I had another 'scare' this week, although 'scare' isn't technically the right word. I was a week late and had managed to convince myself I was experiencing all sorts of symptoms - I had the full-on nausea, shortness of breath, cramps and boobage to be expected during the first few weeks of pregnancy. I took four separate tests. Four. €40 worth of tests. And each one that was negative, did it convince me I wasn't pregnant? No. The blood test finally convinced me and lo and behold, the day after, physical evidence arrived to prove convincingly that no, I am not pregnant. (I am trying to be delicate for the squeamish amongst you). My husband thinks it was a psychological pregnancy. I am afraid I sort of have to agree, although the strength of mind required to produce such physical effects amazes me.
It is my 43rd birthday next week and I suppose I am having to adjust to a totally new reality that it never occurred to me I would have to face. That of being a menopausal woman. I have so totally taken my fertility as a given that in spite of over-whelming evidence to the contrary, and reading something about older woman and fertility problems almost on a daily basis, it somehow would miraculously not happen to me. However, evidence has been mounting on my own doorstep and now it really is getting too strong to ignore. I am peri-menopausal, with all the implication to my body and psyche that that entails.
We women have a love-hate relationship with our fertility - for the best part of our lives, it is a bane and a problem to be overcome. Generally, for a very short period of time, it is either working for or against us as we decide we want to conceive and then, generally again, we go back to fighting against it. Due to the fact that I was classed as a 'mature mother' with both my boys - laughably young at 36 and 37 when I had them - I pretty much ran out of time when I decided that I would like one last chance at being a mother. After a surprise pregnancy earlier this year, I realised how much I wanted another addition to the family and when I miscarried at 10 weeks I was devastated, we both were. After overcoming the initial shock, we were so looking forward to introducing the new addition to our family. The miscarriage knocked us for six as we had had the boys with very little - ahem - effort on our behalf, arriving one after the other in such a felicitous way that they adore each other and play beautifully together - well, mostly, this isn't a blog written in Disneyworld, after all.
From then on, I joined forums for older women trying to conceive and the truth hit home - all those dire warnings about women leaving it too late to have children? They were right, would you believe it?!! There are page after page of heartfelt outpourings from poor women desperate for a child, or another one to add to their family, at an age where it is becoming physically almost impossible. So many of these hopeful women announce their pregnancy and then, so desperately sadly, announce a few weeks later that they have had, in many cases, yet another miscarriage.
And if I am honest, is 43 really an age to be bringing another child into the family? I took a look around at my youngest son's nursery parent meeting the other day and thought, I am already one of the oldest here. Is it right to have a child who will have a nearly 50 year old mother when they are starting primary school? Do I want to be surrounded by fit young women when I am starting to feel the creaks and groans of old age?
The benefits of being an older mother, which I am even having my children at the age I did, are legion. I never wish I had had them in my twenties, as my mother did. That would imply that all those years that I was living an utterly selfish life flitting around the world and having a ball would have been better served bringing up children. Woahhh there - I wouldn't hand those years back for anything. Nor am I such a subscriber to the, 'once they are grown up, you are still young enough to enjoy your life', theory because you are never 'free' of your children. Lord knows, my parents will tell you that, when yet another crisis hits and they are the first people I ring to provide a shoulder and some loving support. Once you have children, you can never go back to rediscover a selfish life because by definition, having children means that there is now someone in the world who is more important than you.
No, have children later in life, by all means, when you can dedicate your life to them without regret or a hankering to be somewhere else. Just please please, don't leave it too late. Because turning back the clock is not an option, no matter how good your doctors are.
Thursday 6 October 2011
Wednesday 5 October 2011
Amanda Knox - Guilty of Not Being An Italian Woman
Well, of course I have an opinion on the Amanda Knox saga - I have an opinion on EVERYTHING, and this is a big one. Having lived in Italy, with an Italian husband, for over four years now, I felt some connection with this story. I have watched it unfold, as have most of us I think, slightly ashamed of my own prurience and yet still reading the stories, plus their sidebars. Right from the beginning I thought it damning that there was so much emphasis being placed on Amanda Knox's reported 'promiscuity' and drinking and drug-taking (as in, she liked getting stoned with her boyfriend.). I thought she didn't have a hope of getting off in an Italian court with such a profile and as it happened, she didn't. Eventually, it seems that the case fell apart at the seams and she and Raffaele - her then 'boyfriend', although they had only reportedly been together for a couple of weeks - were released.
It looked like a witch trial with additional trial by media and it felt all wrong. Jurors are not sequestered here so they were free to read all the intimate details, and form their own opinions, on Amanda Knox's life before it even got to trial,. There was from the beginning very little evidence to support the case. It seems that the fact that she 'behaved oddly' when Meredith Kercher was discovered was a major point against her. This of course is not real evidence, it is a 'gut feeling' - which works fine in a detective story where the 'gut feeling' is felt by the hero and ultimately leads to the catching of the bad guy. But this cannot work in a real-life court of law. The language used in the court of appeal was just horrific. She was accused of being given over to 'lust, narcotic substances and the consumption of alcohol'. Oh dear. In which case, 90% of the students in the UK are carrying out the same wild and terrifying behaviour.
