Life is good

So it's been a while. It's not that I haven't had the time to post anything, although it's obviously been very limited to brief moments in between baby demands. It's just I haven't had a lot to actually blog about. Every time I think of a suitably pithy topic, and make a mental note to remember to write about it, Gemma will roll over, or start gurgling, or require a nappy change and the thought goes out of my head never to return. Occasionally I have moments of slight guilt that I ought to be updating this blog at least as regularly as I do my baby's. But having said that, life is really too short to be worrying about stuff like that. And now she's 6 months old I am reminded every day how fast the days, weeks, months go by and to make the most of them at the time.

And oh we do! So life is good, really good. I have a beautiful, happy daughter who seems to love nothing more than making an unholy mess with any vegetable or fruit purees we put near her mouth, and who as I type is laughing and jigging up and down in a wonderfully contented sounding way in her door bouncer; we've just been on a fantastic family holiday - our first as a family - to Canada, where we were so lucky to have great friends who put us up and put up with us and made everything so easy and comfortable for us. We have our health, we have enough money (just...) to enjoy our lives and we have lovely families and friends to support us and laugh with us. I'm sure if I were back at work I wouldn't be quite so ready to blog about how great things are, but shhhh no talk about work until January and we still have the rest of the summer, autumn and winter to get through before then!

In other news, the garden is not too bad this year despite virtually no attention beyond an occasional mow of the lawn, and courtesy of the Childrens' Food Festival held near us a few weeks ago, we have a variety of veg on the go - chillies, tomatoes, dwarf french beans, aubergine and courgette. Caterpillars have had one of the bean plants already but the others seem to have escaped and I am especially interested to see if we can manage to get an aubergine from the plant we have. Almost all the hollyhocks flopped and broke after some hefty winds and rain recently but everything else is looking good and it will just teach me to stake them properly next year. In the house, we're getting our sash windows renovated next week and then the top room re-plastered the week after, which will bring us just about to the end of the refurbishments we've been doing since we moved in 5 years ago. We're spending the next few weekends catching up with old friends, grandparents are visiting next week and early August and Gemma gets underwater photos taken at swimming tomorrow. All in all, not a bad lot of things on the go!

Summer holidays

A rather belated update about our holiday, and life in general over the last month. We've been so busy that I've had no time at weekends, no time in the evenings, and even less time on lunch breaks (what are these, exactly?) to finish updating the random topics I started about a month ago.

So. Holidays - can you tell we've been away? I was annoying everyone at work and most of my Facebook friends I'm sure by doing a daily countdown to holiday time before we went. I hadn't had any time off since last October (had to work over Christmas) and was sooo ready for a break. Ali and I went with Inntravel again after our brilliant holiday to Tuscany last year except this time we were right in the top left corner of Italy, in the Valle d'Aosta region slap next to the Alps. Our hotel was a gorgeous wood panelled antique haven with lots of cheese making implements strewn artfully everywhere and our room had a breathtaking view over wild flower meadows towards the snowy Alpine peaks beyond - truly beautiful. The Michelin starred restaurant was pretty damn delicious too and we managed to treat ourselves to dinner there three times, the other nights making for the Bar a Fromage next door or the local pizza place. On day 3 we took a trip on the cable car from Courmayeur over the top of Mont Blanc and over to Chamonix and I think that has to rank as one of the best things we've done on any holiday we've had together over the last 6 years - it was bloody spectacular. All the mountain walking we did in the region was great, and we saw chamois goats, wild fox, all manner of beautiful alpine flowers and some amazing waterfalls and mountain scenery. That is until Ali stepped the wrong way onto a loose rock on the Saturday afternoon at the end of our first week and ended up in plaster up to the knee for the rest of the trip. After a frankly terrifying journey in the hire car along windy mountain roads to the nearest hospital, during which I was containing my nerves admirably - I am not the most confident driver when driving somewhere I don't know, so add in an unfamiliar car, with the gearbox on the right and having to drive on the wrong side of the road, and you have one very stressed Kathryn - the x-rays luckily showed no break - phew - instead, a possible chip on the bone. As the swelling was so bad the doctors plastered Ali up and then we spent a couple of very slow days, while he rested it as much as possible and I ventured down to the hotel spa to lounge by the pool drinking green tea and reading my books. Lucky I'd brought five with me, eh? By some (un)fortunate twist of fate the weather changed for the worse for our last 2 days anyway so even if Ali had been fit and well we wouldn't have got that much good walking done.

