say that this one person may be the reason that the arguments take place.
Unfortunately, even with me on Monday. Which annoys me in itself but he just makes my blood boil. As, it seems, he also does to others.
Whereas F has an opposite effect on people.
And he is the common factor in all of this – in all his friendships with ex-boyfriends. So it’s him that is the key – not the others.
And, so, maybe that’s why, when he’s around, I feel a different person.
So I feel like I’m having my period – which is good because it means I can’t get pregnant. See, there’s a bright side to everything
p.s. I also did the booking of restaurants yesterday so that’s another thing off my mind.
Ruth wrote about it back in January of this year but I’d never seen it before.
However, as I now ‘weekend’ nearby (how jealous are you, Ruth?), it seems only logical.
Friday night we were late getting down. Too late to go and eat with F’s parents and, so, F, having not eaten much lunch, suggest we drop the dogs off at the house and go for a pizza.
Seemed a good idea to me. I don’t know any restaurants in the town and so learning of which ones to go to is important (for me).
We went to Bati Bati right in the centre of town. It looked nice. Rustically rough but clean looking. We went into the back part of the restaurant. Everything was white except the floor. Unusually for the town, not everywhere was marble!
I then saw – pizza with lardo di Colonnata, aubergine (egg plant to you Americans) and asparagus.
Now, I do really like lardo and lardo di Colonnata is produced in a town (maybe village) nearby and is reputedly the best. They serve it thinly sliced – but I mean really, really thin – almost see-through. The combination of the lardo, the aubergine and the asparagus was divine and, surprisingly, very light! I loved it.
F has now promised to take me up to Colonnata where we can get some of the real thing. I resisted suggesting that we should do that first thing in the morning.
The only problem will be to slice it thinly enough.
But there is a bakery that bakes bread in a wood oven (so the sign says) near to the house and the idea of a thin slice of lardo di Colonnata on a piece of warm bread is making my mouth water already!
I guess I have reached the ‘I am an old codger’ stage of my life.
It’s not really my age, as such, it’s my attitude.
Saturday night was the ‘Notte Bianca’. This is an Italian thing. Once a year, roads are closed to traffic and the shops and bars stay open until late. By late, I mean 2 or 3 or later.
There are often ‘discos in the street’, stalls and street traders selling tourist-type crap. There are food and drink stalls. And people wander about.
I suppose the reason it can be done here is the weather. It’s warm and it lends itself to staying up till the early hours of the morning.
F apologised a number of times and checked I wasn’t bored. St, an old friend of his, has been having problems with her 30+-year-old marriage. Or rather her husband has been having problems, if you see what I mean. She has lived in the town all her life and feels she cannot confide in anyone who lives there – so F was an obvious choice. It seems a lot of people are having problems right now.
Anyway, obviously they were talking in Italian. I suppose I could have tried to follow the conversation but it seemed rude to do so, me not being an old friend. So, I didn’t.
We went to a bar and found a seat (which was lucky). And they talked whilst I looked around. And I catch myself wondering why the young people (especially the girls) think that wearing a pair of shorts or skirt that barely covers your bum when you have tree trunks for legs, think that it can possibly be attractive?
I suppose it is the same as when I was a teenager and I suppose the older generation thought much the same about us as I think about the youngsters of today.
But, that’s not entirely fair. There are women of F’s age wearing the same sort of thing although it’s noticeable that the women of that age generally wear something that suits their figure. Not always, of course, but mostly.
We left about midnight as F didn’t like a friend of R (his best friend who had joined us with his entourage later) who announced to everyone, and in front of her 10-year-old daughter, how she really needed a fuck tonight. I only learnt later that was why we had left as I hadn’t understood.
Possibly it’s as well that I don’t understand sometimes but F and I do agree on stuff like that. As we used to say in the UK – it’s not big and it’s not clever.
