Author Archives: Sue

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About Sue

Hi! I'm Sue. I moved to Italy in 2013. I started my www.lemarchescape.com blog in 2012 during the "preparation phase" and it covers my transition moving from the hectic rat race life-style of London to the substantially more tranquil Sarnano in the beautiful Le Marche region in Italy. Now I'm here I'm working on my lifetime dream of becoming an artist. Check out my blog: www.apaintingoccasionally.WordPress.com to see pics!

How to: Prepare for an Art Exhibition, make a voodoo doll out of driftwood and avoid cheek stroking

Posted on January 18, 2014 by Sue

Ciao a tutti,

This week I bring to you the nail-biting tale of an artist with no art, how to make a voodoo doll out of driftwood and where to stock up on products for all your bimbo needs…

The Artless Dodger

I have done something stupid(er than usual). I have ALMOST signed up to showing my work in an “exhibition” just off Piazza Roma in Camerano’s centre. My work. What am I talking about?! I have no work! Not here at least. Scattered around Portsmouth and London, yes.  My next door neighbour is organising the exhibition – for 6 months it’ll cost 1200 Euros to hire the place. He wants to split the cost. Ha! I have only ever sold one thing! Why oh why didn’t I do some artwork last year?! This week’s blog feedback request is face-saving methods of backing out of exhibitions… A free driftwood voodoo doll to the person with the best suggestion (see below).

Anyway, Operation Produce Some Art is in full swing and is commencing with a beach scene. If it’s any good, I’ll post a picture next week. I have also become quite enamored with driftwood of late during my walks on the beach. I have quite a collection now.

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Pretty….

I just haven’t quite got around to working out what to do with it yet! The good news is that I found some wood carving tools in my collection of art stuff today so I thought I’d give that a go. The bad news is, it’s coincided with me being in a bit of a negative mood all week…

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I’ve called him “Bob” (he floats).  I’m going to take him into school and tell the children that he’ll put a curse on them if they’re annoying 🙂

Teaching

I have a new private student starting next week and potentially some more lined up. I got in touch with the poor girl that used to teach English last year at my schools today. She managed two years. Two years! She should get a medal. She MISSES them she says! Having said that, I have now received two Frrero Rocher’s from cutie students and several pictures (I should probably have stored them somewhere other than the recycle bin to be kept as evidence that I’m an adorable and caring teacher).

English Language Consultancy

I’m actually doing some paid work for my language school (the one I went to for Italian lessons) – working on their new website. It’s quite fun! All being well, there should be a lot more students at the school this year so hopefully it’ll be a bit livelier! One of the students (“The Cheek Stroker”) from last year is returning for a few weeks soon. I will have to keep all my cheeks under close guard. Perhaps I can use Bob the Voodoo Doll again.

Swimming Attempt 2

Swimming Attempt 1 took place back in November last year. I went to a local pool that was deserted apart from creepy staring men so I didn’t even make it near the pool. Besides, it looked nasty. People were changing in the reception area.

Swimming Attempt 2 took place on Wednesday with a different pool in mind. However, I forgot where I was! I had planned to check the website, get the address and put it into my Sat Nav. You can’t do that in Italy!!!  The website is nice – it has nice pictures, a nice logo, it’s colourful – someone went to a lot of effort to put it together but alas, there is no information about where it can be found besides “Loreto”. The office address on there doesn’t actually exist on the Sat Nav or Google Maps. TYPICAL!!!! So, after turning up to a large house in the middle of nowhere and driving around for half an hour, I gave up and went home! I’m going to have to get my swimming fix in the summer!

University Popolare!

For a couple of months I’ve been hearing about a university that you can go to for evening courses etc. I like a good evening course. However, it’s been nigh impossible to find any information about it. The most I could get out of anyone was “yes, I’ve heard about that too”. However, I mentioned it my mother, the Queen of Research, and a mere couple of days later, voila, a website! With INFORMATION no less! The courses seem to start in September so I think I’ve missed the boat but to be honest, Operation Produce Some Art should probably take precedence for a while anyway.

What’s a bit odd?

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For all your bimbo needs…

It’s right next to Ancona’s “sexy shop” as well. The shop is not sexy (I’m sure it breaches some kind of trade descriptions act).

Next week I shall be attempting to do some bureaucracy! I know, I know… you’ve missed my stories about italian bureaucracy. I aim to please. Tune in next week for what I predict will be “The Unsuccessful Quest for a Tessera Sanitaria! (health insurance card)”

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Terrible weather, Fake Bank Cards and How to Make Rocket Fuel…

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Sue

Ciao!

Buon anno nuovo a tutti 🙂  I hope everyone has had fabulous breaks over the Christmas period. This week, I bring you a moving account of the horrible winter weather here in Italy, a three step guide to banking in Italy and how to make Rocket Fuel in 60 days.

Ghastly Weather

I came back to Italy on Monday and apart from Italy being inextricably linked to teaching, it’s nice to be back 🙂 Those in my home country will know that it’s been horrible weather with storms galore and countless floods and well, it’s been horrid here too…

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Just look at that looming grey, threatening and stormy looking sky…

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And those rough, treacherous seas… Just awful. (Hmm, I bet I’ve just cursed Italy with hurricanes now).

The highs and lows of banking in Italia

I have prepared this three step guide for banking in Italy.

1. Get an Italian Bank Account

I have managed to get an Italian Bank Account! You have to PAY for the honour of having a bank account here in Italy. I pay 6 Euros a month. It galls me. I hadn’t bothered with one here before out of principle (instead very wisely deciding to pay 6 Euros and then some every time I used my English bank card).  With the teaching job, I needed to bite the bullet and get an account set up here.  I’m pleased, and quite frankly astounded to report that it’s very easy to do – you need your codice fiscale (like a National Insurance number if you’re in the UK) and some ID and that’s it. In return, you get so much bank related documentation that it could give the book of Lord of the Rings a run for its money. No wonder they charge so much for the account. It’ll take them years to recuperate the costs.

2. Acquire money

My teaching job has PAID me! I am IMMENSELY relieved. With all the money I’ve got from the ENDLESS hours I’ve been teaching and associated planning activities, I’ll be able to buy almost two cinema tickets! I’m being sarcastic of course.

I could probably buy three.

