Appetite 4 Life - Camilla's Blog

Princess time

 

The royal wave

Having sat down by my computer for the first time in a week, I am torn between two things: the drive to catch up on what is happening in the world, and the wish to share what is happening in my world. 

My sister sent me an SMS this morning to alert me to a new princess having been born in the early hours today in Sweden, so I decided to jump online and catch up first. 

Being more than halfway through my own pregnancy, I was intrigued by some of the reports. A lot of speculations around the potential names, with some potential disappointment that there are no royal female names on his side of the family to choose from, to make it nice and neat to combine. Come on folks - live a little. Personally, I would not be surprised if Sofia featured somehwere in the mix... 

And the other one was that families with children being born this year in the capital area might start contemplating suitable schools in the area. Not just that, but applying on behalf of their child-to-be or newborn to make sure they have a chance of befriending the new princess, and by extension... the future queen and the royal family.

Ah, well...  down here in Tuscany we don't need to think about those things. We're just back from a nice vacation week in the Canary Islands, so I had better get on with letting friends and family know how that went instead of dwelling on royal etiquette. 

But you have to agree with me though that our little princess really has the royal wave down pat, doesn't she?

It's all about who you know...

The old way of working is still very much alive in Italy. Some give credit to the Sicilians - the family, you know - but I'm not sure if the Medici family in the Renaissance state of Florence weren't the initial instigators of the "you rub my back, I'll rub yours" way of life.

When you're in the system, it really is nice, but that is only because outside of that system, life sucks and you can't get a break! Sadly, reading the news with a bit of perspective it seems to apply to all walks of life and all levels too.

So what is bringing this sudden philosophying on, you might ask? Well, a friend of mine told me a story yesterday about a bright young Italian man wanting to apply to the Italian military police academy - he wanted to become a "carabiniero". Apparently an exceptionally bright young man, he scored 138 on the entrance exam. The minimum to even be considered is 120, so apparently his score was way up there. So they thought they had it made.

Not so fast. He received a rejection letter with some vague reasoning, causing his Mom to start wondering. She happened to know someone at the the right office she could ask who would find out for her. (You see what I mean? If she didn't have a friend at this office, she would never have gotten a decent response). It turned out that the young man was bumped off by another young man, unfortunately not as bright it seemed, as he had barely made the initial cut with 121 points. But... no matter really, as his grandfather was a retired general, she was told.

I just wonder which one of the kids would have made the better carabiniero for the state of Italy?

Can't you see I'm busy?

Scary as it may seem, one of the favorite items, or toys if you like, for Sofia is my mobile phone! It could of course have something to do with the music and the videos on it - especially a recording of Chicken Dance at daycare from back in February which is the number 1 hit by a long mile. But still, we notice her love of computers and screens in general. What is it with these gadgets that make them so fascinating? I mean, even adults' eyes automatically move to a TV screen, so I guess she never stood a chance. 

Sofia is usually a very calm baby, but today she almost (stress almost) threw a hissyfit when I pulled her away from a Baby Genius video on the computer before it was done. Basically I hit the space bar to stop it to declare it "done" when I feel the time is up, but this time I forgot to do that before lifting her away and she cried. You know the crocodile tears just in case I would decide to change my mind and let her return... oh dear, are we creating a monster, or is it just a sign of the times?

The Mystery Mural - part I

On a walk with Sofia a few months ago I noticed a very unsual graffiti appearing seemingly overnight. It seemed like the charcoal beginnings of a mythical mural painting, clearly being copied onto a 2m x 3m (6ft x 9ft) wall space. It was much more like fine art, and being that it appeared on the wall of the charity portion of the church here on Piazza della Vittoria, I first assumed that it was done by someone commissioned by the church. But looking closer at the motif, I had to conclude it was more likely "graffiti", with the winged angelic being leaning over the giant face. If someone recognizes the motif... let me know, it seems familiar.

As this is a spot I walk past with Sofia on a regular basis, I noticed a few weekends later that it had been added to with some basic background colors overnight, and the trumpet had been colored golden. Clearly the midnight artist had found some peaceful time to work on it. But then nothing happened for almost a month, and I concluded that the culprit must have been caught. Then towards the end of November there was another update - cliffs being outlined in a purple-burgundy shade. Apparently not much time at hand, but it proved the artist was still at large. At this point I snapped my first photo, thinking I might document the progress.

Last weekend, almost 3 weeks later, we had another change, this time with further details of cliff paintings, and a hint of sky. Looks like he or she was interrupted though, so I hope this isn't bad news for the artist. Stay tuned, I hope I will have the possibility to write a part II...

Let it snow, let it snow... but not in Tuscany!!

As beautful as our neighbors' backyards looked this morning with beautiful big snowflakes fluttering down covering the palm trees, and the citrus bushes, it is causing mayhem for lots of people here. Tuscany is just not used to this, and apparently it has only been like once before in 42 years! We have friends stranded on the road from Florence, or trying to make their way back home from Rome. Another friend spent an hour in her car on the way from the post office to the grocery store: here in Livorno! And apparently there is an 8-hour train delay on the stretch between Florence and Pisa. Bear in mind that this is at most a 40-minute train ride...

My exercise classes were all canceled, and Jeff got the call from work to stay home, so we have had a wonderfully relaxing day, getting ready to finish it off with a movie and the cheese cake that I had made for our Christmas book club that was canceled as well tonight.  If it's a nice cake - I'll upload the recipe later as it's as it's been a while since I've posted a good recipe. But right now, I'll be lucky if the network connection holds up long enough to post this... seemingly another consequence of the snow storm.

Livorno is now back to being just rainy and slushy - all the pretty gone. But we did have time to have Sofia look out the window at the flakes earlier, and we experienced something neither of us had seen before: thunder and lightning while the snow was coming down!