Off to Milan on the Tuesday, another hairy trip down the autostrada for me to drop the hire car off before schlepping into the middle of Milan on the bus. The heavens opened that afternoon and evening so it didn't bode well for the last two days of our holiday but miraculously throughout Wednesday and Thursday we basked in 30 degree sunshine. Lack of mobility meant we couldn't do too much sightseeing but we did go to the Duomo which I found a total let down. Ali called it 'cathedral fatigue' and maybe he's right, but although I could appreciate the beauty of the architecture and the stained glass, and the little chapels and confessionals and the magificent altar were all wonderful, I didn't feel any sense of awe, respect, spirituality, call it what you will. I was almost. Well. BORED. Other than that, we travelled on the Metro to see the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, except when we got there (and not before, you understand, not on any of the posters or directions leading up to it) we found out it was closed for the summer. I mean, what bright spark thought that one up - oh, we'll close one of the most popular tourist attractions in Milan, for the 3 most touristy months of the year.

Then on the Wednesday night we saw Radiohead play the Civica Arena in the middle of the city. We managed to get in via the disabled entrance thanks to Ali's cast, and the gig itself was, as usual for Radiohead, amazing. The light show was spectacular (all done on low voltage LEDs) and the set was lovely - it was great to hear In Rainbows live now that they're a bit more polished in playing it than they were in Blackpool last year before it came out. It has to rank as one of the smokiest gigs I've ever been to though - even though we were outside in an old amphitheatre, the fact that every single Italian person there was chain smoking made it feel like the grubbiest of British pubs before the smoking ban. A mild annoyance to an otherwise fantastic evening and a great way to round off our holiday. Next year I think I'd like to try another different bit of Italy - maybe Amalfi and the coast. God bless Inntravel.

Kind of holiday related in that it wasn't our holiday but Ali's parents' and nephew Liam's, was the weekend a few weeks ago where they came to visit. On the Friday we took a trip to London to see the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum and then have a turn on the London Eye. A visit to Hamleys made it into the itinerary for some Lego purchases and overall it was a great day. We even went to Garfunkel's in the early evening for a meal, bringing back memories of my own trips to London with Mum and Dad when I was only a bit older than Liam, who's 8 very soon. In those days (oh so many years ago...) there weren't many other places you could actually go with kids and guarantee they'd eat anything, I guess. On the Saturday my Mum and Dad drove up to complete the party and we had a relaxing (and chilly) couple of hours on a leisure cruiser up to Oxford along the Thames before wandering round a bit and getting the bus back. The boat trip was nice, but took a looooong time considering you can drive to Oxford along the A34 and park up inside 20 minutes.

Knitting I was going to gloss over, as I've slacked off remarkably here. After finishing the tank top and sheep for Archie I got going on a little coat for him, which is age 3-6 months and going to be way too small at this rate if I don't get a wriggle on. Next free weekend (roll on 2-3 August) I'll get back into it.

Music, has been all about Radiohead really. After Milan we saw them again exactly a week later in Victoria Park in Hackney, having an exceedingly enjoyable catch up with friends Matt and surprise guest Susan who'd flown in from Toronto the previous day. Another great gig, but full of complete arseholes. The weather was great and a lot of people had probably been drinking since before noon, explaining somewhat the abundance of idiotic behaviour and general lariness. At least the Italian fans had all been passionate Radiohead afficionados, singing lustily along to every track - but you were lucky to even hear some of the quieter tracks at Victoria Park due to the crowd's hollering. There was also a Pimm's tent, which struck me as mildly out of place. Other than that, no musical exploits to note. We've got tickets to see the Gutter Twins in Oxford in a few weeks time which should be good and loud.

Long time no post

It does feel ages since I last posted and in fact this does appear to be my first post in May. Being as it's now 26th of the month that's not very good going.

I haven't even got the excuse that we've been too busy - the only thing that's graced our calendars this month really has been our trip to New York last week and weekend. I was out there with work for 4 days of meetings and conferences, and Ali came over and joined me on the Thursday. We hadn't been in the Big Apple together since our first romantic holiday together over 6 years ago, so it was lovely to be back. The weather wasn't that kind to us - tramping round Soho and Little Italy in the pouring rain isn't really having that great a time - but we had a sunny day on the Saturday and took a blowy Staten Island ferry trip as well as discovering a great little Italian restaurant near the Brooklyn Bridge. The obligatory credit card splurge took place but other than that not much to report.