3. Manage your expectations

In summary, I now have a bank account with money in it. “GREAT! I can buy things” I thought! But I reckon they’ve given me a fake bank card. It isn’t Visa or Mastercard or any of the other weird ones that I have at least heard of before. So whereas I can get money out at ATMs (only those dealing with these Fake Cards mind – otherwise I’m charged), and pay for stuff at the local supermarket (they must have some sort of personal agreement with my bank), I cannot do online shopping because at the point where you select “Visa”, “Mastercard” etc., there is no “My card appears to be fake” option.  Some companies, for example, Trenitalia, seem to recognise the Fake Card but dress it up attractively as “book now, pay later”. EXCELLENT! “Perhaps there are advantages to Fake Cards after all” I thought. Aha! No. What they mean is “book now and spend 3 hours faffing around the next day” as it emerges you have to confirm it at a train station almost immediately. What a handy bank card.

Rocket Fuel

I know that you’re all dying to hear how the corbezzoli liquor worked out…… and let me tell you! It is a delicate little number with hints of alcohol hand gel and petrol. However, I’m sure it’ll serve a purpose <considers putting it in a hip flask to help maintain a cheery disposition at school. If there’s enough left, I might have some myself>.

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I should probably put some sort of warning label on it.

OK, over and out for this week. I’m devising a plan cosi astuto che posso attaccarci una coda e chiamarlo ermellino for the blog (a plan so cunning that I could stick a tail on it and call it a weasel. I’m relieved I know how to say that Blackadder phrase in Italian now). I shall keep you posted.

xxx

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Natale, Competition Update and Blog Rebirth!

Posted on December 29, 2013 by Sue

Ciao a tutti!

Has everyone had a good Christmas? I’ve had (and I’m still having for that matter) a lovely break back in the UK. It’s a shame I’ve missed Christmas in Italy particularly when I’ve heard such odd sounding things about it from the Italian kids at school. I had a very long conversation with the infants about what name we call our Good Witch in the UK. I can think of a few potential witch candidates. However, on further discussion it’s nobody I know 😉 On the 6th January, the Good Witch known as La Befana pops around to the houses to fill the children’s stockings (as in Christmas stockings rather than those of the tights variety). TWO present giving days within the space of 12 days! I’m still in the UK on the morning of the 6th. I intend to leave my stocking out (probably the tights variety because my Christmas one is in the loft. They stretch so I think it’s a better strategy anyway) and hope she makes it to the UK.

Competition

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments on the Expats Blog website article and the blog (to see the lovely comments, click here) – I was really touched by the number of them and the thoughtful things you said 🙂 Alas, I didn’t win. There were some great articles and Greg who won “Italy”, wrote a spot-on and very amusing article on “Top 10 Signs that confirm you’ve gone full Italian”.

But it’s OK because we had our Family Christmas Photography Competition and I submitted these, quite frankly, WINNING photos taken around Italy (click on the photos to see them in their full size STUNNING glory).

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The kid version of the Big Tray Race back in the Summer

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Pretty Poppies in Spring

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Summer in Abruzzo

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“Autumn” in Macerata (quotes due to the fact it was I think technically Winter)

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Winter in Camerano

And lost that too! Competitions schmompetitions 😉

Blogging

I love writing this blog. It’s an excellent way of venting! I got a couple of books on how to make money from blogging for Christmas (thank you SD and GD!) and so I’ve been reading up on those. I’ve decided to keep this blog going but set up a more serious “Le Marche” blog (Le Marche – for those that haven’t been paying attention, is the region of Italy where I live 😉 ).  I suspect the people following this blog aren’t waiting with baited breath to find out about how to buy train tickets over here or the best restaurants to go to so I might focus here just on the column aspect and use the other blog for Le Marche specific news.

For this other “Le Marche” blog – I think there’s a niche in the market. I’ve by no means travelled to all the regions in Italy (this year though I hope!), but I really think you couldn’t get a much better area. There’s great transport links between here and London, fabulous coastline, national parks, mountains for walking and skiing, quaint little hill top villages, architecture, history… But hardly anyone’s heard of the place back in the UK and there’s a distinct lack of information about the area. I’d like to promote the area a bit to the English-speaking folk (and the Italian’s to be honest but my language skills aren’t quite up to that yet!).

I’d like your thoughts and advice though! Bloggers make money from adverts primarily – who would want to advertise on either of the blogs? Any thoughts on what I should include or not? How could I improve this current blog? All comments welcome!

Happy New Year all!

x

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Competitions, Popstardom and Christmas

Posted on December 16, 2013 by Sue

Ciao!

Greetings everyone! I hope you’re all well. This week: I’ve entered into a writing competition linked to the blog, my glittering career as a pop-star continues to go from strength to strength, I review questionable smartphone language apps and I shall provide a Christmas status update in Camerano…

I NEED YOU!

Help! I’ve written an article for the Ex-Pats Blog website (click on that link to see it and write a comment) on learning Italian. The winner gets selected on the basis of comments so pretty please could you write a nice comment (apparently nasty ones don’t get published so apologies for that in advance!). Alas, it’s a bit of a faff to comment (I think to stop me from writing my own nice comments, pfft) but I would be very appreciative! I think it will want you to register and the comment needs to be more than 10 words so think of something intellectually insightful and thought provoking 😉 Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Return to the Big Stage

This week the infant school had their Christmas Show in a theater in Numana. I haven’t laughed so much for a long time. The kids were all over the place, waving to their mums and dads rather than doing what they were supposed to be doing and not getting any of the dances or songs right at all. Some of them only had to hold a glittery hula hoop over their head and even that they got wrong. One of them kept trying to run off the stage. Funny, funny, funny. I am still mystified that I was the only one laughing in the audience.

Anyway, the kids have been learning “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” with me as part of their English lesson. My job was to provide the guitar accompaniment. I imagined this would be offstage whilst I mouthed the words to remind them. Instead, they plonked me at the front of the stage with a microphone. I think I used up all of my embarrassment/stage fright reserves a few years ago playing Robin Hood for the local amateur dramatics society (I don’t know how I get into these situations), so thankfully I pulled it off without a wobbly voice or shaky hands (I don’t know how that would work playing guitar). We even had a rousing audience participation chorus at the end.

