Says Neve, pointing at her pyjamas. And then, “Lola – jarmas,” pointing at Lola’s. She’s starting to string sentences together, often in a mix of english and italian. She might ask for help opening a cupboard (hol, papa – apri), or grab your finger and pull you to the bottom of the stairs to tell you that “mama up heeya!” Some sound she has yet to master. “c”, for example. If you take her out to common to witness the bovine phenomenon, she’ll point excitedly and shout, “warda! Hhow!”
Author: alex
planting and demolishing
Yesterday, I weeded then dug over the salad bed (the first bed, before the greenhouse); a lady came down the path selling ‘compost’ based on horse manure, bone and peat, so I bought a bag of that and dug it in. She came round last year, I seem to remember, and I had a look but didn’t buy any. £5.50 a bag — we’ll see whether it was worth it, I guess. But the bed did need some organic addition, and I had nothing suitable, so…
Later, Lola helped me plant the bed. Counting from the front we made:
- two rows of cumin
- one of corriander
- one of mizuna
- one of lettuce (lollo biondo)
- one of pak choi
- one of beet spnach
- one of kale (Winterbore F1)
Then, in trays, we planted italian parsley and peppers (one tray Long Red Marconi, one tray Mavras) and, in pots, some courgette.
Later, I wielded the angle grinder I’d bought earlier and cut down the railings from either side of he steps. And then I used my new club hammer to take out the brickwork from the right-hand bed. That work continued today, with Isa joining in to replant some of the stuff we want to keep.
The plan is to put decking across the full width of the back.
Potatoes in (part 1 of n)
Got five rows of Lady Christl (bottom left of allotment as viewed from sheds) and then 11 rows of Pink Fir Apple (3 to fill rest of left bed, 8 in bottom right hand bed.
The allotment looks OK if you stand halfway down and look towards the bottom; less so if you stand halway down and look back up. Lots of week eruption while we were sojourning in Italy 🙁
The purple sprouting has actually sprouted. It tastes almost entirely of yum.
Did all the weeding between the paving slabs in front and back gardens. Have formulated plan to turn the bricked-in beds at the top of the back garden into decks; hopefully, can use existing brickwork as support for joists. And Isa is working on the purchase of a trampoline (with money given to us for the kids) which we’ll put under the cypress, where the potatoes were last year.
boogie time
When Neve disappears, head down to the ramp and you’re bound to find her there. Boogie-ing.
sprung
Spring has, I mean. When I arrived in Italy, the cherry trees were bare; now they are full of blossom. The days have gone properly hot and you can sit outside in a t-shirt and be too hot. Hurrah.
I have a new pair of glasses, courtesy of Grazia who got me the eye-test and then the lenses and frames and, as usual refused any payment. She also gave Isa a pair of Galliano sunglasses and Lola a pair of funky pink ones. I did manage to pay for Cesarina’s new lenses (100 euros), but it’s not much of a victory.
In other news, Isa went out with Elena one night for a drink and a chat in Treviso; and she’s off out tonight with Susi and Grazia. Sunday, we’re off to the Grazia’s for lunch. Saturday we’re having hare for lunch, or dinner. Tuesday, we’re having Lola’s faux birthday party, as per her request, at which event we’ll cook Nonna’s goose. But only in the literal sense.
I bought a new DVD player for Dedi, to stop us going completely mad trying to get the old one to work. It has the added bonus of allowing you to plug in a USB stick and play video, music, pics. I may watch Young Frankenstein on it later.
I also turned the wireless network on on Giada’s router so now I can get proper InterWeb at Cesarina’s house. It reaches all the way to the kitchen, though the signal is a little weak (would be better if the router were in Morena’s front room). Had to move from WEP to WPA-PSK to be able to connect Dedi’s laptop, too, but that was a fairly minor bit of fiddling. I always thought a wireless net would be fine between the two houses; years ago they said they’d tried it and it didn’t work; perhaps it was some other aspect (than the signal reception) that was the problem.
What else? They’ve turned the fields next to Claudio into a Prosecco vineyard (except, it can’t really be Prosecco ‘cos we’re not in the right region). All owned by the guy down the road I once did some translation for.
