Come musica......

Blind Panic - for The Gallery

As anyone who reads this blog knows, the two Italian children in the header are mine (from my marriage to their dad, an Italian) while the Canadian in the header is my Canadian husband who has no children - and last night when Leo, my youngest, came home from rugby looking like this it was so clear who the parent was - Robert, cool as a cucmber (he is anyway) and me , well, not. Once Leo was cleaned up (when Robert had first picked him up he looked even worse - like this but caked in mud too), we had eaten, had the glass of wine and generally got back to normal I felt sick - I had done the 'ok let's sort this out' bit' and I knew he was ok (it really is just aesthetic) - but for the first time in 10 years I heard myself say to Robert 'you haven't got children so you can't understand what it's like' - was that a wrong thing to say? I don't know - but I know that the moment of blind panic I had when I first saw Leo like this and while I was cleaning him up was something a parent knows - I am amazingly lucky, I have only had that blind panic a couple of times (once when Thomas cracked his head open aged 2 and the again when Thomas was 6 and got lost on a crowded beach) - having kids is great - but boy do I hate that blind panic moment when you think they are in danger - it is a feeling I have only had where my children are involved - so was I wrong to say that to Robert?

I can multi-task with the best of them

Leo caught me yet again talking to myself - I do it often - sometimes I can be having a conversation in my head with Robert when he is sitting right next to me - when he asks who I am talking to (in my head) he does actually point out that as he is sitting right there I could have the real conversation if I wanted - back to Leo.....apart from Robert Leo is the one who always spots it - I think it has something to do with the mouth twitching and eyes moving around (I really do sound mad don't I??) - and yesterday while I was having a real conversation with Thomas (about he and Allegra going to London this weekend - yes, they are back together - slightly different terms i.e. trying to be less intense) and this trip was her Christmas present - we were talking about that but in my mind I was talking to/having my say at her Mum - Leo thought it was hysterical - that I can have real and imaginary conversations at the same time - way to go right??!! ps here are the photos of when Thomas gave Allegra the plane ticket but she just couldn't get her head around it - it had to spelled out in the end!!!

I don't know what to do

Advice/ideas would be welcome. Thomas (16 as you know) has had a girlfriend for the last 9 months - first love and all - all a bit too intense for my liking (they are in the same class) but he is an intense person and she has quite a few family problems (any of you who read the old blog may remember when I mentioned her coming back from a 3 week trip to find her home empty (Mum was 40 kms away in the hills having a holiday - from what, I don't know, she does nothing except look after her dogs) and no food in the house - her Mum and partner are about to move about 50 kms away and she is going to live with the nuns so she can finsh this year at school - she has been through a terrible time - feeling completely abbandoned by her Mum, friends at school (a lot of them are fairly two faced girls - that sounds very hard but it is infact the reality of life in a small provincial Italian town) and her Dad (who pays no maintenece and just pops in and out of her life with no regard for her needs) - she is a lovely girl - and Thomas has been a real rock for her - he has helped her massively with school work, she has been welcomed into our family (I could say 'families' because she was spending a lot of her time with with us or when the kids were with their dad she would spend time with them) - her Mum does nothing for her - takes no notice when she comes in or goes out - its like she is invisible in her own home - well, I think it had all got too much for Thomas - he is a very responsible, sensitive kid (infact I don't think it was a coincidence they hooked up - with everything he had been through when his dad and I separated he could understand her and he wanted to help her) - but he was taking on all the responsibility for her happiness - before Christmas he was in tears telling me that she was in a terrible state (about the move to the nuns etc) but that whatever he did it just wasn't enough - anyway, the long and the short of it is that last week they broke up - Thomas behaved badly and she finished with him (here I have to say that I think Thomas actually behaved like a typical male - instead of having the guts to finish with her he behaved in such a way that she would finish with him thus releasing himself from all responsibility - Mum's not pleased about this.....) - the next day Allegra (the girlfriend) changed her mind and depserately wanted to get back with him - he held out for a few days and it seemed thaat slowly things were getting back on track - he had started eating again, looking more like his old self etc etc - but........I have just bumped into Allegra - and I am completely shocked and very worried - she is in a terrible terrible state, her face and chest have broken out in a type of rash, she's not eating, in floods of tears, given up at school, completely beside herself - I'm sure you get the pricture - what do we do? she begged me to get Thomas to take her back - as Thomas's mum I don't wnat him to ignore his feelings (he says he doesn't miss her but he misses the way he felt about her) but on a human level I want him to help her - to be there for her - but it would be wrong for him - I am sure - so what do I do? nothing? something? she needs someone to help her - what a worry .