You know how the soprano always gets a large bunch of flowers at the end of an opera? Well, it was EXACTLY the same. I got flowers (albeit two slightly dead looking ones that look like they’ve been sneezed on) at the end whilst everyone clapped and cheered and because I’m such a celebrity with the children in the Marcelli/Numana I got a few people shouting out my name too. Finally, I have some recognition!!! Wembley, here I come.

Apps

I have downloaded a free app called Duolingo for the smartphone for learning Italian. It’s GREAT. It gives you phrases in Italian for you to translate into English (and vice versa), it speaks phrases and you have to type out what they are, there are multiple choices and you can test out your pronunciation. It’s got everything!!!! I could have people test me ALL DAY without ever getting bored (some sort of personality default I think). Unfortunately, the result of that is that I’ve almost gone through all the levels on the app. It’ll be a sad day indeed when I get to the end. Anyway, I’m not sure how good it is for learning if you don’t have the grammar fundamentals but it’s definitely worth a go either way.

Meanwhile, my friend, recommended an app called “Memrise”. It works on the basis of giving you some words and a method of remembering them (usually a corresponding picture) and then tests you again (woohooo!). However, I’ve decided I’m too young and innocent for this app…

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Uh huh.

Last week of School

SCHOOL IS OUT NEXT WEEK!!!!!! NO MORE SCHOOL FOR 3 WEEKS <insert celebration dance here>. I’m actually happier about school being out now than I ever was when I was a student.

I’m going to try and plan the next 5 months worth of torture teaching over the Christmas break so planning lessons doesn’t have to be quite such a weekly drain.

Christmas!

I’m not feeling very Christmassy at the moment, despite my door decoration…

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Look at my nice door decoration 🙂 I feel like an adult! I know what you’re thinking… you’re thinking “where can I get that lovely shade of brown from for my own door?”

All the villages have their decorations up too. Nothing quite as spectacular as my door decoration but still…

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Numana and the lights (and the ugly church)

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Camerano’s lights in the fog

I’ve made mince pies (they don’t exist here). They seem to be going down well with people despite them being burnt looking (I’ve dutifully informed people that’s how they’re supposed to be). It’s been difficult to purchase icing sugar to cover it up  decorate them. Apparently this is because people just save up those little packs you get in panettone (panettone for those that don’t know, is what Italians have at Christmas instead of Christmas Pudding. Like all Italian cakes, it is dry. Nice, but dry. I don’t think they’d know a moist cake if it hit them around the face. If you dip it in your cup of tea though, it’s amazing).

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MINCE PIES TAKE ONE (Test Phase). These were the results of the Test Phase. A lessons learnt workshop was subsequently held (with myself), and changes implemented for the Go-Live phase.

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MINCE PIES TAKE TWO (Go-Live Phase). I want you to feel like you’re getting your monies worth from my blog so I’ve compiled the Lesson Learnt into a handy set of Mince Pie Tips (MPT).
MPT1: Don’t believe your oven. My one is hotter than the sun even if you set it at 150 degrees.
MPT2: Put a TINY bit of mince in otherwise it bubbles over and makes everything look burnt / even more burnt.
MPT3: You don’t need to butter the tin. It would save a lot of researching / waiting for mother to respond time if recipes just said that (though I acknowledge that recipes could be considerably longer if they listed all the things that you shouldn’t do…)
MPT4: Don’t try and put strips on the top – it looks bad.
MPT5: Get a cutter if you’re going to do stars. 
MPT6: If you enclose the lids then there will be no bubbling over-spill risk – pierce the top though.
MPT7: If you use egg to gloss the top, it looks too scrambled egg-y and unappetizing. Best to use milk I reckon.

I think that about sums up this week. Right, lesson plans here I come…

x

ps) I’ve been using the american spelling of tyres (tires). I keep making the same mistake over and over. I acknowledge that will be annoying for people and would like to take this moment to apologise 🙂

pps) I still haven’t changed the tires. Tyres. Tires. Tyres…. TYRES.

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Epic Journey of Boringness, Heavenly Bathing Area of Delight and the Walk of Treachery…

Posted on December 11, 2013 by Sue

Well this week I bring you the Epic Car Journey of Boringness, an Ice Pool of Death update and I shall recount the Walk of Treachery. First up…

Epic Car Journey of Boringness to Piacenza

Some of you may remember the Saga of the Broken Clutch where the car broke down in Switzerland on the way back from the UK to Ancona. It meant that we (myself and my driving buddy, let’s call him Victorio) couldn’t make use of the hotel that we’d booked and paid for in Piacenza.  They wouldn’t give us our money back but as Victorio was back in Italy last week, we decided to get our money’s worth. I was to meet him there.

There were two methods of arrival – car or train (having already ruled out going by helicopter or skateboard). I weighed up both taking into account cost, effort and time. I decided to go by car – it would be long but would work out cheaper and I’m on a money saving spree.

Was it in fact cheaper? No, no it wasn’t. It was a lot more expensive. STUPID TOLL ROADS! 48 Euros it cost me just in tolls! I had completely forgotten to add that into my equation so not only did I have an exceptionally boring 4 hour journey each way, but it cost me more than the train. There, er, may be a slight chance I may have incurred additional unforeseen costs as well (STUPID SPEED CAMERAS!). Anyway, the hotel was lovely – very nice. I recommend Best Western in Piacenza.

Piacenza itself is nice too. There wasn’t much too it from what we saw – there’s a little shopping high street with some nice shops, a market and a piazza where the cathedral was. We spent a couple of hours looking around and then I started the 4 hour trek back.

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The main shopping street… There’s lots of people with bikes with baskets on in Piacenza. Cute.

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View from the shopping street into the piazza where the market was…. they’ve got their christmas decs up 🙂

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The market – lots of crafty stuff there! Also cute…. The cathedral’s in the background.

Driving

Driving is MUCH better now – I don’t feel the urge to write home to tell my family I love them every time I get in the car now.  I can’t imagine that it’s because the Italians have all started to drive like sensible people. In fact, I know that not to be true. I think I’ve just developed a Near Death Experience Filter which helps to regulate my heartbeat when someone pulls out in front of me at speed.

4 hours is the longest time I’ve spent driving in one go by myself so that felt like quite a feat of accomplishment given I’ve been so nervous of driving for such a long time. I still haven’t managed to amend my Sat Nav’s “if at all possible, go on roads suitable only for tanks” setting.

