Georgi's Overseas Odessey

Just a very good bureaucrat

2010-04-11T16:32:00.000-07:00

I've several friends who have started their own businesses. I think they're tremendously clever... like my ethical PR chum Trine, and the tremendously gifted science whizz turned graphic designer, Kerry. Then there's my dad, who's committed to 'moving people forward', and my crafty sister in law Amy who I can't wait to order some groovy I SPY hats from.

There was a time when I wanted to set the world on fire by coming up with a genius idea and seeking my fortune in the world of business. After all, I am strong and clever, my nose is pretty... Sadly,I lack the courage and the nerves of steel that a business requires. I am fundamentally risk averse. I would obsess about the need to build the business while secretly procrastinating cold calling because I loathe it. I would be far more likely to end up like some other friends, whose businesses are sadly no more.

And if life has taught me anything, it's to play to your strengths. Mine, I fear, are an obsession with detail, a geeky determination to nut out the most convoluted bits of nonsense, and an innate determination to provide frank and fearless advice in the service of the greater good. Oh, and sometimes I'm an absolute academic snob.

In short, I'm just a very good bureaucrat. Thank goodness they let me in at the UN.

(It don't get more bureaucratic than here...)

Birthday adventures in Rome

2010-02-19T17:27:00.000-08:00

I turned 36 this week, and I have to say I'm rather chuffed.

My year got off to a flying start - I had the day off. (One of the advantages of my new improved contract. I get holidays!) Minor sleep in, wee bit of cooking, then off to the train station to meet the lovely Ms Heather, freshly arrived from London. There was shopping, in which I cheerfully told the checkout chum (in proper Aussie style) that it was m

y birthday so I didn't have to work today and my friend had arrived from England so I was very happy. Oh, and no thanks, I don't need a bag for my groceries. Heather was flabbergasted - you don' chat to shop staff in England. Especially not in Italian. (I was a bit chuffed. I remembered nearly all the words).

So, home, champagne, scrambled eggs, smoked salmon - the most perfect special occasion breakfast ever. Lots of chit chat. Phonecalls from teh folks. Walking adventure into town to prove that we really DO live right near the Colusseum, followed by coffee and cake. More walking, eating, drinking. (Heather is here for 5 days - there will be lots of that.) We found performers at the Spanish Steps and the Piazza Del Popolo... I felt like a circus had been turned on specially just for me!

Of course, this being Rome and Monday being my birthday, it all would have been a bit incomplete without a big ol steak dinner. And best of all, the weekend is nearly here... and then the celebrations will really begin!

Astrid returns...

2010-02-08T12:24:00.000-08:00

It's been one of those weekends where you just can't wipe the smile off your face. Thursday saw the jubilant return of Astrid, one of my first friends in Rome (alongside her housemate Rachel. Two women less alike you could not meet: one tall, Danish and as liberal as they come, the other petite, Scottish and Presbyterian in all but name. What they share, of course, is fiersome intellect, utter gorgeousness and... they are friends with me!). So there was much rejoicing and there may have been a wine or two involved. Perhaps even chocolate shots.

Friday we trooped down to the Druids Den to see Ants play with his new group, the Coff Drops. Before you know it I'd been roped in too and suddenly there were half price drinks all night for performers. Saturday brought another gig, for both of us, this time at the packed and higher profile Finnegan's. There were more friends from work - Ash and a gaggle of girls (how does he do it, and yet stay single?) and my friend Antje with her husband and friends, to celebrate her birthday. The prosecco flowed, the crowd (about a hundred of them!) cheered, and we left there floating. We haven't shared our musical side with work friends here in Rome before, so the whole night had that slightly crazy chaotic air of worlds colliding, leaving me dizzy.

It was hard work to get on my bike the next day, but I'd promised Kate that if my house guest had other plans, I would go. Astrid was off to go catch up with a friend, and left looking very glam in a dress and high heels. I arrived at the meeting point and Kate said... we're waiting for some other firends,... Astrid and Geoff are coming too, do you know them?? We nearly wet ourselves laughing when we saw each other... the Rome expat community really isn't that big after all!

Anyway, it was a cracking ride up along the Tevere, and my wee legs felt well tested by the time we trundled home in the dark, still smiling!

Haiti - a tough job getting aid in

2010-02-01T02:47:00.000-08:00

Once again I am in awe of my colleagues. WFP had 225 staff in Haiti on January 12 when the earthquake struck.

Virtually all of them are now homeless.

More than 90% have lost a member of their immediate family.

But the day after the quake, they were virtually all back at work (our country office has relocated to an awning in the middle of a cleared space, because the building itself is too damaged to use), trying to find out which of our warehouses are okay, what roads are passable, and putting in place plans that will ultimately see us providing food to 2 million people a month, for the next 6-12 months at least.

But it's not an easy job. This article from The Age gives a hugely accurate picture of why food and other support is only slowly getting in there.

My boss is over there now, and some of our engineers. There is no running water, no showers. You take in everything you will need: water purification tablets, tent, sleeping bag, wetwipes, loo roll. And, with the rainy season closing in fast, a shovel and mozzie repellent.

Port au Prince, a city of 3 million, is devastated. Many of the country's leaders, heads of government service departments and emergency services, lost their lives. A city already the capital of the poorest country in the region did not need fate to deal a hand like this.

And yet, people are starting to put things in place, and the world is responding on a massive scale. This is what the UN is for - to bring nations together in support of one another. And it's global responses like these that remind us of the power of our humanity.

Aussie Day bbq

2010-01-26T12:21:00.000-08:00

Our New Years trip to Bristol contained something of a discovery... an importer of Kangaroo Burgers just outside of town (I could live where these guys are based, its really pretty). Australia day was just around the corner, so what else could a girl do, really, but host an Aussie day bbq with all the expats from work.

Okay, so it was January, and we were just days away from snow (for the first time in 20 years, apparently). And Ants and I have no bbq, so we were indoors, and cooking in a pan. And half our guests turned out to be vego, so more for us, but that meant prawns and a growing range of hot and cold salads were called for.

But Cold Chisel, the Waifs, the Whitlams and the Cat Empire made it onto the stereo, and all the gang who had brought treats back from visits home at Christmas - real twisties, tim tams even minties! It was a bit like a midnight feast out of an Enid Blyton (no, wait - Mary Grant Bruce!) novel. We ate and drank and talked til far too late for a school night and Ants graciously volunteered to do all the washing up the next day.

I'm just getting to know this mob, but I like em all so far :-)

...bikes!!...

2010-01-24T10:51:00.000-08:00

It's been on our minds for some weeks to brave Rome's madcap traffic and get ourselves on two wheels. Ideally we want scooters, but Ants lacks the requisite licence, and swears blind he'll never ride behind a girl (not even me), so it's pedal power all the way. We're both after something a bit retro, but not too classy cos it will just get nicked in this part of the world (Rome's rate of bike crime would put even Oxford to shame). So one saturday, armed with some very vague directions from a colleague and accompanied by the intrepid Kate-from-Albury (who has recently arrived in Rome via WFP's operations in China, North Korea and the Philippines... so has serious field cred), we set out one morning on foot...

...and returned on two wheels! Check out these babies... perfect for rattling over cobblestones and sitting tall as we pass Roman cafes bathed in winter sunlight, although with only 6 gears, their ability up a hill is yet to be tested.

They were sold to us by an elderly chap whose shop-in-a-shed in an alleyway of bikesellers halfway up a hill (along with his charming promises of free maintenance) captured our hearts as surely as our new wheels have. And yes, they all match (although Anthony swears his is "completely different" to ours... yeah. right.

And there was an innate sense of freedom as we headed down the road to home, remembering to keep right (most of the time)making up the roadrules as we went along (in Rome, they're not so much rules as guidelines, anyway).

We can't wait for our first freewheeling adventure, although today has been a pretty good start!

Prague!

2010-01-18T17:26:00.000-08:00

Our friend Lissy from Oslo has, for the last 3 months, been Lissy from Prague, courtesy of a work placement offered by her company. We left it to nearly the last minute, but we couldn't let her leave without going up to say hello.

We flew Wizz Air, and I would do it again, any time. Punctual, polite and the sort of service you expect to pay a lot more for. And the coolest inflights snacky service - little trays of finger food that make you feel like you're at some kind of sit down cocktail party. Wizz indeed!!

It was nothing compared to our excitement onlanding in Prague, driving through fairytale streets blanketed with snow, catching glimpses of castles and spires, and then seeing Lissy, who had laid on a spread and even found ciders, which were a welcome sight indeed after months in Rome where the pubs serve nothing but Bulmers, Magners and vino. (There's no pleasing some people. In England I bemoaned the lack of decent wine at any price.) Much nattering was had.

Next morning we set out to explore, trudging through icy streets, up the funicular, stopping for a snow fight and hot wine, sliding down paths and laughing at tobogganing kids.

Past churches and pretty streets, up to the castle and down past the absinthe shope and one very brave busker, fiddling in the snow, and off in search of a monster lunch. We found it.

More meandering, more eating and drinking, and then back on Sunday to see the market on the Charles bridge (above, which is gorgeous and charming in its own right), then to explore the castle properly and watch the weather really close in on the way home.

More hot wine, although none of it as warming as seeing our friend happy and at home in Prague, but looking forward to her move back to Norway :-)

Monday we'd taken a long weekend, so we bid Lis a fond farewell, thanked her for being hostess with the mostest and headed out exploring the old fort near her place, complete with statue of Good King Wenceslaus.

There is nothing as beautiful, nor as muffled silent, as a city blanketed in snow.

We left longing to come back and see it all in summer, sad that our friend and tourguide won't be there to share it with us, but excited too about the prospect of a trip to Norway while the sun is shining...

Folky goodness a Roma

2010-01-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

We've been looking for them for months, searching countless websites that promised live music every Monday, Thursday or whatever, only to find that they don't, spending some gawdawful evenings in crowded touristy pubs , trying in vain to find "where the good sessions are".

It's taken near half a year, but finally we've found them. Fridays at Cork's Inn, altnerate Fridays at the Druid's Den, monthly at Flann O'Briens and the occasional get together at the Abbey Road Theatre Granted, the tunes are all trad Irish, and cater to a more mainstream set of tastes than the English pieces we've known. But real sessions, packed with Italians who speak badly broken english but sing with accents of pure scots, or soaring lilting Irish. Their fingers fly across fiddles and whistles and their welcome for new musicians like us has been heartwarming. Ants is even starting to swing the occasional offer of a paid gig.

They've proved once and or all that music knows no barriers, reaching out across countries and cultures, hangups and hesitations.

For me, Rome's folkie folks are my first Italian friends in italy, and I suddenly feel more at home.

(ta Marzio for the pic...)

We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year

2010-01-02T15:21:00.000-08:00

Where did the last six months go? Our first 'tour of duty' in Italy has flown by, and as Christmas approaches, we find ourselves preparing to head back to Britain for the festive season, armed with tasty treats and adventurous anecdotes, but craving time with familiar faces and traditions.

Looking back at the Pollyanna cascade of posts in this blog, I have to confess it hasn't all been as easy as we might've made it sound (although lets face it, who REALLY wants to read about the hard stuff, or hear us crying poor about the downside of lweekends in Tuscany or Umbria).

Nevertheless, some things ought to be acknowledged.

I am endebted to my husband for bravely following me from a place where he was comfortable and happy to a place where his days have often been quiet, even lonely, and where everything, even daily basics like buying a coffee or tobacco, catching the train or booking a haircut, have required far more effort than normal. Granted, there are benefits, and we've been able to afford things we couldnt have otherwise. But for him, working here hasn't yet proved possible and Rome's smelly, crooked chaos hasn't entirely won him over.

And yet, when I was offered contract for another 5 months (before a mandatory break after 11 months' service), he was the first to say I should take it. Now that's a brave man indeed. I count myself lucky to have won such devotion.

For both of us, Rome at Christmas doesn't quite feel like Christmas. The traditions here are still a mystery to us, and while we love the fact that Christmas decorations don't go anywhere until the first week of December, the absence of mulled wine, christmas markets and other things we've come to associate with a European Christmas, leave us feeling a little flat.

So it was with great excitement that we raided the commissary and various stores for panfortes and other gifts, packed our bags and met up on the train that connects our flat, my office and the airport, bound for Oxford and Witney and our brilliantly generous friends Anya and Simon, whose texts and details of shopping exploits over the past week have left our mouths watering. Cider, mince pies, goose for roasting...

And Christmas doesn't disappoint. From gifts of 'slipper socks' on arrival, to the dressing gowns hanging on our bedroom door, from first cider to last port, and every cheery hug and greeting in between, we have had an amazing time. It's been so good to see friends and realise that six months away is not so very long after all, and that the people who came to mean so much to us in our three years here have indeed become the sort of friends that will stand the tests of time and distance.

All too soon my four days are up and its back to Rome for me for three days, before committing a big ol greenhouse nasty and jetting back to Bristol, where Ants has relocated himself for new year's, and four days punctuated by shopping, a housewarming and lots of hugs.

After six solid months, it's just the pick me up I needed. I'm ready to go back now, and start my second tour, although I know a stack of hard work awaits. But I have an Anthony at my side, and no girl could ask for more.

Here's to a bold and bright 2010... buon anno a tutti, and may all your new years dreams come true!

More roman conundra

2009-12-27T16:56:00.000-08:00

It's now six months since touchdown on the continent and the longer I am here, the more I find myself saying that living in Rome is a whole lot of things (many of which don't smell very nice), but living in Italy is just breathtaking....

That said, Rome has a lot to offer the patient adventurer, (as long as that adventurer is also very careful about where they put their feet). The food markets at Testaccio, with blueberry honey, and the "tomato man", who won't sell you a thing until you tell him exactly which dish you are planning to make with his tomaties... then he selects just the right variety from the dozen or so on his stand. There's a horse-meat stall, and loads that sell fresh fruit and veg - all seasonal of course - cured meats, varying strengths of cheeses, massive cuts of meat that they slice to your requirements, and sweet biscuits and pastries that are just lovely after a big lunch...

Nothing in Rome is entirely wholesome though, and word about the office is 'don't buy the fish there, it's all sold by the mafia', and there are a couple of really annoying little guys who come up and pester you to buy bags of whole garlic bulbs. They don't like taking no for an answer, although once you tell them to fuck off a couple of times, they seem to get the message... sometimes they get halfway to approaching you when recognition hits and they back away again... lol

Back on the upside, there's the aroma of cornetti coming up from the deli as I descend into the subway at the train station - always welcoming after the stench of the street and lending an air of 'warm and cosy' to even the nippiest winter mornings.

And now that tourist season is over and the streets aren't so clogged with badly dressed 'stranieri', I've been getting out and about in search of pretty scenic things. Rome may be badly maintained and crumbling at both her heart and her edges, but there are jewels to be found tucked away here...

I've just confirmation my contract will be renewed, and I am so very pleased to know that I will have more time to seek them out.

I really can't say I yet share the view of my Belgian colleague, who declares she hates Rome". "I've left 3 times" she says... "but look"(with a shrug), "still you see me standing here".

I think that point will be quite some way off yet.

copENHAGEN

2009-12-22T03:42:00.000-08:00

I was a late inclusion in our official delegation to the world climate conference earlier this month. Three days of mayhem - although my experience was not a patch on that of friends who work at NGOs who were desperately trying to influence negotiations and find out, amid 30,000 delegates worth of rumour and speculation, what the devil was going on.

For my part, I got to enjoy being not one of the important people: my job was to attend seminars on shipping emissions, and renewable energy, and other geeky topics, and to support the launch of the UN-wide first ever carbon footprint.

In between times, I managed to take in a wind energy industry cocktail party in an 18thC Danish palace (complete with anti-Vestas protesters), got escorted through the picket lines on the big day of protest, and generally felt weird being on the "UN observer, right this way please ma'am" side of the fence, instead of being on the "loud but outta the loop" faction.

I also caught up with my Danish chum Astrid, who was an intern with us over the summer and one of my 'new in Rome' chums. And she instantly endeared me to our Copenhagen office by offering me a bed, saving them hours on the phone trying to find a non-existent hotel room. (And no wonder - turns out that although the conference centre only holds 15,000, the COP organisers took more than 30,000 registrations. Getting in was a nightmare for thousands of people... but not me, and that felt VERY weird). Anyway, Astrid welcomed me with a dinner of christmas sausage, rye bread, and creamed cabbage (do nøt laugh, it's the best cabbage dish ever, by far) a bottle of red and endless catchup chatter.

And Copenhagen was properly cold - snowing even - which just emphasised that Copenhagen is a city built for enjoying life. The streets are wide and clean and even, cyclists have dedicated lanes on every major road, as do buses. And why not - 40% of people cycle to work, even in winter. The metro is clean, quiet, reliable and even attractive, somehow making the trip home uplifting rather than exhausting. It's the very model of a well planned city and no wonder Scandies are the envy of the developed world!

All the experience, networking and good times aside, the non-result of the COP after two weeks of negotiations was disappointing. I got more out of my 3 days of workshops than the world got from that fortnight. What a cop-out.

... and Bracciano

2009-12-20T12:46:00.000-08:00

I've waited weeks to see Bracciano and finally, in the last days before Christmas, I made it onto a sleepy Sunday train for the hour long journey north of Rome. I found a christmas market, churches complete with huge precepi, a hilltop castle with views of a breathtaking lake... and Jazz playing Santas, a christmas train running through the main streets, and my first glass of quite ordinary Italian wine. Oh, and two of my colleagues, who commute in every day from here... now there's a thought!

...Brian and bagpipes...

2009-12-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

It took 5 days and £400, but we got Ants back by Friday, just one day after our mate Brian from Melbourne. Brian is a musician by trade and a teacher by profession. I used to go hear him play every Wednesday at the Dan, just on the off chance that he'd sing a song called Pallet on your Floor, which I love, and am now working on a version of for recording. Ants and I got to know him when he ran the Dan's Sunday session, and famously prophesised when we got together that "it's not love, you're in lust, it'll never last". Ha.

Brian is now teaching in Kuwait, and arrived with three of his teacher chums: Amelia and Debbbie from South Africa and Maureen from Queensland. The girls turned up begging for directions to the nearest bar and, after 2 months in staunchly Muslim Kuwait, demanding sausage, bacon and beer! Brian and I had dinner at ours and pointedly noted somewhere into the second bottle of wine that "this would never be allowed in Q8"... what he meant was that never in a million years would he be allowed to visit a married woman while her husband was out, and, once it was known he'd stayed overnight (even on the couch), "They'd be out the front waiting with pebbles for you in the morning". It's another reminder of how far women still have to come in many parts the world. (Or rather, how much MEN still have to learn!)

Brian also brought cheerful confirmation that we are indeed the only english speakers in our street and perhaps the whole block. "I stopped at the cafe up the road and said I was staying with some friends who live here, and the lady said oh, the tall blond man and his wife'..."

Friday night brought session-ey goodness with the Irish music Italians we are getting to know at a pub in town. Surprise surprise, Brian was a hit. We filled the weekend with food and wine and music and chatter and wandering around a stack of old stuff - Ants and I are getting quite good at this tour guide thing. All too soon ,it was time for them to head back to the middle east. But we cant wait to see them again.