Apart from all the legal aspects - there are some good articles about Giuliano Mignini and his own issues in knowing which side of the law he should be on - it gives a great insight into the hypocrisy of Italian society with regard to women. On the one hand, at ANY GIVEN MOMENT, I can point you in the direction of prostitutes standing by the roadside looking for business. These are main roads, one of which runs past the Sky TV HQ, outside which there are often young, scarily scantily-clad girls touting for trade. I have driven along these main trunk roads at rush hour when the famous Roman traffic permanently threatens to grind to a halt with my two young boys in the car and had the arses of said 'mignotte', hookers, grinding in my direction in their underwear. In broad daylight and nose-to-tail traffic. Alemanno, the Roman mayor, came to victory a couple of years ago and promised a 'zero tolerance' policy on the prostitutes and for several months, my husband and I didn't argue about the state of 'it' driving into town because, amazingly, it turns out that if you threaten to send a letter home about your kerb crawling and send the police in to move them on on a regular basis, it actually nips the problem in the bud. My husband's attitude is much the same as most Italians - you can moan all you like but there's nothing you can do about it. (This attitude, by the way, applies to almost everything unpleasant about Italian life). They are almost all back now, however, and just as young and just as brazen as ever they were. Seems the police have better things to do with their time these days.
I very rarely watch Italian TV either as, again, it invariably ends up in an argument. There are scantily-clad women on everywhere, often as not with an older, or at least fully-dressed, male companion. Our version of 'You've Been Framed'? Girl in a bikini top accompanied by a bloke who does stunts on a bike, in jeans and t-shirt, I may add. Our 'Live at the Apollo' equivalent? Dolly-bird, with her breasts overflowing her dress, skirt up to here, accompanied by two blokes who are, of course, fully dressed. The women, even when successful comediennes in their own right, are more often than not used for their body and beauty than for their comedic timing, as a foil for the men. Women are, in the vast majority of cases, included for their ornamental value.
Amanda Knox was held accountable for her 'promiscuous behaviour', the utterly scandalous detail that she had a 'sex toy in her wash-bag' and had her own condoms. To me, it sounds perfectly reasonable and actually, she sounds like a sensible girl sorting out her own pleasures and precautions. The Italian media and legal system took this as a sign that she was a bad sort and somehow as evidence that this is what led to her raping, torturing and killing her room-mate. Italian women who are not showing their breasts on TV or standing with all on view by the side of the road (and actually, most of the goods on view are imported into Italy) are still far from emancipated. It is rare to see groups of girls in bars, out for a night just to have fun together. Groups of boys, yes; couples, yes; but rarely will you see the common sight in the UK of a gaggle of girls laughing raucously without a man by their side. There may be a couple of girls, who will have an ice-cream or cup of coffee together, but then they head home. I believe it was a misunderstanding of the more emancipated American culture that drew many of the male, 'buon famiglie', members of the legal system into the conclusions they did.
I have a young, pretty, petite friend who is a lawyer doing further study. She has told me that a male colleague took her to one side and advised her not to wear her shirts buttoned up so tight as she would get a better showing from the judge. Another young girl who works in my hairdresser and happens to be Anglo-Italian has told me she wants to go to work in the UK when she qualifies as 'they don't judge your work by how pretty you are'. Luckily for me, my husband is utterly egalitarian in his gender views, but even he doesn't see how difficult Italian culture can be for a modern young woman taking for granted her right to have fun and enjoy life - be it sex, alcohol or the odd 'marijuana cigarette'. But then, what surprises can there be with a person such as Silvio Berlusconi and his vile, casual sexism in charge of the country?
We have an Italian friend, a record producer who has lived and worked in London for many years. He has digital Italian TV. He tells us, 'if I want to have my mind broadened or be spoken to on my level, I watch the BBC. If I want tits and arse, I watch Italian TV'. Amanda Knox, young, pretty, emancipated Amanda Knox, didn't stand a chance.
Rachael Wilkinson
Via Vincenzo Federici No. 10
Monterotondo (Roma)
00015
Italia
+39 348 3450724 (Mob)
It looked like a witch trial with additional trial by media and it felt all wrong. Jurors are not sequestered here so they were free to read all the intimate details, and form their own opinions, on Amanda Knox's life before it even got to trial,. There was from the beginning very little evidence to support the case. It seems that the fact that she 'behaved oddly' when Meredith Kercher was discovered was a major point against her. This of course is not real evidence, it is a 'gut feeling' - which works fine in a detective story where the 'gut feeling' is felt by the hero and ultimately leads to the catching of the bad guy. But this cannot work in a real-life court of law. The language used in the court of appeal was just horrific. She was accused of being given over to 'lust, narcotic substances and the consumption of alcohol'. Oh dear. In which case, 90% of the students in the UK are carrying out the same wild and terrifying behaviour.
Apart from all the legal aspects - there are some good articles about Giuliano Mignini and his own issues in knowing which side of the law he should be on - it gives a great insight into the hypocrisy of Italian society with regard to women. On the one hand, at ANY GIVEN MOMENT, I can point you in the direction of prostitutes standing by the roadside looking for business. These are main roads, one of which runs past the Sky TV HQ, outside which there are often young, scarily scantily-clad girls touting for trade. I have driven along these main trunk roads at rush hour when the famous Roman traffic permanently threatens to grind to a halt with my two young boys in the car and had the arses of said 'mignotte', hookers, grinding in my direction in their underwear. In broad daylight and nose-to-tail traffic. Alemanno, the Roman mayor, came to victory a couple of years ago and promised a 'zero tolerance' policy on the prostitutes and for several months, my husband and I didn't argue about the state of 'it' driving into town because, amazingly, it turns out that if you threaten to send a letter home about your kerb crawling and send the police in to move them on on a regular basis, it actually nips the problem in the bud. My husband's attitude is much the same as most Italians - you can moan all you like but there's nothing you can do about it. (This attitude, by the way, applies to almost everything unpleasant about Italian life). They are almost all back now, however, and just as young and just as brazen as ever they were. Seems the police have better things to do with their time these days.