Car tires

I’ve still not changed them to “winter tires”. Il Polemico showed me his snow tires the other day. They look unimpressive. The difference is they have “snow and mud” written on the side and there’s some tiny, barely visible little slits in the tires. I know I have to get them but it just doesn’t feel satisfying enough to warrant the money. Admittedly I may feel more satisfied if they stop be slipping down hills in the rain but I would have preferred if they had large spikes and perhaps were a different colour. I did ask my local garage about getting them changed and he pointed me in the direction of a local “gommista” who will change my tires for me. I will do that soon. I will. I will I will I will.

Heating

I HAVE HEAT!!!!!!!!  And the Ice Pool of Death (the bath) is now The Heavenly Bathing Area of Delight! I can’t put into words how happy I am about being able just to turn the tap on and have hot water. The problem? The boiler pressure was too low. I should have moaned about it before. It took about 20 minutes to sort out. Annoying.

Christmas

I received my first Christmas present 🙂 A doll, a “pigotta”. It’s a doll that’s handmade and the money used to buy it goes to poor kids in Africa. I was very touched! And I got some other bits and pieces too. People are so lovely here.

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This is Barbara the Pigotta

Senigallia

I went to a lovely cake shop in Senigallia with a friend last week. I think I have the name wrong so I wont write it here, and then we ate out at a very quaint restaurant which didn’t have a name outside either. Here’s a photo of it so if you’re ever in Senigallia and you want to go, you can pace the streets until you find it 🙂

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Mmmm cup of tea, piece of cake…. Mmmmmm

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Lovely nameless restaurant in Senigallia…

The Walk of Treachery

I had my most exhausting walk for quite a long time with Il Polemico last weekend. The original plan was to go walking in the Sibilini Mountains. Alas, there’s snow there now and apparently a guy died there recently of cold when he got stuck there overnight, poor man. I’ve just bought a book with walks around this area in so we picked another safer walk around the hills in Macerata. It was a ring walk from Cingoli. It started off well but there’s been a lot of bad weather in Macerata the last week or two and so we found ourselves climbing over several landslides…..

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Landslide…

Then the guide book seemed to indicate that we should walk up a waterfall/river.

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I would not recommend the route we took. There was no path, only a foot or less of space at one or other side and that kept falling into the river every time we set foot on it.

Having slipped are way to the top, we followed the route down the other side of the mountain where we got lost. Il Polemico has a problem with seeing “tracks” where there aren’t any…

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This was not a “track”. Thanks to Il Polemico for the photo.

And then it was getting late and the sun was getting lower, we were in the middle of nowhere and there was no way of getting back apart from the Waterfall of Danger. Then we heard hunters in the woods shooting wild boar. Wild boar are apparently dangerous and so need to be shot. Personally, I would prefer to take my chances with wild boar than people randomly shooting into the woods where I’m walking…

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No photos of wild boar I’m afraid but here’s a picture of some mud with a boar footprint. Ray Mears would be proud…

Anyway, we found where we were supposed to have been going and headed in that direction at a speedy pace. And then, unbelievable I know, we got lost again. And then we trespassed into a sort of water reservoir place…

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The reservoir (grazie al Polemico)

A man came to inquire about our trespassing (we didn’t look very apologetic). The man let us out (otherwise I think we’d have just stayed put at the reservoir!) and then we found a road and decided to stick to that given the hour and our propensity for getting lost. We ended up doing 10 miles in the end and apparently we gained “608 metres” according to Il Polemico’s magic walking tracking device.

Anyway, it was a  lovely, spectacular but stressful walk…

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Look at how pretty it is here!!!!

Ok, have good weeks everybody! 🙂

x

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Liquor, Ice Pool of Death & Planning

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Sue

Ciaooooooo,

Come stai everyone? Not much to update on this week and nothing particularly Italy related either but here’s what’s been going on:

Liquor progress

The liquor is going well I think. Alcohol is an amazing preservative. I thought the corbezzoli would be all mushy and horrid by now but they’re pretty much exactly the same as when they went in (I wonder if I spent my life immersed in alcohol whether it would prevent me aging/becoming mushy and horrid). The colour from the corbezzoli has gone into the alcohol now though. They’ve got another 15 days or so to be soaked and then I need to make some syrup thing and mix it together. EXCITING.

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Next up: steep myself in alcohol to test its anti-aging properties…

Teaching “progress”

Well Monday went marginally better than it did last week – the one nightmare class was only a bad dream compared to normal nightmare levels. I’ve learnt to use “colouring in” and threatening them with not playing “Simon Says” if they don’t stop being horrible. It partially works.  They like Simon Says and Colouring in.

When I was at school, the adults around me would say “kids don’t have common sense these days”. Well, I’ve discovered something. Kids THESE days don’t have any either. And, what’s more is that I think my common sense levels are ok so, I’ve come to the conclusion that it probably comes with age in fact. As an example of their common sense deficiency levels:  one of the activities I get them doing is to produce a table which has their friends names in and a column for various food stuffs. They have to ask if their friends like the various food stuffs and put yes/no in the boxes. I draw the table on the board for them so they can see what it should look like but if I don’t stipulate exactly how many little squares in their exercise books they should use, they allow about 2mm to write their friends names in. When they start writing the names down, they don’t seem to think “hmm. I have totally underestimated how much space I’ll need” and instead write microscopically. Excellent for paper saving but I will need to buy a magnifying glass if this continues. Honestly, you should see the “wordsearches” that I have them doing – it puts a new perspective on it. Before you even get to the words you have to search for the thing in the first place! I might try and take a photo next time (hmm that should probably be something for the anonymous teaching blog).

Today I got a bracelet with a flower on from one of the kids though. That was cute. I actually got a kiss on the cheek from one girl today.

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My bracelet…

We’ve started singing my revised We Wish You a Merry Christmas song. I really do need to start using a capo (for non guitar players – it’s a sort of gadget thing you put on the guitar to raise the tone) – as it is, the song is either insanely high or insanely low. I have a perpetually husky voice at the moment due to a never-ending cold so though I can do somewhere approaching insanely high, I’m much better at doing insanely low but the kids can’t sing at insanely low levels (I think basically it’s just me with my cold and Barry White that can sing that low) and well, can I get them singing insanely high whilst I sing insanely low? No, no…it makes for a very painful lesson and it’s probably why my voice remains husky. I need to rest my voice – I always thought pop stars were being wimpy when they said that but no, it turns out it’s true! I am EXACTLY like a pop star.