The following weekend we kicked off the festive season a little early, with the St Andrew's Day ball of the Caledonian Society of Rome (who knew Rome even had such a thing!?), run by a colleague of mine who happens to have been the president for the past five years. Only at the UN, surely. It was a cracking good night - I'd dragged along our new Aussie chum Kate (recently out of WFP North Korea), and she brought one of her interns. We all looked gorgeous and danced lashings of ceilidh. And it was pretty exciting to have new friends to share our adventures, because despite the pipers, there were plenty of reminders that we weren't still in Kansas, Toto... The food was italian, and the drink of choice was prosecco. On the upside, there was enough of the Water of Life to ensure that the local Presbyterian minister was far too pissed to drive us all home. We all piled into his Tarago anyway, accepting his assurances that God would look after him in this holiest of cities...although I did seriously consider getting out when he drove the wrong way up the offramp for the motorway.

Next morning - erm. okay, it was afternoon - we hauled ourselves down to meet a former London colleague of mine, and his lovely partner, who is a Kiwi. It was worth every scrap of early post-prosecco agony. We had a lovely time with Keith and Yvonne, meandering through the Christmas market at Piazza Navona, the Campo dei Fiori, and I finally remembered where the bus goes from that takes you up to the top of the Janiculum Hill and the Garibaldi monument. Then we went for dinner in Trastevere, in a restaurant with enormous steaks and huge slabs of seafood on ice in the windows and front display cabinets. Maybe not the classiest invitation to dinner, but the meal was memorable, as was the company. Keith was one of my earliest mentors when I was first promoted back in the day, and this plain spoken big bear of a man has a heart of gold. It was good to be able to both brag a little at how much I'm enjoying the job, and living "abroad", while acknowledging the hard stuff - the challenges of playing backstop for Ants, who is still finding his feet, the complexities of paperwork and the uncertainty around contract renewals. For his part, Keith readily supplied all the best of the office gossip from the last 5 months, and told us the story of Keith and Yvonne. I love it when two people with some years more living than we do, discover each other - its totally romantic. We headed off into the night with embraces and seasons greetings and it really does feel as though the festive season has already begun. Roll on.

Banquet and balderdash...

2009-11-23T15:17:00.000-08:00

I'm not quite sure where the last 5 months have gone and I'm even more amazed at how quickly yet another banquet has rolled around again, but on Friday night we boarded a plane and I headed back to the UK for the first time since taking up the new job in Rome.

It was a big night for the Company of Chivalry: for the first time, a woman made the rank of Lady in her own right (equivalent to knight, of which the company has had 6 in 21 years). We are all hugely proud of Hannah, they haven't made it easy for her but after so many years of service and expertise, in the end it was impossible to deny her, so they didn't.

It was a big night on a personal front too - me, Liz, Dawes and Will, all newbies the year before last, were promoted to yeoman; Anthony and our good friends Kate and Steffie made retainer. Liz and Steffers graciously let me take over their kitchen to make honey saffron quiches and roast bunny (or lentils, if you're a vego) in a sweet and sour sauce, and they went down a treat.

It was good to see people and hear their news, and to get about in kit.

The weekend wasn't without drama though... suffice to say we learned that it IS possible to enter the UK without a passport, as long as you have a story so mad it could only be true... in this case: "I had my passport with me when I left Italy but I appear to have left my jacket on the shuttle bus between the departure gate and the aircraft, so to the best of my knowledge it is still in international airspace at Ciampino airport".

So on Monday I'm back at work and Ants is catching a train to London to see how quickly he can get a replacement passport. I'm sworn to secrecy, but you all know I'm writing this months later, right? So cat's outta the bag now...

The power of the human spirit

2009-11-17T17:08:00.000-08:00

The Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, came to WFP this week. The UN has a real 'cult of the leader' about it: WFP's own chief needs only wonder about something out loud and courtiers (aka policy boffins) run about making everyone drop everything to look into it. So a visit from "the S-G" is only one step from the presence of Godliness, in local terms.

Part of the reason for the fuss is security. There are people who would love to blow the UN leaders to smithereens. So cars were cleared from the carpark, guards with even shorter hair and crisper shirt creases that our own very classy Italian security team flooded the building with US accents ("ma'am, can I ask you to ensure you display your staff pass please. Thank you ma'am"). The staff filed into the auditorium at 6pm and the thing duly started about 45 minutes later. UN deities run to their own schedule, it seems.

The service, to honour our colleagues in Pakistan, was sombre, gently political with solidarity and politely applauded... There was a video of staff and relatives of the five who died, talking about the departed. Then the head of the Pakistan finance team rose to his feet and talked of his team of 8 staff. As he spoke of the four who died that day (plus one from ICT), the two survivors who are still in hospital (one forever maimed, having lost sight in one eye), many of us were in tears. As he spoke of the 2 staff left, who have valiantly picked up and kept going in temporary offices, we rose as one and applauded. For about 5 minutes. These people didn't ask to be heroes. They would tell you they were just office people, accounts clerks, and IT guy.

But sometimes extraordinary things happen to ordinary people.

Before I joined WFP, I too, managed a team of 8. I look at the people who populate that team, and I cannot imagine the death of one of them, let alone half of them, let alone in one day. To visit colleagues in hospital, to tell them that they will overcome... to hear these stories left me humbled, utterly, by their incredible strength of spirit.

I think perhaps I was not the only one thinking 'I wonder, if it were me there, would I have the courage to be so brave'. I pray I never have to find out. But I hope that if I had to, I would.

Anagni and L...

2009-11-16T15:10:00.000-08:00

Anagni is a tiny hilltop village south of Rome, and the home town of Grazia, girlfriend of Anthony's training buddy, Emiliano (I think its rather cool, btw, that after being really not at all sure about this Italian caper, Ants is the first of the two of us to make Italian friends.

They offered to show us around one weekend, and I am once again in awe of the depth of history that permeates this incredible country. Apparently, people having been living on top of this particular hill for about 700,000 years. The towns modern day walls are Roman in construction, and Roman greats from Marcus Aurelius to Commodus used to retreat here from Rome's oppressive summers. But it's the ancient cathedral, begun in the 9th century, and the town's status as birthplace of four medieval popes (Innocent III who approved the first Rule of St Francis, Gregory IX who famously excommunicated Frederick Barbarossa, Alexander IV who canonised Clare of Assisi, and Boniface VIII).

The home of Boniface still stands, intact and in use, across the piazza from the cathedral, in an area that used to be part of the cloister. In 1301 his holiness took refuge there from the french (he'd picked a fight with Phillip The Fair of France, who had started a war - not bright), and when the French had him holed up at home, the townsfolk when mad and secured his release. Gutsy folk then!

Shortly after, however, the papal court moved to Avignon and Anagni became a ruin, depopulated and sacked several times over in the ensuring centuries.

And there are dozens of these places, whose modest size today belies their enormous power in centuries gone by.

Emiliano and Grazia also showed us the newly restored market place and town hall - a reminder if any were needed that Mammon has always worked beside god in the home of the Vatican.

The greatest treat of all, however, was dinner, at a nearby town that starts with L but which I cannot find on any map. Also a hilltop town, heavily fortified with ancient walls, the restaurant we adjourned to is inside a 14th Century stable building. From a tiny kitchen, they serve up a five course set menu of traditional fare that is nothing short of a feast: salume and cheeses, tomato and fagioli soup, pasta, roast meats and amazing desserts. The owners are friends of the re-enactment 'family' in these parts, the chef, just 30, just months into the job, giving up a career in Rome and taking over the reins after the sudden death of his father. The family are obviously still close, and still working through their tears. We felt humbled and privileged to be part of their world for even a few hours.

I can't wait to see more of the Italian countryside. But first, I have to ask Emiliano the name of this amazing place, and we need to go back there in daylight.

, and completed in and amazing dinner, recently widowed, sense of being local and yet special... gorgeous hosts and we must have them over soon...

Remembrance day

2009-11-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

This is Italy, so Remembrance day, or Armistice Day to the Brits, doesn't rate much of a mention here. But the war cemetary is in Testaccio, just a few hundred metres from our home and near the foot of the big pile of claypots, so Ants wandered along for the service. It's a peaceful place and I think it does what its meant to with great panache.

On the way there he nearly got bowled over by Amanda Vanstone, who was bustling along in her capacity of Ambassador to Italy. He enjoyed the service anyway - thereìs something familiar and comforting about the military precision of this marking of our countries' coming of age.

For myself, I had a calmer remembrance day than I have in years, and stopped briefly at 11 to mark the moment. Some wise words from my friend Helen from Oxford have stayed with me ever since Florence. Bella, if you're reading this, they are still helping! xo

As fickle as the seasons, as enduring as the earth - that's Italy for you

2009-11-09T11:31:00.000-08:00

The nights and even the days are turning chilly now, but Saturday was one of those bright sunny late autumn gems that make you glad to just be alive, walking along the bit of the Aurelian wall that's at the end of our street, past the Pyramide and castle gate, through parkland and the first falling leaves to a new foodstore enroute from the market.

The cooler weather has also brought an end to many of Rome's less savoury odours (dog poo and rubbish - although you still need to watch where you walk, even just after it's rained). These past few days I've felt as if I'm making memories of the Rome I will always love best - the sweet smell of yeast and sugar from the cornetti sold from the cafe at the train station, roasting chestnuts on every other corner in the centro storico, and dark and stormy nights where, even though the roof is three floors above us, and the pavements two below, the rain hammers on every surface it touches and drowns out normal-volume conversations. These are the nights where, snug and smug beneath our blankets, we listen to the long rumbling peals of thunder, that lumber through the sky for up to an unbroken minute, or crash above your roof like falling sheets of corrugated metal and fractured tin.

Wandering around the city, I'm reminded by every weed protruding through neglected paving stones, every subsidence in the bitumen, or eruption of grass in the centre of roundabouts, that despite 2000-plus years of civilisation, Nature is boss here. From the strictly seasonal foodstuffs (you just can't buy out of season veg, even in supermarkets!) to these awe-inspiring storms, there's something about Italian living that seems to deeply respect the laws of nature, no matter how much the Italians flout the laws of the land. And despite the immaculate grooming and pretty face the Italians present constantly (I've met several folk who I would readily describe as 'smiling assassins), I keep wanting to believe that Italian society isn't 'rotten to the core' as some would have you believe. Neglected and a little battered round the edges, and very 'me'-centric for lots of people. But the deeper magic never gets questioned. And I like that about this place.

ranfurly shield

2009-11-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

A train strike scotched my ambitions of visiting pisa this weekend ... or even bracciano.. so we settled in for another Saturday of rugby. The Italians really dont know what they're missing, with that silly soccer fetish they seem to have, and I hope rugby's meteoric rise in this country continues. It's amazing enough, that we get a pub that will open early in the morning and puts the telly on, long before standard opening hours. (But meh! It's Italy. Rules here are made to be argued with. Or flagrantly disregarded if they aren't convenient).

But our awesome autumn of Rugby took a whole new turn the other week with news that Southland Stags have taken the Ranfurly Shield for the first time since before St Kilda won the flag. The Stags are based in Anthony's home town of Invercargill, so there were some fairly excited Cundalls in the world this week. The rest of Invers was pretty chuffed too - check out the ticker tape parade given to honour Invercargill's biggest sporting moment in 50 years (with the possible exception of Burt Munro setting a new land speed record on a clapped out but lovingly modified Indian Scout motorcycle in 1962).

My workchum Alastair, who is a Central Otago boy, was effusive in his congratulations... although a pint or two later, he confessed it was because Otago hasnt won the 'log of wood' for even longer than Invercargill, and if the Stags can do it, maybe there's hope for Otago too...

Go Southland!

The Warriors of Skye and some killer costuming

2009-10-29T14:55:00.001-07:00

At last! I've finally learned enough italian to be able to trawl sites in the local lingua, hunting out medieval re-enactment groups. We finally found a group that might tickle Anthony's fancy... the Warriors of Skye. Yep, a 14th C group of scottish warriors, here in the heart of Roma.

In fairness, apparently Skye was said to have been one of the great warrior training grounds of Europe, so its not entirely unfeasible that Italians might have ended up there....

Looks like they've got some killer costuming going on too....

Firenze!

2009-10-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

My friend Helen works for Oxford University Press, and occasionally has managed to swing a work meeting in Florence. So we took all of a few seconds to decide to jump a train and head north for the weekend, when we heard she was coming to town.We arrived on the Friday night and immediately set off in search of dinner- and what a meal! Restaurant selected at random turned out to have a cavernous back room that was packed full of italian diners - always a good sign when the locals eat there! Steak Fiorentina, a bottle of Montepulciano, liver bruschetta, wild boar ragout, luscious tuscan desserts, lemoncello on the house. Bliss.

Next morning we hit the town, wandering past street stalls and the main market (check it out!), through the centre of town and out to the famous Ponte Vecchio (old bridge), packed with tiny workhouse cottages, once the home of slaughterers and offal sellers, who were moved across the river by the Medici to rid the city of their stench. And so the goldsmiths and jewellers could move in.

I loved every minute of Florence. It was like stepping back in time. Home of the much maligned Medici, who though they spawned some of the most ambitious and ruthless nobles (in a time known for ruthless ambition), also sired the Renaissance and nurtured the likes of Raphael, Michelangelo and Da Vinci in the cradle of the Tuscan capital.

Heaven only knows what Florence has been or done since, but the city is a living tribute to those heydays and you cant help be awed by the glorious marble faced duomo, the Signoria (home of one of Europe's first and most powerful democracies) with its replica David, the original itself, carefully repaired, and the stunning Pietra Dura, or stone pictures, that face the Medici tombs. The greatest though, Lorenzo Il Magnifico and his adored, murdered brother Giuliano, lie in an adjacent room, guarded by mad Michelangelo's inspired statues: Night and Day, Dusk and Dawn. Although they don't let you take photos of any of that. *sulks* We stopped often for eating and drinking: roast bunny with all its innards, salsicce e fagioli (anyone who imagines that tinned 'sausage and beans' can in any way compare to this simple tuscan masterpiece is dreaming), prosecco, more superTuscan red, cocktails by the Signoria at sunset. The Ponte Vecchio, countless Palazzi, shops and markets, we walked til our feet were sore and drank til our tongues were tired.

And yet we barely touched the surface. Ants and I came away with a long list of places to see next time, a horseback tour of vineyards, a day trip to Pisa,, the famed Uffizi, the Hawkwood painting at the Duomo (which was closed to the public for the weekend)... And that's before we returned to Rome and learned there was an armour museum we'd never even heard of.

I can't wait to go back.

Our new favourite spot in Rome

2009-10-19T14:49:00.000-07:00

Ever since Ants declared at Pompeii that he was 'a bit over Roman stuff', I've been trying to hide my disappointment that we wouldn't be able to share the Colusseum. So even Ants was amazed when our trip to the Colusseum left him genuinely in awe.

For my part, I was spellbound. Inside, the Colusseum resembles nothing so much as a very old sports stadium - which is what it is, now that you mention it - and it's amazing to see just how little such things have changed in 2000 years.
No film or book has brought the arena to life so vividly as standing in its empty shell, imagining women in flowing drapes and men in togas streaming in or out, seeing the bones of animals that fought on the sand - and the remains of smaller beasts they fed them with. As autumn light turned to sunset, I was tingling to the tips of my toes with excitement. This is my favourite Roman bit ever.

Kathryn and Jim

2009-10-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

My phone bleeped the night before they arrived. "Important question number one. Do you have a hair drier". My former workchum Kathryn (that's Dr Vardy to you, if you turn out to be one of those idiots who assume that if she's in an office she must be the secretary) is practical and organised and if she hadnt become a biochemist might've made an excellent schoolmarm. She'd already emailed through a list of things she and Jim wanted to see, including a rubbish tip mountain of broken roman pottery that's apparently just near our house (so obviously I will know where it is...gulp), and I was beginning to wonder if I had at last met someone who could out-organise even me on a long weekend away.

Next morning, right on schedule, they texted as they were leaving the airport, and I bolted back from the Commissary, armed with proscuitto and other tasty goodness, to meet them on the station platform.

And from there, the weekend blossomed into one of the most spontaneous and chatty and quietly brilliant weekends you could ever imagine.

From lazy lunches and long walks, from the grandest sights of Rome to her least known, from aperitivo to after-dinner pints for the lads while Kathryn and I got down to serious natter about life, the universe, our evolving careers, the trials and triumphs of being breadwinner, our musical pursuits and the crazy things that people say and do.

Ants and Jim had never met, but they talk about as much as each other, and are both musicians and historians. Ants has been contemplating study and Jim has just finished a history degree, sitting an exam on ancient Rome just days before they arrived.

First stop on our adventures together was the Monte Testaccio - a 2000 year old mountain of millions of broken amphorae that were carted into the city filled with olive oil. Unlike other foodstuffs, the oil tended to soak into the clay, leaving it chalky, so the empties were stacked by the city gate, in a hill that today stands 8 or 10 stories high and has trees growing on it! We walked around the bottom of it, admiring the military cemetary on one side and contemplating climbing one wall to souvenir a fragment or two.

From there we hit the Forum, and the standard Saturday queues. Once inside we turned our minds to trying to build up the crumbling red brick into the palatial expanses of the imperial residence, from tiled courtyard pools to the audience chamber, more than 30 metres square and capable of seating 400 to dinner on triclinia - reclining couches.

Up to the resurrected imperial gardens, with amazing views of the Colusseum, and down to the civic buildings that I've walked past a dozen times, but never down amongst them. Temples, market places, triumphal arches... it all seemed much grander viewed from beneath, looking up, not down from the road.

I'll say more about the Colusseum later. But it rocked.

Also high on Jim's agenda was the Augustus mausoleum, older and much mor crumbly and overgrown than Hadrian's, further south, but close to one of the best aperitivo joints in town. Piazza Navona, Trastevere, the Pantheon... I fell in love with Rome all over again.

I heartily wished I could go with them on Monday as they headed off to the Vatican. Ants isn't keen, and I don't want to go alone, so some Saturday, I'll have to get myself up early...

By tuesday, our days of wining, dining, walking and talking were at an end. Jim and Kathryn left for a few days at Sorrento, leaving behind a cheeseboard with implements (totally unecessary, but inspired by a random comment that one day I really should get a smaller chopping board, for serving things on), and a warm glow that might just last all winter.

UK has 'worst quality of life in Europe'

2009-10-13T09:49:00.000-07:00

It's official. Not only is the food bad, it's expensive. Not only is the weather rubbish, but Brits get fewer days' holiday in which to escape to somewhere warmer. And despite having the highest average incomes (altho we know LOTS of people on incomes well below the average!), the costs of petrol, utilities, food and other basic living expenses mean that life in Britain is a bit grim.

Tell me something I didn't know.

