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Buona sera!

Well. Let me tell you… It’s all change here.

Year of Fun: The plan has been a little revised! “Scope creep” I hear you cry. Well, yes. I hate scope creep. And who doesn’t? Plans are there to be rigidly followed after all 🙂 However, the change has been duly considered by the Project Sponsor (er, me), the risks assessed and the Project Assurance Team (Mum and Dad) consulted and well, the decision has been made to go forth and prepare a full Business Case for….. <insert drum roll here>….a Mediterranean sailing extravaganza starting in April 2013 and potentially lasting 6 months to a year. So, still sort of an Italian Plan, but probably also a bit of a Greece Plan and a Spain Plan and a South of France Plan too.

The rationale is as follows: once I’m committed to paying rent (in my Italian house hunt), and then later when I’ve bought a house and I’m committed to raising my flock of chickens, herd of goats (perhaps not a herd as such but you get the gist) etc. it’s going to be difficult for me to find an opportunity to do anything like this. So, whilst I can, it seems a wise move to do things I’ve always had a vague notion of doing at some point, well, next year.

Sailing has been something I’ve fancied doing for years but never got around to. Have a look at this boat: Beneteau Oceanis 34 (http://www.beneteau.com/Sailing-Yachts/Oceanis/Oceanis-34_ – isn’t it lovely?!?!?!

So – this weekend will be one of investigation. I’m going to investigate Competent Crew and Day Skipper courses and look at doing some crewing.

Perhaps depending upon my prowess as a skipper, I could take people out on trips or holidays. It doesn’t seem a bad life eh?

Electrician – trying to get this guy to commit to a date for me to give him money to put in a fan and radiator in my bathroom is like trying to draw blood out of a stone. You’d think I was asking him for a date for him to come around for me to cut all his digits off with a rusty saw. Mid October at the moment. I believe I’m able to insert a “poll” into word press – I’m tempted to take bets on whether people will think it will happen. I vote no.

Italian – Sonia, my teacher, has been away so Italian has been woefully slow but for any language learners out there, I suggest you write a diary in your new language. It helps!

Courses – Well, Contemporary Basketry has commenced – in fact, 3 weeks ago. And for the last 2 weeks I’ve not been able to go because of one thing or another so I’m horribly behind already. I still have high hopes for my becoming a rich and famous basket weaving extraordinaire though. And Wednesday’s are now Self Defense class for 5 weeks though whether I manage to keep that up, I don’t know. It’s a badly run class. There’s a Nail Art class (finger/toe nails rather than anything artistic with actual nails) next weekend so that’ll be interesting too.

Anyway, I’ll leave it there – I don’t want to overload you all with excitement.

Sogni d’oro!

x

Buona sera!

Well… What a slow couple of weeks! My productivity appears to be getting worse and worse. Still, I’ll have a stab at making it sound productive none the less – here goes:

Furbo il Signor Volpe – I bought the Italian version of Fantastic Mr Fox second hand when I was in Italy for the cruise earlier this year. I read the first couple of chapters on holiday but I was getting bogged down checking the dictionary every other word. However, I decided to ban myself from using the dictionary in the interests of actually reading the thing rather than analysing it! Quite liberating really. I’m pleased to say, even if I didn’t know the story and even without Quentin Blake’s wonderful pictures, I think I would have got a relatively reasonable understanding of the story. What’s helping is my recent work on the past, present, imperfect and whatever tenses…  You can’t look these words up in the dictionary (well not mine at least – you need to have worked out what the “infinitive” version of the verb is which isn’t always easy and then you just need to inherently/rote know how the verbs are all conjugated). I’ve been trying to teach Lee (Lee is a fabricated name. It doesn’t sound very glamorous, does it? I think I’ll go for Fabrizio in future, though I’m not if that’s a real name) the verb endings with I think some ground breaking and novel ways of remembering them. I’ll have to write them down sometime. Anyway, this whole grammar thing really does make it a million times easier to know who’s doing what and when. I also did a bit of studying on “pronouns” the other day – I’m finding them almost as impossible as the “past tense” vs “imperfect” conundrum.

Italian – in other Italian news, I’ll be around er, Fabrizio’s family’s place on Saturday. His Italian uncle will be there so will attempt to get some practice in.

Electrician – let me tell you how my “test” went… I heard NOTHING. I relented last Friday and emailed him to ask if he was still interested and yes, yes, he assured me, he’ll get back to me today. Today! Pah! It’ll be a week tomorrow and I’ve still not heard. DESPITE emailing him AGAIN yesterday to ask him AGAIN whether he’s still interested. I might start an offshoot manifesto blog that outlines in detail what I will do with tradesmen when I become Prime Minister.

Inland Revenue – HMRC’s website is actually quite useful for tax bits & pieces. I mean, I know that should probably have been obvious but well, I was expecting it all to be completely confusing. It’s not. It’s just mind-numbingly dull so I’ll read it properly and précis it on a separate page at some point. http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cnr/faqs_general.htm#7

Trapeze – I missed my final trapeze class tonight. There was only 3 of them! Alas, I was motivationally challenged this evening and anyway, I don’t feel like I shall end up a world famous trapezist to fund my Italian plan so I shan’t be updating the Grand Plan on this occasion. However, Contemporary Basketry is booked. Rock ‘n roll.

