Winter or Autumn?

It’s official.

It’s cold.

It has been snowing. A lot. Even if in the city centre where I live it has already melted…

I felt lazy yesterday, so didn’t go to work.
Stayed in bed.
Baked my own Pain d'épices.. uhm.. I love the smell of cinnamon and ginger.

It tastes delicious.. Cold or toasted with goat cheese or with honey or jam… Then I prepared some mulled wine. It was so good.. watching the snow outside and treating myself…

I found the recipe in english, if anyone is interested..

Ingredients
100 g honey
140 g wholemeal flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
10 cl milk
1 egg
40 g butter
65 g soft brown sugar
1 tsp quatre-épices (4-spice powder, usually made of pepper, nutmeg, cloves and cinnamon -- you could substitute ginger for the cloves)

Preheat the oven to 180C. Warm the milk and add the honey, sugar and butter off the heat, stirring well. Put the flour, baking powder and 4-épices in a nixing bowl, make a well in the middle, break the egg into it, and add the milk. Mix well (or just throw the whole lot into a food processor).
Pour into a buttered 23-cm loaf tin and bake for 25 minutes. Lower the heat to 150C and cook for a further 15 minutes. Remove from the tin and cool on a wire rack. Store wrapped in clingfilm to keep it moist.

Italian welfare....

Last week I spent 3 days trying to book an X-ray exam.

There's a kind of hospital just in front from where I work, so at lunch break went there. They told me "no booking in person you must phone reservation centre."

Ok. After 45 minutes of vivaldi's 4 seasons they told me "no dates available till next february. Try this other hospital".

Ok. After 10 minutes of vivaldi's 4 seasons -- again!! - they told me "no machines available here to do this X rays, we do only legs (?????). Try here".

Ok. Ater another 20 minutes and again the 4 season!!!!!!! - always the same part -at least they changed season - they told me "we do it, but no phone reservation, must come here from 8-12".

G-sh... ok.. woke up earlier on friday and wen there.. another 15 minutes queing (luckily no vivaldi in the room ;) and booked if for today.

This morning I went on time... forgot there's general strike today.. doctors are on strike too!
so.. one poor man doing it all.

2 hours later I managed to get this exam done.

Results will be ready in 3 days. Again, I'll have to go there at 8. And it costed me 24 euros..

Firking freeeeeeeeeezing!!

I know it's nothing like Vermont or Alaska.. but it's firking freeeeeeeezing these days!

I drinking a hot chocolate every hour ;)

Wisdoms of Mankind

There is an exceptional open air exhibition these days in one on Milan’s main shopping street.

"Conceived to acclaim the riches of world cultures and show how much they are intertwined and know no barriers, Wisdoms of Mankind associates the images of one of the best known contemporary photographers, Olivier Föllmi, with quotations chosen with great sensibility by Danielle Pons-Föllmi, researcher in human science.

The project brings together thoughts from great world thinkers and extracts from the cultural heritage of different peoples that have been transmitted orally.

Each of the inspirational and generous texts respond to fundamental questions giving a sense about life, family, children, our society and our future."

I loved it.
I love the idea of being struck by this kind of photos while doing your every day shopping.

Some of them are strucking - representing happy and serene people in harsh enviroments like Himalaya or African deserts, showing how spirituality can coexhist with poverty.

Really inspiring.

Early bird...

Today I had to attend a meeting with the CEO at 8.30.
We had to prepare some info, as usual, so with my boss we came here at about 7.15 in order to have some time to do last minute checks, make handouts and set the pc for the presentation.

obviously, we checked every single slide about 10 times... and we didn't see a couple of weird things that the Chairman saw at first look--- that's why he's the Chairman and I'm not ----

Anyway, I woke up at 6.30 and took the tube at 6.50 moreless... I usually leave home at 9ish and get to the office at 9.30 -- I know, I'm always later than anyone else in there, but I love sleeping and waking up for me is a devastating process... I put my alarm clock at 8 and usually "5 minutes more, 5 minutes more" --- it's almost 9.

I have a flexible timetable, anyway, so if I don't have a meeting or so it's ok.

This morning I discovered a real new world.... it was still dark.. I met a set of all different people... a bit more relaxed.. mostly students... less car around...

and, suprise, suprise... I'm not more tired than usual, on the contrary, I feel more energetic than ever....
so, maybe I should try to start my working day a bit earlier.. and finish it a bit earlier too...

But I'm sure I won't manage tomorrow morning ;)

Ideas for a new toilet...

Friends

I've been a bit sad these days... mainly because I spent a lonely weekend.. I was supposed to fly to South Spain for a long weekend but had tons of work to do on Monday and had to give up.

Ricard had already bought his ticket to Barcelona so I stayed here on my own.
I was already in a bad mood because I was looking forward seeing my friend Tania...

then a few people happened to "dump me".. one I was supposed to go to the theatre on saturday night because her married lover phoned her at 7 p.m saying he was unexpectedly free (she's mad about the guy....); another one was down with flu; the third one with an excuse that seemed really made up - I guess she simply wanted to stay with her boyfriend.. she's in the "only you and me exist, who care about the rest of the world" stage..

I know many people here, mostly are what you would call acquaintances, nice people to hang out for a few drinks.. but after the third dumping my bad mood slowly turned into victimism and wanting to stay alone. I

n a way I had a good time. As I commented in another post, I never get bored on my own... I may get sad.. extremely, shamingly and dramatically sad.. but never bored!

I went walking in the park, collected red and yellow leaves, put them to dry and designed a kind of decoration to make on the smaller sitting room wall.
Cooked some delicious salmon and vodka fusilli, a meat carpaccio with rucola and parmigiano and had it with some fresh white wine.
Watched Breakfast at Tiffany and Shakespeare’s in Love (crying even more).
Bought and ate it all some Belgium chocolate icecream (it was so good not having hubby stopping me saying I’ll end up with indigestion—eventually must admit I had horrible nightmares about a huge spoon trying to kill me).
Bought a few books and CD – some weird swedish jazz singer, the gladiator soundtrack and Coldplay.

But I remained in such a bad mood until today.

Today I feel happy –er.

So I decided to refresh my memory with some friends pictures.

Because I do have many good friends. And I do like staying with them.

Just sometimes some days go in the wrong way.

Mum

Today it's been 11 years that my mum died.

She had been diagnostic womb cancer in the previous month of may. Too soon.

She was a great person, good-hearted, optimistic, full of sense of humour... and she loved me and my brother immensly.

She didn't have such a happy life I suppose. Her and my dad's marriage was not happy. I think she never left him because she wanted to protect our stability as children, or maybe because she was scared my dad would go mad and do something crazy, or maybe because deeply in her heart she still loved him.

Unfortunately, I can't ask her anymore. I was 18 at that time. I was still going through my reckless and emotional teenagehood, so I didn't have time to become her friend.

I didn't have time to ask her so many things.

I didn't have time to help her to be happier. Every day I pass in front of a shop and I can't help thinking "She'd love it" and I wish I could give her as a present.

She left a hole in my heart and in my life I will never fulfill.

I missed her so much...

When I finished university and got great results.

When I had my heart seriously broken for the first time.

When I had my first job and my first real money.

When I travelled around the world.

When I got married.

When I bought my first flat.

I simply miss her every moment.

My nephew..

I simply adore him: he just turned 2, he's incredibly curious and seems to absorb all that happens around him, can say many words and little sentences, is always happy and rarely cries, is not afraid of strangers but always welcomes them with great laughs...
I love him so much that sometimes I think that if I'll ever have a child of my own, I can't imagine how it would feel....