Rome may have more dog poo, litter and visible homeless people in the streets. The welfare safety net stinks as much as the good name of its politicians. And it is almost impossible for me to buy shoes or bras that fit properly. But I do not miss kebabs that smell of rancid meat, or vomity street corners every Saturday morning. I do not miss gloomy winter days, badly fitting clothes and rampant big chain consumerism.

I do miss friends, folk music and fresh game meat. We're planning a couple of trips back for winter. And when we get there, we will remember why we loved it there, despite the weather, the food and the horrendous expense. It will be worth it, because the people and places we love belong there. And a part of us still does too.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Italian summer shall officially end at 2pm on Monday

2009-10-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

After 4 weeks of 35-40oC every day, even this robust little Aussie was ready for a break in the weather. Des the Irishman in the office, sweltering in his shirtsleeves, said he didn't dare complain, because he couldn't conceive of a place where, once the rain starts, itìll stop any time before next summer.

But the seasons here are pretty defined - I didn't believe my colleague Cristina when she said 'the last Monday in August. You watch. It will change.' But quite literally, that morning dawned fine and clear and 25oC - and there the temperature stayed for the next four weeks.

My credulity was tested again when she predicted the next change, for the start of October. I especially didn't believe her when it was 25oC by 8am when I arrived at the office last Monday.

I believed her at 4pm when I went outside to get a coffee. It was blowing a gale, bucketing rain and... 15oC!! And there it has remained, all week.

But I like it - seasons you can set your watch by. I'll even welcome the month of rain that comes in December - as long as it leaves by January, right on schedule.

A very sad day at the office

2009-10-05T03:52:00.000-07:00

The WFP office in Islamabad, Pakistan, was attacked by a suicide bomber today, and five of my colleagues were killed, with numerous others injured. One of the men who died had only recently returned to work after being injured in the last attack on WFP in Pakistan, back in June. Four 'WFP-spouses' were widowed today. Eleven children have lost their Mum or Dad. And though I'd never met them, having just met other colleages from the field, in southern Africa, there is a real sense of 'there but for the grace of the gods' for me today.

Violence against humanitarian workers is growing in many countries: last year, more humanitarian staff were killed on duty than peacekeepers, apparently the first time that's happened. Of those aid workers, half work for WFP. There's a very good explanation of that side of things in TIME magazine.

Fear is a powerful weapon and people who don't want democracy, or education for girls, or freedom of expression, use fear to try to stop humanitarian work from going on. But if we stopped now, the efforts made in the past by my former colleagues would all go to waste.

And that would be a very poor way to remember them.

Rustenberg, home of the Brenda

2009-10-04T17:02:00.000-07:00

My first 'proper international work junket' turned out to be not so much junket and lashings of 'proper work': airport to hotel, 14hrs a day inside a conference centre, followed by hotel to office to airport. No leaving the compound after dark, on security grounds and... could this really be the same country that my carefree pal Brenda grew up riding horses in? I mean, Hartebeespoort, the homeveld of my favourite Aussie-hating Saffer (something to do with getting their arses kicked at rugby apparently, but I'm from Melbourne, home of AFL, so can pretend not to care) is just the other side of the kloof of us here in Rustenburg...

So despite the hard work, I was determined to soak up every spare moment, after all I declared to my colleagues, this is my first time in Africa! The women around me, from Lesotho and Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Malawi, all fell about laughing. "Oh girl," they cried, wiping tears "this is not Africa. This is euroDisney Africa! You come to where I'm from, I'll show you Africa!"

And in the next few days, they did. Their hoots of delight as I tackled my first mealie pap dinner, eating with my fingers in the hotel restaurant, wasn't the half of it. In delivering training to my colleagues from across the southern continent, I learned what it's like to be unable to upgrade your vehicle fleet because the fuel quality is so pisspoor that it would murder a modern engine in minutes, the class systems that leave even senior administrators feeling unable to report wrongdoing, the daily rigors of an office life where the internet is always slow, the power goes down more often than it stays up, and its perfectly normal to hear five languages all spoken at once in the back of a bus... with the token white girl in the room the only one who doesn't understand all five.

Our cosy enclave, 2 hours from Johannesburg, really did seem tame by comparison -there was only one storm, and it only knocked out the web for a day. Despite that though, there's a rugged beauty here that I havent seen since I left Australia, and it was amazing to just go for a wander in the mornings and soak up the colour and life... And, of course, I'd brought an Antsy with me, who sauntered off each day with the wife and adult kids of my colleague James, bringing home tales to regale us with over dinner... feeding baby lions, the cheetah park, a safari trip with elephants and rhinos and wildebeests. There was even a zebra out the bus window, just grazing by the road...

Johannesburg was an eyeopener of a different kind - the sort of place where outsiders wonder how the locals ever feel at ease. From the bank that was closed following a robbery (and the fact that they had printed signage for just such an eventuality... obviously not rare then), to the high walls surrounding every home, and the sudden adjitation of our taxi driver as we passed through a township on the way to the airport ... "The doors are locked, but can you just make sure you dont have any valuables on the seats. Wallets, keys, phones, put them on the floor or underneath you." And when we reached the airport, we were staggered to see the two checkin counters - one for luggage, one for your firearms.... since when could you carry firearms ANYWHERE on a plane???

It was just a few days, and hardly enough to test the surface. But we are convinced weìll come back with more time on our hands. And soon

A whole darn country born to shop

2009-09-20T10:55:00.000-07:00

Ants and I have succumbed to Italy's one true religion. Every Sunday, without fail, we go ... shopping. From the flea markets at Porta Portese to the bustling supermall at Parco Leonardo (which does a cracking sausage and broccoli pizza, if ever you're shopping with a hangover!). I've never seen anything like it. Boys in this country grow up dreaming of football, and girls dream of Prada - although the boys are dab hands at spending cash too, if their carefully groomed appearances are anything to go by. (Maybe they just let their mothers and sisters shop for them).

From the cheap knockoffs on every corner - specially the ones near train stations - to the entire city blocks closed by Porta Portese every week, to the 'regular' stores that are open 'til 7 or 8pm, seven days a week. The supermarkets close on Sundays, but you can still buy sunglasses and a killer pair of stillettoes - with matching bag. In case you get to 8pm on a Sunday night and decide you have 'absolutely nothing to wear' for that pizza and beer on the sofa at home... Obviously.

It's habit forming though - having finally found a pair of shoes that fit, I went on a spree recently and came home with two pairs of trousers, three new tops, a dress and a skirt - all from brand name joints and (MOST unlike the the UK) for just a little over 200 euros. Even I, an avowed 'commando strike' shopper (know your objective, get in and get out again) could get to like this...

I wonder how long it'll be before I emulate my boss, who is American, and who went on a training course in Brussels this week. We heard from her Wednesday. 'How're you enjoying Brussels?' asked the two Belgians in the office, and me. 'It's a really weird place. The clothes stores and everything shut at like 6 o'clock on a Monday and Tuesday. I mean, who does that in this day and age?'

I'm not sure she believed us when we answered, 'the rest of Europe. Actually, everywhere but Italy.' She sounded really dismayed.

Bye Rach and Astrid (sniff!)

2009-09-19T05:10:00.000-07:00

The end of summer announced itself with a bang - literally, another of those thrilling Roman thunderstorms that I have come to love. Rolling rumbles of thunder at 3am followed by brilliant lightning and drumming rain.

And in the morning, the temperature was 10 degrees cooler. Just like that.

It also brings the end to intern season, and it's suddenly time to say farewell to the girls who have been my boon companions these first few months. From that first carefree beach bash in July, to nights in Trastevere, songs ringing in the stairwells of the Castell Sant Angelo at 3am, and impulse buys at market stalls along the Tevere. We've shared tears and ridiculous giggles, life stories, good times, stressful times (Tiny scottish Rach has also been juggling part time work and some study while she's here. Danish Astrid hasn't had to care about any of that. But somehow this odd couple has worked brilliantly!). My 'summer of mojito and prosecco' would never have been the same without them. (I might've seen a few more Saturday mornings though, instead of emerging middle of the afternoons... this is the difference between 23 and 35!)

Now I have to start all over again on this 'making friends' caper. This is the downside of living as an expat in a place like Italy... I wonder if all my friends will eventually up and leave, and whether we will ever feel like we belong. Sniff.

Assissi!

2009-09-13T05:11:00.000-07:00

Alex's big thing that he wanted to do in Rome was to, erm.... leave the big smoke behind and go to Assisi. Home of St Francis and host to squillions of nuns in a rainbow of habits from around the world. And I thought the sisters were out in force in Rome? I had to think again.

Assissi is, like Siena, one of those 'once heavily fortified' medieval hilltop towns, this time in Umbria. Its slopes are so steep that the railway, which needs flat land, is 5kms from the city gates, which still look like they could withstand a moderate sized beseiging army.
The Duomo (or cathedral) is somethign of a wonder - a small humble church with low ceilinged crypt that is home to the earthy remains of the saint and his four boon companions, and a later, soaring masterpiece that has survived fire and earthquake and centuries of politicking. Fear of fire is surely behind the electric candles that adorn the shrine (unless, in making Francis the Patron Saint of Italy they also annointed him the patron saint of tizzy tat). Whatever. They don't work. I put in 2 euro and not a single candle lit up. Ripped of by God in the bosom of St Francis. Bugger. It mattered not. After taking sqillions of photos at the Duomo we headed off in search of lunch, but got sidetracked by a 3 hour exploration that took us right to the top of the hill above the town and all the way through the Rocca Majore, the stone fortress that has spent as much of its history protecting its occupants from the townsfolk as it has protecting the townsfolk from outsiders. I'm gonna save the stories for when Ants comes back and we go there. But suffice to say that as you stood on the top on this windy, windy day and looked down, it was all to easy to imagine steadholders racing towards the gate, hustling sheep and children in skirts before them, in advance of a beseiging army... John Hawkwood had a lot to answer for.
Eventually we found our way back to our chosen lunchspot - only to realise it was 3pm! But we were in luck - on hearing my stumbling attempts to apologise in Italia for the hour but praising her restaurant for havig the best charisma, the charming hostess gave us a table with an amazing view and asked only that we order quickly. It was amazing... truffle pasta, prosecco, antipasti, dessert... lush.

There was barely time to check out the church of Santa Chiara (Clare), Francis's bestest childhood companion who followed him into holy orders and whose pink and white striped marble edifice is not a patch on her famous cousin's. Suddenly we had only moments to pick up souvenirs and gelati and make our way back to the bus, and the train.
But I cannot wait to come back. With Ants. He will love this.

Alex abroad

2009-09-11T05:07:00.000-07:00

Alex Mitchel is one of my chums and former colleagues from working in England. Avid blog readers may remember my first ever football match (Oxford United played out a respectable nil-all draw against Reading or someone). Alex was my partner in crime that day.

The trip was not without controversy. Buying a sleeping compartment supplement in Paris is never gonna be easy if you don't speak French - although I could HUG Alex for doing the whole trip by rail instead of flying! And thank goodness he didn't have to change trains in Florence - he passed right through 'Firenze' without realising that one of Italy's most famous cities was right outside his window...

Funniest of all (although I blame the tittery English and their peurile minds for this, not Alex himself) was the reaction around the office when he announced his travel plans. "So.... *snigger* you and Georgi eh". Oh please. Alex's response made it all worth while "Are you mad?? Have you SEEN her husband? He's six foot twenty, and a rugby playing kiwi. I would be killed if I put a foot out of line with Georgi.' Ha ha. (He's right. Although I would kill him first, and Ants second.)

Just as well they didn't know Ants was in England - although he had known about Alex's visit before he booked his flights.

Anyway, we had a wonderful time. Alex is one of those curious people who, like me, wants to know the story behind everything he sees. In Rome, that makes for quite slow exploring, and this is possibly one of the reasons why I am still coming to grips with this place after nearly 3 months here. There's so much to see and absorb if you look beneath even the surface layer of dust and veneer.

And he has a fascination for the out of the way places as well as the big sights - many of which he has now seen and I haven't : the Vatican, the Villa Borghese, the Forum and Colusseum.

(Ants has decided he doesn't do art. Or Roman Stuff. Or churches. So that pretty much buggers up Rome for sightseeing, unless I want to go on my own. He also has no intention of learning italian. And he wonders why he never meets people here... sigh. Sometimes there is an advantage in him being away. But I digress)

Alex and I fell into the habit of meeting up after work where I tried in vain to persuade him out of the habit of eating scandalously early. 'How do they know that we're English' asked an amazed Alex, his pale face burnt crimson right to the roots of his blond hair. After pointing out this obvious difference, I asked him the time. 'It's 6.30'. Right, standard dinner time in the UK then. This place will start serving primi piatti to most people about 9pm. '9pm?? Who had dinner at 9pm??'

Erm, most of Italy, actually.

'So we look like complete tourists then?'

Yes. But I'm only willing to argue so far about dining hours with a diabetic.

And the advantage of eating early is that it leaves so much more of the evening for exploring. Aperitivi near Augustus's tomb. Gelati near Piazza Navona. Poking fun at the grim statue in the otherwise bright and cheery Campo dei Fiori (field of flowers). Half price cocktails til 10pm and a chocolate shot on the way home. Funny cartoon voices, kebabs at 3am and a long meander through the Porta Portese market and up to the Janiculum hill in search of the monument to Garibaldi - which we found, having also discovered every other monument to the War of Independence on the damn hill. We also discovered one of the best views in Rome. And that there's a bus from Viale Trastevere that could have saved us all that effort. But it wouldn't have been nearly so much fun.

Lazy beach days

2009-09-05T05:05:00.000-07:00

I've been itching to get back to the beach since that first balmy night after work. This weekend, armed with party invitation and stunning danish friends for company, nothing was going to stop us...

Although hangovers from Friday very nearly ruined our Saturday... have I mentioned just how good this aperitivo thing is? Thing is, all that free food, however filling, doesn't actually stop the mojitos from working. It just slows them down a little. It was 2pm by the time I arrived at Astrids for lunch and later still by the time we set off (back to the station right near my house!) for beach party goodness.

It was worth every delay. Sun, sand, not ridiculous amounts of crowds. Astrid's brother Jonathan, visiting from Spain, had brought a bottle of Veuve, there was bat tennis and shuttle cock and body surfing and sand fights and it all felt very, very 50s. The summer of the mojito continued until well into the night before we caught the last train back to Rome, with Astrid and Jonathan trying to outdo one another in the 'big kids on monkey bars' stakes. Luckily, no-one got hurt.

I can't wait for Ants to get back from England so I can bring him down to this little piece of paradise.

Daisy does Roma

2009-09-03T05:06:00.000-07:00

On my dad's side of the family, I'm the oldest cousin. That's kinda cool, except that a lot of my cousins are nearly 15 years younger than me, so with me having lived abroad for most of their adult lives, I hardly know them. Going to my brother Jus's wedding last year was awesome for getting reacquainted with family.

This week we took it up a notch when my cuz Daisy came to town on her bus tour of Europe. Okay, so 31 cities in 14 countries in 21 days would make many people's heads spin, but fact is when it's yr first trip to The Continent you want to see a little bit of everything and work out what's worth coming back for.

We hooked up by the spanish steps, me straight from the office and Daisy and her tour mates fresh from the Vatican, via some extensive shopping on the Via del Corso. We found aperitivo -my new favourite thing in Rome: drinks, with free food, served around 6pm, where its too early for dinner but too long since lunch to drink on an empty tummy. Enter proscuitto e melone, bruschetta and frittata and some little pastry things with some kinda filling in them... For the same price as a normal drink. Yum.

So we nattered about family and got all the goss from home, gloated about our brilliant jobs and recent travel adventures and promised to have a proper catchup when I come home in May. She left feeling like Rome had been well and truly done in a day, however long it had taken to build it.

I don't believe her - nor my friend Kim, who says the same thing. I've been here two months and I'm still getting to grips with its dirty glamourous commercialist arty cultured classy mixed up vibe. But they are 23 and I am a woman of wisdom. Or too many words. Or something.

Next time Daisy comes to town I hope she brings her bloke along and stays long enough to see some of those layers. In the meantime babe, happy travels!

Random giggles

2009-09-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

The engineers at work were in fits of giggles today. Turns out the surname of our new catering manager at work is Mr Tossici: Google translates his surname as Mr ‘Poisonous’. Hmmm, not exactly what you want from the bloke in charge of feeding 1000 aid workers per day.

It's nearly as good as the day I learned that Witney has a plumber named Phil Crapper. :-)

Notti Animati!

2009-08-29T04:30:00.000-07:00

The mausoleum of Hadrian is surely the only tomb of the Roman emperors that is not only still intact (most, like that of Augustus, are crumbling red brick ruins), but grander than in Rome's ancient glory years.

Now known as the Castel Sant' Angelo, the building that now lies a stone's throw from the Vatican has, in its colorful history, been a fortress, sacked by goths and visigoths, saved by an appearance of the Archangel Michael (hence the name), a refuge for popes, a palace, a prison and place of execution.

Now, in summer, it's the home of Notti Animati - the nights are alive - thrown open to the public til 1am every night (2am Fridays and Saturdays), with children's entertainment until midnight (I love what that says about the Italian approach to life), live music and comedy in its various courtyards, bars, and tours of that now famous (thanks to Dan Brown's sequel Angels and Demons) tunnel linking the fortress to the Vatican.

My new 'besties' from work, Rach and Astrid, and I have been planning to get long for the fun for ages, despite the hefty 10 euro entry fee. Suddenly, it was the last weekend in August and if we didn't go now, we'd miss out... We met up in Trastevere and caught the bus up, queued for not nearly as long as we thought we'd have to, climbed to the top, found a bar... and made our way through two bottles of bubbly. By the time we'd finished pouring out our hearts to one another about life, the universe and everything, it was closing time. We raced ahead of the packing-away crews, stopping for gelati and to admire the views and the statues, singing (yes, singing) our way up and down stairs, thinking we sounded pretty damn good as our voices echoed off the stones.

We sang all the way home too... Astrid is now a huge fan of my new favourite: What you do with what you've got', which I learned from the singing of Dick Gaughan.

And what's the use of two strong legs if you only run away?

And what use is the finest voice if you've nothing good to say?

What good is strength and muscle if you only push and shove?

And what's the use of two good ears, if you can't hear those you love...

It's not just what you're born with

It's what you choose to be

It's not how big your share is

But how much you can share it

And it's not the fights you dreamed of

But the ones you've really fought

It's not just what you're given

It's what you do with what you've got

My feet ached by the time I walked in the door. And a bunch of italians we passed on the way probably think I'm crazy.

I don't care. Tonight was alive and me with it.

Note: I pinched this pic from Wikipedia, see link above.

