Pie and Potential Visits

Over the past three weeks, there has been a lot of STUFF going on around here; the main thing being that I now live alone. A while back, Marine told me she couldn't afford to pay the rent any more (I was a bit sceptical, as she earns the same amount as me each month, but then I factored in my student loan and Erasmus grant, which she doesn't get, and suddenly it made sense), and she was looking for a cheaper place to live. Claudia and I managed to talk her out of moving to Salerno or Naples, partly because of the commute, but mostly because finding a cheaper place to live was the modus operandi, and if she moved to a bigger city then it just wasn't going to happen.

The thing was, she stopped mentioning moving out, so I figured she'd organised something and was staying with me. Out of the blue, about two days before she packed up and left, she informed me that she would be moving about an hour's train ride away to stay with a family she knew, and that I would be by myself from that moment on. Don't get me wrong, Marine is really nice, but I must say I felt a bit relieved at the prospect. I prefer living alone to living with really messy flatmates...

Anyway, she left, I pushed the two single beds together, and I've already had a comment from my landlord saying how much tidier the kitchen is now that the rubbish goes out when it's supposed to. Claudia is inviting me over much more frequently for lunch now - she doesn't like me being by myself, but I'm not complaining, as she's a brilliant cook. 

She invited me over for what can only be described as an EPIC lasagne (including mozzarella, ricotta, and tiny meatballs instead of mince) for Carnevale a couple of Sundays ago, and again on Pancake Day so I could make an enormous stack of pancakes. Unfortunately, I had planned to make them with Simone, and he ended up going to a party in the afternoon, so I went home and made them by myself. We ended up making a big stack them on Valentine's Day instead, and since he's been asking me to make them again ever since, I must be doing something right.

Work hasn't changed much, besides the fact that three of my colleagues now occasionally sit in on my lessons so they can improve their English, which took a bit of getting used to at first. I've been utilising Horrible Histories again for my older classes, as well as working through a playscript of Cinderella with some of my second-years, which is interesting to say the least, especially when we listen to the overly dramatic voices on the audio version! I've also been working on my reports that are due in in June, and would still be if I hadn't accidentally decapitated my USB on Wednesday, and had to buy a new one yesterday. Silly me decided not to back up her files, so I've lost all the stories that I've been dipping in-and-out of for the past three years, all my previous uni work, my poems, music, teaching resources, and my plans for the aforementioned reports! Even if they can be salvaged, I am not going to try and get it fixed while I'm here, but thankfully I could recreate some of the stuff, I wrote my report plans down on paper before I typed them up, and I can go on the Royal Holloway Moodle site and download the guidelines again so I know what to include and how to lay it out. Not a total loss, but a very annoying and inconvenient thing to happen.

Other news includes the addition of Friday  Pieday to my weekly activities - James and  I have come up with a little contest, mainly  to practise our baking skills, but also for a  bit of friendly rivalry. Each week we will  bake a new pie, one we've never made  before, and the winner is the one who  avoids such pitfalls as soggy bottoms,  unbalanced flavourings, burnt pastry and  leakages, and creates an all-round tasty and  nice-to-look-at pie. Last week, it was a  sort-of draw; my pie had a soggy bottom,  although the filling was yummy, but James did not provide photographic evidence of his pie, so we decided to redo the first round this week. It's a delicate business :P I've already created mine, a lattice-topped apple pie, and James has yet to finish his thanks to an out-of-date eggs issue.

Also, very exciting stuff, hopefully in a few weeks James will be coming to see me! We're planning to do lots of tourist-y things, and I've postponed my creation of 'An English Dinner' for Claudia's family until he gets here, so we can do it together. Scallops (if we can find them), followed by beef wellington, and lemon meringue pie - I actually bought the beef fillet the other day after a visit to a local butcher and a bit of a lost-in-translation moment, but I managed to get a kilo for €14.50, which was a lot cheaper than I thought it would be!

One week today, my brother Gary will be coming to see me too, which I'm really looking forward to (and not just because he'll be bringing me the jacket I ordered from Joe Browns a little while ago)! Hopefully the weather will have improved by then, as after a couple of days of crisp spring sunshine, it's gone downhill into the land of rainstorms and chills once again. Thankfully, my boiler is still working, although if it continues to be as temperamental as it has been in the past, that may not be the case for much longer! 

Until next time (probably March, unless something worth writing about happens between then and now)! 

This Week, I 'Ave Mostly Been Drinking Lemsip

So this week was fun, in an Oh-God-I-Can't-Breathe kind of way. It's flu season in Italy, and Giovanni had it last week, so this week it appeared to be my turn. I woke up on Monday with a thumping headache and a throat that felt like it had been vacuum-sealed, so there was no going to work for a few days. I've been living off a diet of Lemsip, soup and the occasional sandwich or piece of fruit, sleeping like the proverbial log, and keeping myself amused by inventing recipes and watching Disney films or Star Wars, depending on my mood. 

Thankfully, though, I am now mostly well again except for the odd sniffle, so I went back to work today and did a fun lesson about the Kings and Queens of England, culminating in having my class sing the Horrible Histories Kings and Queens song.

In other news, we've got our window shutter fixed, after nearly three months of not having one on the kitchen window. Thanks to the torrential downpours and ferocious winds of October/November, it got completely broken - the bolt snapped through the frame - and while we managed to eventually close it, the window-men just took the whole thing away and left us with the fishbowl effect in our kitchen.