I very rarely watch Italian TV either as, again, it invariably ends up in an argument. There are scantily-clad women on everywhere, often as not with an older, or at least fully-dressed, male companion. Our version of 'You've Been Framed'? Girl in a bikini top accompanied by a bloke who does stunts on a bike, in jeans and t-shirt, I may add. Our 'Live at the Apollo' equivalent? Dolly-bird, with her breasts overflowing her dress, skirt up to here, accompanied by two blokes who are, of course, fully dressed. The women, even when successful comediennes in their own right, are more often than not used for their body and beauty than for their comedic timing, as a foil for the men. Women are, in the vast majority of cases, included for their ornamental value.
Amanda Knox was held accountable for her 'promiscuous behaviour', the utterly scandalous detail that she had a 'sex toy in her wash-bag' and had her own condoms. To me, it sounds perfectly reasonable and actually, she sounds like a sensible girl sorting out her own pleasures and precautions. The Italian media and legal system took this as a sign that she was a bad sort and somehow as evidence that this is what led to her raping, torturing and killing her room-mate. Italian women who are not showing their breasts on TV or standing with all on view by the side of the road (and actually, most of the goods on view are imported into Italy) are still far from emancipated. It is rare to see groups of girls in bars, out for a night just to have fun together. Groups of boys, yes; couples, yes; but rarely will you see the common sight in the UK of a gaggle of girls laughing raucously without a man by their side. There may be a couple of girls, who will have an ice-cream or cup of coffee together, but then they head home. I believe it was a misunderstanding of the more emancipated American culture that drew many of the male, 'buon famiglie', members of the legal system into the conclusions they did.
I have a young, pretty, petite friend who is a lawyer doing further study. She has told me that a male colleague took her to one side and advised her not to wear her shirts buttoned up so tight as she would get a better showing from the judge. Another young girl who works in my hairdresser and happens to be Anglo-Italian has told me she wants to go to work in the UK when she qualifies as 'they don't judge your work by how pretty you are'. Luckily for me, my husband is utterly egalitarian in his gender views, but even he doesn't see how difficult Italian culture can be for a modern young woman taking for granted her right to have fun and enjoy life - be it sex, alcohol or the odd 'marijuana cigarette'. But then, what surprises can there be with a person such as Silvio Berlusconi and his vile, casual sexism in charge of the country?
We have an Italian friend, a record producer who has lived and worked in London for many years. He has digital Italian TV. He tells us, 'if I want to have my mind broadened or be spoken to on my level, I watch the BBC. If I want tits and arse, I watch Italian TV'. Amanda Knox, young, pretty, emancipated Amanda Knox, didn't stand a chance.
Rachael Wilkinson
Via Vincenzo Federici No. 10
Monterotondo (Roma)
00015
Italia
+39 348 3450724 (Mob)
Thursday 14 July 2011
Summer Daze
God, I'm bored. The boys are away for their second annual Spoil-athon at Nanna and Grandad's and I've come back to keep E company during the roiling heat of the summer. I cannot complain, other than that the sunbeds by the pool are a tad uncomfy - he has to work in 39° heat, wearing a suit. I will never understand what it is about the men of Bermuda that makes them uniquely intelligent enough to wear their eponymous shorts to work and yet every other man in the world, it seems, hasn't cottoned on to the hot weather-smart shorts working combo. The Italian man, predictably, has it even worse - they insist on wearing knee-high socks at all times under suit trousers. Apparently, the flash of a hairy ankle under a trouser leg is an ascetic no-no. So, long trousers and knee-high socks in the height of summer, a winning combination.
We are not going so wild this year and trying to cram as much as we can into our 'childless' time as we did last year. I think that now the boys are bigger, we really don't curb ourselves so much in what we want to do and anyway, there's always the babysitter if we do need to go out. Hangovers, on the rare-ish occasion that they do happen these days, can generally be coped with by switching the cartoons on (kids) and crawling back to bed (us). So I am missing them rather, my special purpose is missing (not in Steve Martin kind of way) and I am literally just lying around wondering vaguely if there is something I should be doing, which is a very odd position to be in, as generally I have about 10 things at once I should be doing.
Not long now till I head back to Spain to pick them up and then a month-long jaunt round the UK. I am keeping everything crossed that the weather holds, not so much for myself - I am desperate to sleep through the night without the hot-cold-hot airconditioner game - but for E. He has had to endure working through the cauldron of a Roman summer and will not be getting his beach pay-off at the end of it. I just hope that we get some nice weather and that he is as impressed with the other bits of the UK as he has been with London and Lincoln. As long as he's getting fed well, we'll be on to a good start, but if, as is predicted, it rains all month, I think I am going to have a hard time convincing him of the joys of an English summer again and bang goes any hope of discovering other parts of the British Isles with my family.