Siena - away from the Palio

2009-08-19T04:27:00.000-07:00

Ants and I had decided long before the weekend was over that we'd love to come back for the non-Palio side of Siena too. It's not just for the amazing dishes of offal (my 'bruschetta toscana' was definitely more liver than kidney), the wild boar pappardelle, the red wines (August is mostly too hot for them anyway), the panforte cake sold in every deli, or the amazing icecream place that we went back to at least twice. There's a sense of people living very modern lives in this oldworld town full of winding streets, a balancing of past and present that feels perfectly comfortable. Accoustic musicians playing tunes by a 900 year old fountain (Fontebranda), market stalls in the 600 year old marketplace, which probably sell cheap knockoff watches. We want to see it on a non-Palio weekend.
Then there's St Catherine, patron saint of Italy (alongside St Francis), who hailed from here. We went for a walk along the street she was born in, allegedly the youngest of 25 children (ouch, her poor mother). I confess to a perverse sense of delight in finding out what a crazy old bint she was - fasting from the age of six to convince her da to let her become a nun, and then sucking the pus out of the wounds of the sick she tended. She finally collapsed, wasted but euphoric, at the age of 33, having campaigned to bring the pope back to Rome from Avignon. Catherine's letters - (more than 300 of which survive) have been branded by Wikipedia as 'one of the great works of early Tuscan literature'. Hmm. I've read bits of them and think she sounds like a religious fanatic. But apparently that was quite the thing to be in those days (she died in 1380) - at least she escaped a better fate than that crazy Savonarola in Florence. And in any case, that a woman of her station could read and write at all (her father was a mere dyer) - let alone get listened to, let alone become one of the most influential figures of her time... well it's nothing short of remarkable.
Then again, crazy views have worked for Neil Mitchell and Derryn Hinch. Thank heavens newspapers weren't invented in her day. Or blogging. She'd have been all over YouTube
But I digress.
The point is, Siena has much more to offer - from stunning views of the surrounding hills, to her black and white striped marble Duomo. We will definitely be back, well before the next Palio in July.

Although we might well be back then too.

Siena Palio!

2009-08-18T06:21:00.000-07:00

Ants wasn't entirely convinced when I told him that apparently one of the best things in Italy all summer is a horserace. After all, we've both seen Cup Day in Melbourne.

I promised him that, on good authority, this would be different. For a start, it's run bareback . Between local neighbourhoods, or contradas, in Siena. Held in the town square. Since the 11th century. That got him.

It was also the only bank holiday of the summer - Ferragosto, or the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (although literally translated it's just 'iron August'. Who knows with these italians), so I was joyous as we hopped another early morning train for my first glimpse of Tuscany. I got shivers as the train slid through the vineyards of Montepulciano, home of the famed 'super Tuscan' red wines, and again as we pulled into the station at the foot of a rocky outcrop that has the city perched on top, almost entirely contained in its old walls, the population never the same since the plague of '48 (that's erm 1348, when two thirds of the 60,000 townsfolk died).

We dumped our bags at the hotel and caught a bus up the winding roads, through the city gates, to the edge of the beautiful old town centre.

The first thing we noticed was how clean the place is, with street after street swept clean of litter. And water fountains that can be turned on and off (wasting less water than Rome), tidy restaurant tables lining the streets, shops laden with hams and cheeses, panforte, almond biscuits. But cool, despite the baking sun. We decided we liked what we saw and headed for the centre of the fun: the Campo.

We found it in the middle of celebrating lunch, more tables pulled up over the racecourse (a dirt overlay on the rock hard cobbles) with barriers for the crowds to pack behind as the race drew near.

Fed and watered, our next job was to pick contradas and get scarves. The Sienese are said to be remarkably standoffish - after the constant pushiness of Rome and Naples, we enjoyed being left alone. The Sienese, even at a major event, were refreshingly uncommercial and intent only on getting on with their horserace. You could join in or not. Suit yourself.

So we joined in, finding a very helpful chap to made sure our contradas actually had horses running this week (only 10 out of the 17 get a guernsey), and that they weren't 'sworn enemies' of one another. Ants, determined to have 'the one with Cundall colours' of red yellow and blue, ended up with the chioccola (the snails!! haha!) while I already knew I wanted the porcupines - or Istrichi. The best bit about this race is that there are actually three days of practice races beforehand. The buildup just for the Saturday was impressive enough: thousands of people packed the Campo (luckily we'd been tipped off and arrived early enough to score a spot near the inner barrier). There was pomp and ceremony that descended into pure exitement: a troop of mounted cavalry who trotted regally around the ring ...then at a signal, as one they levelled their swords and spurred their horses to a gallop as they thundered around again to cheers and screams and the rising adrenaline of the crowd, blades flashing silver in the sun as they disappeared down an alley as quickly as they'd appeared.

Then came the horses , round once and into the 'barrier' - a set of two ropes across the track. The session itself was over in minutes: three quick laps, two falls and suddenly every bloke in a scarf is over the barrier in flash to protect 'his' contrada's horse and stop anyone else from sabotage.

We were thrilled to bits as we went in search of the famous tuscan papardelle with hare sauce, and couldn't wait for the morning.

On Sunday we hit town early and parted company, to find our respective contradas. I'll confess now, I picked mine cos I knew where it was on the map. The Istrici control one of the main gates into the town, and the whole contrada was decked out wtih banners, and people wearing scarves.

After wandering some very quiet streets for ages, I finally found where the horses and local dignitaries were being prepared for the parade, and the local guild hall, where the in crowd were, once again, doing the serious business of lunch.
Finally, the horse appeared and we all crowded into the church while the beasty was blessed, a cheer going up when he lifted his tail and shat in front of the alter - supposedly a sign of good luck.Ants and I were texting each other madly by this stage at all the sights we'd seen, and finally reunited amid contrada supporters converging, in full medieval regalia, on the campo. There were drummers and pipers, knights on horses, foot soldiers in full plate, flag bearers tossing their standards metres into the air and catching them as they fell. And there were these magnificent beasties, 6 in all, and a massive timber dray, dark with age and festooned with banners, to carry the mayor and the Signoria (the freemen of the city council) on their lap of honour.We scored a spot by the barriers again, and watched the Campo fill to almost bursting, with a good natured crowd, tens of thousands strong, and hardly a drunk in sight (sooo ouldn't happen if you had a 3 day outdoor party in the streets of any town in Aus, England or Kiwiland!)We were excited as the parade started........ although two hours later, when it still wasn't done, we were ready for it to finish...

Finally, the moment we'd hoped to see again - the cavalry soldiers trotted out, blades perfectly vertical, faces perfectly composed...... ... until they reached that perfect moment, when the captain levelled his sword, the riders erupted in whoops and ear-to-ear grins, and the roar of the crowd rose audibly, tangibly, like a wave cresting in 30,000 ribcages. Forget concerts, or fireworks, this is the most thrilling public display you will ever see or feel.And then we waited some more.

At last, the horses came out, they hung about at their barriers, the 9 in front waiting for the 1 behind who starts them off - the one behind waiting for the 9 in front to arrange themselves in a postion that gives him an advantage. It's a massive exercise in patience. Three false starts later, Antsy got tetchy, and suddenly it was nearly dark - and then they were off!! Again the crowd's emotion rose as one solid wall, cheering, whistling, willing their horses on, groaning audibly as one, then two, then three riders came crashing to earth (no barrier to the horse winning, the rider is just there for show, when alls said and done!) Out of nowhere, the Owls, who hadn't won for 60 years, broke free, followed by Anthony's Snails and my beloved Istrici (making Antsy's horse 'first loser', which apparently is worse than being last!). But the crowd went wild before dispersing, we went for another amazing dinner (this time I braved 'bruschetta toscana' which did, as I had feared and suspected it might, taste suspicously of liver. Bloody good but).

The next day, being the Monday holiday, we wandered back in to see the debris, show each other where we'd been before (nearly getting lost, cos the banners were down already), marvelling at how sedate the streets were... until 100 mad owls lads, all dressed in medieval hose and tunics, dummies in their mouths ( to represent that, as newest winners, they are the babies of the neighbourhood again, where before they were old men) with whistles and drums, trumpets and cheers, and a gaggle of women following behind with chants and cheers and songs we didn't understand. It was the perfect end to a perfect race and we can't wait to come again.

Miss Meliss does Roma and Naples

2009-08-12T17:31:00.000-07:00

We moved over here imploring friends to come and visit, and no sooner had we settled into the new flat (we moved in a taxi, so it was hardly the most testing of removals) than our first houseguest arrived!

Meliss had spent several weeks seeing family in Malta and stopped in Rome on the way back to Melbourne. We introduced her to the delights of the cafe that does 10 euro dinners (bruschetta, pizza or pasta, plus a beer or wine, and a coffee - bargain!) and 'litro mojito' (which Ants has renamed 'sneaky mojito' for the fact that you can have 2 or 3 of these and feel fine, until it sneaks up on you when you stand up....).

Ants has, I think, enjoyed having someone else new to explore Rome with, and the two of them make a hilarious pair - she's quite little, and Ants, erm, isn't!

Best of all, this weekend we hopped a train down to Naples - for the bargain price of 23 euros return - to check out Pompeii. Our morning got off to a hilarious start - two american students hopped on board at the last minute, mumbling something about 'changing trains at the next stop'. We didn't have the heart to tell them that the next stop was Naples, in 2 hours time :-) The look on their faces when the guard told them was priceless.

We'd heard some dodgy things about Naples, and I think Meliss and I were both glad to be travelling with an Anthony. We've all now heard stories about people who brazenly gas your compartment to knock out the occupants and pinch all your stuff. And about the rampant petty crime around the station. So by the time we arrived in Napoli, we were pretty well paranoid.

We needn't have worried. Yes, the station district is seedy - welcome to rail travel the world over. But our B&B was spotless - sumptuous even, specially given that we were only paying 18 euros each for the room and brekkie! And I'm sure even the main streets of Naples could be intimidating by night - they're narrow and shut in on either side by looming buildings, and gloomy even by day. (Yes, that's a 'main' street below!)And there were signs everywhere of slightly dodgy dealings - hot cigarettes being hocked on every corner, even occasionally people exchanging embraces and small wads of cash. This is Camorra territory good and proper, but if you kept your nose clean and your eyes averted, it was no problem.

Besides, there was too much else to see. Naples is a poorer city than her cousins further north - Campania is rocky volcanic soil and barren compared to the lush green I remember around Milan. But she holds more than a few treasures. The old town gates were built in the 15th century by the rulers of the day - the Spanish - and the region's profound catholicism was evident in the soaring churches on almost every city block.

But Naples is also gritty and modern and edgy. We loved the modern art and stencil work, and a particularly poignant statement about McDonalds - there's not a Golden arches left in the whole city, apparently. (Huzzah!)

The cafe we stopped at for lunch was beside the ruins of the old town wall, built by the greeks some 2500 years ago and built over by the romans.

After a good feed and plenty o'meandering, we finally found the main museum, where all the best mosaics from Pompeii and Herculaneum have been dug up and 'saved'... hmmm. It seems 19thC Italians were as misguided as their Victorian -era counterparts in England. Never mind. They were amazing.

So was the 'secret room' of naughty relics: erotica deemed so controversial that about 200 years ago some duke ordered it all locked up so that unsuspecting innocents couldn't accidentally be horrified. It's only open for a couple of hours each day, but we made sure we got in on time. Probably more 'hilarious' than erotic, in my humble opinion.

But the bit that took my breath away were the statues from antiquity - the battered Roman-era marble busts you see in books give you no idea of the precision and flowing form of these free standing statues. And to think that, after the Romans, western Europe would wait 1500 years before anything like it emerged again. (Ants, of course, was overawed - and a bit relieved - by the tiny willies on all the statues. Surely Rome wasn't that cold back in the day!)

Thank heavens those 'infidels', the Saracens, Muslims and Moors, preserved all the knowledge that Europeans let lapse - or even deemed dangerous! Humanity owes them much, and many in 'the west' would do well to remember it.

Pompeii!!

2009-08-12T06:20:00.000-07:00

Sunday we jumped on the Circumvesuviana down to Pompeii. Mount Vesuvius dominates the landscape of the entire region, the land rising gradually from the coast to this one tall and broad peak (the only still-active volcano on the European mainland apparently, although it was reassuringly still when we were there). Even before we arrived I could imagine how terrifiying it must have been as the mountain rumbled into life, causing the ground to shake and water supplies to fail.

And apart from the fact that it was baking hot - and that 20 minutes after we arrived, Ants decided that he was 'a bit over Roman stuff' and ready to leave, Pompeii was one of the most amazing places I've ever seen.

Top: The temple of Apollo, just off the main Forum or civic square, and

Above: The public bathhouse, complete with unrestored frescoes on the walls

Pompeii in the first century was a thriving town of 20,000 people, weekend playground of the rich and famous, busily rebuilding after an earthquake in 62AD. The three day eruption gave lots of people time to leave, and 'only' about 2000 people - a relatively small percentage - died in the town as it was buried under hot pumice and ash.

Above, the 'small theatre', capacity about 500 people; and

Below, one of dozens of Roman 'takeaway joints' - the food was served from these pots in the counter, kept warm by a fire underneath.

Bottom: aptly enough - Pompeii's most infamous brothel - clients would be lined up in the street outside for their turn in one of the rooms upstairs...

It seems likely that excavators over the past couple of hundred years have done far more damage than the eruption did. In those houses that were exposed later, such as the villa of mysteries, even the frescoes on the walls are still bright with vivid reds and greens and dramatic black, and roofs and shutters sit frozen in position, protecting inhabitants long since fled or turned to dust.

Above: Frescoes in the Villa dei Misterei

Below: Two shots from the largest private house in Pompeii, now dubbed the House of the Faun, thanks to this litle guyWe didn't make it to the other Roman ruins around Vesuvius- the Villa Oplontis and Herculaneum, which are said to be much better preserved. Sometime when Ants is off doing stuff with the Company of Chivalry, I'll just have to go back!

Diana and Duncan come to stay

2009-07-27T15:39:00.001-07:00

Diana and Duncan are friends from Oxford, who have spent the last 5 weeks or so riding Dunc’s motorbike from England to Italy, via Holland, Germany, Hungary, the Czech republic, Hungary, a shedload of other former communist states, Turkey, Greece and here. Next weekend they’ll be in Sardinia so Duncan can be best man at his mate’s wedding, but for now, they’re all mine!

I’m not sure who was more pleased to see the other. My joy at the prospect of sharing all this newness with familiar faces, was very nearly eclipsed by D&D’s delight at having several days in a place that feels like a proper home (albeit a very gaudily kitted out one!). Needless to say, there were beers, wine, more antipasto, more watermelon for breakfast (Duncan reckoned that even if you could get it to taste this good in England, you still couldn’t have watermelon for brekky in the UK – the weather just isn’t right).

Sunday we went for a long wander through the ‘central storico’ (historic centre), from Piazza Venezia and the Trevi fountain past the Spanish steps, the tomb of Augustus and the Piazza Navona. Duncan, who’s a history major, was as overawed as I am with the Pantheon… although he also enjoyed meeting the local fauna :-) And it was sweltering hot, so we had to adapt to our surroundings – there were dozens of people paddling in this fountain. And, of course, there’s always gelati!
Back to work for me today, but they’ve got Roma Passes and things they want to go see. It’s just SO lovely to have people to share this place with, and these crazy first weeks, where it’s all so new.

I can’t wait for Ants to arrive.

Pearls of wisdom: crossing roads in Rome

2009-07-27T15:38:00.001-07:00

I'm learning a lot about Italy from my colleagues. One of my first insights was 'how to cross the street', which is a topic that fills entire paragraphs in tourist guide books about Rome. Alessandro has it distilled down to three simple things.

1. Pick a gap in the traffic and just start walking. They might toot their horn, they might cut in front of you or behind you, but nobody actually wants to hit you, so they won't.

2. Once you start, keep going, and keep a steady pace. The traffic will assume you're going to do this and pick their own gaps accordingly. Stopping actually makes you more likely to get hit.

3. Don't run. It makes you look like a target :-)

It works. Trust me!

New Home!

2009-07-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

The tricky part about moving to somewhere new is finding somewhere to live. We'd found a furnished holiday flat on the internet, but after my 'but it looks nothing like the pictures' experience with Rome in May, I wasn't game to take a long let on anything, so I just booked it for a month.

I'm quite glad I did. After 3 nights in a hotel that was also nothing like what it said on the tin, I arrived here to find that 'home' for the first month isn't even the same flat as the one in the ad... and it resembles nothing so much as someone's nanna's place - right down to the denture glue left in one of the drawers, along with clothes and slippers and other things that mean it could never really feel like home...... Bless the Italians, for whom I'm told image is everything - even more than truth...

So I was ever so relieved to find our new place, in the hip and happening neighbourhood of Testaccio. Fully furnished, fairly priced, and including all bills so we don't have to worry about handling utilities in Italian.

I signed the lease on Saturday. We move in on 1 August. It'll look more homelike once we get linen on the bed and stuff, but I'm loving the solid timber furniture and white walls look. It should be reasonably cool - it doesn't get afternoon sun - and there are ceiling fans and shutters. The landlord is lovely, and obligingly only wanted a month's deposit, which is very good of him (the standard over here is 2 or even 3 months). Yay.

Well wait and see what untold surprises await us... I'm still expecting something to be not all that it seemed...

"It feels right, indeed necessary, to right this wrong in our generation"

2009-07-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

These are the words of Sarah Brown, wife of UK Prime Minister Gordon, who wrote about a recent visit to WFP in her blog. The world has enough food - many of us have far more than we need. So why is it that one in six people - a billion worldwide - wake up each morning unable to ensure food on their tables?

Five Things...

2009-07-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

I’ve been here a few weeks, and that feels like long enough to start having an informed opinion. So, here are…

Five Things I Love About Rome
Having a proper summer: it’s been 30 degrees or more every day since I’ve been here. Even at night it never drops below 20 – not even when it rains - although that’s just cool enough for a good night’s sleep. While the rest of ‘the Boot’ bakes inland, Rome is famous for her refreshing evening breeze. And the daytime heat provides a very good excuse for…

Gelati: the gelateria nearest the flat does 82 flavours, and each one tastes just like its ‘real life’ namesake: melon, watermelon, kiwifruit, coconut, pineapple, cassata (vanilla with glace fruit), tartufo (chocolate truffle), liquorice, chocolate orange… Mmmm. Oh, and for all the English scratching their heads right now, gelati is Italian for ‘ice cream’.

Salads and melons: ripe tomatoes literally bursting with flavour, aromatic basil, sweet red and yellow capsis, peppery rocket. I’ve lived on salads and simple pastas for my first two weeks, and antipasto: figs with cream cheese and pancetta, or cantaloupe wrapped in proscuitto crudo. Watermelon for breakfast. No wonder Italians are all so lean.

The Nuns: I half expected them to be a dying breed even in the Holy City, but you see some nearly every day. All creeds, all colours, all ages all kinds of habits: austere brown with bare feet in sandals (even in the rain) through white, grey, brown, black and various shades of blue. Some wear laceup shoes even in 40degree heat and have cankles to match. Others are tiny novices, who look as if a puff of wind would send them flying. I still don’t understand how life in the cloister can possibly be the best way to serve God, but the fact that so many of these little ladies evidently do is somehow kinda cool. And they all, always, look happy and at peace, and seem to have found their place in the world. So many others cannot say the same.

