Tag: lola

courgette flowers

2011-06-20 05.53.22.jpg

Three of the courgette plants were flowering this morning. Maybe they appreciated the compost that Lola and I took out there on Saturday. We also put some on the tomatoes and cucumbers. This was our own compost, which I also put around the tomatoes in the greenhouse.

Stuff in the allotment is coming on; beans growing, though they still look a bit pale, tomatoes look settled. Potatoes coming on well though no flowers yet and really need weeding every day. Found bindweed wrapped around one this morning.

In other news, this weekend saw me angle-grinding the three steel washing-line poles down and putting up the new rotary line. The view down the garden being dramatically improved in the process. Then finished off the decorating of the corner of the spare room, erected the bed and cut the slats to length. And made some mint syrup.

Stefi and Sofia arrive Friday – still loads to do.

And Danny of next-door-but-one fell off his bike outside our house and broke his arm. Very painful but a simple fracture and he was his usual cheery, albeit somewhat monodextrous, self the next day.

sprung

P1070614 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.Lola

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.

P1070712 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.

slightly less delightful

P1050972In the meteorological sense, that is: it started to rain as I stepped out this morning. Neve and Lola remain as delightful as ever. Though Isa may not be agreeing at present as Neve woke at 06:00 this morning and would not be cajoled back to sleep. And, by the time I left at 06:40, Lola was also awake (Neve having kindly taken her her rice milk. It’s going to be a long day…

Neve can now say, “Mama,” and “Dada,” and “Lola” — the latter in her own special way which I am unable to transliterate. She also, like Lola before her, like to do “Cheers!” (“chszz”) with her beaker. Seems quite civilised, you might think, until you see her grabbing fistfuls of
cottage pie and smearing the contents in and around her mouth.

Hearing her shout for her food is quite something. If the food is not ready when she expects it — say you put her in her chair and then go to dish out her food — she’ll be shouting Mama or YumYum and jumping up and down making excited noises. Much delay and she’ll be crying, shouting. During a meal, every time something new is brought to the table she’ll be pointing excitedly, wanting to try. If it’s something she knows she likes, the excitement is intense. When she finishes and wants more, she’ll hold out her empty bowl: “yum-yum, yum-yum!”

dinosaurs and old age

So, we’re going to the zoo for Lola’s birthday and she wanted to know if there would be dinosaurs there. So I explained, as best I could in terms a newly-four-year-old might understand, the current absence of dinosaurs. Which led to a discussion of what we would do if a planet hit us now (“would they put us in a museum?” and “would they take our skin off first?”). Which led to death in general and how all people die eventually — of old age if nothing gets them sooner. Which led Lola to surmise that I might die soon as:

“You’re getting old ‘cos your foots are all rusty.”