My current life

Since Fête de la Musique I've done the following:

– Spent a lovely day in Nice with my parents; wandering around the old town, introducing them to socca (similar to a crepe, made with chickpea flour. It's a speciality of both the French and Italian Rivieras but is called farinata this side of the border), drinking cheap cheap rosé wine!

– Had my first swim of the summer at St Laurent du Var. It was amazing to be back in the water again. Not quite like bath water just yet, but not too painful getting in. I've been swimming a lot – doing my usual trick of swimming out to the buoy and back a couple of times – however, I've developed a bit of a phobia of the water after coming face-to-face with two massive jellyfish last week :-(

– Had dinner and lunch with my parents before they flew back to the UK. I was sad to see them go but really pleased they'd been able to join me and meet my Italian friends. 

– Went to a lovely BBQ on the beach to celebrate a friend's birthday. Her family own a shack (well, it's a bit more than a shack really, but you get the idea) on a tranquil little bay near the French border. Her husband is a meat buyer in Monaco, so the steaks were out of this world and perfectly cooked too. Chri and I also took a midnight dip in the sea – it was magical swimming under the moonlight. All in all a perfect evening!

– Watched England lose on penalties to Italy. In Italy. Surrounded by Italians. No further comment required.

– Watched Italy beat Germany. In Italy. Surrounded by Italians. A great game and a great night; the celebrations afterwards were like nothing I've seen before!! Here people tend to watch the match at home, not in bars or pubs as we do in the UK, so after the game finished Marco (my friend/employer) and I jumped on the scooter and drove into town, me holding the Italian flag proudly aloft, horn blaring.  The entire town appeared to have congregated in the main square – there were cars crawling through the crowds with people hanging out of windows; cars whose roofs had more or less caved in due to the number of people sitting on the roof; people on top of dustbin lorries; people commandeering buses; footballs being kicked high into the air from one side of the square to another; vuvuzelas; songs; firecrackers; flags. The council had the sense to turn the fountain off so unfortunately the traditional celebratory dip I'd been told about wasn't possible. The celebrations were amazing to witness, especially considering that was just the semi-final. I was hoping Italy would win on Sunday, partly because that's where my loyalties lay for that game, but partly so I could witness more craziness, but sadly that wasn't to be.

– Been running – once for 30 minutes in the 5pm heat, and once last night for 50 minutes in more pleasant conditions. I realised that it's only 10 weeks on Sunday until my half marathon so I need to get some serious training in. Graeme successfully completing his first long-distance triathlon (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) also spurred me on. Well done my Marra! It's lovely running next to the sea. In fact, all of my favourite runs have been beside water (my all-time favourite was the run I did along the beach at Shelley Point in South Africa, scanning the sea for whales).

– Watched Alice, the 5-year-old I'm looking after, perform in a dance show at the local theatre. She was great but I nipped out after her last dance and went with Matte and another friend, Gianluca, to a festival in a nearby town, which was a bit more up my street! There was lots of live music, including a concert by Roy Paci, an Italian trumpeter who has played with Manu Chao and Gogol Bordello. I also met some more lovely people – friends of Matteo's – who all made me feel very welcome and who I will definitely see again. The people from the north of Italy are meant to be more closed and less friendly than those from the south but I only have good things to say about them.

– Went for an Indian meal in Nice with Chri, Eve, Matte and three of their friends. It was a late night though; we ended up going to a bar afterwards and didn't get home until 4am. After getting home at 3.30am the previous night! Fortunately I was driving one night and didn't drink too much the other, so there were no real hangovers to contend with. The Italians can quite happily go into a bar and not get a single drink between them. The French are the same. For some reason, us Brits seem to find it necessary to have a drink in our hand at all times. I'm trying to take a leaf out of their book...

– Eaten a lot of lovely food. Part of the deal is that I'm fed here so I haven't had to cook anything to date! I've had three BBQs, squid for lunch one day, delicious homemade vegetable tart for lunch at the beach today (torta di verdure is a Ligurian speciality), pasta, focaccia (one of my favourite things and something that tastes quite different here in Italy than it does at home), homemade tiramisù (which actually means 'pick-me-up' – did you know that?), a prune and cinnamon gelato, and been to a dinner party with about ten people and t-bone steaks! That's another observation I've made; the Italians are far more relaxed about the whole dinner party thing. Large numbers of guests don't phase them. Food is always good but often simple. It's not a show. Hosts aren't outwardly out to impress guests with their cooking prowess. Drinks are put on the table and people help themselves when they want some. No hosts fussing around checking guests have a drink at all times. No guests feeling bad about helping themselves when their glass is empty. It's good I think. That's another leaf I need to take.

– Memorised regular Italian verb endings. Yes! I'm also thinking much more in Italian and struggled to speak French at the beach on Saturday. I could think of the word I wanted in Italian but not French. Lovely friends have allowed me to practice verb endings with them, even if they were slightly confused by which of their verbs were regular and which were irregular! The kids I'm looking after don't speak English so I'm having to communicate in pidgin Italian, but hopefully I'm getting better at it, even if it is often frustrating.

– Oh yes, and I've also done a bit of work too ;-) I now think the whole deal may have been more to help me out with accommodation and something to do for a month or so, but I am doing half days Monday to Friday all the same. The family I'm working for have two children, aged two (almost three) and five, and the parents work full time. However, they also have a housekeeper/nanny and the grandmother living on site, so childcare is more or less in hand. I think I'm there more to entertain the kids and take the pressure off a bit. Today, for example, I started at 9am and was driven to the beach club where they rent a beach hut and sun beds for the summer with the little girl (5). We played in the sand, jumped some waves, had a coffee and then a picnic and an ice-cream and were collected at 2pm, when my working day was officially over. Yesterday was similar, except the grandmother, the nanny and father also appeared so I was able to have a swim and relax! The one day I had both kids was a bit of a disaster though, so maybe that's why they only tend to give me one to look after!! First the boy – who's being toilet trained – wet himself, as I picked him up, crying, to change him, he pooed himself. I couldn't find the wipes so cleaned him up as best I could and left brother and sister playing quietly in the garden while I sorted the mess out. Not more than two minutes later they were both howling. God knows what had happened but the girl already had a big egg on her forehead and the boy had a purple ear. Cazzo, as they would say in Italy!


So life is good. I have lovely independent and spacious accommodation and it's nice to be surrounded by people, and people I vaguely know. I'm less lonely than I was last year and a million times happier. It's great having my car so I can be independent and it's wonderful living in Italy. I continue to be amazed by how at home I feel in this part of the world, and in this country in particular. I'm also pleased that following our little road trip, me Ma has adopted some of Chri's anti-French sentiment (no offence to any French readers) and is becoming a bit Italian herself; salad with sundried tomatoes and basil during last week's floods, supporting Italia on Sunday, and pasta with homemade pesto tonight. Brava Mama!