Monday 31 March 2008

Re-learning Italian


I need to go shopping for a pair of fleecy socks to replace the ones I lost betwixt the washing line and the house a fortnight ago. Such are the thrills of sleeping alone in Scotland in spring time. I think I will smack the next person who questions why I want to go back to Italy. The Veneto, well Verona airport at least, has been consistently 8-10 degrees warmer than Edinburgh every day for the past three weeks which is when I started checking daily. Last night I was so cold in bed I could barely sleep. I know I slept because I can remember some odd dreams but the general effect was of lying awake all night immobile with the cold and that spilled over into being non-functional at work all morning and, despite an almost warm sunny day, being too tired to go for a walk at lunch-time hence the old pedometer is barely registering 5000 steps.

I have just ordered "Italian in Three Months" from Amazon which is a bit more basic than I need but I think I should re-ground myself and really seriously go over and over the basics and then register for an intermediate class in the autumn. I will have one year from then to get good enough to live there. When I lived in Italy before I was happy just to "pick it up" but now that I am old, well, middle-aged, I am panicky and finicky and can't wing it the way I used to.

Sunday 30 March 2008

I have just returned from Denver with temperatures of 68F and above every afternoon to this...

... and yet I have to keep explaining to people why I don't want to live in Edinburgh.

So far today it is too cold and too wet to leave the house. I realise I need to do it some time as I have nothing to eat, no more green tea and desperately need some of my 10,000 steps but it is not a pleasant prospect. On Wednesday in Denver I did 13,403 steps without even realising it. Everything is so much easier when the sun shines.