Author: alex

Sorry, girls, for the gap in your life story. It’s been going well — just that I’ve not had the time to stop and write it down. Very busy with work; transformation at BMJ. I’ve been promoted: now Head of Operations. Trying to hire people and juggling a million projects. Then there’s been lots of DIY: the TV cupboard, Neve’s bed, various other jobs.

Lola was eight last month. A lovely, caring girl who has really blossomed this year, developing confidence with her music and her body and with performing. Mrs Hubbard was a great teacher at the right time; Lola attended her dance classes, enjoyed singing with the choir, and came on strongly with the piano. She’s become a voracious reader, centred around the Harry Potter series, which she’s read four times through this year. It really shows in her vocabulary, which is very rich.

Neve is five and phenomenal. Cheerful and energetic, very funny; an incessant talker, narrator of her life and the imaginary lives she weaves around toys and props. Tells us she loves us all the time, is forever coming for cuddles. I suppose this is the last year of her infancy and we will lose that wonderful whatever-it-is that defines those early years. She’s very smart; starting in year one in September and already reads quite well and writes a little. She is a natural artist with a great eye for colour; she’ll plan and carry out all sorts of arts and crafts projects: painting pictures, making collages, sticking things together, making models. She does have her difficult moments, particularly if she’s hungry, tired, or under the weather.

Lola and she are great together; prone to some fairly clichéd sibling rivalry in which I recognise some of the dynamic that existed between me and Tom. At the moment they are both mad on the songs from Frozen. Neve in particular needs only a casual “The cold never bothered me, anyway…” from me and she’s off on an extended performance of “Let It Go” complete with arm flinging and great dramatic expression. It’s hilarious.

We’ve spent a week in the Peak District which was lovely but slightly dampened by fevery nastiness for me and Neve, pokey accommodation on a smelly farm, and, well, dampness. We’ve had lodgers: Anton and, currently, Valeria. Isa has been helping out with Mrs Smith’s art class at St Philips, and has just accepted a job as part-time TA there, starting in September. We took Lola to Whipsnade for her birthday treat; it hasn’t really changed in the thirty-odd years since I’ve been there. We’re off to Somerset for a week soon, with a stop in Devon to meet Amy (and family) who is over from Australia. Isa’s not seen her for ten years.

This was a great route – immediate left into Calle de la Misericordia as you head away from the station and immediately you’re into calm, local streets. We stopped straight away at a little bar on this Calle and had a quick coffee: friendly, local (ie, minimally touristy: almost nowhere makes no concession to the insane amount of tourist traffic and, if you’re running a business, you’d be a bit mad not to. In this case, it had a list of its top ten wines with witty descriptions of each in English).

Quickly on from there and into a lovely little park with high beech trees and a great playground which the kids loved. There was technical institute at one end of park and the sounds from the classrooms drifted through the open windows and into the playground. A pair of municipal workers chatted by their handcarts while mothers pushed their children on the swings. Yes, it was pretty idyllic.

We carried on, passing through the Jewish Quarter, stocked with kosher bars, the synagogue, and where the usual glassware and artisan craft shops took on a Judaic spin. Then onto the Rio Della Misericordia where Isa found a workshop where a man was busy making mosaic pieces. We stopped and chatted with Mino, who had been making pieces for the newly-completed council building in Murano. He gave our girls a piece of mosaic tile each.

A little further on, Isa found a leather shop and spent a long time talking to the man there, eventually moving towards getting him to make some leather cushion covers for our sofa. She left with his phone number.

We stopped here for lunch; originally, we wanted the Paradiso Perduto, which was an authentic fish-oriented Venetiian restaurant on the fondamnta, but it was too early and they weren’t ready to serve. We ended up a few doors down at a less authentic place where the waiter was really lovely but food was pretty dire. At least he gave us a free pudding when Isa told him the omlette was overcooked and greasy. A glass of prosecco each and a half bottle of Valpolicella helped, too. And Lola enjoyed her penne arrabiata, though she said it wasn’t spicy enough, and appealed to the waiter for more chili.

It was then we created the Chili Club. The first rule of Chili Club, I (predictably) said, was that you must not talk about Chili Club. At which Neve pointed out that stating the rule caused the rule itself to be broken. Smartypants.

Then up to fondomanta nove, past the hospital, with its line of water-ambulances outside and the cemetery, somewhat aptly, on the island opposite. Coming off the fondamenta and heading towards Arsenale, I lost GPS and had to resort to old-fashioned methods of navigation. The locals helped us towards the Fondamenta Arsenale and we found a fabulous little bar/restaurant where we went due to the girls’ need for a pee and ended up staying for an hour drinking spritz and eating yummy fishy snacks and getting my phone charged. We took a business card, so we could come back for a proper meal some day.

The last leg of our trip took us down past the Arsenale [shurely, “Up The Arsenal!”, Ed] and onwards to the Giardini della Biennale. We (parents) were flagging a little by now. We let the kids play for 10 mins in the playground there and then headed for the tragetto and chugged back to the Stazione. Somehow, once there, we got slightly diverted (needed another loo stop) and ended up spending half an hour or more buying pastries for Nonna and gifts for the girls’ friends.

Then the train back, complete with fun with the inspector as he plugged my bought-online ticket codes into his mobile gizmo to verify them.

tl;dr: What an amazing city. I still want to spend a year here, writing my novel*.

* please send any financial contributions to this project to, er, me.

Lola says that, when she grows up, she’s going to move to Italy. She really loves it here; spending all her time outside with the dog, Stella; disappearing off into the distance to dip sticks in the canals and collect hazelnuts and feathers. She’s getting pretty nifty on the bike, too, and has done a ten-mile trip with us so far.
Her Italian is really coming on, too — she’s really trying to speak to everyone, and doing lots of translation for Neve.
She had an entire conversation (about the choice of fruit juices) in Venice with the waitress there.

It is. And so are the girls. Lola and Neve have spent the last two weeks counting down the days to the Easter holidays and, more importantly, our trip to Ponzano Veneto. They are so utterly happy to be here–and who can blame them.
Today is Dedi’s birthday and we’re busy preparing a little afternoon party: fruit kebabs, crispy, olivey snacks, and a huge tiramisu we made last night. It’s a lovely warm sunny day, so we’ll have it outside in the garden.

The girls are even more happy as this gives them an excuse to put their party dresses on.

Dedi has had a hard time recently with three months of extreme discomfort and pain due to two herniated lumbar discs and simultaneous DVTs. She had to be operated on, which was not straightforward as she was on anticoagulants…
It’s great to see her up and about.

Quite pleased with my bookcase-y thing in the sitting room–particularly the way that the finished piece looked quite like the original plan. Next time, though, I’d not build to such tight tolerance — had to resort to a club hammer to get it seated on the brackets and I was a little worried for the ceiling. Just got to make the doors now; including bi-fold doors for the TV bit.

If you’re bored, you can click through to Flickr and see the whole project in various stages…

Not seen much of Lola this half term as she’s spent the whole time with her nose in various Harry Potter books. She’s been reading around 300-400 pages a day. She only started the series just over 2 weeks ago and she’s already on the sixth book. Her level of involvement is such that she talks to the book and apologises if she leaves it alone for too long!

She came in to the office with me on Thursday morning and I hardly heard a word out of her the whole time, except for updates on the state of Harry. She did come over quite frequently just for a hug, though, which was rather lovely.