Apart from this we've really been quite quiet. At the end of April we went up to Manchester to see Alison, Stuart, and Archie. Cue loads of photos of adoring auntie and uncle... My knitting projects went down really well and I've now finished a couple more things for him - a little orange tank top (apparently he's put on quite a growth spurt in the last few weeks so I'm praying it will still fit) and a toy sheep. This one didn't take me too long in the end but it was really fiddly and I had to read the pattern through about 4 times before I could get to grips with it - also my first attempt at intarsia was, well, interesting to say the least. Luckily none of the mistakes show on the outside. The pictures aren't very good but I didn't want to disturb Ali while he's ironing to get him to take more professional looking ones ;o)

So now it's the May Bank Holiday and it's been chucking it down all weekend. Not being able to get out in the garden has been really frustrating, though we have had to make some emergency fix-it dashes to tie back drooping roses, sort out the plastic around the tomato plants etc. I have dahlias that are bursting out of the cold frame and really could do with planting out - so here's to a sunny few days next weekend.

All over for another year, then

Well, the Christmas tree has come down and been chopped up ready for going on the fire. All the decorations are packed away, cards taken down from all the bookshelves, floors swept and mopped and the kitchen looks very empty and white. Good job we ordered a reclaimed pine dresser on Saturday from the lovely Foxwood to fill some space, and more importantly hold the increasing amounts of glassware we seem to be acquiring recently.

I’ve been planning a post for the last week or so – but somehow things have got in the way, such as Christmas, planning and hosting a New Year’s Eve party, clearing up after the same, and going back to work. Having read what seems like squillions of newspaper articles and blog posts all about people’s New Year’s resolutions, lists of the year for 2007, and festive goings on, and given the title of my blog, you’d think I would be more up to speed with my own. Good intentions for 2008 will probably come in a later post when I’ve thought of some (they won’t be much different from the intentions that I posted during 2007); so for now I’ll just round up the end of the year.

Ali and I had a really lovely quiet Christmas at home by ourselves, the obligatory roast beef for dinner and rather too much of different sorts of wine. It was really good just to have a whole day with nothing to do but open presents, cook the meal, eat it and watch TV (though Christmas telly was particularly crap this year. Even the festive edition of SCD was a bit of a let down – clearly none of the celebrities and their partners could give a toss about the result, given that it was only the studio audience voting, and Darren Gough was a shoe-in to win as he’s on the SCD tour so they had to keep him sweet and remind the public to go and book their tickets). Boxing Day we travelled to Hitchin to visit our friends Cameron and Elaine, taking the remnants of the chocolate pie I’d made for Christmas – and believe me there was more than 80% of it left. In Jamie’s recipe it looked lovely and light and fluffy – but with an ingredients list of chocolate, sugar, butter, crème fraiche, more butter, cocoa, more chocolate and butter pastry, it was never going to be the healthy option. Cameron and Elaine nobly said they’d keep the remains and finish them off but I’m willing to bet a lot ended up in the bin…

A few pub jaunts later and we were in the throes of planning for NYE. By 31^st we’d got 3 polypins of real ale from 2 different local breweries (Butt’s and West Berkshire); dozens of bottles of wine and mixers galore; I’d made our biggest stock pot full of beef stew plus 2 smaller pots of veggie chilli, 24 fairy cakes (sprinkling the hundreds and thousands on the chocolate icing was so satisfying!) and a pear and almond tart, we’d cleared Waitrose of all the dips and chips you could think of, and we were ready to go. So ready, in fact (I’d done a lot of the cooking on Sunday) that I’d cleared up, showered, and dressed up by 2pm and felt a bit at a loose end – after all it would have been suicidal to start drinking then...

It was the first time we’d mixed up 2 different groups of friends – the Oxford crowd who I’ve known most of since 1992; and our ‘local’ friends who we mostly know from where Ali previously worked. Add in one 4 month old baby (Freddie); one toddler (Evie) and 3 kids between 6 and 10 (Bailey, Courtney and Bethany) and there was a fantastic mix of people in the house. With around 30 people our ground floor was full to bursting and I don’t think we could really host anything bigger, unless it’s summer and people could go outside, but it’s good to know our limits! With a 4am finish and the kids up at 7.30 (Evie liked the sound her feet made running up and down on the wooden floors of the bedroom above ours) it meant a very sluggish start to the new year but with some strong coffee inside us and a bacon sarnie we were ready to go to Robin and Anne’s for a New Year’s Day dinner. Being presented with a glass of bubbly at 2pm after 3 hours sleep was just the tonic (!) and while we were seriously flagging by 7.30pm it was a great start to the new year. Back to work on Wednesday. Hmph.

