DOWN THE REDS, UP THE BLUES – VODKA PLEASE, I NEED A SNOOZE
Where do the women look like men and the men look very flushed??? At the Forza Italia dinner of course! How should I know? Easier than the first question: because I went there last night. A full 130 fanatics furiously clapping and gurgling surrounded me, the astonished rabbit. sitting there, not quite knowing what to expect next. It was one of those rare evenings, where you leave home bracing yourself for the worst and reality turns out to be well beyond what you had actually imagined… Even the prime candidate, the person everyone was there to celebrate, strolled in one hour and 30 minutes late, having not even bothered to comb her hair (more to the gusto of the local contadinis?).
What next? Watch this space.

Mummmm.

Muuuuuuuum.

KICK ME IN THE BALLS IF YOU CAN
I got winked at even before I arrived in the changing rooms. (Cliché? Very but true.) Training with the local female football club, I discovered too late, was a lot more intense than anything Nature United ever did. Fortunately, two of the girls were missing – injured, the first with a burst eardrum, the second because of knocking herself unconscious against the wall of the grounds – so having me as the extra pair of legs was not seen as too bad a deal. Petrified (knowing what had happened to the absent players) I ventured out on the pitch, sniffed far too much oestrogen and retreated after an hour of featureless running up and down back to the changing room (which was immediately immersed in smoke as most of the lasses lit up the minute the game stopped). Nice.

Me doing a backflip in my dreams.

TUSCANY IN A DAY; A RIVALRY TO NEW ZEALAND’S NORTH ISLAND IN THREE?
Robi and Nathalie brought the clouds, but they also brought the hoover bags, so who cares about the weather.
On Saturday, we had lunch on the main square in Siena, coffee in San Giminiano and dinner in Florence. Easter Sunday saw Nathalie sit in the Ferrari and Robi drive it round whilst we looked for cats behind the mangimi bags. To burn off the 5 course lunch we boogied all night at Cantiere 21, where Robi had a toilet encounter with Bichierino and I sported an afro wig. Monday, la Pasquetta, we trotted round Cortona, up to the monastery of Santa Margherita, and then over to Perugia.
Exhausted, the mini drivers hit the road to La Spezie on Tuesday.

Nudi man in Florence.

What a bunch!

Pisa?

Racing the mini.

EGGS AND BOXES
Whilst the giraffe was snogging the halogen lamp, we were buried in boxes. The feeling of claustrophobia is subsiding after a week of sorting but the War On Fluff is merely in its beginnings. Work, CV and websites aside, Easter is coming, as are Robi and Nath!!!! Hurray!!!!

View from the kitchen window.

The first to visit from Switzerland

They are very demanding guests.

WHY NOT INVITE ALL THE WEIRDOES ROUND?
Having survived the supermarket, there was no reason not to overcome the arrival of the shipment from Geneva. Cristian plodded off to work whilst I waited for the “inizio pomeriggio” – aka beginning of the afternoon. By Italian standards, I thought that would be about 2pm. At 5.30 I finally intercepted the van and its two unhappy occupants (I agree, going up 4 flights of stairs with boxes is no recipe for delight, yet surely they had had time for a 4 course lunch and a nice long siesta?!?).

Whilst I was leading the way and pointing out the narrowness of the stairwell to the navigator, the driver took it upon himself to find the only three drug-addict-terrorist-look-alikes of the whole area; and the next thing I knew, they were all making their way into the flat carrying my stuff. Panic attack. Breathe in, wait, one two, breathe out. Hold on till they go to get more stuff, hide valuables, remove handbag from view, try not to think that the only three people I would really not like to know that I lived here are about to come back in carrying my stuff. AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Clean up the ash from their cigarettes in a frantic attempt to stop the whole of the old town catching fire. Practice inner poise and full-powered-zen until they leave. Drive the two removal people to Pozzuolo to drop off wardrobe (far too big for mini-flat), give them an earful.

Happy to be safe and sound (as opposed to diced and sprinkled into a bowl of acid by 5 strange men), I pour the first apéro of our new Tuscan life.

WEEK ONE IN CORTONA.
Lovely charming Etruscan medieval village perched on the top of a hill; where St Francis and St Margherita lived, and where Begnini shot some of La Vita e Bella. But, not where supermarkets are. Ohhh, not essential in the life of global travellers? Wrong!!! Who does not need a toilet duck????
So down into the valley I went and round my first Italian Coop I glided - only to find that I was being followed by a rather strange individual. This non-shopping male kept reappearing behind each isle. Even in the female sanitary section… After hiding behind the salamis for a while, I managed to make my way to the car park unnoticed and Schumachered back up the hill.

CASTIGLIONE DEL LAGO, PERUGIA, UMBRIA:
Eureka !!!
Today we move to our new flat in Cortona, this is now our new address:
Piazza Baldelli 4
52044, Cortona, Arezzo, Italia.
+39 333 310 20 34 Olivia
+39 335 744 17 91 Cristian
Baci

Castiglione del Lago.

I WANT TO BECOME AN ESTATE AGENT.
Make a couple of phone calls to earn two months rent; that is what it’s all about! Estate agents here are not like our beloved “regie” they don’t even act as intermediaries between the owner and the tenants, they literally just make a few phone calls, collect the keys, show people round flats and then get paid for it. Nice.

FROM POZZUOLO TO CORTONA AND BACK
Like a pair of rabid Jack Russel Terriers intent on sniffing out a hare, we launch into the most assiduous flat-hunt seen on the Tuscan-Umbria border for decades. We hassle and persist, blocking our ears to those who repeat that we will not find anything other than seasonal apartments for rent to tourists. After having been round the Trasimeno Lake and up and down the hills of Tuscany, we finally pick the best of a wilted bunch.