Neve is just totally adorable. Lola is pretty adorable, too, but is getting a little spoilt and we’re probably being a bit too soft. Quindi: caprici.
There’s more… but it is failing to come to mind. That’ll be the wine, of which, of course, I am drinking a fair bit: I have my reputation to live up to, after all.
gunka-gunka
Well, who knows what that means: Neve always says it when she’s playing with unlocking the coloured doors with the coloured keys of the old fit-the-blocks toy of Lola’s.
She says more and more stuff which is perfectly intelligible (or thereabouts), including:
- ciao, ciao Zia (or Zio)
- ciao Nonna
- Garku (Marco)
- Giia, giia dadi (Giro, giro tondo)
- Up hee-ya
- Jump!
- juice
- toast
- chis (cheese)
When Luna growls at Neve, Neve growls back. And she’ll tell her, “No!” and point her to her bed. She has no fear.
She loves all her relatives and greets everyone with a big smile and will often run up for a hug. She very happily goes off with anyone (well, we haven’t tried with strangers) and will often wander off to seek Morena or Giada. In fact, she will often just wander off — usually to be found at the bottom of the ramp, or playing in the basment.
on yer bike
I took the stabilisers off Lola’s bike today and then we spent a half hour riding up and down the road outside Assunta’s house. I held Lola around the chest, able to steady her and ready to catch her if needed, but also able to let her go when she had balance.
Lola was a little nervous and periodically told me she was a bit scared; she kept going gamely for quite a while, though, and would often obtain enough balance for me to be able to relax my hold on her.
A few more days of that and she may begin to have confidence in her balance.
A pox on both my girls!
Well, only Lola is currently symptomatic but, given that they have been sharing bed, bath, and all their time together, Neve is certain also to be incubating a fine batch of varicella zosta.
It all started, classically, as a rash of spots concentrated on the torso and head. For a couple of days, we watched the rash grow and wondered vaguely about getting a doctor to identify it (Google being conspicuous by its absence). We weren’t too bothered, though, as Lola seemed otherwise fine: no malaise, no fever, and reporting no negative sensation from the spots.
Why it didn’t occur to us to think of chicken pox, I don’t know, but it was immediately obvious to the doctor we took her to on Saturday. She came out with a prescription for a bunch of Italian pharmacuticals: calpol, anti-histamine drops and an emollient anti-itch cream that has, apparently, superceded camomile lotion. We didn’t fulfil the script that day, as Lola was feeling so well — we thought we’d wait and see how it went. Whcih was a decision which looked pretty stupid at 1am when we were struggling to cope with a tormented Lola and a highly wakeful Neve.
Yes, the itching turned itself on with a vengeance, waking Lola a couple of hours after she’d gone to bed on Saturday night. She was yelling and crying and writhing about for hours while we impotently stayed with her, unable to offer much relief but able at least to distract with stories and songs. Of course, all the kerfuffle woke Neve, too, and, eventually, it was she who stayed awake the longest.
Continue reading A pox on both my girls!
tomato and pepper seeds planted
Planted one tray each of San Marzano tomatoes and F1 Beauty Bell Peppers. Didn’t have the best compost; or enough of what I had. I’m sure it’ll be fine.
my allotted time
My digging plans were condoned by dear Mrs Nature, who sent a beautiful clear Saturday to work in. Sunday was less sunny but rain-free and with some sunny spells in the afternoon. I managed to get just under half of the main field dug over the two days (I was flitting between the allotment and various DIY tasks).
The main field measures 14 metres by 6 metres. That’s approching twice the growing space offered by the current back garden arrangement.
As well as the digging, I tidied the plot a little. clearing around the rhubarb mainly. I wish I had the car — could have taken all the rubbish to the tip.
I was going to put the first earlies in but Tony advised me to wait until we got back, and I’m happy to take advice. So, I’ll just try to get the tomatoes, peppers, and ? seeds potted before heading off to Italy on Friday.
Now I can look at turning some of the veg plots in the back garden to lawn.
And finally, the sorbus is budding well and broken into leaf at the top; here’s hoping it has a better year than last.