I am hoping the boys grow with enquisitve minds and wandering spirits so I will at least have two other companions to fall back on if I can't persuade E. We do what we can now and they have seen far more of the world than alot of kids their age, I am just hoping this doesn't end in a video-game addicted backlash, which, if we are not very careful, G is likely to do. He has displayed an addictive side to him since he was capable of holding on to a spoon for long periods of time (the ''poon' period) then a hammer (the ''ammer' period), then Thomas, then Ben 10 and now we are entering the dangerous waters of Computer Games. Edo doesn't get like this, he just copies, in a watered down way, his big brother. They get 15 mins a day playing games on the computer for good behaviour ('When the buzzer goes THAT IS IT!!'). This means me not having to repeat, 'get dressed, do your teeth, do your hair', ad nauseam in the morning. And another 15 mins for esp good behaviour - me not having to repeat the mantra AT ALL. Those blessed days rarely occur but the threat of taking the 15 mins away works mirculous wonders on misbehaviour. We keep a close eye on it and so far it's under control. Lord knows what's going to happen when we finally cave in and he gets one of those X-Station Playbox things. Some serious parenting skills are going to have to be brought to bear with not a little heavy coertion, I fear. Either that or we end up with a grunting game-addict with few people skills and preternaturally large thumbs. *shudder* It is not a thought that a good mum should have I am sure, but boarding school is starting to look rather attractive about now...
We are not going so wild this year and trying to cram as much as we can into our 'childless' time as we did last year. I think that now the boys are bigger, we really don't curb ourselves so much in what we want to do and anyway, there's always the babysitter if we do need to go out. Hangovers, on the rare-ish occasion that they do happen these days, can generally be coped with by switching the cartoons on (kids) and crawling back to bed (us). So I am missing them rather, my special purpose is missing (not in Steve Martin kind of way) and I am literally just lying around wondering vaguely if there is something I should be doing, which is a very odd position to be in, as generally I have about 10 things at once I should be doing.
Not long now till I head back to Spain to pick them up and then a month-long jaunt round the UK. I am keeping everything crossed that the weather holds, not so much for myself - I am desperate to sleep through the night without the hot-cold-hot airconditioner game - but for E. He has had to endure working through the cauldron of a Roman summer and will not be getting his beach pay-off at the end of it. I just hope that we get some nice weather and that he is as impressed with the other bits of the UK as he has been with London and Lincoln. As long as he's getting fed well, we'll be on to a good start, but if, as is predicted, it rains all month, I think I am going to have a hard time convincing him of the joys of an English summer again and bang goes any hope of discovering other parts of the British Isles with my family.
I am hoping the boys grow with enquisitve minds and wandering spirits so I will at least have two other companions to fall back on if I can't persuade E. We do what we can now and they have seen far more of the world than alot of kids their age, I am just hoping this doesn't end in a video-game addicted backlash, which, if we are not very careful, G is likely to do. He has displayed an addictive side to him since he was capable of holding on to a spoon for long periods of time (the ''poon' period) then a hammer (the ''ammer' period), then Thomas, then Ben 10 and now we are entering the dangerous waters of Computer Games. Edo doesn't get like this, he just copies, in a watered down way, his big brother. They get 15 mins a day playing games on the computer for good behaviour ('When the buzzer goes THAT IS IT!!'). This means me not having to repeat, 'get dressed, do your teeth, do your hair', ad nauseam in the morning. And another 15 mins for esp good behaviour - me not having to repeat the mantra AT ALL. Those blessed days rarely occur but the threat of taking the 15 mins away works mirculous wonders on misbehaviour. We keep a close eye on it and so far it's under control. Lord knows what's going to happen when we finally cave in and he gets one of those X-Station Playbox things. Some serious parenting skills are going to have to be brought to bear with not a little heavy coertion, I fear. Either that or we end up with a grunting game-addict with few people skills and preternaturally large thumbs. *shudder* It is not a thought that a good mum should have I am sure, but boarding school is starting to look rather attractive about now...
Wednesday 22 June 2011
Life Goes On..
Not been on here for flipping ages... Not really had the time or inclination frankly, although I have one saved post I'm going to let loose once I've rambled on here for a while.
Well. I was going to say that I am slowly adjusting to life after the miscarriage 5 weeks ago but that isn't the case really. I don't ever think of myself as a particularly delicate flower. I am rather robust, rude in health and proud of my bluff Yorkshire roots. I don't tend to dwell too much on things and have only once in my life been so emotional to the extent that my appetite has been affected. So, I am not really sure what is going on here, whether my hormones are affecting me still or some deep psychological effect is taking place. All I know is, I think about not having a baby alot. I was pregnant and then I wasn't and now I have very little chance of being pregnant again and it is preoccupying many of my thoughts. The fact that DH has concluded that he doesn't want to try again, that he saw me suffering when the gynae pointed out the empty gestational sac patently devoid of the little beating heart we'd seen three weeks earlier and doesn't ever want to face going through that again... I don't know if that is making me feel so much worse or I'd feel the same, but I am fairly sure that some hope would be better than none.
I don't know if this is going to go away, I hope it will because I am worried that otherwise I will spend the rest of my life with a small but significant hole in it and a resentment for the other half that he wouldn't let me have my own way and at least try to fill it. Er... As it were...
Otherwise, we are generally back into the Summer Merry-go-round, trying to escape the heat of Rome and find somewhere with a nice breeze to keep the suffocating heat at bay. We had a lovely weekend with friends in Gaeta, a pretty town on the Latina coast. The beaches are fine and clean and the sea rolls gently out so far that the kids are able to play and run without dropping into deep water. We were with friends who are super-attentive though, helicopter parenting doesn't come into it. More hovercraft parenting, actually. Their level of anxiety is such that they rarely allowed themselves fun. The children were so constantly monitored that they also rarely got a chance just to play and not worry about the water on their heads, in their ears, the depth of the waves, the splashing... To be fair to them, their children (two) are more delicate than ours and suffer many more infections, colds etc. It does beg the question though, is a delicate constitution nature or nurture? I have not had a cold all year this year, in spite of being surrounded by flu's and colds, the boys have had a below average smattering of coughs and sneezes - I had to be half dead before I was taken out of school and I wonder if this attitude and way of caring for illness, and the way it has influenced my parenting, is a factor in our hale and hearty constitutions? If, by not stopping and molly-coddling (how old fashioned a term that is these days) and dosing and anti-biotic-ing and just getting on with it, we have strengthened our immune systems? Or maybe we are just plain lucky. Could very well just be the latter, I should be touching wood right now, I am sure.
