Guillermo Senz' Amici

I have moved around ALOT. Do not think I am exaggerating. From the age of 18 to 30, I did not live in the same place for more than a year at a stretch. On average, I probably moved every 10 months over that period. Of course, that included the university years, featuring a stint in Paris, and another on and off one in Luxembourg then after university - London, Manchester, Wilmslow, Lincoln, Bermuda, London again, a good long jaunt round South America (which lasted several months longer than it was supposed to and several months shorter than I would have liked it to), then Marbella and finally here in Italy, where we have been now for just over two years.

This is just so that you understand I am not a shrinking violet who knows nothing of the world and has been pitched up in a place far beyond her depth. I have travelled around and I can truly say that I have never had such a hard time meeting like-minded people. Of course, the answer to this is that I am a stay-at-home mum - er, the reason for my isolation is in the job title. However, even though I don't work and therefore have a ready-made bank of colleagues from which to develop friendships, I have really found it a long slog to meet anyone due to the almost complete lack of activities for mothers and babies. In Marbella, I met a great group of mums and babies at a local group who I am still friends with today. It provided untold relief to get together with them on a regular basis and share/ dump/ moan/ howl about our new lives as mums and what the children were getting up to - and the blokes too, for that matter. I need people to talk to to get my own life into perspective and frankly, it is just not healthy for me to be on alone too much - I have a run away imagination which can be just plain evil if left to its' own devices, so the function of talking to another human being who may be (even if only vaguely) in the same situation as me is safer for all concerned.

So imagine the situation I was placed in, moving to a commuter town on the outskirts of Rome. Just far enough outside to get in but also just far enough outside for it to be a bit-of-a-pain to get in. Rome and its' civilised mum and baby groups, nice ex-architects turned stay-at-home mums in the park and hell, the fact that there are large parks at all, is a major step forward. Monterotondo has none of the above. What it does have are Chinese shops, shop after shop selling cheap clingfilm, garish fake sunflowers and beige bras. Between the Chinese shops, there are the One Price and 99c shops and the Outlet clothes shops. I am told that Monterotondo was a place where the elegant women who lived here - Enrico's mum for example - could easily buy clothes without having to go into Rome. Not any longer. It is not a desperately ugly place, as I probably make it sound, however the level of sophistication definitely leaves something to be desired, even for this rather unsophisticatated person...

In its' defence, the Old Town is lovely. I remember walking up a cobbled street with my parents on a lovely sunny afternoon on one of their first visits (when they still thought it was 'quaint' and 'full of character') and it was as if Fellini, on a bored day off, had put on a show just for us. From one of the shadowy doorways, an old chap in a blue knitted cardigan ran out brandishing a broom and proceeded to clobber a mouse which was desperately trying to escape under his closed garage door. Walking on a little further, the sound of someone singing opera wafted from an open first floor window. We rounded the corner and there at the top of the hill was the Commune, the local town hall - which is actually a 15th palazzo which has been owned by the Orsini, the Borgias, Garabaldi woz 'ere too I believe - in short, a stunning old building against the backdrop of the deep blue sky. So, no, it is not an altogether unpleasant place to live.

However, the best place in the world without friends is also the loneliest and especially having left behind a thriving cosmopolitan centre like Marbella, and before that, London, I have had a challenging couple of years.

BUT there is light at the end of the tunnel!! The children are now both in nursery till 2pm, Enrico no longer goes into Rome at 8.30am only returning at 8pm every day, and I can now scramble a sentence together in Italian. This means communicating with the locals is finally a practical possibility. The free time I have now is great. I am fighting a daily battle to stay away from the siren call of wall-to-wall internet browsing, because therein lies wasted time and a big fat arse. There are a couple of mums at the school with whom I am exchanging relatively mutually understood conversations and I am now feeling alot more optimistic about a (five years max) future here...