Late night living: It’s too hot to do much before 7pm, and Ants is convinced Italians leave work and go home for a nonna-nap. But the shops are still doing a steady trade at 8pm (about the time most folk are turning their minds to dinner); happy hours run ‘til 10, and the gelateria is packed as we call in for one on our way home around midnight. It feels a bit boho, yet perfectly normal and civilised at the same time. And it beats England’s ‘closed by 5.30 and supper served at 6.00’ by a country mile.

I’ll have more to say another time about Rome as a city in decay. I still feel like I’m living someone else’s (slightly blessed) life, but it has its moments. So here are

Five Things I Don’t Love About Rome

The smells: rotting garbage from overflowing skips which sit in the middle of the street, in the baking sun. (Emptying them every other day is not enough in summer). Stale piss on the stairs up to the station, or from random doorways. Part of me longs to get used to it so I don’t notice it anymore – part of me shudders at the thought of ever becoming immune to something so gross.

Massive dog turds: in a city based around apartment living, keeping anything bigger than a Pekinese is cruelty to animals, but judging by the size of the monster poo one sees in the street (all to often already smeared across the pavement by some unlucky walker), Italians beg to differ. It’s almost enough to make you avoid sandals.

Monster rats: I was walking down a sidestreet in the centro storico (historic centre) and saw one that had apparently been run over by a truck – it was squashed flat. I don’t know what was more gross: that it’s innards had been forced out its back end and smeared behind it – or that the rat itself, not counting tail, was a foot long and easily 5 or 6 inches wide. Ick.

Rude supermarket staff: ‘Di mi ancora e piano per favore’ means ‘tell me again please, slowly’. Yelling in Italian about how stupid I am isn’t going to help me understand any better how much money I owe you.

Limited public open space: after England’s village greens, parks and even pubs, Italy has very few places for people to congregate and pass time. People cluster briefly in baked brick piazzas, sometimes sitting in the shadows cast by fountains and monuments, or on benches in the street to eat ice cream and natter. ‘Café culture’ in the style of Paris or Brussels doesn’t exist here: bars are for old men, and if it weren’t for Brit-style pubs, I would struggle to find live music anywhere. Even counting the language barrier, this is the adjustment that’s hardest.

It’s no contest though. I had to think really hard even to come up with 5 things I don’t like, and could have raved about a much longer list of good things. They win, hands down. I don’t yet see us settling here for good, but I hope we get to stay awhile…

A lesson on 'when in Rome'...

2009-07-07T09:49:00.000-07:00

It’s maybe funny that Rome should provide some of my most favourite insights into English people. I blame Wimbledon.

The first laugh was on me: I made the mistake of asking a burly bloke from Sheffield (who was watching the tennis) if he’d ever been. ‘Not me. I’m not really of that class’ came the taciturn reply.

Of course. Unlike the Aus Open, where the $30 fee for a ground pass is accessible to many, and you can turn up on the day and buy one, Wimbledon runs an annual lottery. ‘Winning’ just gives you the right to part with 80 quid or so for a basic entrance ticket. Everyone else misses out – unless they fancy camping out for 2-3 days for ‘on the day’ tickets.

I tried to explain this and I think, even if he didn’t quite believe me, our man from Sheffield at least understood that I wasn’t posh. (I was wearing a £1 dress from Primark, for crying out loud!)

As the afternoon wore on, we were joined by a chap from the States and a bubbly couple from Leeds. They all had one complaint: Rome is lovely, but bloody expensive. ‘Oh?’ says me, thinking of my 35c packets of pasta and 4 euro bottles of wine at home, or Friday’s beach experience. ‘Aye, one place charges 7 euros 50 for pints, and it’s just John Smiths, nothing fancy. And fish ‘n’ chips were 12 euros – that’s more’n a tenner!’

Hmmm. Methinks I understand where they’re going wrong. ‘Have you tried the pizza since you’ve been here? I had a very good pasta for 7 euros the other day, and wine for 6 euros a bottle’.

‘You must mean for a half bottle.’

‘Nope. A proper bottle’.

One wonders, sometimes, why English people go abroad, if all they want to do is sit in a pub, watch English sport and eat fish and chips. But the lesson is obvious: eat as the locals do. It's more authentic - and cheaper!!

More sociable early days in the eternal city

2009-07-06T14:00:00.001-07:00

It began on Friday. About 4.30, my colleague Lidija asked me if I had plans for the evening. ‘Not yet’ I replied, thinking my weekend was unlikely to feature anything more riveting than grocery shopping, some facebook, and perhaps a trip to a pub on Sunday, to watch Wimbledon.

‘We’re going to the beach. By we I mean me and about 100 people from work. I can give you a lift and make sure you get back to Rome. Would you like to come?’

‘I’d love to.’ I was already mentally sweeping aside logical objections like ‘but I’m not dressed for the beach’ and ‘hang on – back to Rome???’

It was the best decision I’ve made since I arrived. I wasn’t the only one who’d gone straight from the office, and we all kicked off our shoes and pulled up chairs and tables between the bar and the sand. It was my first glimpse of the Mediterranean, so of course I had to go for a paddle, suit trousers rolled up past my knees. Lidija half thought I was crazy, and half wanted to come in too – in the end, crazy won out and she hitched up her dress and waded on in.

It was a gorgeous, balmy evening. One of the blokes DJ’d some laid back tunes, the bar turned on free seafood pasta and we sipped 5 euro mojitos as the sun set over ‘the Med’.

My bill for cocktails, dinner, and a taxi from Ostiense, where my lift back to Rome dropped me off, totalled 20 euros. You couldn’t even get to a beach in the UK for that.

Best of all, I came away with phone numbers for a couple of girls who are even newer than me, who also live in Trastevere, and are also keen to go exploring.

None of them made it out Sunday for Wimbledon, but it turned out not to matter. I’d spent Saturday doing domestics, and checking out the area around Piazza Venezia (there’s a Leonidas chocolate shop near the Scholars Lounge pub – does life get any better?). Opting for a new pub, with ‘fewer tellys but cheaper pints’ proved the right call. Over a cracking 5 set epic between Federer and Andy Roddick I started nattering to a bunch of fellow travellers and ended up going for a meal after the match. If I can string a few more of these together, Rome won’t be a lonely place for long.

More about the new job

2009-06-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

My third day in the office, and I headed into a 'voices from the field' briefing from the head of our programme in Somalia. I have a whole new appreciation for the job ahead: for me, and for my organisation. How on earth do you get people to prioritise energy management in a country that's so dangerous that the head office is located over the border in Kenya? How do you focus on fuel efficiency in shipping through seas that are so full of pirates that you can't hire ships (from any country) to carry your grain unless you can guarantee them a naval escort? And what's the relevance of vehicle efficiency in a country where most of the roads have been blown up - so part of our job of 'feeding people' becomes 'building roads so we can carry the food to where the hungry people are'.

Tragically, Somalia is also the place where, in the past year, four of our staff have been killed in the line of duty. Their names are on a plaque in the entrance foyer in Rome. I'm in new awe of the work our people do. I've been privileged to work in some pretty 'worthy' organisations in my life thus far: places that do an enormous amount of good.

But this place might just eclipse them all.

Early days in the Eternal City

2009-06-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

First weekend on my own has been, frankly, a bit tough. I'm knackered, my italian isn't holding up very well (perhaps I should've expected that, after only 5 weeks of - intermittent - study. Hmmm) and I know absolutely NO ONE here. I've spent the last two days trying to navigate the supermarket, talking to the wall and failing to get past chapter 6 in my textbook. My new flat (home for the next month) is pure woggy kitch - all madonnas on the walls and best china in glass fronted cabinets. The landlady speaks only Italian, and I didn't dare refuse the coffee she had on the hob waiting for me, even though I don't, under any circumstances, drink coffee.

I know I've been a bit shellshocked. In all yesterdays wandering in this great city nothing 'really grabbed' me, apart from two old and ugly blokes who, in separate incidents, asked me for a drink 'only for talking, if you want'. Am I really only attractive to 50 year olds in Italy?

Today has been different. Today, I've caught a bus into town that took me past some amazing stuff - buses really are the best way to join up the dots in a new city, London taught me that - and at last, after 6 days (3 last time, and these last 3) I'm having my first, proper 'Holy crap batman, I live in ROME' moments...

The bus said '170 - Stazione Termini' on it. I know where that is, so I figured I'd hop on and see where else it took me. Turns out it runs along the Tiber, past some beautiful Roman ruins that aren't even named on my maps, then the Circo Massimo, home of chariot races in millennia gone by. On through Piazza Venezia - the square they tell tourists to not even TRY crossing until they understand italian traffic, onward up a winding hill past an irish and a scottish pub to Via Nazionale, then the old-style European Piazza della Repubblica and finally the train station.

This was the Rome I'd been looking for and which, apart from a few soaring moments when I stumbled on the Pantheon, and ate my first cassata beside the Trevi fountain, I hadn't found when I was first here. In those first crazy days, and even yesterday, Rome was overwhelming: with its layers of history all competing for attention over the smell of rotting garbage, piss and stale tabacco, or the cacophony of tourist groups, punctuated by the inevitable loud American.

Suddenly, from the coolness of an airconditioned bus, here were bite-sized pieces that I could file away for future reference, the quiet chatter of Italians, their unfailingly polite routine of 'permesso, prego, grazie' as people squeeze past each other to the doors. Here are places I can come back to to soak up at my leisure, landmarks I can see from a dozen different angles as I rolled out the streetmap inside my head. (Note: you can see the Vittorio Emanuelle monument at Venezia from everywhere. I must learn more about who he was!)

And here I found simple roman elegance, rubenesque statuary, and architecture that reminded me that, after all, I am in one of the leading cities of Europe. And I live here now!

I'm revitalised - I walk more than halfway home, tracing the route and stopping to wonder at the landscapes my mind snapped as I passed them before. I'm going to stop for icecream at the gelateria near my flat, which stocks more than 80 flavours (including sorbets and soy-ice cream, for the vegans out there). And for the first time, I suspect I might quite like Rome for more than just her food and her weather!

2009-06-26T14:20:00.000-07:00

Day two, and today was time to tackle my mandatory Basic Safety in the Field training, and then start some real work.

At the UN, 'real work' includes setting up endless meetings, to meet the people I'm going to meet at other meetings, so we can all work together to determine the outcomes of the meetings before they happen... *sigh*. Luckily I'm a very good bureaucrat and understand exactly why all this is necessary.

But back to that training. It was sobering stuff - a reminder that some of my new colleagues work in pretty crazy places, euphemistically known as 'hardship posts'. Over the course of my half-day training, I learned how to identify 5 common types of land mine, what to do if I'm taken hostage, or encounter child soldiers at a road checkpoint (hint: they may be small but those are still real AK-47s. Treat them as you would an adult who's pointing a gun at you), and techniques for coping with the psychological trauma of sexual assault, or being shot at.

I was knackered come hometime. It's been a good 48 hrs, albeit slightly crazyand so far all about the job. I'm looking forward to some downtime this weekend. I'm gonna find me a glass of wine and some of that amazing looking potato and rosemary pizza I saw yesterday, then collapse into bed, wishing ever so slightly that I could catch up with my mates in England for a cider and a song.

First day in Roma

2009-06-25T07:47:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this from my new laptop at my new desk at the end of my first day working for the United Nations World Food Programme in Rome.

This absolutely feels as though I'm living someone else's life.

Transport arrangements last night ran like clockwork: amazingly I was hit with NO excess charges, and we were only half an hour late getting out of Heathrow (good by English standards!) which gave me extra nattering time with Julie, a mate from Aus who by crazy coincidence was transitting through Heathrow at the same time. For the first time ever, I was collected at the airport by a driver in a suit carrying one of those placards with my name on it. Our chappie spoke almost no english and drove like a maniac: but it was exciting to be hurtling through the streets of Rome in the dark, passing occasional brilliantly lit monuments - the Colusseum, the Vittorio Emanuelle II monument.... amazing. Despite my fledgling italian he seemed to think that I was worth being nice to (actually, he knew I was moving to Rome for work and probably thought he'd get a tip - which he did, because he was excellent - and return business, which he will). To my amazement, I understood him better than I expected, and remembered more than I thought I could, and we nattered on (actually nattered!) about how lovely Rome is.

Next morning I discovered that breakfast isn't served til 8am, so skipped that but found the train station, negotiated a weekly ticket, and after some faffing about got to work for just after 8.30. We started the day with a team coffee (I had water. Will have to work on that one!), then it was off to HR to meet James the chainsmoking Brit with a fringe long enough to tuck behind his ears, who spent the next two hours showing me the HR ropes. I couldn't believe it. An HR guy who was both helpful and right. So far, the UN is defying all stereotypes.

Spent the rest of the day trying (fruitlessly) to get the computer to talk to the network, as often happens on first days in new jobs, then gave up and asked my boss for some reading to do. But by day's end I had a laptop, a staff pass and a mobile 'on the way'! Eeeep! Oh, and had a meeting with one of our events people, a woman from Japan, about how WFP can 'green' its many, many meetings (the obvious answer - fewer meetings, more emails and phone conferences!).

Off home shortly - will do some food shopping and then just lax out, I think. Wonder if I'll find more of those lush ripe cherries at £1.50 a punnet. Hotel room is tiny (looks like it used to be a store room, but it has a bed, a cupboard and a tv in it, so I can't complain), and the walls are paper thin. Didn't get great sleep last night but think I'll unwind okay tonight. It's not as bad as sharing a room with Sleep Apnoea Guy (see my last trip to Rome for details!) Move into temporary apartment on Saturday morning, for a month.

It's all extremely surreal. I can't believe we're going to be properly living here, in Rome, a city that holds so much for a traveller to see, and paid for the privilege:- by one of the world's leading organisations, no less. I'm a bit scared of failing, but I also feel like I'm standing on the cusp of something amazing. Most of all, I really, really feel like I'm living someone else's life.

Final night in Corn Street, Witney

2009-06-23T11:30:00.000-07:00

It's Tuesday night and in a little over 24 hours I'll be arriving in Rome. This time in England is over: there is no automatic right of return to the place that for three years now I've called 'home'.

The final installment of "one mores" has been and gone - Phil and Sophie, musicians who've become dearly loved friends over the past two years, came round to dinner with Phil's son Matt, and we ended up having a final meal at Suwanna Thai, which I still think is the best Thai food in England (closely followed in the 'Far east eats' stakes by Georgetown in Leeds). We've given them custody of my leaving gifts from work, books on castles and medieval cookery, which I received a day early because they're too heavy to carry on the plane, and I'm going straight from the office to the airport.

My bags are packed, ready for the morning. They are hideously over the limit and I'm only praying that I don't have to pay more than 10kgs of excess baggage (the max my new employer will spring for in reimbursement). I've checked for the umpteenth time that I have my passport, and various internet receipts for my flight, shuttle to town and hotel. I start my new job in about 32 hours time and need to hit the ground running, so it all has to run like clockwork when I get in.

One final pint at the New Inn, to offer my thanks and best regards. Most of the regulars are in on Tuesdays, so there are good wishes and a quiet 'well done' from the landlord, Martin, who is also well travelled and understands that this new post is a bloody big deal.

I'm knackered, but I don't quite want to go to bed - I'm not ready for tomorrow to come. This feels like it's happening to someone else - all the buildup, the angst at work that prompted me to look for a new job, the thousands of times I asked Ants 'are you SURE you would really live in Italy, cos I'm taking this job if you say yes one more time', packing up the beautiful home we made together just a few short months ago, and now leaving friends behind who have also filled the shoes of our families who are so far away. And I have needed them - the work stuff over the past 6 months has been brutal. Even now that it's over, I do not feel I have the mental resources or resiliance I had, or am used to having, and I feel a bit under-manned and half dressed.

I'm nervous as hell on so many fronts - I kinda liked Rome, but I didn't love Rome at first sight the way I did with, say, Brussels, or Vienna, or even Hong Kong. Three months ago I had no serious thought of ever going to live in Italy, and I spoke only enough italian to order a pizza. (I'm not much better now, truth be told!).

Anthony is putting a lot of faith in me, by agreeing to put his career on hold and be a househusband, for six months if need be - although we hope to find him work, he has a knack for 'something turning up'. I'm scared I might hate it. I'm scared I might love it but he hates it. Most of all I'm scared of letting him down, that the gamble won't pay off and we can't make it back.

The one thing I'm truly confident about is the job itself. This is exactly the role I shaped myself for when I started my masters back in 2002 and have subconsciously worked towards ever since. I feel I was made for this job and, barring unforeseen dickheads in the office, feel certain I can make a success of it.

There's one more thing I'm confident of - Ants may have misgivings about this too, but he's prepared to back it, so I need to make it work. It's time now to sign off, head upstairs to our airbed on the floor one last time, tell my husband I love him, and get some sleep.

'One more before I go'

2009-06-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

It's been a solid week of goodbyes. I feel slightly bewildered - I wasn't quite ready to leave Witney and Oxford, so there's a welling up of grief and even loss at going, no matter how exciting the adventures to come. But I'm also aware of being carried on an immense tide of goodwill, from people who are sad to see us go, but so, so supportive, encouraging, and who will be willing us to come back to England when we're done.

It started last Monday, with a trip to the Bell folk club at Adderbury. I still think Jules was telling woppers when he said it was only 15 minutes from his place (else I don't want to know what speed he drives at when he's alone in the car!), but this community of singers has made us both very welcome over the past 6 months - and Ants too , when he's been able to make it. We all sang up a storm tonight - and Sheena and Dave and various other regulars looked genuinely dismayed when I said I couldn't make next fortnight - or the next dozen or more after that. I went home feeling warm and buzzy. England has given me an enormous gift, an open door to the folky world - I've played at a festival, made recordings, sung in countless pubs with countless musicians, many of them far more experienced than I. This generosity, and talent, is what I will miss most when I go.

Wednesday saw Jules and I tee up one last time, back where it all began, at Open Mike night in Grandpont. I still remember the first time Jules came in to the Marlborough arms pub. He played 'The Dance' and I was spellbound. It was like meeting an old friend for the very first time, words and music both new and yet achingly familiar. Guy recorded us and, when he handed the master over on Sunday, wasn't kidding when he said he thought it might be our best yet. We've promised to stay in touch and send each other songs to learn, so don't think you've heard the last of 'Wytham wood' just yet!

Friday was our 'official' leaving drinks. I tried to break with tradition and escape the dreaded Red Lion in Eynsham, but the bloody Queen's Head was closed 'til 5.30 (and the Star just ain't the same since Ollie left), so there we were.

Bolted out of there by 6 to get buses into town in time for Happy Hour (half price cocktails) at the Duke of Cambridge on Little Clarendon St. I have the lovely Helen to thank for this place - they do an amazing concoction of cherry liquer and chocolate and cream and it's like drinking a black forest cake. Lush.

Super cool surprise! Mandy Connell arrived from Newcastle (in fairness, she was on her way to stratford anyway). She'd texted a week before to say 'I'm here for 5 months, we're all gonna have the best-est summer!' and we had to explain that our summer was gonna take place a little further south. But so, so amazing that she made it for this! Typical Aussie style, she turned up with backpack, guitar case and a mandolin. Never bring what you can't carry. Brenda, Nicola, Malcolm, Tess and Zoe rounded out our merry band, but when the cheap drinks ended, it was time for stage 3 of our progress and we hopped a bus back to Witney.