*sigh*
I'm off to hang the towels out. Then I'm off to hoover the sand up that came off the towels. It's great getting back from holiday...
Well. I was going to say that I am slowly adjusting to life after the miscarriage 5 weeks ago but that isn't the case really. I don't ever think of myself as a particularly delicate flower. I am rather robust, rude in health and proud of my bluff Yorkshire roots. I don't tend to dwell too much on things and have only once in my life been so emotional to the extent that my appetite has been affected. So, I am not really sure what is going on here, whether my hormones are affecting me still or some deep psychological effect is taking place. All I know is, I think about not having a baby alot. I was pregnant and then I wasn't and now I have very little chance of being pregnant again and it is preoccupying many of my thoughts. The fact that DH has concluded that he doesn't want to try again, that he saw me suffering when the gynae pointed out the empty gestational sac patently devoid of the little beating heart we'd seen three weeks earlier and doesn't ever want to face going through that again... I don't know if that is making me feel so much worse or I'd feel the same, but I am fairly sure that some hope would be better than none.
I don't know if this is going to go away, I hope it will because I am worried that otherwise I will spend the rest of my life with a small but significant hole in it and a resentment for the other half that he wouldn't let me have my own way and at least try to fill it. Er... As it were...
Otherwise, we are generally back into the Summer Merry-go-round, trying to escape the heat of Rome and find somewhere with a nice breeze to keep the suffocating heat at bay. We had a lovely weekend with friends in Gaeta, a pretty town on the Latina coast. The beaches are fine and clean and the sea rolls gently out so far that the kids are able to play and run without dropping into deep water. We were with friends who are super-attentive though, helicopter parenting doesn't come into it. More hovercraft parenting, actually. Their level of anxiety is such that they rarely allowed themselves fun. The children were so constantly monitored that they also rarely got a chance just to play and not worry about the water on their heads, in their ears, the depth of the waves, the splashing... To be fair to them, their children (two) are more delicate than ours and suffer many more infections, colds etc. It does beg the question though, is a delicate constitution nature or nurture? I have not had a cold all year this year, in spite of being surrounded by flu's and colds, the boys have had a below average smattering of coughs and sneezes - I had to be half dead before I was taken out of school and I wonder if this attitude and way of caring for illness, and the way it has influenced my parenting, is a factor in our hale and hearty constitutions? If, by not stopping and molly-coddling (how old fashioned a term that is these days) and dosing and anti-biotic-ing and just getting on with it, we have strengthened our immune systems? Or maybe we are just plain lucky. Could very well just be the latter, I should be touching wood right now, I am sure.
*sigh*
I'm off to hang the towels out. Then I'm off to hoover the sand up that came off the towels. It's great getting back from holiday...
The Best Laid Plans.
I am keeping this post private for the time being while I come to terms with our news and hopefully see things settle down a bit more. By things, I mean we are pregnant and I am 42 and E is 47 and we hadn't expected this to happen and oh MY GOD oh my God OH MY GOD!!!
It has arrived at exactly the right moment. Ha. If I had a font that signified 'dripping in sarcasm', I would be using that right there. After leaving work early when I was pregnant with Giorgio, 6 years ago, I haven't worked since - unless you are an enlightened being and recognise that bringing up two vivacious boys in close succession is in fact full time work sufficient to occupy a couple of people and then some - in which case, I have been fully employed but unpaid since then. However - all this was about to change. I have had so many offers/ demands/ cajolings since I got to Italy to teach English or do private lessons, but since I taught at the boys' nursery, I have avoided it like the plague. Even grown-ups, I hate teaching full stop and wasn't about to get drawn back into it, being uncharacteristically stubborn about it when asked. Then one day, a friend rang and said she was starting a travel and events company and would I come on board? It would be a brand new office in a lovely new hotel and sports complex just down the road and if I only wanted to do mornings so I could be there for the boys in the afternoon, that would be fine too.
So tomorrow I am going to Verona for a week with her on a training course knowing that, barring any mishaps, I ain't going to be working for another couple of years yet... I feel really bad for her, I so don't want to let her down.
Of course, we were also supposed to be moving into the new house in the Autumn. It is a new build in the country, three stories with much more room and garden than we have now. Effectively a blank canvas. I have been looking forward to moving for about a year and have been steadily decorating each room in my mind and getting more and more excited the closer it got to making my ideas reality. Like that's going to happen now... *sigh*
I have gone through broody moments over the past few years, when Edo started at nursery, when friends have announced pregnancies or babies born. Much of it was born out a need for a purpose, I think now, which the new job was set to provide. We didn't expect this at all - in fact, the last trip to the gynae, he told me I was looking at perimenopause so I got all anxious about hot flushes and hair loss. Wrong!
This blog is going to take rather a surprising turn so, bear with me as I struggle to give up the lovely predicatable happy future we had for another we just can't anticipate.