I may appreciate having a nice whole window-frame once again and the ability to keep my cookery exploits and kitchen dancing private if I so wish, but I did NOT enjoy the forty minutes of hammering, drilling, and shouted Italian conversation yesterday afternoon, while it was being repaired and I was trying to snooze. 

And now for something completely different. Last Friday at Claudia's, after I'd done my usual lesson with a grumpy and tired Simone, Marine made us all an authentic French dinner, which included foie gras (I'd never had this before, and while I'm not sure if I'd like it on it's own, when served on a cracker with some red onion chutney it's delicious), cheese fondue (which wasn't quite thick enough and so was more like cheese sauce, but it was very tasty), strange grey crepes full of salmon and bacon, and tarte tatin. Upside-down puddings are some of my favourite things - well, puddings in general are some of my favourite things - so this last one was definitely well-received by yours truly. 

It was a really nice evening, with the nine of us - Claudia, Giovanni, Marine, Simone, Fabiana (Claudia's daughter), Fabiana's boyfriend (whose name escapes me), Giovanni's brother (whose name also escapes me), his fiancée Valeria, and myself - sat around the big dining table, talking and laughing and drinking homemade red wine, making jokes, and on more than one occasion having to fish for pieces of bread in the fondue. 

Anyway, the result of this, me being a bit tipsy after three glasses of champagne, was my suggestion that I do the same thing, only with English food. So now I have to organise a three-course meal for nine people, the largest number I've ever cooked for. Nice challenge!

That's pretty much the only interesting stuff that's happened to me over the last month, to be honest. However, now it's February, there is Pancake Day to look forward to on the 12th, and on March 1st my brother is coming to see me! Exciting stuff.

Until next time, my (hopefully) avid readers! 

Flying, Buns, And Things To Be Done

Things I like about flying:

• The moment of happiness when your suitcase is under 23kg and you don't need to pay a ridiculous amount of money for the extra weight
• Walking through the metal detector at security and not setting it off, then feeling slightly smug when the person behind you in the queue gets searched
• Finding fun ways to kill time before boarding, such as buying a bottle of Jack Daniels, two new books and a box of jelly beans in the Duty Free, and splashing out on some nice make-up in Boots
• Having lunch at Yo!Sushi for the second time ever, feeling sophisticated while you eat your cucumber maki and duck gyoza, and watching people walk up to the restaurant and peer at you like they think you're someone important and they're trying to figure out who
• Sitting in a row of two people with an empty seat between you, so you can both use the middle drop-down tray as a little table for your sandwiches, and bonding with them over criticising the quality of aeroplane sandwiches
• Getting off the plane and walking through arrivals to see a nice man from the car company with my name on a card, and not having to worry about how I'm going to finish my journey

Things I don't like about flying:

• Sitting on the train on the way to airport with your suitcase hidden from view behind you, so you have to keep bobbing up and down in your seat to make sure it's still there
• Getting glared at by the man who was inexplicably standing still in front of you, while you were trying to get out of the lift before it went back down again, because you accidentally hit his ankle with your suitcase
• The period of time when you're waiting for your gate number to appear on the noticeboard, and you can't concentrate on the book you're trying to read because you keep glancing up every ten seconds
• Queueing to get on the plane, surrounded by Italians complaining loudly about having to wait
• Listening to music while you read on the plane, and so not hearing the announcement that they're going to turn the lights off, and being annoyed after suddenly being plunged into darkness in the middle of a climactic chapter
• Having the jelly beans you bought spill out in the boot of the car that picked you up, and while you're apologising profusely to the really nice driver, you're secretly annoyed that you won't have any more jelly beans to eat

So yeah, that pretty much sums up my journey back. But the actual Christmas break was great! James didn't suspect a thing about my Surprise Girlfriend plan (ie telling him I'd be home a day later than it actually happened, and surprising him by appearing at his house when he thought I was on a plane), and we had some amazing days together in-between seeing the family and eating too much chocolate. 

Christmas Day was lots of fun; Mum's turkey dinner was a triumph of deliciousness, Dad had a classy moment with a cigar and a brandy, and Gary and I tried to put a Santa coat on one of the cats and failed miserably. Among other things, I got Paul Hollywood's How to Bake, a biography of Julia Child which I've wanted for months (although unfortunately I couldn't bring either of the books with me, as they were too heavy), an incredibly fluffy jumper, P!nk's latest album, and a cupcake-patterned onesie. Now, I used to think onesies were silly, but having tried it out I have to recommend them as a lovely warm snuggly bodysuit, which comes in handy when your house is as cold as mine, and because you can get some that look like superhero outfits, which is just cool anyway.

Thursday just gone, James and I christened How to Bake by creating Christmas buns - a first for both of us, but they went really well! Here is a photo:

Either I'm going to get Mum to post me the book, or she'll scan recipes and email them to me - either way, there are going to be quite a few baking exploits during the remainder of my time here! 

I have lots of things I want/need to do before I leave; wants include climbing Mt Vesuvius, visiting Naples and Sorrento, and taking a boat across to Capri once the weather is warmer. Needs include two reports I have to write in order to pass my third year, planning lessons for my official students and Simone, and directing a play with one of my classes. I have yet to think of what the play is going to be, but it must be shortish, simple, and English. I asked them to try and think of something too, so we shall see.

Anyway, that's me ringing in the New Year via the medium of blog. I'll update soon, or try to at least! Meantime,