The New Inn was jumpin' by the time we arrived - the Company of Chivalry had migrated in force from Bristol and it was Friday, so a lot of the regulars were in their usual places. I hugged Ants and told him how amazed and thrilled I was that the Company'd come all this way just for us. He reminded me that he'll be here for another 4 weeks and will see them lots. They weren't here for him, he said. I nearly cried. I might've actually. I was a bit soused.

We sang, we ate fried stuff, we talked, we drank - o how we drank! - and Martin finally booted us all out well after closing. We slept 10 people in our 2 bedroom cottage that night - 2 on the floor in our room, two in the spare bed, Kate the Witch alone in the loungeroom (how'd she do that - it's the biggest room in the house?), 3 in the loft, and us.

I cooked brekkie all round the next morning, Ants took Mandy to the station (the bus waited for her - they don't DO that in England!), the company left, and I burst into tears at the thought of all those dishes, and the prospect of moving with a hangover.

Somehow, we got it all done. Furniture to Zoe's, a truckload to storage in Bristol, racing the clock to arrive in time so we'd be allowed to unload. Thankyou Si and Badge who put their own hangovers aside to give us a hand!

Endless cleaning Sunday. We were late to our 'next' farewell: dinner at the Kaz Bar and one last session at the Half Moon. That crazy but brilliant Heather Payton came all the way from London to say g'bye, Folly Bridgers and Half mooners were there in force. The Kaz Bar didn't disappoint - it never has! Then it was over the road for singing and one last Aspalls, before switching to softies for the drive home. Singing 'it's hard to be leaving old England' had a poignancy all of its own that night...

Last but not least - Advice Liners past and present, and friends, as my last Monday rolled around. Where else - it had to be the Fleece in Witney. I've not had a better meal any where else in England, and at no meal at the Fleece have I had company quite this good. Hannah Savory was a special guest - complete with card wishing me 'in boca al lupo' - 'good luck, although more literally something about entering the mouth of a wolf, which is perhaps more accurately how I feel! At Eliza’s insistence, we finished up on church green with a bottle of champers and a stack of glasses. Oh! And check out my groovy leaving present from the A-team - a blend of 'roman' and 'leader' apparently. I love it and wish I could pack it and take it with me.
Actually, there's a lot I want to pack into my suitcases tonight - or maybe I just want the new job to be based here. I learned when I left Melbourne that it's people you miss most when you go somewhere new. There are plenty of folk I still miss from Melbourne, who won't really be any closer, and a lot of people who I haven't met yet in Rome and that will be fun, but right now, I'm carried on this wave of love and respect, good wishes and a touch of admiration from some, that makes me feel very, very special here in England.

Y'all better come and visit!

It's not just what you're given...

2009-06-14T09:56:00.000-07:00

Dick Gaughan has been opening gigs for more than 20 years with a song that makes my heart surge and my tummy get goosebumps. The chorus is everything I try to live my life by.

"It's not just what you're born with, it 's what you choose to be.
It's not how big your share is, it's how much you can share it.
And it's not the fights you dreamed of, but those you really fought.
It's not just what you're given... it's what you do with what you've got.'

(written by Si Kahn)

Amazing. And that was just the beginning - but a very exciting start to our second 'farewell to folk' music adventure in England. (Ironically, he's also a Scotsman - although he at least still lives in Scotland).

Dick Gaughan is, I think, the kinda bloke I want to sit down and have pints with, and talk about life. His songs are rich in pro-scottish sentiment, without being anti english: he wrote 'both sides the tweed' about the importance of England and Scotland working together. He takes the mickey out of religious fundamentalism - including those uniquely Scottish christians, the Calvinists - he sings about history and unionism and the power that one person, or many folk all pulling together, can have.

And, like Luka Bloom, and Pat McKernan, and other truly great folk artists, he is just one man with a guitar on a stage, but his singing, his playing and his chatter fill the room, and you leave feeling like you've witnessed something very special.

PS Melbournites take note - we saw him play at this amazing venue called the Limelight theatre in Aylesbury. It was just like being in Northcote - the limelight is a former school, turned into a performance space, with a little bar run by volunteers. The sense of community was awesome, and I missed you guys!

And the man played...

2009-06-08T12:30:00.000-07:00

I remember when I went to my first ever Oxford Folk Festival, finding it absolutely hilarious that Eric Bogle albums were kept in the Scottish Music section of the CD stand. After all, the man who wrote songs like 'Now I'm easy' (an ode to a NSW farmer), or that great Australian classic 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda', well it doesn't matter where a man was born, he's an Aussie now, surely.

And yet, when you hear him speak, forty years after he left his homeland, there's no mistaking the soft scottish brogue and dry northern wit. As he stood up the front at Hitchin Folk Club joking with his old mate John Munro, the pair of them were pure Scots.

I didn' t dare miss this gig - Bogle's only one within coo-ee of Oxfordshire before I leave for Italy (and still nearly a 2 hr drive away!). It's his last ever tour of the UK - getting too old for the trip, he reckons, and heaven only knows when I'll next be home at a time that he's gigging there.

And he was brilliant.

It's always amazing, when you hear a voice so familiar from recordings, in real life for the very first time. Every intonation of every line is familiar, but richer than your CD, and ever so slightly different. Every old song he played was imbued with memories, wrapped up in Bogle's own stories of where they came from.

'Now I'm easy' is a song Ants and I learned in our early days - this night we learned it's about a NSW farmer Bogle met in a pub and, he says "we traded life stories. I was workin' as an accountant at the time, so his life story was a fair bit more interesting than mine". Another was of a bloke he met at a party in Adelaide "he said he was a merchant banker. I dunno if he was, but what he was, is a fair rhyme for that". I wondered how many people in the room would know that the two places he'd just mentioned were nearly two days' drive apart.

As songs we knew and loved mingled with songs we'd never heard, and with poignant stories and witty banter, we felt privileged to be there.

I'd not appreciated before just how strong is the anti-war theme in his music. Right throughout, his repertoire is rich in protest - anti greed, pro peace, pro environment, pro people. It's not just the waste of life in 'Wille McBride (aka 'The Green Fields of France, but titled 'No man's land' by its author!), or 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'. It's the lamentation of the death of the mighty Murray river, the disrespect shown to the hard living farmer. But his songs are also rich in celebration - of the lives of aboriginal people and beliefs in the Coorong, in songs like Lost Souls, written for a group of boys who took a handful of Coorong sand to a grave in Belgium, and brought back a lump of clay, so that after nearly 90 years, the spirit of their relative could find his way home.

Best of all, it was a folk club, not some big festival or touch-me-not concern. John Munro manned the CD stand at interval, and Bogle and Ants were about the only two smokers in the place, so when Ants went out for a fag at half time and after the show... there he was! We wandered up to say hello, and thank you, and to tell him his stories about Australia were making me homesick (which was true).

When all was sung and done, we collected the car from the parking spot we'd scored RIGHT in front of the pub, and started the two hour trek home, satisfied that every mile had been worth it.

A rare voice

2009-06-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

My notes on tonight wouldn't be complete without a word about Miriam Backhouse, who played the opening spot. We'd actually passed her on the stairs, her waistlength platinum hair reminding me of the very gorgeous Maggie McCathie, a mate from Melbourne.

Described in several places as a 'now-obscure' singer of the 70s, lately living in South Africa, there's a retro quality to a lot of Backhouse's singing, but very much after the fashion of a Joan Baez, or the Sandy Denny of old. And, like them, what a voice! From soaring soprano to lilting alto, rich with inflection and experience and... I want to sing like that then I have her years.

She made us laugh, too, with her solo wit that's far harder to sustain than two old men who bounce off each other's riposts; and then she made us cry, with songs about boys who died under apartheid, and the mothers who mourn them.

A fine first act, indeed, she was, for the headliners to come, but also a powerful performer in her own right. England and her music scene never ceases to amaze me.

It's this I'll miss most when we leave.

English, as it ought to be

2009-06-07T07:32:00.000-07:00

A lot of my English friends don't understand why moving to Italy has me scared half out of my pants. "I'd be terrified if it was me," they say, "but you moved half way around the world already. Italy is only two hours away".

True enough. But when I left Melbourne, the trip was more than 12 months in the planning (not two!), and coming to a place where I already had about a dozen friends, and even family (Sam, I mean you!) here already; and the language, system of government and even the side of the road you drive on were all the same.

At this point they usually remind me I was wrong about the language. English is not the same as Australian (although, it has to be said, most English people speak worse English than I do). I very quickly gave up trying to explain concepts like spaz, wog, or daggy (although 'the dress sense of 90% of english people' would do nicely on the last one).

It took me months, when I first arrived, to get used to my boss saying 'Morning Georgi, you alright?'. 'Yeah fine, why - do I look sick? Has my hair been messedup in the wind?'.

I wish someone had told me that over here, calling somone "fit" means you fancy them like mad, not that they're in better shape than you expected. (Yes, I was describing someone senior at work).

After three years here, I never say 'pants' anymore when I mean trousers, and I understand that, for people of my parents' generation, 'pants' and 'knickers' are both mild swear words... oh, and a 'twat' is not just a funny pronunciation of the word 'twit' (yep, used that one at work too.
oops). Long weekends happen because we have 'bank holidays', I sleep under a duvet not a doona, bogans have become 'chavs' and scrags turned into 'mingers'. It's years since I tried to call a hot bloke a 'spunk' - in this country, that's what he makes, not what he is!

Although I made myself stop in my tracks the morning I passed one of the 'born and bred in Witney' lasses at work and out of my very own mouth came the local customary greeting of 'hiyaaaaaaaah, y'a'riiiight?' Never again.

I will say this for the English language, as spoken in its native land. Nowhere else can you use words like bespoke; poorly; ill; quaint, horrid, mocked or archaic; without sounding like a complete wanker. Frightfully English? Indeed. But if not here, then where? And I have to say, the words for truly great stuff - spendid, marvellous, wondrous - these totally eclipse their coarse Aussie equivalents like 'grouse', 'bonza' and even 'bloody brilliant'.

I was trying to explain all this to my colleague Claire, on the walk down from the bus one morning."Oh!" she exlaimed, laughing her arse off. "That's just super!"

'Nuff said.

A picnic in the forest

2009-06-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

We had friends over last weekend (Huw and Gill), who brought their daughters who are eight and ten. I love it when kids are still kids at that age. Our house has a loft space under the roof - carpeted, with a skylight and electric light and all. You reach it by climbing up a retractable ladder through the manhole in the spare room. You should have seen the looks on their faces as I pulled the rope that releases the ladder... I've read descriptions of kids hopping with delight - now I've seen it, complete with choruses of 'oh wow. Oh Wow!' They were up the ladder and claiming their hidey hold lickety split - although it didn't take them long to realise that if they pulled up the ladder, there was no room for thm to sleep haha! But that was by no means the main attraction. There's a roman villa near our place, ruined, but with some amazing mosaic floors still intact. You can also see bits of underfloor heating (hypocausts) and the remains of the baths. Amazing. Some of you may remember that, after my friend Dan showed me this place (yes, it's the one Bill Bryson writes about in Tales of a Small Island), I vowed to come back with a Roman picnic.

And we did!

No dormice, I'm afraid, but certainly plenty of crazy roman goodness. Cheese pastry bites, made by rubbing flour and cheese together to look like breadcrumbs, then adding an egg, frying in oil, coating in honey and rolling in poppyseeds. 'Savoury fritters': take red chicory (or other bitter leafy lettucy thing) and chop finely. Add flour, red wine, salt and pepper to make a batter, then fry in olive oil until it looks for all the world like hamburgers. Then make everyone guess what's in it! We also had ham in a fennel and red wine sauce, feta cheese with honey and pepper, creamy cheese with herbs, asparagus, honey cake... oh, and lashings of beer, wine and cider. Mmmm. The sun obligingly shone all afternoon, taking the temperature to a balmy 21oC! The girls wrestled Anthony in the grass (he let them win... or so he says), and I took them paddling in the stream and to find wild garlic in the woods. (It's 14 and raining today, but hell, it's Englandl That's how it works here.)
Last but not least, it turned out to be a weekend of random coincidences. We'd worked out a little while ago that Huw and Anthony share exactly the same birthday - both born April 28, 1972. I figured that with that, and the fact that they're both tall hairy men who love history and folk music, they were bound to get along. Even more uncannily, Gill grew up about 500 metres from me in Knoxfield (mum, if you're reading this, Rickards Avenue). That put her on the wrong side of the boundary for my primary school, and she went to Knox Park. But she went to high school with most of my old crew, and we had some funny, funny stories to share.

Wish we'd had them up here sooner, and more often. But it's one helluva weekend worth of memories to take away with us! Thank you.

The seat at the right hand of the Father...

2009-05-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

... is located under the lid of a marmite jar, apparently. According to this family in Wales, the face of Jesus is imprinted in this lid. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8071865.stm

Hmmmm. Some people might need to get out more, recognise the miracles that happen around us ever day, and switch to Vegemite, people!!

Final fling at Caerphilly...

2009-05-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

After all the foreign focus in our lives right now, it was kinda grounding to head back to Caerphilly this weekend, for one last event (for a little while, at least) with the Company of Chivalry. Sadly, I was senza Anthony, (who was doing what we hope might become the first of numerous paid gigs at the Tower of London!), but after half a dozen events, this castle is starting to feel a bit like home, and there aren't too many parts of it that I haven't now explored.

This trip, we managed to camp in the inner bailey, which is gorgeous - although more of a hassle for carting water, which has to be carried up from the outer bailey and across the drawbridge... sigh. Life is so harsh and cruel. Being chief kitchen wench I had to order other people to fetch and carry for me all weekend.

May has seen a spate of company birthdays, so there were gifts and much silliness on the Saturday night: including a broomstick from Si Atford for our resident 'witch-cum-wise-woman' Kate, who was turning a number ending in one. And she STILL doesn't look a day over 35.

The show this weekend revolved around a 'seige' theme, culminating in our bailey being stormed and everyone dying gloriously. I hit on the idea of defending the women of the keep (who had been sent to the kitchens for safety, my handing them all very large wooden spoons as weapons, and going in to clout the soldiers with a massive frypan. Made the public laugh, anyhoo!

Company events now have something of a familiar routine to them, which is comforting. Up at 7 to get brekky ready for 'as soon as drill finishes', just after 8am. Round up the lads with the biggest hangovers (or anyone else the Sargent has put on a charge) to scrub out the pots, put dinner on a spit and chill out til mid morning, when it's time to start making lunch. Wander between the roles of kitchen wench and wandering minstrel for most of the rest of the day, with occasional cameo in shows for the public. Have dinner ready for about 7. Drink, talk nonsense, sing songs, fall over. Not a bad life really.

I'm gonna miss these guys - and I know Ants is gonna miss them lots. We feel like we've become part of the 'Company' family, and it's rather special to be adopted so quickly.

You buggers better come and visit!!!!

Fact finding mission 'a Roma'

2009-05-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

The timing couldn't have been more, errr, timely. Given that we were already in Milan, what was a girl to do but take an extra coupla days off and start getting orientated in Rome.

I confess, me and the holy city didn't get off to a great start. My plane from Milan was late, so I hit town near midnight, with everything more or less shut - including the first 3 ATMs I found, in a futile attempt to get cash to pay for my room. Then I couldn't find my hostel - a helpful old boy had sent me in completely the wrong direction - and I was almost in tears when, 90 minutes later and exhausted, I realised that it really was only 200metres from the station...

My 'mixed dorm' turned out to house me and 5 blokes (so technically, yes, a mixed dorm), including Sleep Apnoea guy, a very large, 40-something bloke who had left his CPAP machine back in the States... I have never heard anything like it, and I will say no more.

Two hours sleep wasn't quite the preparation I wanted before going to meet my new boss, but the metro and the train were blessedly easy to use the next morning, and I arrived almost on time, met my boss, learned lots about the job (it's going to be as fun, and as crazy, as I expected, and I will need to be a VERY good bureaucrat to do well here), met my future colleagues and left 90 minutes later with my head spinning with thoughts of 'holy crap, I'm going to WORK HERE!!'

Next mission was to buy some more appropriate clothes! The weather forecast before we left was for 20oC in Rome - but she'd turned on a 30-degree mini heatwave (unheard of for May, apparently, but that's global warming for ya!) and my jeans and boots were not the right kit to wear. A streetside stall actually had shoes my size, but I was disappointed to learn that, in a nation where women are often barely more than 5 foot tall, and impeccably petite, I am a size XXL when it comes to t-shirts. Oh well, they were 2 euros each. Assuming they survive their first wash, I can always cut out the tags!

Armed with comfy clothes, I started wandering. One of the things I think I'm gonna love about Rome is that many of her most famous attractions can be seen from the outside for absolutely no money at all: the Spanish steps, the Trevi Fountain, Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, the Forum, the Colusseum, countless columns raised by emperors and somehow preserved through the centuries. I found them all, drifting from one to another in a kind of daze, almost numbed by the intense layer of epoch over era that permeates every street, every corner, every statue. It's almost too much for one brain to take in. I felt almost dizzy, and resolved to stop touristing until I could come back and take it in more gradually.

So then I found a lush little gelati shop where I had my first cassata 'a Sicilia', a place that does potato and rosemary pizza, and a stupormarket selling massive punnets of cherries for 1.95. That's about £1.60. And they were fat, sweet and juicy, and so full of flavour. Mmmm.

Next day saw me pound pavements in Trastevere, a 'South-Yarra-meets-Carlton' kinda inner suburb famous for its food, bars and shopping, ideally located for work, and a place we may end up living. It's heavily geared to lunching businessmen and wannabe fashionistas by day, but it's also home to the church of St Cecilial, the roman Christian who refused to die despite 3 days locked in her own sauna, singing herself through the ordeal. They got her in the end, hacking off her head with an axe, but for her pains she's the patron saint of music. her church is gorgeous, and said to have been built on the site of her home.

Trastevere's leafy streets and paved piazzas definitely hold promise - although I was truly won over when I found Sale e Pepe, a cafe that does lunch for 7.50, and a large glass of house wine for another 2 euros...

All too soon it was time to head back to England, to plan, to dream, and to get things happening - we're moving to Rome!

Milano

2009-05-20T15:12:00.000-07:00

Having come this far, it seemed crazy not to check out Rome, so while the boys and girls from the Company chilled out with yet another round of gelati and coffee, I hitched a ride into Abbiategrasso, the nearest trainstation, in the back of a van driven by the local padre, and packed with about 20 Swedes, on their way into Milan, or back home to prepare for the next gig.

Once we reached town, we went our separate ways, but they were great craic on the way in.
I LOVED Milan. Wide streets, clean and cultured, renaissance to the core, in every way a European city. Folks say it's sterile and standoffish, but I beg to differ.

I walked out of the train station and immediately found myself staring at the Sforza fortress. This place is immense, beautiful and demonstrably built for a very different climate to the castles I'm used to in northern Europe and Britain.