It has arrived at exactly the right moment. Ha. If I had a font that signified 'dripping in sarcasm', I would be using that right there. After leaving work early when I was pregnant with Giorgio, 6 years ago, I haven't worked since - unless you are an enlightened being and recognise that bringing up two vivacious boys in close succession is in fact full time work sufficient to occupy a couple of people and then some - in which case, I have been fully employed but unpaid since then. However - all this was about to change. I have had so many offers/ demands/ cajolings since I got to Italy to teach English or do private lessons, but since I taught at the boys' nursery, I have avoided it like the plague. Even grown-ups, I hate teaching full stop and wasn't about to get drawn back into it, being uncharacteristically stubborn about it when asked. Then one day, a friend rang and said she was starting a travel and events company and would I come on board? It would be a brand new office in a lovely new hotel and sports complex just down the road and if I only wanted to do mornings so I could be there for the boys in the afternoon, that would be fine too.
So tomorrow I am going to Verona for a week with her on a training course knowing that, barring any mishaps, I ain't going to be working for another couple of years yet... I feel really bad for her, I so don't want to let her down.
Of course, we were also supposed to be moving into the new house in the Autumn. It is a new build in the country, three stories with much more room and garden than we have now. Effectively a blank canvas. I have been looking forward to moving for about a year and have been steadily decorating each room in my mind and getting more and more excited the closer it got to making my ideas reality. Like that's going to happen now... *sigh*
I have gone through broody moments over the past few years, when Edo started at nursery, when friends have announced pregnancies or babies born. Much of it was born out a need for a purpose, I think now, which the new job was set to provide. We didn't expect this at all - in fact, the last trip to the gynae, he told me I was looking at perimenopause so I got all anxious about hot flushes and hair loss. Wrong!
This blog is going to take rather a surprising turn so, bear with me as I struggle to give up the lovely predicatable happy future we had for another we just can't anticipate.
Tuesday 14 December 2010
It has been snowing in the UK for about three weeks now. I have seen photo after photo of snow-covered landscapes that frankly, would take an imbecile to make unattractive. I am DESPERATE for a flake of snow, but no, here in Rome we get snow very infrequently and even then it doesn't settle - which is almost worse. It's like having a bottle of wine with just a couple of centimetres left in the bottom and no more in the rack. You eke it out wishing there was more and that it would last longer, but no, it is what it is and it's gone far too quickly. (I'm not an alcoholic, honest). It's not a relaxing experience, watching it snowing here. Saying that, I have only seen heavy sleet, not your actual genuine Roman snow. That only happens when I go away - earlier this year there was a light sprinkling. I was in Spain. The photos were lovely.
So this year, I have been watching all the snow falling in the UK with a sinking heart, miserable that I'm not there to enjoy it. Homesickness always kicks in in the run up to Christmas. I miss how over-the-top we do things in the UK. You in the UK will scoff - and I well remember how hideously irritating Christmas can become after it's been rammed down your throat since the end of the summer holidays. Things here are much more understated. We went to the Piazza del Popolo last week and the tree there looks lovely, dominating the Piazza in an elegant way, not trying too hard to be the centre of attention. There are delicate lights which certain stores have taken it upon themselves to put up and the odd side-street which has gone the whole hog and strung lights from one end to another, but you don't get the feeling that it's something they want to shout about. You don't hear the same ten songs on a loop in every shop you go into. Which is good and bad, it's sort of a pleasure/ pain thing. Does it make me want to introduce a yule log somewhere unmentionable every time I hear bloody Mariah warbling or Jonah Louis droning? Yes. Do I miss them when they aren't around? Yes. I have a CD of Christmas songs, and yet I miss getting bludgeoned by them every time I step out of the door. It's tradition.
Anyway, as is the way with most things, Christmas is transformed since having children and I am loving preparing Gingerbread Men, coating the whole kitchen in a fine sticky layer making marmalade for presents, baking rich fruit cakes, and the tradition-in-the-making Gingerbread Cottage is in the process of being assembled. The boys have already spoken to Santa. Disconcertingly, heartbreakingly, my youngest at 4, replied to the question, 'aren't you LUCKY to have spoken to Santa?', with 'it was only DADDY, Mummy!'. How can that be?? The oldest, at 5, tried to warn him he was dicing with a sack of coal on Christmas morning, but youngest wouldn't have it. 'But I was laughing with Daddy, Mummy, he always says 'ho! ho! ho!' like that!'. I'd thought he was quite convincing. Obviously not convincing enough. I am hoping the Portable North Pole people can erase the scepticism, I can't bear the thought of innocence coming to an end so soon.
So we are heading off to Spain in a couple of days to spend Christmas with the grandparents, who are no doubt more excited than anyone, given that they get the double joy of spending lots of time with the grandchildren AND spoiling them rotten over Christmas without Enrico or I trying to rein them in and stop with the spoiling, already, because if they can't get spoilt at Christmas, they may as well give up being children and head off to work now.
And guess what? The temperature's dropping alarmingly. We are due to leave in five more sleeps. Snow is forecast - I check the Lazio weather forecast with obsessive frequency - everywhere but where we are, and I am willing to place a bet, ladies and gentlemen, that it snows with abandon in the near future. It's just saving it all up until we're on the plane. Next year, I'll be doing Christmas in Lapland. I will have snow and sleigh bells, come Hell or high water.
