Month: December 2006

NYE

Today is Lola’s half-year birthday. She’s dressed in her fancy clothes and playing on the kitchen floor. Mum is getting a bit of extra kip in bed, having been on call, as ever, all night. Nonna has been up a while, preparing the ministron’ and the conicio (coniglio) for today’s lunch. Today, as you may have inferred from the date, is New Year’s Eve. Later, the family will be meeting at Bruna’s for the family do — we’ve excused ourselves on the grounds that we can’t leave Lola. True enough, but we also quite fancy a quiet time. Bruna’s a bit upset that we can’t make it.

mulberry

IMG_3858 Today is much colder. There is a very deep frost this morning, all the trees are white, including the mulberry tree which stands in the middle of the drive outside the house. Naturally, one of the first things we did this morning was to put Lola’s big ski body suit on and go out and dance round it singing.

“Here we go round the mulberry bush”

True, it’s not quite a bush, but you can understand why we can’t resist it. All my inlaws think we’re mad taking Lola out when it’s so cold; even though we do wrap her up in her (ex of Marco) big puffer-suit and put a wooly hat on and a scarf round her nose. Then again, they think we’re pretty mad for going out in it ourselves. Or for walking round the house without slippers on, or sitting on the floor. Bunch of wimps, these Italians 😉

IMG_3906 Lola’s now sitting in her high chair having her “papa”; today we’re trying millet, after having fed her rice for the last ten days (this is a ground meal that you mix with expressed milk). She noticed the difference — you could tell from her look after the first spoonful — but she loves it and is eating it just as enthusiastically, if not more so, than the rice. I much prefer the millet; I’ve never liked the smell of ground rice. It makes me think of school dinners.IMG_3905

In a bit we’re off to Sme. We went there yesterday — got there, went to the bar and ordered coffee and tramezzini (which, it suddenly occurred to me means “between little halves”). At which point came the announcement that the shop was closing in ten minutes. We finished our snack and came home.

* * * [time passes] * * *

Well, we got to Sme in time for an hour and a half’s shopping today, which was just about enough to get around the place.

We’ve been here over a week, now, having arrived last Sunday in time for lunch. It felt more like “in time for bed” though, as we’d been up since 4am, having not gone to bed until 1am and our sleep anyway interrupted a little by Lola.