It doesn't take much imagination at all to picture merchants and courtiers conducting business in these three sweeping courtyards, protected from the blazing sun by awnings or shade cloths. From the main entrance, each one is smaller and more intimate than the last, with surely only the favourites admitted through the gateways and wide covered halls into the inner sanctum towards the rear. The timbers of old are long gone, but the post holes are precise and form an artwork of their own on the walls. That's before you even begin looking at the statuary, memorial stones and other carvings - every one a thing of beauty.

I was transfixed - and I'd only come in the side entrance. Leaving by the front, the soaring tower and sprawling fountain were just gorgeous - and cooling in the blazing sun.

Next stop was the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (I couldn't stop 'hail mary, full of grace' running through my head), which is home to Leonardo Da Vinci's most famous work, the Last Supper. Couldn't go in, because you need to book about a month in advance, but I know for next time.

I got lost finding my way back into town, but liked what I saw of shopping and eating districts. People in the street don't interact with every passer by the way I was to learn that they do in Rome, but they're not standoffish like some French or Germans can be.

Eventually though, I hopped a tram into the town square, a massive edifice dominated by the Duomo (Italy's second largest cathedral, after St Peters in Rome), flanked on one side by a stately palazzo and the other by a gorgeous glass topped shopping mall. This, I will later realise, is the true holy trinity of Italy: God, celebrity and shopping. Maybe not always in that order.

The Duomo is incredible - tall, wide, long, ornate. Special from start to finish, although the thing that still haunts me is the sculpture of St Bartolomeo (Batholomew), who was skinned whilst still alive, and is portrayed with his skin draped, in a single piece over one shoulder, his every muscle discernable. Eugh.

I needed light relief after something like that, and the airy, beautiful mall provided it - and a hidden treat too, because out the other end was a statue of Leonardo da Vinci, flanked by four apprentices and opposite was... La Scala Opera!

After that, I had just enough time to find a gelateria and down the most amazing Almond milk granita (I don't know how they did it, but it's sooo good!) before finding my way back to the train, and thence to the airport.

I'm sure in summer it's insufferable and stuffy, and maybe it is the most expensive city in Italy. But I liked Milan. If this is as bad as it gets, I'm going to love Italy.

Morimondo!!

2009-05-18T05:36:00.000-07:00

You're probably thinking 'never heard of it', but Morimondo, a 12th century abbey outside Milan, is the stuff of legend amongst Company of Chivalry folk. In the 14th century, Italy was a nation of city states - incredibly wealthy, cultured, and locked in bitter rivalry. Usually headed by a single family (the Viscontis, and later the Sforzas, in Milan, the Borghas in Rome), and all wrapped up in both papal and secular intrigue (it being the time of the Avignon popes).

Into this vipers' nest in the 1360s rode thousands of English mercenaries, mostly former soldiers who found themselves out of work when France and England signed a truce that temporarily halted the Hundred Years' War. These swords for hire were bought time again by the highest bidder and were a major factor in numerous battles. The one commemorated at Morimondo had the English fighting on the side of the hated Viscontis (yes, the family name later gave us the term 'viscount'). And they lost. But our Company is invited back year after year to be part of the show, so in the long run, the English are the winners, really.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, to beat a multiperiod, international event. Tewkesbury, Trakai,(Lithuania), Trelleborg, and that grandaddy of them all, Hastings, have given me some of my happiest re-enactment memories. Now I have Morimondo, made all the more poignant by our forthcoming move.

Like most such events on the Continent, there's a tournament involved - our noble representatives, John and Hannah, coped amazingly in their full wool kit despite the 28oC heat, and even managed to score points, even though all the instructions were in italian.

When the rest of us weren't cheering them on, we had time to check out the encampment (this is less than half of it), and the occasional bit of mooching (or recovering from the 1 euro glasses of wine, and 2 euro beers at the tavern the night before). And checking out the gelati at the local cafe. Morimondo only has about 500 residents, but the gelateria does a roaring trade in passers by. Including us.

Various clubs put on displays of their finest skills, from pottery and scraffito decoration to swordplay. For us, it was our bill line, for which the English alone are famous, but our favourite was probably the Genoese bowmen... My personal domain was here - minding hearth and home and dreaming up new ways to cook the provisions which came down from the abbey twice a day (the pork shins were a challenge - try cooking up 31 of those babies, at half a kilo each, in time for lunch! Thank the gods for Danny the farmhand, who turned out to be a dab hand at butchery!). It was hot, smoky and smelly, and I was secretly glad when we'd scrubbed out our last pot. But mainly just so I could flirt with a certain tall blond handsome soldier....

More pix from Morimondo

2009-05-18T05:15:00.000-07:00

L'universite d'Oxford, c'est bon!

2009-05-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last two days studying French at the University of Oxford. I'm exhausted, but jubilant. I've worked hard these last two days, putting myself in a class that was probably a touch above where I was when I started, but one where I could more or less keep up by the end. I've filled in the gaps in my grammar and tested my vocab and found it better than expected.

My new job considers 'a second UN language to at least intermediate level' a distinct advantage, and after this weekend, I'm confident that my French is indeed intermediate. I know it's dreadfully daggy to be so happy about studying, but I'm rather chuffed.

Now all I need is to get my mouth around some Italian...

Spring break at Caerphilly

2009-05-04T14:28:00.000-07:00

I confess I had something of a head on the next morning, but Lissy had a train to catch - she was going to check out Bath before meeting up with her ride to Caerphilly: we'd swung her a spot as an honorary member of the Company of Chivalry for the weekend.

This is my fourth event at Caerphilly, and it's starting to feel very much like home. Not so Lissy, who was like a kid in a lolly shop at this, her second British castle, and her first trip to Wales.

I hope I never completely lose that thrill, even when I've done a hundred or more shows here. We camp in the castle. We drive over the drawbridge, we go walking through mist at dawn when the old stones and broken towers are eery and beautiful.

And we cook up a storm: parsnip fritters, perfectly seasoned pottage, cabbage with onion and bacon, savoury rice, roast beef, honey saffron tarts and pears in red wine. Lissy, a professional cook, was a legend on the chopping board, and Liz and Steph, who I've been working with all season to feed this brood of boys and girls, all got on famously. As nights fell we wrapped up warm, donned drinking hats and set to in earnest.
All too soon the weekend was over, we were packing the car, and packing Liss off to her mate's place in Cardiff. I can't wait til next time we all catch up.

May morning

2009-05-01T13:48:00.000-07:00

Lissy emailed from Oslo earlier this week: 'we've got a long weekend this weekend. What are you up to and can I come over?'. Some hasty phone calls were made to check arrangements, and suddenly, she was winging her way over.

'Oh, you're off to Oxford,' her English housemate pronounced, with a hint of envy.

'Nowhere in England does May Day quite like Oxford'.

I don't know if that's true, but it's a tradition everyone should experience at least once. This year, I headed into town to see the Morris and musicians, arriving by 7am to find the party in full swing, seeking out familiar faces in the crowd before we headed up to the Victoria Arms in Old Marston for breakfast baps and pints, songs and tunes, and more friends' faces. Kim and I had been down at the Half Moon til nearly 2am the night before, but I had to keep my wits about me, Lissy wasn't arriving 'til Midday. Darren and Jim hadn't been to bed at all, and their lucidity was nothing short of mirculous. Not long before then, things wound down at the Viccy, and headed down to the Rose and Crown in South Parade, a place I'd often heard of and never seen. Lissy arrived just after a walking Jack in the Green, and was enthralled by the site. One of the things I love about travelling with this woman is that she retains a childlike wonder at the new and unfamiliar, fascinated by every detail. From pork rolls to the morrisman who chased me for tipping his hat off, we laughed and drank and chattered until we ached.
Then we actually made it into the pub.

Did I mention that it was a day of blinding sunshine? The Rose and Crown has a sizable beer garden and the place was packed. We stood near the middle, and the sound of rising voices, in countless harmonies, soaring skyward, was rich enough to permeate skin and soul and made us both cry. We led songs, we carolled choruses, we sat in rapt silence as new verses began. We trooped off for all you can eat chinese at 7pm and caught the bus back to Witney, for one more cider before crawling into bed. We have an early start tomorrow.

Friends and festivities and the art of the road trip

2009-04-27T06:55:00.000-07:00

English people do not understand distance. Not long after I moved to Witney, I was on the bus from Oxford one day and a bloke and a woman were talking. He'd been down to London for the first time in about 10 years.

"Ooh," said the woman. "You'll not find me going to that London. It's too big. And too far away."

Actually, it's 60 miles. It's less than an hour on the train. But when I popped down for an evening for my friend Emma's leaving drinks, her workmates were amazed. 'No, really, what brought you to London today, so you could be here this evening? And where are you staying tonight - you're not going back, surely?"

Hahaha. Fortunately, our yankee friend Kim, coming from Kansas, shares our view on travel. An 80 minute trip to Bristol is definitely do-able for an evening, specially if you can stay over.

So it was that, after stuffing ourselves with food and wine and brilliant conversation at a birthday lunch for our gorgeous friend Sophie, it was a very easy thing to hop in the car, collect Kim and head down to Bristol for a combined birthday-cum-housewarming for Lizzy and Steph.

Bristol, I have to say, is starting to grow on me. It still feels a lot more industrial than, say, Leeds (which is now all inner-city genteel), but I'm starting to like it. And Lizzy and Stephfallie are just the gorgeousest hosts, with lashings of food and booze served student bbq style, with drinking games and singing til the wee small hours. Ants had quite a head on the next day, something to do with 11 cans of strongbow. And opinion remains divided on whether Kim threw up - she reckons not, but can't be certain.

But once we've been and done the Italian Job, the plan is definitely to try to come back to England, and there would definitely be worse places to live, than Bristol...

England and St George

2009-04-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

A lot of Brits get miffed from time to time that, unlike other parts of Britain, there is no national holiday for the nation's patron saint. Part of that could be that St George was actually Greek, and never set foot in England as far as we know, but never ones to let the truth get in the way of a good story, the English honour old George nonetheless.

(You should hear them howl when they realise that the Aussies get a long weekend for the Queen's birthday - and they don't! It's worse than our days off for 'dead soldiers' and 'a horse race', in their eyes.)

But I digress. To the folky community, St George's day is a fine one for singing proper patriotic songs about unions and soldiers and the common man. Yes, the old chestnuts get trotted out too - Jerusalem, and 'Swing low', rousing rounds of Rule Britannia from the novices in the peanut gallery. It was a thursday this year, so fairly sedate. But a good night's nattering, all the same.

If it did ever make bank holiday status, there'd be some proper sore heads next day...

Ela and Steve Wassell

2009-04-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

It's a very special thing, when you've moved to a new country, to be invited to someone's wedding. Most of our friends here are people we didn't know before we moved to Oxford - to learn that they think us such an important part of their lives is both humbling and heartwarming.

Ela (nee Chrobot) and Steve share a love of music and the same birthday. Their big day was the most perfect expression of who they are. The church service in Abingdon was held in Polish and English, by an Irish priest who struggled over the pronunciation of 'Elzbieta' (Ela's full name) and who made us all laugh at his jokes. The fabulous Ormandys (Darren who works at the Tower of London, Catherine-from-Sydney and their daughter Keira) came up from London, and Keira made a stunning debut as flowergirl (not bad for 'not yet two'), following instructions to the letter ('go to daddy, he's down the front, look!') and cheering endlessly afterwards. Maybe it was because Sophie had brought Tim Tams.... mmm.
Adjourning to the Vicky Arms in Old Marston, we were greeted with fizz on arrival and fiddles were broken out even before we sat down to eat.
There's something extra magical when two people come together through music - you could see their love of it, and each other, shining from their faces. Joe, as best man, gave a cracking speech, which was followed by more champagne and the obligatory (for the Poles), rounds of vodka, which the landlord had put in the fridge 'all night' to make it cold. As the hospitality flowed and tongues loosened, I found my fledgling 'please's and 'thankyous' learned in Warsaw last December, coming more naturally. There was even a smattering of chattering in French, with one of Ela's workmates.
Well soused with free bubbly, my night ended earlier than some, safely cocooned on an airbed at the lovely Phil and Sophie's, who also served up a cracking cooked brekkie the next morning...

Today has been pretty quiet, but it's been a happy, happy day.

The Italian Job

2009-04-17T01:26:00.000-07:00

Right, now that it's all official, I can finally post publicly some very exciting news. Some time in the next couple of months, the lovely Ants and I will be relocating to Rome, so that I can take up a very cool climate change job with the UN World Food Programme. I'm so giddy at the thought, I can hardly stand up.

OMG - Rome! Holy crap - the UN.

I was offered the job just before easter. There was a small mountain of paperwork, and I still have to pass a medical (next week) before I can resign, but we're not expecting any dramas there.

Being me, I've shot my trap off with mates already. Lads and lasses at work and friends from round about have all been effusive, excited and just gorgeous and supportive. Which is really good, because after a fairly stressful few months on the work front, I have to own that I feel a real sense of loss about leaving, and an aversion to 'yet more' change that really isn't "like me".

So, bouyed up by our friends, Ants and I are finally starting to get excited about this, more akin to the way I expected to feel!

There's A LOT to be done to effect the move (new tenant, find a place to live, visas, medicals). I'm trying not to sweat bricks over the potential to do list.

But we also have a lot to be excited about, and to look forward to... starting with next month's Morimondo sojourn and fact finding mission in the south... watch this space for further news!

Caerphilly seige at Easter

2009-04-14T14:14:00.001-07:00

Caerphilly is one of the most special castles in Britain. Proper fairy tale stuff: when you try to imagine a ruined castle with moats and towers and derelict stonework, you could do worse than to imagine Caerphilly. We do several shows a year here - it's starting to feel like home, and there's nothing quite so cool as driving your car over the drawbridge and through the barbican, so you can pitch your tent in the outer bailey. This time around was special for another reason too: it was our friend Kim's first event. We've spent hours over her kit - underdress, overdress, hood and cloak, because she insisted she really didn't fancy dressing up in lad's kit. Until she realised that was the only way to play with seige engines. And that, I think, was when her event became properly fun. For me, the fun began a week earlier, finalising the menu for the weekend, which I had boldly (recklessly?) volunteered to cook. We were a merry band of 35 or so this weekend, and Liz, Steph and I aced the cooking. Flavours worked, the hot things were served hot, the cold things were cool, and we hardly burned a thing on the open fire - not even ourselves! We used up virtually everything we brought with us, and people kept coming up for seconds. We can't wait to do it again.

Drinking hats!

2009-04-14T14:03:00.000-07:00

It's a relatively new thing, apparently, but somewhere along the way in recent summers, the Company of Chivalry have adopted a tradition of 'silly drinking hats' for the rite of 'takeaways, cider and special brew' that preceeds a show.

Mine, btw, came from our recent trip to Edinburgh, and did a jolly fine job of keeping my head warm after I went to bed, too!

Easter - Tintern Abbey

2009-04-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to see Tintern Abbey for the longest time, and this Easter, we finally made it. Wow. Well worth both the wait, and the deviation enroute to our show at Caerphilly.

I've read stories before about spring grass 'studded with flowers', but I'd never seen it until today. Even roofless, you can see so much of the majesty that once was. Hard to believe though, that all this existed for just a few dozen monks (maybe 60) and a hundred or so lay brethren. Something I never realised before today is just how many stone cupboards were built into the walls of monasteries. They really were planned down to the last detail.
There was even a 'warming house - the only room in the Abbey (apart from the kitchens and infimary) where heating was allowed. Brrrrrr.
All that remained at the end was to adjourn over the road to a pub for lunch. Kim reminded us all that, being good friday, we really should eat fish. So Ants went ahead with his steak - and Kim and I shared garlic prawns and a bowl of mussels in the most amazing cream and white wine broth... mmmm

Blood on their hands...

2009-04-03T05:46:00.000-07:00

The Age has revealed today that eleven 'asylum seekers' who were imprisoned on Nauru by the Howard government (who didn't want them to ever set foot on Australian shores because they were 'queue jumpers'), have been killed by the Taliban since being sent back to Afghanistan.

Human rights body the Edmund Rice Centre has been investigating the fate of refugees who were refused refugee status and says 11 is probably an understatement. They're calling for the Australian government to re-open cases determined by the previous government.

Australia is better off without you John Howard. May Australia never stoop so low again

Swordfighty goodness

2009-04-01T16:33:00.001-07:00

Getting back into medieval fighting has taken some time. I didn't pick up a sword in earnest for maybe two years after I first hit England - I was too busy exploring and travelling and singing in pubs.

When I first joined the Company of Chivalry, I started learning the bill. These buggers are heavy - three inch hexagonal shafts with an unwieldy lump o' metal on the end. I've yearned for my 9 foot spear and all my old skill and dexterity, that once had someone (who was no mean fighter himself) dub me 'one of Australia's best' at pole arms combat. Not so in England. Swimming muscles and fighting muscles might live in the same arms, under the one skin, but they are NOT the same thing!

Dispirited after weeks of aching biceps, and turning on the wrong heel in interminable 'drill', I turned back to swordplay. Here, I'm sure, is something I won't have forgotten... And indeed I haven't, but my 14thC blade is half a foot longer than my old 10thC jobby (my first ever joint purchase with a boy, made mine after I bought him a blade of his own). And this new club do edge blocks, and no head blows. It's maddening, and stuff that would have been deemed unsafe back home is de rigeur in CoC, and elsewhere.

It's taken time, but I have persevered, and I think it's finally paying off. This last weapons training, having swapped a bill for a spear, the point seemed to come alive in my hands and targets (bellies mostly) were just easier to hit. Maybe I'm not quite ready yet to retire ...

You are now enrolled at the University of Oxford...

2009-03-26T14:21:00.000-07:00

Okay, it's only a short course - an intensive weekend of intermediate French, to be exact. And it's costing 85 quid (about $180) for two days. But it's two dreams come true all at once - to get get serious about speaking decent French and to study at Oxford University.

My folks are gonna be chuffed!

Oxford Folk Fest!

2009-03-23T17:04:00.000-07:00

Over the past 3 days, I've put in 36 hours at the Oxford Folk Festival. I'm knackered, my feet and legs ache... but I am over the moon. What a weekend!!

The first big buzz was that after just 2 years helping out with stewarding (in return for free tickets - whoot!), I was asked to be one of two 'town hall managers' this year, looking after nearly 100 stewards over the festival weekend and scoring an 'Access All Areas' pass. Better yet, I got to share the job with the lovely Becca, a fellow flautist from the Half Moon, who is studing 'how to run festivals' as part of her arts degree. Cool, huh?

In between problem solving on the fly and standing in for stewards who needed a wee, we managed to catch some amazing acts, and some brilliant gossip (the things some artists want as a condition of playing! ha!) as the weekend just got better and better.

Friday night and I loved Jack Harris, who I'd never heard of before, and the sheer joy and uplifting African harmonies of Oxford's own Afropean Choir. And Ants and I were reunited with 'Laurence the sound guy', a friend of Mandy Connells who we met 2 yrs ago at Cropredy. We probably shouldn't have all stayed in the Half Moon after 'til 3am, but Barry the Steward was driving us home and besides, you only live once.