So this year, I have been watching all the snow falling in the UK with a sinking heart, miserable that I'm not there to enjoy it. Homesickness always kicks in in the run up to Christmas. I miss how over-the-top we do things in the UK. You in the UK will scoff - and I well remember how hideously irritating Christmas can become after it's been rammed down your throat since the end of the summer holidays. Things here are much more understated. We went to the Piazza del Popolo last week and the tree there looks lovely, dominating the Piazza in an elegant way, not trying too hard to be the centre of attention. There are delicate lights which certain stores have taken it upon themselves to put up and the odd side-street which has gone the whole hog and strung lights from one end to another, but you don't get the feeling that it's something they want to shout about. You don't hear the same ten songs on a loop in every shop you go into. Which is good and bad, it's sort of a pleasure/ pain thing. Does it make me want to introduce a yule log somewhere unmentionable every time I hear bloody Mariah warbling or Jonah Louis droning? Yes. Do I miss them when they aren't around? Yes. I have a CD of Christmas songs, and yet I miss getting bludgeoned by them every time I step out of the door. It's tradition.So we are heading off to Spain in a couple of days to spend Christmas with the grandparents, who are no doubt more excited than anyone, given that they get the double joy of spending lots of time with the grandchildren AND spoiling them rotten over Christmas without Enrico or I trying to rein them in and stop with the spoiling, already, because if they can't get spoilt at Christmas, they may as well give up being children and head off to work now.
And guess what? The temperature's dropping alarmingly. We are due to leave in five more sleeps. Snow is forecast - I check the Lazio weather forecast with obsessive frequency - everywhere but where we are, and I am willing to place a bet, ladies and gentlemen, that it snows with abandon in the near future. It's just saving it all up until we're on the plane. Next year, I'll be doing Christmas in Lapland. I will have snow and sleigh bells, come Hell or high water.
Monday 27 September 2010
An Amateur Cook in Italy
I am actually a great cook - much to my surprise after years not doing much more than heating up the Breville. (By the way - I never realised that all the fat from the cheese that you over-stuff in those things (just me then?) runs out and collects underneath. That was NOT a pleasant surprise, who could guess that rancid fat could smell so bad?)
Since the boys were weaned, however, I really started getting into it and from my first Anabel Karmel experiences (lunatic woman, who on earth is going to spend three hours over a meal for a toddler, pur-lease?) started branching out. As I have acknowledged many, many times, Enrico is the chef in this family and that is the difference between us. He is a chef and I am a cook. I look stuff up on the internet, almost always, www.bbcgoodfood.com, all recipes infallible as well as delicious, with the comments that come afterwards the cherry on the cake, as it were. Or my old faithfuls, Nigella Lawson's How to Eat and the grandmammy of them all, Delia's Complete Cookery Course. I find something I like that matches the ingredients I have available and Jamie's yer uncle, dinner's ready. Enrico generally doesn't look at recipes. He is a savant in the kitchen and can throw things together - simple, basic, nothing flashy - and they come out delicious and perfect. He has a knack and a gift and I never stop being grateful for a husband who cooks. I have friends whose husbands barely toast their own bread, so the bonus of being able to say, 'do you fancy cooking tonight?' and having someone who actually enjoys the process is marvellous. He uses cooking as a way of relaxing and switching off. I use it to feed people and usually end up stressed myself in the process.
So arriving in Italy just when my wings were fledging in the kitchen, so to speak, was a bit of a shock. Italian supermarkets are full of great Italian stuff but very little in the way of anything more exotic or indeed that is not Italian. I missed bread - and still do, from the fantastic plastic bread that is the only thing to put around some crisp, meaty bacon and ketchup - oh and the bacon that goes with it - to wonderful poppy-seed, wholemeal, cheese, farmhouse breads, all of which are the only solution in certain sandwich situations. I decided to make my own when the boys first started at nursery and I had time on my hands. And blimey, do you need time. I needed around a loaf every couple of days, minimum, and making those loaves took up a fair chunk of my, theoretically free, time in the mornings.
They were generally tasty but I don't know what industrial breadmakers put into their loaves - whatever it is, I don't got it and they were usually a little on the dense side. Not the light, fluffy loaf I craved. Still not solved as the usual Italian loaf is made for bruschetta, but we have discovered a good bakery near E's office who do nice wholemeal and 'farro' bread - according to Wikipedia, it's an old-fashioned wheat variety - either way, it makes a tasty and moist loaf. From never really taking to them in the UK, I have also become rather fond of the wrap, for which I use a piadina, an Italian flatbread from the Romagna region, which is actually available all over Italy. When Enrico made his own one time, we realised why they are so delicious - one of the fat ingredients is lard, which takes them to a whole other level that tortilla wraps just don't seem to attain.
When Enrico and I were first together, one of our many points of difference was the fact that I can quite easily eat a sandwich and a bag of crisps or yoghurt for lunch and not think twice about it. For him, a sandwich for lunch is an aberration and only partaken in the most extreme emergencies. He is not a little chap - 6'1-ish I think, and not exactly of whippet proportions either and he does have a point when he says that it wouldn't keep him going till dinner. However - spread the bread flat, smear on some passata, a few leaves of rocket with some buffalo mozzarella on top and call it pizza: This can quite easily keep him going all afternoon. Every society has their own carbohydrate load and in Italy it's pizza. For us anglo saxons, it's a sandwich. We were watching a very good Roman comedian the other night in a TV special - his girlfriend is American and he was recounting coming home for lunch to see she'd made a toasted sandwich. He had us laughing in recognition at his horror and the thought of what his father would have said, coming home to the same lunch. It would have been assumed that the mother was having an affair that she had so carelessly and with so little time prepared such a lunch!