Some 2008 good intentions to follow, hopefully before the end of January. Nerys and I were at Body Balance on Sunday though so despite not having a booze-free day since some time in mid-December, I think I’m on the right lines.

[From top to bottom - fairy cakes and a clear-ish work surface before the party; Dr Brown's real ale bar; Andy at 11.10pm (before too much fizz was consumed); Ali & a stubborn cork]

Life post-cheese

No, not literally. By god, that would be unthinkable. A life without cheese is a life half lived, to misquote Strictly Ballroom...

Anyway, my holding post of a few days ago was really just to get back into the blogging habit again, as it's been a while since I posted anything of note; but my recent discovery that I was listed on the Mostly Books blog and the subsequent nice comments from friends has got me enthused for posting again, as I had let work and other stuff get in the way a fair bit. I know that even when I'm really busy, I will always make time to run through my Bloglines feeds and whenever a new post from a friend's blog appears it cheers me up no end - much more exciting than all those industry techie feeds I read and even (dare I say it) more interesting than the newsy feeds on books, music, eco stuff and the like that I subscribe to. So, good intentions poised and at the ready, I resolve To Do Better. (Capitals are great, aren't they? I feel amost Edward Gorey-ish using them, She Said Archly).

So, what's been going on in our world since the fromagery of late September?

A couple of quite alarming and intense work weeks, where I was planning a big project for January. I'm 99.8% sure none of our direct competitors read this, but even so I won't expand further. Anyway, it's something way outside my comfort zone and I was mightily relieved when the proposal I submitted on 12th October to the US got well received. Phew.

In between this, was a drink-sodden weekend where we went to London to meet up with Ali's folks and some friends they were visiting in Caterham. We met up in a pub just off St James' Square, and basically lurched around Soho all afternoon from hostelry to hostelry. This was the weekend of the England victory over the Aussies in the Rugby World Cup and I was the only English person in the party. Luckily despite all the Scots contingent being desperate to find an Aussie pub to watch it in, we ended up in the Glasshouse just off Piccadilly where I had a fine old time yelling encouragement and generally getting very overexcited. Wa hey!

By 12th I was more than ready for a break, my first day off since starting the job back in early June. After a few days of pre-holiday panic, that was it - done. On the first day of our week off, the Saturday, we were back in London to watch Maximo Park play at the Brixton Academy as part of an XFM night. Or not. I was FUMING at the time and could have written reams but step by step:

- Kathryn and Ali arrive at the venue after a day of mooching in town
- Go in, get patted down, buy 1 pint of cider and a bottle of water for SIX POUNDS BLEEDING TEN!!!!!!!
- Look at the set list and realise MP are not on til 10.30pm. Last train from Paddington is 11.30pm. Fuck.
- Have panicked discussion, look at Ali's Crackberry and realise that all trains are cancelled post 9pm anyway due to engineering works.
- Discuss merits of getting the bus home and then give up in disgust, leave the venue (much to the bemusement of security) and watch the second half of England v France (wa hey again!) in a pub in Brixton, then head off to Paddington to chance our luck.
- Wait at Paddington for an hour and half for a replacement bus service to Reading. Lots of swearing.
- Eventually get to Reading at 12.30am for the last train to Didcot.
- Grrrrrr.....

Sunday was a bit more chilled, culminating in a birthday celebration for our mate Chris in the Yummy Thai restaurant in Wantage. It certainly lived up to its name, yum yum.

Our week off was lovely. 3 days in north Dorset staying in the village of Buckhorn Weston at the phenomenal Stapleton Arms. Beautiful room, comfy bed, LCD TV, walk in shower which was the most powerful I've ever experienced in a hotel, organic breakfast grub, great menu, 2 real ciders on tap :-) and log fires every night. Wonderful, and really good value. We did Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Stonehenge, the Cerne Abbas giant with his big willy (and the faint outline of Homer Simpson remaining on the field next to him, hee hee), and a great walk on the coast and Chesil Beach. Then back on Thursday for some R&R at home, a nice meal at the Crooked Billet on Friday night and Rod, Wendy and their 3 kids over on Saturday for a fab get together. Sunday was spent nursing hangovers (Ali and Rod got stuck into the whisky in the wee small hours of Sunday morning...) and as mentioned before, by the time it got to mid afternoon, I was ready for hair of the dog and some pure SCD indulgence.