Car

My car is acting suspiciously. When it rains and if I’m on a hill and I want to turn a corner, it judders and seems to try and go in a different direction or just goes back down the hill. It has a mind of its own. It’s either the tires (it doesn’t look like it’s the tires), or the clutch (I’ve just had a new one – how could that be?), or it’s haunted. I hope it’s haunted – it would be cheaper and less daunting. I’m going to ask the friendly but slightly pervy man (he has naked women calendars up in his office) at the local garage if he could put new “four season” tires on for me.

Apartment

The apartment is FREEZING. FREEEEEEEEEEEZING. This could be another factor in my cold never going. I was hoping to conduct an experiment into money saving by not turning the heating on. I was scared off by an old student telling me that it cost her something like 80 Euros a week for heating this flat. Others have also confirmed heating is extortionate here. So I did what any other miser would do – I decided that I’d live like we did in the old days and not use heating. However, on further reflection, I’ve come to the conclusion that I can’t think of any “old days” that didn’t involve some form of heat. Even cave men had fires surely? I’ve decided I don’t want to provoke the “natural selection” process and kill myself off by freezing to death so I’ll probably turn the heating on and live with the consequences.

Meanwhile there’s supposed to be hot water. However, the hot water isn’t even tepid and takes approximately 45 minutes to rise to not-even-tepid and I swear it’s getting worse. The bath is massive, metal and seems to have liquid nitrogen properties; freezing anything that comes into contact with it be it water or skin. I used to look forward to having a bath (particularly given the shower has one of those flesh clinging shower curtains) but it’s just unbearable now – I’m going to start calling it The Ice Pool of Death instead.

So this week’s task will be to work out how to put the heating on and to raise the matter of The Ice Pool of Death with the Landlord.

Planning

I’ve been doing some planning for next year – I will NOT be teaching at state schools again. No-sir-ee. Instead, I’ve worked out I can have a reasonable frivolity fund if I do 4 private lessons a week. I want to sell some paintings, and I want to sell some articles to magazines, and I want to do some portrait drawing. I’ve set myself what I think are reasonable targets and hopefully I’ll supersede them e.g. become author of a bestselling series of novels which are subsequently turned into blockbusting movies. However, I am keeping expectations and budget setting in check (i.e. one bestselling novel and blockbusting movie in the first year).

In other planning news, I shall be doing snowboarding locally in January/February. I shall be doing some travelling in June. I will be driving the Haunted Car back in August for it’s MOT. I shall be buying a house of some sort here in Autumn. I shall be making money doing something that does not make me want to jump off the balcony and that concludes my planning…

Ok. Onwards and upwards. The Ice Pool of Death awaits <sigh>.

Have good weeks!

X

Ps. News in Slow Italian – it’s great! www.newsinslowitalian.com. It disappointingly costs money. You can get some free stuff. I might have a go at that and if I keep it up, then I’ll pay for a subscription ($44.90 for 6 months for a basic membership which I think would do for me)

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Visits, Raw Pig Butt and Navigational Challenges…

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Sue

Ciao!

Well hello!!!! How is everyone?! Apologies for the radio silence – I’ve had an influx of visitors coming to see me which has been great so many thanks to the following for coming out to see me 🙂

  • “Ms Meaty”: She wanted a pseudonym – she’ll probably regret that.  Anyway, she’s so-called because she spent a good portion of our time in restaurants trying to find carcasses to eat  ;-)) and…
  • Jackie and Pete:  No pseudonyms required – they seem more confident I wont be harsh…

The Tourist Trail

I almost look like I know what I’m doing driving around – I can successfully get to my favourite local places without Tom (my completely untrustworthy Sat Nav – I really must check that I’ve not got some kind of “tractors only” setting on). I still haven’t discovered ALL of the sleeping policeman in order to impose speed rectification measures/avoid launching myself into the air like a stunt driver. To be honest though, I don’t think the Italian’s even know that they’re supposed to reduce their speed when they go over them, in the same way that they appear unaware what the white lines in the middle of the road are for  (any Italian’s reading this – they’re not lines that you’re supposed to drive on).

Anyway, Ms Meaty arrived first and she came with me to do some teaching on Tuesday with the little kids (3-5yr olds) which was EXCELLENT timing as I’d all but lost my voice on the Monday shouting at children (shouting + cold = rapid voice deterioration) which for Ms Meaty meant the start of her blossoming singing and dancing career. So, I played “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” on the guitar whilst she sang, danced and trained the troupes to do the same. We have a Christmas play to do on the 13th December. It’s a shame that Ms Meaty wont be here 😦  By the end of it, she was shouting at them in Italian like a pro.

It was a fairly relaxed week and we spent Thursday doing “Sue’s Favourite Places Tour” where we learnt that the angels didn’t really fly what I thought was Mary’s house from Palestine to Loreto but only flew the bricks. There’s a massive marble surround that was in fact built there after to protect it… Fortunate really, as if it was there to begin with, I imagine health and safety regulations for flying such an unwieldy heavy object would have impeded the angel’s progress.

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Mary’s Marble Surround. The original brick walls for her house are inside.

Alas, by Friday, Ms Meaty had contracted the man-flu strain of my cold which I felt horrible about (but on the plus side, a problem shared is a problem halved and mine felt a LOT better).

In a whirlwind change of guests, I was sad to drop Ms Meaty off at the airport but pleased to pick up Jackie and Pete. We had a lovely dinner in Camerano (Bar Maffy) where I think we probably decided that my Italian/English translations when it comes to meat produce could probably do with more work. Surprisingly, Jackie STILL decided to have the Raw Pig Butt Pasta.

Then we headed to see a band that I felt sure would be cancelled because it was raining. However, they were playing under the Comune in a very atmospheric, er… cellar I think it is.  I was pleased about that – makes Camerano look a bit more hip and happening than it usually is.