However, in this as in many things, I am going native. I now actually feel a little cheated if I just throw myself a sandwich together on those days that E's not home for lunch. I have caught the cooking bug and have grown to enjoy trying new things - and frankly, in the absence of ethnic or 'exotic' produce here, if I want something not Italian, I am going to bloomin' well have to prepare it myself anyway. Although I am now growing my own coriander, I don't have a chance in hell of getting hold of red or green curry paste, lime leaves, pak choi, and lemongrass but my English cravings are met by Marmite flown over from the UK (thank you, Joe, thank you Catherine) and I was utterly delighted with a pressie of a big tub of Horlicks (thank you, Loob!!). I am told there is a mythical place called Piazza Victorio in Rome where all of the 'exotic' ingredients can be bought but even the Indian man who has taken over Massimo the Grocer's shop hasn't been able to get hold of a bunch of fresh coriander for me. Little by little, though, I am sourcing things that initially I thought would be unobtainable - ground almonds (for the Bakewell Tart craving), creme fraiche, Gruyère cheese, I even found a place to get fish sauce for curries the other day, yay! So I live in hope that one day I'll be able to get a big bunch of coriander without the two month wait that proceeds it as it grows from a tiny seed. Cross fingers...
Since the boys were weaned, however, I really started getting into it and from my first Anabel Karmel experiences (lunatic woman, who on earth is going to spend three hours over a meal for a toddler, pur-lease?) started branching out. As I have acknowledged many, many times, Enrico is the chef in this family and that is the difference between us. He is a chef and I am a cook. I look stuff up on the internet, almost always, www.bbcgoodfood.com, all recipes infallible as well as delicious, with the comments that come afterwards the cherry on the cake, as it were. Or my old faithfuls, Nigella Lawson's How to Eat and the grandmammy of them all, Delia's Complete Cookery Course. I find something I like that matches the ingredients I have available and Jamie's yer uncle, dinner's ready. Enrico generally doesn't look at recipes. He is a savant in the kitchen and can throw things together - simple, basic, nothing flashy - and they come out delicious and perfect. He has a knack and a gift and I never stop being grateful for a husband who cooks. I have friends whose husbands barely toast their own bread, so the bonus of being able to say, 'do you fancy cooking tonight?' and having someone who actually enjoys the process is marvellous. He uses cooking as a way of relaxing and switching off. I use it to feed people and usually end up stressed myself in the process.
So arriving in Italy just when my wings were fledging in the kitchen, so to speak, was a bit of a shock. Italian supermarkets are full of great Italian stuff but very little in the way of anything more exotic or indeed that is not Italian. I missed bread - and still do, from the fantastic plastic bread that is the only thing to put around some crisp, meaty bacon and ketchup - oh and the bacon that goes with it - to wonderful poppy-seed, wholemeal, cheese, farmhouse breads, all of which are the only solution in certain sandwich situations. I decided to make my own when the boys first started at nursery and I had time on my hands. And blimey, do you need time. I needed around a loaf every couple of days, minimum, and making those loaves took up a fair chunk of my, theoretically free, time in the mornings.
They were generally tasty but I don't know what industrial breadmakers put into their loaves - whatever it is, I don't got it and they were usually a little on the dense side. Not the light, fluffy loaf I craved. Still not solved as the usual Italian loaf is made for bruschetta, but we have discovered a good bakery near E's office who do nice wholemeal and 'farro' bread - according to Wikipedia, it's an old-fashioned wheat variety - either way, it makes a tasty and moist loaf. From never really taking to them in the UK, I have also become rather fond of the wrap, for which I use a piadina, an Italian flatbread from the Romagna region, which is actually available all over Italy. When Enrico made his own one time, we realised why they are so delicious - one of the fat ingredients is lard, which takes them to a whole other level that tortilla wraps just don't seem to attain.
When Enrico and I were first together, one of our many points of difference was the fact that I can quite easily eat a sandwich and a bag of crisps or yoghurt for lunch and not think twice about it. For him, a sandwich for lunch is an aberration and only partaken in the most extreme emergencies. He is not a little chap - 6'1-ish I think, and not exactly of whippet proportions either and he does have a point when he says that it wouldn't keep him going till dinner. However - spread the bread flat, smear on some passata, a few leaves of rocket with some buffalo mozzarella on top and call it pizza: This can quite easily keep him going all afternoon. Every society has their own carbohydrate load and in Italy it's pizza. For us anglo saxons, it's a sandwich. We were watching a very good Roman comedian the other night in a TV special - his girlfriend is American and he was recounting coming home for lunch to see she'd made a toasted sandwich. He had us laughing in recognition at his horror and the thought of what his father would have said, coming home to the same lunch. It would have been assumed that the mother was having an affair that she had so carelessly and with so little time prepared such a lunch!
However, in this as in many things, I am going native. I now actually feel a little cheated if I just throw myself a sandwich together on those days that E's not home for lunch. I have caught the cooking bug and have grown to enjoy trying new things - and frankly, in the absence of ethnic or 'exotic' produce here, if I want something not Italian, I am going to bloomin' well have to prepare it myself anyway. Although I am now growing my own coriander, I don't have a chance in hell of getting hold of red or green curry paste, lime leaves, pak choi, and lemongrass but my English cravings are met by Marmite flown over from the UK (thank you, Joe, thank you Catherine) and I was utterly delighted with a pressie of a big tub of Horlicks (thank you, Loob!!). I am told there is a mythical place called Piazza Victorio in Rome where all of the 'exotic' ingredients can be bought but even the Indian man who has taken over Massimo the Grocer's shop hasn't been able to get hold of a bunch of fresh coriander for me. Little by little, though, I am sourcing things that initially I thought would be unobtainable - ground almonds (for the Bakewell Tart craving), creme fraiche, Gruyère cheese, I even found a place to get fish sauce for curries the other day, yay! So I live in hope that one day I'll be able to get a big bunch of coriander without the two month wait that proceeds it as it grows from a tiny seed. Cross fingers...
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