Back to work now and it's getting intense, preparing for January. It's bizarre not gearing up for the Christmas rush - reminds me of working in the travel industry in a way, but better, obviously.
So that's me up to date, we've got a rare free weekend coming up so I'll be repainting the front door. I'm actually looking forward to it, in a bizarre way.

Musical memories

Ali and I watched a few of the highlights of the Reading Festival during the bank holiday weekend, in between a lengthy gardening session of highly satisfying pruning of next door's buddleias; a great sunny barbeque with some friends we'd not seen for a while (though I did over-cater on the meat and salads front somewhat) and a cycle ride-cum-pub crawl through some of the south Oxfordshire villages near us. This latter was meant to get us out and about in the fresh air - tick - spend some time together - tick - and get some exercise - no tick, could do better. We meandered round some B roads and a few cycle paths, got to the North Star at Steventon, Ali swooned with pleasure at the nectar that was a pint from the White Horse brewery (the name escapes me) and then went to the Cherry Tree for some lunch. Cycling through Sutton Courtenay on the way back, we weren't meant to stop at all, until Ali saw the 'Bank Holiday Guest Ale specials' sandwich board outside the George and Dragon and swerved over to take advantage. It would have been rude not to, as they say.

Anyway, back to Reading. I went 3 times in my yoof (christ how old does that make me sound) - 1995, 1996 and 1998. The first time was with a group of 5 friendly chaps from Cambridgeshire who I used to spend much of my vacation time going to gigs with when I was at university. That first year was amazing - the festival experience became well and truly ingrained into my soul. Highlights were the Foo Fighters' first ever UK festival gig, at which I almost got crushed and nearly passed out from the heat in the NME tent; and seeing Ash, who at at the time were all about 16 and whose official band t-shirt, complete with legend 'three boy hardcore action' on the back, I thought was the height of cool when I bought it. I was even fearless enough to go down the front to the moshpit and go kerrraaaazzzy, something I would rarely dream of doing now in my old and personal safety conscious state. I also (unlike my compadres who were all into US hardcore punk bands like NOFX and Bad Religion) attended Gene's headline slot on the Saturday night in the NME tent and completely fell in love with Martin Rossiter, little realising what a pretentious wanker he was in real life.

Subsequent years were also fantastic experiences and I went to Glastonbury in 2000 which was a whole other level of festival going. I did love Glasto but I do have a special place in my heart reserved for Reading, being somewhat of an indie kid deep down. So watching it on the telly, cider in hand (bad for the diet but that's another story) in the comfort of my own sofa, made me feel quite nostalgic for my mid twenties and the music that was around then.

Having said that, the bands that we saw were a real mixed bag of the good, the bad and the downright pointless. I mean, Razorlight headlining on the Friday night for god's sake. My personal favourites were Maximo Park, mostly because of the tunes, also because I love the fact that you can hear every word of the lyrics really clearly - must be something to do with the Geordie accent - but also (a teeny bit) because the lead singer, Paul Smith, is very fit (ooh what a 90s word). He used to have an atrocious hairdo but has seen the error of his ways and now sports a curly mop topped off with a bowler hat. He's also obviously been in the gym a lot recently...
CSS, Interpol and Kings of Leon were also great, and Trent Reznor doing 'Hurt' was pretty amazing too. Much as I find Zane Lowe a pain in the arse, I did agree with him when he commented that it was good to see NIN 'reclaim' the song as their own from the recent idolatry of the Johnny Cash version, which admittedly does also give the spine a tingle. We did settle down to watch the Smashing Pumpkin (Billy Corgan having roped in a load of jobbing musicians to take over his previous bandmates' roles) trawl through 3 greatest hits before being infomed that the BBC weren't allowed to show any more. Doing it for the fans eh Billy.

Oh, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were shit, as has been the case all too often recently. I love the quote Mandrew has on his facebook profile from Nick Cave: "I'm forever near a stereo saying, 'What the fuck is this GARBAGE?' And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers."

Biergartens and mountains

I've blogged before about how lucky I am to work for a company that sends me to nice places. Maybe I did something wonderful in a previous life or something; or more likely my karma will change soon (that's very pessimistic - I don't really believe that). We shall see.