However, I did enjoy the evening. Watching the people. And St seems very nice. Bless her, she’s still in love with her husband after almost 40 years of knowing him. Shame he’s such a barsteward really.
As one parent quite rightly said on Twitter, apparently:
‘she should have been safe at school, she was just sat on a bench talking with friends….it could have been my daughter.’
After all, on school days, the parents have no responsibility for their children.
And, in addition, there is no such thing any more as ‘an accident’ but, rather, there is always some person to blame.
I suppose that if it had been a Saturday or a Sunday the headline could have read something like:
Park keepers guilty of manslaughter
or
Council killing children!
The actual headline of this article didn’t really say that teachers had murdered the girl but only implied it.
Girl, 13, crushed to death by a branch as she sat on a park bench after teachers went out on strike
But, then, this is the Daily Hate Mail so, I suppose, what can you expect!
Well, my blog does seem to be ‘up’ more often than it’s ‘down’ which is a great improvement, I’m sure you’ll agree.
However, slightly worrying is that the hosting company’s forum/website has been down since yesterday afternoon! Generally, this is NOT a good sign. So, I am backing-up at least once per day in the hope that, if I DO have to move it all again, I won’t be caught with my pants down.
We shall see. But, just in case it completely disappears for a day or two, you will, at least, know why.
In the meantime, the weather is wonderful. T-shirts and sandals all the time – even walking the dogs at half past midnight!
Most people, of course, complain it’s too hot and it’s so difficult to explain that, in the past, with my feet that feel the slightest cold (and always have although I’m certain the smoking doesn’t help it), being able to walk in sandals at gone midnight is truly fantastic …… for me.
The dogs are finding it a bit warm, however. Still, it breaks tonight/tomorrow, getting back to a manageable 25° or so (that’s degrees C for my American visitors).
Have a nice weekend, everyone.
It is, truly, incomprehensible.
On some things – I procrastinate – for no reason. Or, no ‘apparent’ reason.
On the other hand, some things that I could leave for a day or more, I do immediately.
So, all my editing work is done. Completed. Sent back to the authors.
Lessons are prepared.
Booking of a couple of restaurants – not done. The alarm goes off on my mobile phone calendar. I reset the alarm ‘for later’. Even as I do it, I wonder why. The call will take about 2 minutes. And, yet, I put it off again. I really don’t know why.
Well, writing this post has made me get the telephone numbers, at least. I suppose that’s something. It’s like ‘I’m getting there’ but oh, sooooo slowly.
The first is in a couple of weeks. Someone who had been my best friend for quite a number of years, is coming to Milan. With his wife. It could be nice or ‘strained’. I don’t know. I’m not even sure if I want F to be with us or not. In some way I do but in another way, I’m really not that bothered in ‘showing him off’.
It reminds me of a time, many, many years ago. A really good friend and I were always competing with each other. You know the sort of thing. “We’ve just moved to a new house”; “I’ve just got a new car”; “I’ve just been promoted”.
Except, for some strange reason I decided to ‘opt out’ of this competing game. I decided not to tell him that I had got a new car. When he and his wife arrived to stay for a weekend soon after, they saw the new car in the driveway. I got some sort of sadistic satisfaction from seeing his jaw drop. In a way, I was still competing. Just in a different way. As if, by NOT bragging about it, I was actually bragging more! If you see what I mean.
And so it is with this ex-best friend. If F doesn’t want to go, of course, then I’m certainly not going to push. I don’t know how awkward it will be. And, as he’s not English, it will be all the more difficult to follow, for him.
The next is a booking I must make for D&S. They are coming over for their first wedding anniversary. I have a restaurant I want to book for them which is ‘magic’ in terms of place and food (if not service). I think it is perfect for their first anniversary. We shan’t be with them that day as they want to spend it together – which is how it should be, of course. But I do want their evening meal to be a bit special.
And, yet, I still haven’t booked these restaurants. And I can’t possibly tell you why.
It’s completely inexplicable.