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All very talented musicians but I must say, the bass player’s hair was a distraction. So silky smooth and flowing. I wonder where he buys his conditioner. The conditioner here seems to require something akin to acid to rinse out. Since coming here, my hair can happily stay in whatever position I put it in.

I included Osimo in the “Sue’s Favourite Places Tour” the following day which was good as I’d only been there once before.

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The statues here do not have heads. The Osimo inhabitants are thus called “without head” apparently. Poor inhabitants.

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You can take a little railway from some of the parking at the bottom to the town at the top. Cute 🙂

The following day we found a Chocolate Festival in Ancona and did a bit of sightseeing.

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MMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Teaching Traumas Continued…

I haven’t made any children cry yet this week. I feel like I’ve let myself down. I did almost give them an impromptu lesson in English angry swear words after the squillienth time of telling them to “sit down please” and to stop hitting classmates. I exercised patience I think previously unbeknownst to mankind. I should really get a medal.

Anyway, let me tell you about school children here. They are OBSESSED with One Direction.  They ask me if I like them and because they use the correct English I reward them with a “yes, I like One Direction” but then alas, they ask me more questions like “What is your favourite one?” to which, I have no idea but vaguely remember that one is called Dane so go with that. It turns out Dane is not a member of One Direction. I should do some One Direction research to bond with the kiddies.

I’ve taught all the school children that felt tip pens are called felptip pens. They’ve written it in their exercise books and everything. I thought it was! I’ve been saying felptip pens for years!  Admittedly, I should have seen that one coming. I don’t know what felp even is, let alone what a tip of felp might look like. Next week I’ll tell them they’ve all made mistakes and they should really pay better attention when I write things on the board in future. I wonder if they have detention here.

In other teaching news, I’ll never be able to go out anywhere again without seeing children I now know – at the cinema the other day I think there was about 5 I saw. Admittedly, we’d gone to see Despicable Me 2. Perhaps I’ll have to start getting into the horror genre.

What’s a bit odd

Often offices don’t have a house/building number – ok, that is sometimes the case in the UK as well. So you think “Fine, FINE, I suppose I’ll just drive up and down the road and hopefully something will indicate where I’m supposed to be”. Maybe the postcode will help? No no, there will be no postcode. So you try and find the road in the Sat Nav. This is where the next challenge lies: the address you’re trying to find will invariably look something like this: “Via D. Mizoni”. Sometimes Sat Nav makes a point of making you put “via” in and sometimes it doesn’t. In fact, the only common factor I’ve found is that it’s whatever you’ve not tried first. And what on earth do you do with a full stop after D?! You try and put the full stop in after D but of course, there’s nothing – it’s an initial for something. It doesn’t work without the full stop. “Minzoni” on it’s own doesn’t work. So what to do? Is there a way of finding out what the D stands for? No. No there is not. The Italians, not even on their road signs, maps, formal addresses, “how to find us” sections on websites will include the full name of their road. People here must be born with this knowledge of road names. So, imagining you’ve been in Italy long enough to notice that there appear to be hundreds of Via and Piazza Don Minzoni’s within the area, you might try that. Success! But not for long. Then it asks the town, which is a challenge in itself because it could be any town within a 5 km area and then, because there ARE so many Via D. Minzoni’s, it could be any one of a dozen roads. My advice? Allow at least 3 hours to just locate the address on Sat Nav before even attempting your trip!!!

Right, I think that’s all of my ranting done today. Hope you’re all having an excellent Monday.

x

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Teaching (again…), roasts and liquor…

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Sue

Ciao!

Well, this week, hot off the press I bring you teaching traumas, slightly inadequate roast dinners in Italy and Corbezzoli…

Teaching

I think I may have to set up an anonymous blog about teaching.  I think all I should say is that this week had challenging moments involving full on screaming fits, tears and temper tantrums. And don’t even get me started on the kids…

A couple of the students don’t like it because I speak in English – it being an English class and all (to be honest, they’ve probably more chance understanding my English than my Italian anyway).  Anyway, all my Italian classes where I’ve been trying to learn the insanely complex Italian grammar have been only in Italian and I’m surrounded everyday by people speaking Italian at the speed of light. I’ve understood barely nothing for 7 months. My lessons on the other hand are in very slow, basic English with pictures, songs, games and miming. So, I have no sympathy. I’ve prepared a speech for next week, in Italian, to explain to them how if they understood what I was saying, they wouldn’t need lessons and to stop being so whiney when I eliminate them from “Simon Says…”.

I’ve been taking the guitar in again – they like the hello and goodbye song. I had a request from the infant school to teach the kids a Christmas song. Only, they still haven’t grasped the Hello Song and it only has 8 words in it. There are no Christmas songs with less than 8 words. I’ve had to devise a special version of “We wish you a merry Christmas” but unfortunately this means I need to be there for their Christmas show so that I can play it on the guitar.

Anyway, despite all that, I’m honestly doing an amazing impression of a competent, understanding and caring teacher who adores children.

Corbezzoli

I’m making liquor! Out of these things called Corbezzoli which I picked with Il Polemico at the weekend in Monte Conero. Out of interest, can you buy 90% alcohol in the UK in the supermarket? I’m sure you can’t. You can here. It seems dangerous. Anyway, I’m glad you can otherwise the liquor would have been a flop.

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Bag of corbezzoli

We need to leave them covered in the alcohol for 40 days and then make some kind of syrup for it.  Yum.

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Corbezzoli up close… I think they’re called strawberry something or other in English.

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These are the corbezzoli being left with alcohol over them. I don’t really have anything other than a saucepan. Do you think I should move them into something glass? I have a big glass wine jar but then I’d need a funnel thing to get it in there or devise one out of something in the kitchen and I’m not sure I can be bothered unless I will actually poison myself by using the saucepan.

Roast dinner

I made my first roast dinner here at the weekend – there’s veggie meat alternatives here just like in the UK but slightly less variety. They’re alright. Nothing to write home about (she says, effectively writing home about them). Italian’s don’t seem to have gravy with is annoying. I need to bring back gravy granuals next time.  I bought this sort of gravy looking thing in a carton but it turns out it was stock, which I then tried to thicken with flour  and well, it just because a sickly looking white soupy goo. And they don’t eat Yorkshire Puddings. And they don’t make roast potatoes like we do. That’s all I have to say on roast dinners in Italy.