I think that about sums things up, so until next time…

Sogni d’oro,

x

Ciao!

Long time no write – mi dispiace (I’m sorry)! No excuse, I’d been waiting until I had something productive to report but alas, no productivity has happened and everything’s been boringly mundane.

A brief summary – I’ve been looking at courses. I want to do something that could furnish me with an essential skill for Italy. So, I’ve pretty much decided on Contemporary Basketry for Beginners and Improvers 🙂 Morley College, is simply the best college of all time. There’s nothing it doesn’t do (apart from er, Blacksmithing and Stained Glass).

Let me tell you about my bathroom. The electrician came and after a week and a bit, and much prompting, provided a quote for putting a radiator and fan in the bathroom. I’ve asked for a different type of radiator. I’m not going to chase. I’m testing him to see how long it’ll take him to reply (though if I stick to such stringent criteria as “must want business without constant hounding” I’ll be radiatorless and fanless).

Had my Italian lesson today. I cannot get my head around when to use past participles and imperfect something or others in Italian. To learn foreign languages, I’ve discovered it’s enormously helpful to know grammar in English first, and also, I would say it’s imperative not to have a memory like a sieve. My tutor gives me exercises where I need to choose which one to use – “il passato prossimo or imperfetto?” she asks. I would get more right if I solely plumped for one of them when completing the exercises. As it is, my random guesses result in me getting it wrong almost 100% of the time. And no, I cannot just reverse my guessing logic. There is none, it’s just exceptionally bad luck. I’ve bought another grammar book – “Italian Grammar – a Clear New Approach”. Italian book and duvet cover purchasing always make me feel better. Perhaps that will help. Though I think shortly, I will have exhausted the entirety of Italian learning books, be forced into buying duplicates and still have not the foggiest clue of when to use what when!

Right, that’s enough babbling. Soon, I hope to have useful information about moving to Italy 🙂

Sogni d’oro!

x

Ciao miei amici!

I’ve got a new thing for the Grand Plan – henna parties! I did a 4 hour henna course today with Tiba Training. Had a great time and it was really interesting. Harder than I thought it would be. I quite fancy doing something similar – I need a bit more practice though (any volunteers?!). See below for my attempt at my own hand!

Sogni d’oro!

x

Ciao!

Back in the country! Had a lovely time in Italy and have written an epic blog post. Alas, much of it is inane drivel (more so than usual!) and requires extensive editing before I put it up here. Meanwhile, listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvRCFsxZ9K8 a song called Tu Mi Porti Su (You Lift Me Up) by Giorgia featuring Jovanotti. Great little song and in fact, it’s on a good album. Good for the Italian practice!

Right, there should be more posts to follow in the next few days and I’ll tell you about the Italian trip.

Ciao and sogni d’oro!

xxx

Ciao i miei amici!

Greetings all… So. Let me tell you about this week. There has been vague bits of progress. Specifically:

• Estate agents. Estate Agents came around on Saturday to see the flat and she said “it is a lovely flat” (woohoo!). She also said I’d be able to rent it out for more than I thought I could. Obviously that might not materialise in practice but it’s nice to have that as a starting point. I’m still not convinced going through an Estate Agent is the way to go! I think I’d still want to see the tenants and check references myself and I have a couple of example contracts so I think I could do it the same as/if not better than an Estate Agent that doesn’t have as much of a vested interested in my property. Going forward if I’m not in the country yes, it might be the way forward but actually it’s quite a big chunk of my monthly income that would go on this “letting” component. If there was some kind of come-back if they get in lame tenants that don’t pay, then I’d consider it but no, there’s not. The Estate Agent said they could just do the “management component” which might be worthwhile. The advertising component might be an issue but I could try www.gumtree.com and www.moveflat.com. If I don’t have any success then I suppose I could then go through an Estate Agent. Yes, think that will be my plan!
• Bathroom – the dreaded bathroom, yes! I’m getting an electrician in tonight to give me a quote on getting a ventilation fan and a heated radiator into the bathroom in order to make it rentable. <Later update – Oh how naive I am – why am I constantly surprised? I keep thinking, and I know this is ridiculous, I keep thinking that these tradesmen will turn up when they say they will.  Fancy! Are there ANY Tradesmen that turn up a) at all, b) on time and/or c) that let you know that they’re late or just not turning up?! Any? Far from getting quotes from a bunch of businesses, at this rate, I would settle for any person that turned up with a spanner>.
• Spring (Summer?!) cleaning – I’ve been going through all my belongings asking myself the question “could I leave this in the flat and if not, would I take it with me to Italy?” which is good for de-cluttering! I think by the end of it, I’ll have a list of things that I will need to ebay next year before I move.
• Italy – Flying out to Perugia on Thursday so this will be my last update for a week or so. Might do a vague bit of investigating around the local area but in general, I could just do with some time off! I can’t wait 🙂

Right, off to walk Angus the Boring Dog. The electrician has missed his chance.

Ciao!

xxx

Ciao!

Not much to report – I’ve added a couple of pages, one based on the last blog and the other includes some research on healthcare in Italy.

Other news – had a great time camping and it only bucketed down for half an hour 🙂

Righto – shattered so signing out for now.

Sogni d’oro,

x