Mr. Bonkers - for the Gallery

Cats chase mice right?? That's what mother nature decided - so mine does just that - while he's alseep ............... (and I swear this was not 'set up' - he isn't called Mr. Bonkers for nothing!!)

Squash - and not the one you eat

One of the new ideas for 2011 is to play squash - it isn't big over here - most people (as far as I know) have never even heard of it - my dad was one of those 'business-men-squash-player' types (you know, the ones who belong to a squash club and manage to get a game in every morning before going to the office) - well as much as Robert and I love each others company most of our 'company' is either at home or in the pub - we couldn't find an activity we could both do (dancing was top on my list of things to do together but that was NEVER going to happen) - he plays tennis and I am appaling - seriously appaling - but then we discovered that there is actually a squash court in Ravenna - he can play any racket game, I can't but I can manage squash - being trained (and I use the term very loosely) by my friend Phillip when we were 16 and then playing at school in the last 2 years means that I can actually make the racket hit the ball and then make the ball hit the wall - yes I know it seems easy - but it isn't always as easy it seems!!! Once we started to play (and there will be photos to follow.....) I just knew that Thonas would love it (as a boy any game that means whacking a ball against a wall is going to be a hit) - so for the last 2 Tuesdays he and I have gone off to play - to be honest I thought suggested he play with one of his buddies but he so surprised me by saying ' no Mum, why don't you and me play' - and as a Mum who was already going through the empty nest drama (yes of course he still lives with us but we are no way close to being his priority these days) - I jumped at the chance (sad pathetic mother that I am!!) - it's great - but I HVAE to teach him the rules - I swear he is making them up and I am sure he is somewhat lax when it comes to the score keeping - time for a little chat I think...........

One mixed up family......

Breakfast was American pancakes with maple syrup (for some) and bacon (for others)..........

Passatelli in brodo for lunch with meat and veg.......so Romagnolo......


and toad in the hole for dinner.........

My Little Blog

Right this time it really wasn't a question of being fickle (which I can be at times) - I thought that the blogs I had in the past were for me but in fact they very quickly became blogs for others - in the sense that I was very often aware of who was reading(or who not) and what their reactions to what I was writing would be - I felt an obligation to them - and the whole blog thing (for me) was not supposed to feel like an obligation - I have enough of those. But, having stopped writing I missed it -
1. it seeems that when I no longer had this place where I could put things down, small things suddenly happened that I would have written about had I had somewhere to write
2. I knew that at sometime in the future I would miss not having this small diary of our family life that I could sometimes go back over and look at (hence all the photos in the first post here - they were all the photos that I had posted on my Life in Italy blog - ok, there are no words but I know why those photos are there
3. when, on reading Life in Italy my mum pointed out that it wasn't my ''real life'' I told her that yes, in fact it was my real life - ie I might not write about everything but everything I write about is real - and those things I wrote about were generally the good things in my life - small, apparently inconsequential things but all good -
And that brings me to the point of this one ...........
1. by having the blog it makes me 'look' at the good things - I'm not going to write about the bills, work problems, 'scratchy' moments with Robert etc etc - who wants to read about difficulties - open a newsaper if you want that - my blog is (and was in the past) a place where I reminded myself of the good things - and as a person who has a tendancy to get bogged down in problems and worries this can only be a good thing
2. to do this I need to keep writing for myself and not be influenced by people's opinions - so while this isn't exactly an anonymous blog I'm not going to be advertising it to friends and family in the UK, Canada or Ravenna - I have some lovely blogging buddies (you know who you are) and they will do just great thankyou very much -
So that's it - that's why My Little Blog has come into being. And now please be patient as I will be putting videos and photos from the old blog at various times - if I put things there in the past it was because I liked them - they made me laugh - and as the main point of MLB is for it to be my feel good blog they need to reappear.......little things like this........

Life in Italy - that was..

Well here goes....another, yes another blog - time to explain why this is the third later on but for now here are the photos from the first blog ....... click on my cat and it will show you the rest.......