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A bit unceremoniously dumped on the plate but there we go. A roast dinner in Italy.

What’s a bit odd?

Olive oil is GREEN when it’s just been pressed!!!! And it tastes LOVELY!!!!!!!!!! It’s like a sort of spicy apple-y delight. Who knew?!?! It’s a completely different species to regular oil. Apparently after a month or so it goes more the traditional colour. I don’t think mine will still be around in a month.

And red wine is FIZZY when it’s just been made!!!!! And it tastes LOVELY!!!!!!!! I can’t provide any more description unless I’m doing my person-knowledgeable-about-wine impression and then I can thrash around “oaky” and “fruity” with the best of them but in reality, I can tell you that it tastes like wine (but a really, really, nice wine). Apparently, it’s very “light” because it’s just been er, pressed/made/done and only has 10% alcohol and then after a bit of  time, erm, something about sugar, means that it’ll become more potent.

Visitors

I have more visitors next week 🙂 The weather is set to be horrible – the area is much less attractive when it’s pouring down and grey. So I really hope the forecasters have made a terrible mistake. At the moment though, there’s a very spectacular thunder and lightning show from my balcony.

Ok, I’m off to analyse CSI subtitles. I’ve had a chance to do some Italian study for the first time in months so I’m pleased about that! At this rate, I estimate in 2040, I’ll be able to understand a whopping 65% of conversation!

x

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Sue’s Favourite Places Tour, Teaching and living rooms…

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Sue

Ciao a tutti!

Well this week has been a roller-coaster of ups and downs!

Parents

Mum and Dad came out last Friday for a week to see where I live 🙂 It was lovely to show them around all the things I’ve been talking about for so long. Hopefully they liked it (more than France which they keep going on about ;-)) – we pretty much did the “Sue’s Favourite Places Tour” as well as some new stuff I hadn’t had a chance to do before.

The “Sue’s Favourite Places Tour” took us to (Please Note: If you’re coming to visit me – perhaps skip past this section to maintain an air of mystery):

  • San Michele beach
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Lots of fisherman there at this time of year…

  • Sirollo (pretty village by the sea)
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Pretty street overlooking the countryside in Sirollo

  • Numana (another pretty village by the sea)
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View towards Monte Conero from Numana

  • Marcelli (another village by the sea…. there was a theme that day. Anyway, Marcelli only featured because one of the schools is there)
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View from Marcelli towards Monte Conero. One can never have too many pictures of views towards Monte Conero eh?

  • Camerano’s Cemetery (I know this is an odd thing to have on a favourite places list but I think it’s great! And we timed it brilliantly – we went there on their day of the dead which is an excellent time to go – it’s full of people and it’s got a bit of atmosphere about it!)
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Pretty graves. When you die, you’re put into a wall here… no rotting away being eaten by bugs… Well, I didn’t see any evidence of that anyway. Hmm – this photo isn’t in focus.

  • Portonovo (lovely little coastal beach area)
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Pretty bay. Towards Monte Conero don’t you know…

  • Loreto (the hill top town which hosts Jesus’ mother’s house which was carried there by angels from Palestein. Read about it here)
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Rather poor to average shot of Loreto. Mary’s house is inside the basilica straight ahead. People go around the house on their knees. They’ve worn two large grooves into the marble. They should probably put some sort of cushioning around the house if people insist on doing that – I don’t think it can be healthy for their joints!

  • Frasassi Caves (I’d not actually been there before but it’s been on my list for months – the caves are absolutely huge and incredibly impressive. Definitely a good thing to see. Here’s the website)
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You can’t actually take pictures in the caves – so here’s a picture of the parking lot where you go to get to the caves

  • Monte Murano (mountain just up from Serra San Quirico – all my photo’s have parents in so here’s a picture of a nice sunrise instead)

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    Sunrise from the balcony

  • Offagna (hill top town with a castle)
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Offagna’s lovely castle

  • Castelfidardo (to look at the Accordion Museum which, you’ll never guess, was shut. We did meet a very happy singing man that escorted us there though so that was er, interesting).
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The museum was shut but there was a shop with a lot of accordions… (if you’re coming to visit and you’re worried I’ll try and take you to an accordion museum, don’t worry – this was a one off)

So all very nice. I think I could be a happy tour guide when I grow up. However, all that coincided with…

The Scary Week of Teaching Terror

Which involved teaching… let me see… about 260 children English. It has been stressful. And I’ve started the classes in such a random fashion that I don’t really know who I’ve done what with now. However, I’m now famous (or infamous) in the schools. One of these teaching type websites recommends you start the lesson with a hello song and finish with a goodbye song. I’d found some stuff on youtube.com but there wasn’t internet access in the classes so… I did what any nervous, inexperienced teacher would do and took my guitar in and sang to them. All children in the Marcelli and Numana areas can now sing along to “Hello, how are you?” and “Bye bye, see you again” songs. They are incessantly catchy. I can’t imagine ever having a night’s sleep again without them going round and round my head. Anyway, my reputation proceeded me on the last day and I got a song request even before I introduced myself. It’s a good job my embarrassment threshold is relatively high these days.

My language school that contracted me to the state schools suggested I have lunch with the staff on Wednesday as I’ve got a two hour gap between lessons. “Lunch with the staff” was misleading. It was lunch with children. I was at least 20 meters away from the nearest member of staff. I think I was supposed to be keeping them (the children, not the staff) in order. However, by the time pudding came round, there was a little crowd of children around me and the other teacher had to come to tell them to sit down. I suspect I should have done that.

There was only a couple of er, “difficult” classes so I suppose that’s ok. One teacher said I need to be harder on the kids. I’m not entirely sure how without actually using physical violence. I’ll have to look at the regulations in Italy but I’m pretty sure I can’t do that.

The plus side is that the latest teaching stresses have almost removed my driving stresses! On Monday I actually looked forward to getting in the car.

Living room

I HAVE ONE! Marco changed my old bedroom into a living room a week or so back and now I even have a nice flatscreen tv. WOOHOO 🙂

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Living room plus legs…

Right, I’m supposed to be lesson planning, not blogging. <Sigh>.

I hope you all have wonderful weekends.