Anyway, on Wednesday morning a few weeks ago the alarm went off at the unearthly hour of 3.15am; Ali had nobly decided to sleep in the spare room so I didn't wake him as I went through my morning ablutions. Luckily the floods had subsided though sandbags were still spilling their guts over the pavement, so the car was able to pick me up at 4am to get to the airport for the flight to Munich.

The main reason for the trip was to plan intensively for 2008, and of course we did that in spades. However round the edges we managed to fit in a trip to a typical Bavarian beer garden, though sadly the suckling pig was no longer on the menu when I came to place my order. More surprising was the discovery that in the summer, Radler is a very popular drink in Bavaria. In essence, this is a lager shandy to you and me, though the quantity of lemonade is not huge. A few of the the team elected not to go for this pooffy drink and have proper Weissbier instead; being a cider drinker I was quite happy with the Radler. On the second night in Munich we visited a restaurant with a cool underground bar and at one point the vodka shots came out. Oddly (well oddly to me) they were served with lime wedges and icing sugar. Ah well. I wimped out anyway and stuck to the champagne.

The best bit of our trip by far was a team bonding session arranged by our boss, Gerd, to the Austrian Alps. On Friday we drove, stopping at the Neuschwanstein Castle (the Cindarella castle in Disneyland) on the way, to a little car park at the foot of a big mountain, just over the border in Austria in the charmingly named town of Nesselwangle. Of course we had stopped earlier to stock up on essential supplies of sausage, more sausage, bread, strudel, and yet more sausage, as well as some bottled water to sustain us on our hike up to the Gimpelhaus - our home for the next 2 nights.

Ali and I thought that some of our walking in Tuscany was quite hard going, and I remember cursing as we laboriously climbed up a mule path to Giglio Castello on our penultimate day's walking. However this was nothing compared to the virtually vertical hike up to the cabin. There was a cable car - we followed the cables up the mountain - but this is strictly for provisions only, and the only way of getting to the Gimpelhaus is to climb for a good 90 minutes. We carried enough clothes, towels, toiletries and sausage for the next 2 days and by the time we all arrived we were exhausted. Cue a round of cold Radlers in huge steins. Wonderful.

The next day we got up at a civilised 9am and set off on our day's hike by 10am. The other occupants of the cabin were mostly climbers and had left at about 7 or 8am to hang off the side of the mountain like lunatics. We were content with hiking up to the top of the Rote Fluh, quite a high peak and only a few hairy moments of clinging onto the rock face. As we had been warned in Munich, this part of the trip was not company endorsed...

It was an amazing moment to get to the top though, and we all felt so proud. On the way back down the 8 of us split into 5 madmen who gravel skated all the way down to the meadow below; and 3 sensible ones who hiked down the mountain path. (Guess which group I fell into...). Another night in the Gimpelhaus (timed 4 minute showers were hard to take) and we made our way back to Munich to fly home the next day, thighs and calves aching to buggery but really really happy we had been. The Alpine flowers, mountain goats, glacial lakes, rugged peaks and astounding scenery are captured completely inadequately here, though I don't have any pictures of the endless card games and Jenga tournaments in the evenings:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=40834&l=b5d0c&id=768970610

When we were back at work on the Monday we all shared photos and began the task of putting together our annual operating plan for 2008. But with much better grace and good humour than we might have done otherwise. I feel a return trip to the Alps in the offing next year sometime!

Photo album for our Tuscan trip

can be found here:

http://www.photobox.co.uk/album/5888177

They are low resolution pics but give a flavour of our trip (though sadly not the real flavours of the foods and wine in smell-o-vision). Enjoy!

Tuscan bliss

We came back from holiday on Thursday 7th - over a week ago - so I really ought to have updated the blog before now. However the task of capturing in words the absolute wonderfulness of our time in Italy seemed a little daunting - we crammed so much into our 8 days of walking and eating and drinking and soaking up the tradition and sunshine and countryside (plus a day either side spent 'enjoying' the delights of Ryanair's hospitality and the insides of 2 highly unattractive airports in the shape of Luton and Rome Ciampino).

We couldn't have asked for more from the holiday company we booked with - Inntravel. They sent us reams of paperwork before we left containing every scrap of info we could possibly have needed, and the organisation of each element, from the transfers to the hotels to the walking guides - was superb.