Saturday, after recovering from one of the artists turning up just 20 minutes before he was due to play, feet hardly touched ground as I ran between errands and trying to catch the talents of local Half Moon virtuosos Rob Ryan, Jamie Huddlestone and James Bell. Scotland's 'next big thing', a trio called Lau, were amazing, as was Fay Hield from the Witches of Elswick, accompanied by her fabulous spouse, Mr Boden.

Minor panic ensued as we lost Anthony at the beginning of a shift... only to discover that he'd been helping a 4-month-pregnant Kate Rusby lift instruments onto the main stage. He had no idea who she was until later... but there was no mistaking that voice once she began. Mid-set, I desperately looked around for Ants in the crowd as she launched into 'You belong to me', which has been 'Anthony's song' for me ever since that night at the Dan O'Connell before I came away. Found him at last and had to shed a tear, although we laughed long and hard as the woman with the voice of an angel then dropped back into broad Yorkshire dialect for her legendary banter between numbers.

And I thought that would be the highlight of my weekend. Little did I know that the Reel Bach Consort (who take the works of Bach and turn them into folk tunes, complete with bagpipes), would prove that Germans DO have a sense of humour; or that the whole festival committee would get down the front of the stage to shake it for Spiers and Boden (see pix). I even caught the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain - who are good, although I still can't stop giggling at the concept of a uke orchestra, specially one that only has about 7 ukes in it!

Last but not least, after all the cleaning and tidying was done, Becca and I learned we'd been made 'friends of the festival' for this year, and scored seats at the free 'thankyou' concert from Saul Rose (who, incidentally, plays the lilty Hobbity bit on the Lord of the Rings soundtrack whenever hobbits are in a happy place in the movie). Gilesy and Woodsy made it down to the 'Moon for the session, and I just know that the revellers will have kicked on long past my bedtime.

I can't wait for next year.

Wytham Wood's festival debut

2009-03-23T15:39:00.001-07:00

The other big buzz about this weekend was, of course, Wytham Wood's first festival appearance.
It was both amazing and humbling.

I was scared half out of my pants from about midday, stalking the bar area like a cat on a hot tin roof waiting for our soundcheck to be called. I hardly tasted lunch and couldn't drink my pint of cider. Then suddenly we were in, the flute was assembled and Jules' guitar miked up, and they were asking us if we wanted to start 5 minutes early. We said yes, altho' with a sinking feeling on my part, 'cos Ants hadn't arrived yet.

But with a reassuring grin from Matt from work, a wave from 'Mistress Trebuchet' (aka Kim) and a wink from Barry-from-the-Half-Moon (also a fellow steward) we were away. We started with Jules' song 'The Dance', which I just love, and modest applause from the half full room. Then they opened the doors to admit latecomers, and in came a bunch of Half-Mooners, whose familiar faces helped to settle my nerves. After all, they've all been here, done this before too.

Next we played 'Crazy Man Michael' of Fairport Convention fame, the crowd really cheered, and in through the doors came Ants, Guy and Sal, and half a dozen mates from work. I felt totally humbled - most of them had only come to see one act, and paid good money for the privilege.

After that, things began to fly: I always love singing 'Dandelion', I got through the tricky flute bits on 'Thanks' without stopping (even when I stumbled over a coupla notes), and we blitzed 'Before sleep comes', 'Unweaving the Dream' and 'Ride on' before finishing with Jules' other signature piece, 'Tintagel', letting rip on vocals and guitar and almost floating off the stage amid what felt like wild applause.

It was an amazing experience. People have said really gorgeous things about our set. A bloke I'd been chatting to in the green room slipped me his card and asked if we'd consider teaming up for some gigs. Sal was still muttering next morning that she can't believe I've 'secretly' owned a flute for 20 yrs, and have finally learned to play it (without telling her). The sound guy murmured congratulations and said the room hadn't been this packed all weekend.

Jules even sold a couple of CDs. Awesome, awesome times. One bloke said that he likes my voice best of all the female folk singers he's ever heard. A chap from a band that played after us said something about 'as good as Sandy Denny, and a very similar voice', and if I ever wanted a job as a vocalist, please get in touch...

It's all far more praise than I deserve - but I'm going to remember these things for a long time to come.

Best off all - my oh-so-proud husband was waiting to give me a hug at the end - along with every last one of the friends who'd turned out in such force.

Wow.

I hope we can do that again sometime.

Georgi has (finally!) finished swimming the English Channel

2009-03-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

Back in September, as you may recall, I took on the somewhat daunting challenge of swimming 'the equivalent of crossing the English Channel' to raise funds for a spinal injuries charity, Aspire UK. That's 22 miles, or 35.4 kms, or 1416 laps of the 25 metre pool in Witney. It's a bloody long way.

It's taken almost 6 months, and 21 separate swims, but today, I finally finished the job.

Technically, I was supposed to finish in December. And, if I'd been half as disciplined as my friend Mel, who diligently swims a mile on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then calls in at the pub for 2 pints on the way home, I could have swum twice that distance by now. But I isn't, and I haven't.

I could blame lots of things: the lurgey that knocked me flat for a week in December, followed by the pool closing for a month. Or work being stoopid busy. But the fact is that since the end of November I have had less than 10km (6 miles) to swim, and it's taken sodding ages.

However, now it's done, and I am so chuffed! Also, Aspire will still take your money. So, if you want to make one last ditch donation, you can give in any currency at www.justgiving.com/georginastickels. Or hand me the cash - I'm posting off a cheque at the end of March.

Thanks everyone for your support, your interest,and for not giving me heaps when I looked like not making the distance. Youse lot are grouse!

Wytham Wood is playing Oxford Folk Festival!

2009-03-01T12:53:00.000-08:00

Wytham Wood is the name my friend Jules-of-the-amazing-songs-and-guitar-playing and I started performing under at the end of last year. This is our demo CD, recorded in appalling circumstances (I had so much flu I couldn't speak, yet somehow had to figure out how to sing) in December.

Apparently it's 'good enough' though - cos we've just scored our first 'big' gig, playing on the second stage at Oxford Folk Festival, on March 20!

Check this out! We've even got a blurb:

Wytham Wood

Saturday Cornbury Stage

Named after one of Oxford's magical places, Wytham Wood play an enchanting mix of traditional and self penned material. Julian Dickinson (acoustic guitar/vocals) and Georgie Cundall (vocals) make up this talented local duo.

Yes Mum, and Shona, I'm experimenting with a stage name. Please don't expect it to be a permanent change - I been a Stickels for far too long to mess with my mojo now. Now all we gotta do is figure out what to play, and start rehearsing... I'm so excited!!

Oh, and if anyone wants to see real music at the festival, the big names include Kate Rusby, John Spiers (rhymes with pliers) and Jon Boden, Lau (BBC2 Folk Award winners), Wilber, Cock & Bull, the Oxford Fiddle Group and the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain. Stop laughing - everyone says the Uke Orc is really good. No bull.

So, SOOO proud of my cuzin Kate!

2009-02-18T05:08:00.001-08:00

My cousin Kate has been in the CFA (volunteer firefighters) for about 5 years - I think - and has fortunately stayed safe and well while trying to defend Kinglake and other towns on Black Saturday.

She and some of her CFA chums have started putting photos on Facebook of the devastation they've seen over the past 10 days or so - the blackened roads, bush hillsides burned down to the very soil, the remains of homes, shops, vineyards, vehicles.

It's grim reading until you find the signs of hope, recovery, and support from the rest of the country to help people rebuild. From 'here's one we saved' to 'here's Australia's Prime Minister saying thankyou' to our fireys.

That's Kate in the photo, btw, under Kevin Rudds bunny ears ... truly.

At last - our new home!

2009-02-16T16:32:00.000-08:00

I booked Monday off so that I could repent at leisure with my hangover - which was, much to my joy, nowhere near as fierce as expected.

Once I'd consumed a (still somewhat necessary) fried brekkie, I thought I'd get creative with the camera and show you our new house. From the outside, it's very much (in the words of my brilliant friend Paula) 'the house you drew as a kid - a big square front with a door and 4 windows'. But with more charisma, we think.

The outside piccies are from when we had snow (it's all gone now), but the inside ones show you what our place is like now that our donated furniture has arrived, courtesy of Andy and Christine from over the road, who are moving in together and were getting rid of some of their surplus. That New Inn is better than Freecycle, I tell ya. I have to say I've never had quite such a grownup house before, and I reckon I kinda like it. Before you go shaking your head at how domestic I've become, however, I need to point out that most of our finishing touches - the rugs on the sofas, the mirror over the fireplace, hallstand beside the front door, and the giant toaster in the kitchen - are in fact the brainchild of my lovely husband. Who knew he'd turn out to be such a domestic godliness? (Let's see how long it lasts!)

Birthday bliss

2009-02-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

I love my birthday, but I don't have a great track record of sharing it with people. In fact, the last time I tried holding a 'do' was my 30th, and several people forgot to show up (more fool them - it was a scorching summer's day, we went to Luna Park, and I brought party pies and fairy bread and we went on the rides and finished up at the Espy, drinking wine on the front balcony, watching the sun set over Port Phillip Bay. Hurrah!).

Birthdays in England are a bit weird because they happen in winter here, but I figured 35 was worth some song and dance, so I made some plans this year.

And we had a lovely day - a very low key, eaty-drinky 'do just what you please' afternoon at one of my favourite free houses, run by mine excellent host Ollie the Irishman. There was rugby on the telly (which suited Ants), Aunt Sally in the backyard (It's a game - a uniquely Oxford thing - don't ask me to explain...) and several large chickens, live music and a spot of trivial pursuit - just the kind of celebration I had wanted. There was much nattering among friends, good food and drink, and nobody forgot to turn up. It did start me thinking though, just how much my world has changed since that party at 30. Mikko was still alive (he didn't show because he was working, but at least he didn't forget!), Ants wasn't even a distant blip on my horizon, and I was desperately looking forward to finishing my masters and saving up for my 'strictly 12 months' adventure in the UK. I had never sung solo in a pub, never re-enacted in a real castle and wished I could work out how to use emission factors for calculating greenhouse gases.
Back then, I knew not a soul among the 20 people who turned out in force yesterday. They're no substitute for the family and friends with whom I've shared so much history at home (and who were also out in droves sending birthday wishes by phone and facebook, email and text). But I felt rather privileged and well loved, and as I curled up with Anthony's arm around my shoulders last night, my last thought was that it had been a very happy birthday indeed.

Support your local CFA

2009-02-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

Facebook has details of a 'Buy a CFA Volunteer a Beer' event and fundraiser, hosted by 'grateful victorians'.

Do it, people. They are amazing men and women.

The worst of all fears

2009-02-13T12:52:00.000-08:00

All worst fears have been realised. February 7, 2009 wasn't as bad as Ash Wednesday: it was three times worse. Latest expectations are for more than a thousand homes destroyed, and up to 300 people dead.

I've spent much of my spare time this week glued to my laptop, poring over news sites to try to understand what's happened at home.

It's been a rollercoaster week: enormous pride in my cousin Kate, a CFA (Country Fire Authority) volunteer and, in the eyes of many, one of 7000 heroes who tried to stand between Saturday's firestorm and people's lives and homes. She was stationed for 24 hours straight at Kinglake, where maybe 700 homes are gone, and at least 40 people have died.

Monday brought the first shock, as word filtered around re-enactment circles of people who had fought for their homes - not all of them successfully. But at least everyone we knew is still alive.

Then on Tuesday, flicking throught The Age Online, up popped a familiar face, a former colleague, above a link to a list of those 'missing, feared dead'. Professor Rob Pearce, head of sleep disorders at the Austin, where I was PR Manager, died fighting for his home. His wife and adult son survived. He was a brilliant doctor, and great craic as media 'talent', with his untameable hair that made him look every inch a scientific genius, and his knack for describing bleeding edge medical stuff in terms anyone (even the Herald Sun) could understand. Vale Rob.

Wednesday, and the invariable near miss stories are filtering through now. My dad doesn't know if one of his patients is okay. My stepmother's nephew spent hours sheltering in a creek bed, her son turned back by a road block. More relief.

The tiniest details in the paper prompt floods of tears. Emergency shelters put out a plea for dark coloured clothing, suits and dresses - because people who escaped with only the clothes on their backs are struggling to find 'suitable' clothing to wear to the funerals of their relatives, friends and neighbours.

I've stopped reading the news at work - I mustn't cry at my desk in front of my team. But every day I wear the earrings I bought at the St Andrews Market, when Ants and I went home to be married.

CFA Volunteers have been taken off the grisly job of searching homes for bodies- too often, the ruins they're sifting through are in their own town, their own street. It was too much.

Once the coroner's staff have been through, houses are tagged with red and white ribbon, indicating the all clear, or blue and white crime scene tape. But outside my mum's place, a victim of a hit and run lies dead in scorching sun for half a day because there are no coroners' staff available: they're all up at the fires. There's hysteria, as the dead girl's friends come down to where her body lies on the road, and traffic is backed up for hours.

The whole of Marysville is one big crime scene. The town is no more: residents were bussed back there this week to see the ruins for themselves, understand what happened to their homes, but no-one was allowed off the bus. Police say it could take weeks to sift through the remains of more than 120 houses (just 5 still stand, they say), and remove the bodies of perhaps 100 people - 20% of the town's population. I cannot comprehend loss on that scale.

I feel helpless, I want to go home and do something, not just give money. I want to be able to stop talking about it: I don't want the sympathy of my colleagues at work. I'm still one of the lucky ones: everyone I love is still alive. So many can't say that much.

Welcome to Murrayfield

2009-02-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

Ants has wanted to see Scotland play at Murrayfield since before he ever set foot in the UK. So this year, Santa made it happen and on Sunday morning we carefully defrosted the car and nudged her out of our snowed in street and onto the motorway towards Heathrow.

Saturday's sunshine had cleared most of the roads, and the trip in was easy, as was the flight to Edinburgh. It feels strange to think that somewhere that feels so culturally far removed from southern England is just an hour away by air (agreed, NOT the most environmentally friendly way to travel!).I love Edinburgh and I can't believe it's taken us this long to get back here.We bussed in to the ground, bought baguettes stuffed with beef and gravy and our first pints. I needed a scarf, Ants was already wearing his Scotland rugby jersey. The man searching bags asked if that was a recipe for disaster in a relationship: we said not as much as one of us being Aussie and the other a Kiwi. Lacking a lighter, Ants found that every Scot he asked was more than happy to oblige, 'good sir - and good luck!'

The Welsh were already singing. It was just like going to a packed house at the 'G: a family friendly environment where women and kids are welcome, as unlike going to the soccer as could be. As the stadium grounds began to fill us, anticipation grew, as did the retinue of silly hats. Check these out!HRH Princess Anne shook hands with both sides, there were fireworks and bagpipes and huge jets of flame, an airforce flyover and the match began. We got donuts and hot chocolate at half time and Wales won, in part because Scotland knocked out two of their own players, one chap going unconscious while commiting a foul. 'I can't give him a yellow card when he's knocked out' said the ref into his mike, 'but his replacement can't come on for 10 minutes'.After the match we joined the thronging thousands who walked into the centre of town, about 2 miles away. Ants' feet got sore so we bargained with a pedicab for a fare, and then realised we had no idea where the place was that we'd agreed to be let out. Found our bearings, found a bar with a restaurant at the back, tucked into smoked haddock soup, followed by haggis neeps and tatties in whisky cream sauce for the lad, and 'Chicken balmoral' (chicken stuffed with haggis, wrapped in bacon, whisky cream sauce. mmm. calories.) for me. Finished with 12 yr old whisky and a brisk walk down to the bus through a light shower of snow, vowing to come back soon.Sadly, we nearly didn't leave. After an exciting few minutes going through security alongside the Welsh rugby team (it's not often people make Ants look small, but several of these fellas did!), we arrived at our gate, took our seats... and there we sat for the next 3 hours. The light snow had gotten heavier, and by the time the de-icer got to our plane, the runway had been closed. 'Cooped up with a bunch of pissed rugby fans' is not the best way to spend 3 hours, and even Ants' patience was stretched by the time we finally took off.

We finally made it home at 2.30 am, knackered, but still vowing it was worth every minute.

Another Ash Wednesday?

2009-02-07T06:52:00.001-08:00

I was nine, when Ash Wednesday raged across the state a day after my birthday. I remember scorching hot classrooms with the windows open, and gusts of smoke and warm cinders blowing in on the hot wind, sent down the Ferntree Gully Highway from Mount Dandenong. I remember my dad in his study next morning, glued to the radio, saying Cockatoo had been razed to the ground, and that I didn't realise he didn't mean a native bird, but a whole town. I remember being asked to choose clothes and shoes and toys to give to kids whose houses had burned down, and my mum volunteering at the shelter where hundreds of people now slept.

In Warrandyte, we grew up with fire plans and a wary eye on days where there was a hot northerly wind in summer. My mum has stood on the roof of our house stuffing the downpipes with rags so she can fill the gutters with water, and has put out spotfires in the garden from burning embers carried on the wind. I was 17 and raged with helplessness from a mile up the road, because they wouldn't let me across the bridge at the Yarra to help her.

Melbourne's outskirts are burning again today, and people have died and they say there could be hundreds of homes burned. Towns that once marked stages in my journey as I drove from Mitchelton at Nagambie to Melbourne and 'home' will now be remembered for Black Saturday, February 7: Broadford, Kilmore, Wallan, Clonbinane... and others from 'the back road' down to Mum's: Whittlesea, Kinglake, Hursbridge. They're all in trouble tonight, along with Gippsland and Horsham and other places too.

Folks here in England can't possibly understand the concept of a fire so out of control that it's all you can do to get the people out. It can race up a hillside in seconds, gut a house in minutes. Flames roar 70 feet high and generate their own 100km an hour winds as they suck all the oxygen from the air.

A couple of years ago, one such fire burned out an area the size of Portugal in the high country - although few if any lives were lost. This time, the area is much, much smaller, but the results are much, much worse...

I don't much feel like watching the rugby any more.

More Snow

2009-02-07T06:49:00.000-08:00

Another day, another 6 inches of snow, another snowball fight among the busdrivers (this one looked to be 'boys vs girls') at the bus Depot.

It snowed all night, then half the day too, and work sent home all staff from outlying villages after lunch, then closed the office half an hour early, so the 10 of us that were left could all go home too. Ants couldn't get the car out, so didn't make it to work.

There's a layer of ice under the snow now, making pavements slick and 'slippy' (another quaint english turn of phrase). Reminds me of those winters in Finland, Belgium and Luxembourg, and I'm a bit amazed at how just a week of this kind of weather can transform the landscape and make the ice and snow feel so entrenched. It's still beautiful though - specially today, now that the sun is shining.

Ants and I are hoping we can still get up to Edinburgh on Sunday - we've tickets for the rugby, Scotland vs Wales. Anthony has wanted to see Scotland play at Murrayfield ever since we've been here. Keep yer fingers crossed!