Buonanotte!

xxx

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The Fog, PMS and The Trials and Tribulations of Teaching Toddlers

Posted on October 27, 2013 by Sue

Ciao all,

Well, this week, let me tell you…

Work

I had my first English teaching lesson with the 4yr old.  It did not go well. He didn’t want to learn, play or do anything and apart from about 10 minutes, he ignored me for the rest of the hour. The session was going to be split into 4 parts: 1) Sitting-down time, 2) Up-and-about time, 3) Going-to-the-toilet/ Having-a-snack (not at the same time) time and 4) Wind-down-story time.  I had a Box Of Fun which had different activities in which he could pick for the first two parts – but he just went through them all like this: “nope, I don’t want to do that” (in Italian) and cast them all to one side. He didn’t even know what they were and wouldn’t let me explain!

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Box of Fun. See – how exciting does that look?! EXCITING!!!

Having-a-Snack Time didn’t materialise. He wasn’t interested in the story. When we hit on a successful activity, it lasted 2 minutes before he wanted to do something else. THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH ACTIVITIES TO OCCUPY THIS BOY FOR AN HOUR. I phoned the mum up after and she said sometimes it was difficult to keep the attention of her child. Uh huh. She suggested I should do more drawing activities next week – “NEXT WEEK?! You want ANOTHER lesson?!” I said. Next week I’ll have to bring along some more activities (and a hip flask). I wonder if there’s a local teaching support group where all the teachers can meet up in a room and cry.

The next lot of lessons start on the 4th November with the schools – I’m working Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. They start from nursery school age (what’s that? 4 as well? God help me). There’ll be 26 of them. Marco wants me to work at the school here too. It’s all a bit like a full-time job this teaching malarkey – particularly given the length of time it takes me to prepare stuff. The work situation for a lot of people here is dire so I know I’ve been very fortunate and I’m honestly very grateful, but I didn’t want a proper full time job! I still have sleeping to catch up on from the last decade of working and I wanted to do more in the way of drawing and painting. I just seem to have fallen into it all. Anyway, my revised plan is to teach until the end of the school year – get materials, get experience and then give up next year and then I can do the occasional private lesson but this time with a modicum of experience behind me. At least it’s a way of making a dent in the car breakdown expenses!

Driving

I’ve been driving every day now. The number of Near Death Experiences has thankfully diminished (because I’ve narrowed down my driving times to when the psychos are at work). Today’s NDE was due to a crazy Italian flying down a hill who didn’t look to see if there was someone coming along the main road (I was) before veering onto it at 90 mph. Even though it was my right of way, he glared at me angrily in that 10th of a second it took for him to swerve around the corner. So that’s a classic example of one of my NDEs: nothing to do with me at all. Talk about defensive driving – I spend the entire time looking out for enemy attacks and ambushes. It would be more relaxing driving in a known land mine area. It’s odd – you’d think I’d be more confident…I spend the entire time driving saying positive “I am right” affirmations (to remind me to drive on the right!) 😉

Swimming

I tried to go swimming this week. There are two “local” pools. This week I went to the more local one which turns out is disgusting – in fact, the pool could be lovely for all I know but the car park looked positively derelict apart from creepy men staring at me and the changing rooms which were in the reception area were ghastly looking. I walked back out again. I’m going to go to the less nasty looking pool next week but it’s a bit further away. More NDE-exposure time <sigh>.

Visits from home!

My parents are here next week so I’m excited about that! I’ve been compiling a list of things to see and do:

Towns/ Villages:

  • Ancona
  • Marcelli (selected on the basis that one of my school’s is there, I suspect it might be dead during the winter but it would make for a nice coastal walk!)
  • Numana
  • Sirollo
  • Osimo
  • Loreto
  • Jesi

Walks

  • Around Camerano
  • Around Monte Conero – Passo del Lupo
  • Fiaba di Fiastra
  • San Quirico

Stuff to do if it rains

  • Frassasi Caves
  • Camerano Caves
  • Auchan! Oh yeah…
  • Camerano Commercial Centre

Anybody else have any ideas?

I’ve more visitors coming this month too. People – bring your own entertainment otherwise you’ll be watching CSI Miami in Italian (I really dislike CSI Miami compared to CSI New York – the main guy spends the whole time looking at his feet and then looking up in a dramatic fashion at whoever he’s talking to and then he walks off. No-one can be THAT dramatic ALL of the time. Irritating).

Walk

What else? I went for a walk round the local countryside and now have blisters from wearing my proper walking shoes (as opposed to flipflops which are fine (my feet were not designed for shoes). With Autumn here, all the sunflowers have been harvested and the fields are being ploughed.  It looks positively sparse!

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I had a race to get around the circuit before the sun completely disappeared. I have had now several confusing conversations with Italians about “the dark”. “Buio” (dark) and “buoi” (cows) are pretty much the same word eh?! Anyway, turns out I told my Italian friend that I needed to get back home before the cow came.

I went on another walk with Il Polemico yesterday too around Monte Conero up a path to the old monastery at the top. It was a gorgeous sunny day. Probably. If we could have seen any of it above the fog. As it was, it was very creepy! Monte Conero is pretty much covered in woodland. The fog meant all the spider webs were glistening with dew. Creepily beautiful.

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The entire forest was covered in these! It was like walking through an Indiana Jones set.

Fog has definitely been a bit of a theme lately – every evening it rolls in around 8 or 9pm and stays until midday.

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The Fog

Bureaucracy

I went to the Agenzia Entrata this week and managed to get a new codice fiscale number with my middle name now on – it seems to have placated the Comune so that’s good. I still don’t know what I’ve succeeded in doing.  There doesn’t seem to be anything else bureaucratic to do at the moment so er, that’s good / probably a lie.

Extracurricular activities

I’ve been doing a bit of painting/drawing which has been good. I bought an easel online back in the UK but it didn’t arrive in time so have to wait for that until Christmas when I can bring it back. It took me years to work out that if you paint on a horizontal surface, it skews your perspective. At least, that’s what I tell myself. 😉

What’s a bit odd?

Ladies!!!! It’s nothing to be ashamed of, no need to try and hide it anymore – take inspiration from this graffiti tagger and be PROUD…

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One of my friend’s theory is that there might be a “crew” called PMS. I know a few people that could be in that crew…

Ciao x

ps – WIFI IS BACK – HOORAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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