Our walking covered rolling fields of wheat dotted with poppies; olive groves; rows of vines; fascinating and beautiful medieval hill top towns; the occasional steep and rocky mule track; strada bianca (unsurfaced roads); coastal paths; shady woodland; a few streams and one river; and some scrambling, over rocks or through dense foliage to find our path.

We were really lucky in that we didn't have much road walking either. Overall we were stunned at the variety of the landscapes, the beauty of the environment we were walking in, and amazingly, the peace and quiet - bar a couple of spots (notably Saturnia with its hot thermal springs - apparently a magnet for northern European tourists in Speedos...) we hardly saw a soul as we walked along.

Our hotels were equally wonderful - from a family run organic agriturismo on our first 2 nights, where we were served wild boar, a speciality of the region, through to a comfy hotel in Capalbio where we ate out at a great restaurant in the evening; the Hotel Torre di Cala Piccola in Monte Argentario (pictured left) - with views, prosecco, cuisine and service to die for; and finally the Hotel Castello Monticello on Giglio Island. All were welcoming, and served delicious traditional Italian food, always accompanied by mouthwatering - and cheap - Tuscan wine.

At the end of the Tuscan part of the trip we headed back to Rome and stayed in the 'Franklin Feel the Sound' hotel - glitter ball in the bathroom, drum kit for bedside table, and Bang & Olufsen CD player on the wall. Pure nonsense!

In Rome we were lucky enough to hit upon a couple of great restaurants and a good bar; and visited the Coliseum and Palatine (good) and the Vatican (St. Peter's cathedral wonderful, Sistine Chapel HORRENDOUS as a tourist attraction. I can see that the frescos are just mind-blowing, especially since their restoration, but being herded into a small square room, shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of shouting, camera wielding and generally completely disrespectful tourists, was not my idea of fun. The guards were completely ineffective at controlling the mob. Grrr).

I'll try and get a link up soon to more photos - Ali did take hundreds. They are mostly all fantastic - we were looking at them last night and feeling very wistful. We will definitely be going back to Tuscany - it was one of the best and most rewarding holidays we've ever had.

We're all going on a...

Yes, that's right, Ali and I are off on our hols tomorrow. It's been a busy few weeks, hence the lack of posts, but all the stresses and strains (see previous post) are now over and we can enjoy the prospect of 10 days in Italy.

When I wrote the last post I was in the throes of clearing the decks at work prior to my last day at Virgin on Friday 25th. When I originally handed in my notice, the huge project which had taken up all of my working life since about last August, was due to finish on May 10th with the launch of our brand sparkly new website (and hence I would have seen it go live). However, as is always the case with these kind of projects, the launch date slipped to after my planned departure. So my last few weeks with the company were a bit of a mish-mash of shredding old (too old - 2002!) documents, deleting emails, doing the last few bits of project work, trying to cram in some UAT time, and writing handover notes. Oh and just to make it all more interesting, 2 new starters (one a new team member, and one my replacement for the next 6 months) on May 14th.

But by about Wednesday last week, I was finally relaxing into the idea that yes, I was in fact leaving. A couple of great long lunches with old TUI friend John, and great mate Phil, had brought it home to me that I had taken work far too seriously in the past and should have lunched out a damn sight more. Then on Friday, the day was pretty near perfect - I had already chucked away anything that was worth chucking, so in the morning all I did was read and reply to some really nice emails from the contacts whom I'd told about my impending departure. Lunch was stupendous - with Nigel, who's been such a great friend and support over the last 3 years at work. He had 2 bits of fantastic news (more of which another time) so we had a lovely celebratory/valedictory lunch at the Havelock. When we eventually got back to the office, Rudy started to play some stonking tunes at high volume and in my slightly inebriated state it was just what I needed. Before we knew it, it was time to leave and go to mine, Mark's and Dan's joint leaving do at the Dartmouth Castle. And what a leaving do - loads of old faces from Virgin-past, 3 good speeches(!) from boss Steve, and a general feeling of wellbeing - slight regret at leaving some good friends behind but overwhelming optimism about what the future might bring.

So that's my time at Virgin over. I'll probably blog more about work related stuff as my new job kicks in, but for now it's all thoughts of Italy :-)

We're going to Tuscany on a walking holiday for 7 days followed by 2 nights in Rome, and while the weather forecast isn't that good, at least the rain is accompanied by temperatures in the mid-20s celsius...

As I don't start my new job until 18th June, expect lots of Italy-related posts after we're back on 7th. Ciao!