Sunday, too far away (Roma)

So, Gentle Readers, we're home.  We had a good flight from Rome to Hong Kong, and a great flight from Hong Kong to Sydney, especially after the 10 hour sleepover we had had in Hong Kong, which made a huge difference to our jetlag status - that is, none.

These photos were taken at various points over the holiday - the first one is a bunch of guys we came across round the corner from where we stayed the second time we holidayed in Rome - when we were there, this was a single table & two very dishevelled looking guys - now it's a whole community of, interestingly, only men.  The guy in the maroon scarf had a minder sitting on the scooter to the right, and was eyeing me as I was taking the pictures.  I didn't get too close.

This little number was by some guy called Michaelangelo.  He has a bit of a future, I think.

Part of the recovered items from the Roman Forum - absolutely gorgeous.

I didn't buy any fabric.  Can you believe that?  However, I did buy:

• Red handbag #7 (gift for my lovely Ma)
• Red handbag #8
• Mystery gift for MGF Kaz
• Red wallet
• Several leather key rings, from a fabulous shop where they were actually sewing the items on the premises, with the industrial sewing machine set up right there in the shop - my question "Fatto in casa?" was given an emphatic answer, "no, fatto qui!"
• A very cute little red leather coin purse (yes, for me)
• Some cosmetic specials for my SIL's
• A gorgeous set of three Furla leather pouches and keyring for my lovely MIL
• A red (yes, yes, I know) Furla keyring for me
• A beautiful surprise for Miss Nelly (because I know she reads this)
• A leather wallet and an ipod case for Master H
• Some fantastic handmade writing paper embossed with the letter 'D'
• Mini-calendars for 2013 for my team
• Absolutely no Pope fridge magnets - not one to be found in Rome.  And yes, I did look.

It's nice to be home.  

Ciao!

Catching up with me, catching up with you...

My poor, loyal Gentle Readers.  I feel very bad that I've hardly posted at all in the past month, but the up- and downness of the internet has a lot to do with it.  It still isn't fixed, because we went to Perth for what was supposed to be five days, but ended up being six, as our fixation with volcanic ash flared up again, and stranded us.  And what has that to do with the router? Well, unless you keep on the case, the provider closes the ticket, and we have to start all over again.


I don't know whether to ramble on about being sick again, or the joys of dealing with Qantas - perhaps we'll start with the illness.  The sore throat turned into a chest infection, which I just left alone because, well, I'd already been to the doctor, hadn't I?  and I wasn't going to go again, because that would make me a hypochondriac, right?  Well, no.  I suffered on with great lumps of slime and a terrible cough that kept us both awake for about 10 days, nearly driving poor Mr Golightly to uxoricide.  Look it up, I had to!


Then, just when I was over it, we had to deal with linters, at upholstery school.  It's cotton fibre, not very far removed from the cotton boll, and so quite unrefined, and very dusty.  I started sneezing, and the next day I had a full blown sinus infection.  Co-incidence?  Maybe.  I don't attribute any significance to the chain of events, but rather, I'm blaming Miss Badhair, who has been really sick all term but insists on coming to class and giving it to us.


Anyway, the sinus infection (also unrelieved by a visit to the Doctor) came with me to Perth, home again, and is just fading into insignificance, thank the Ghoddess.  It made a significant contribution to my fading desire to blog, in that I was so tired I'd be falling into bed at 8.30pm, when normally I might spend an hour or so perusing my bloglist & composing endless witticisms to delight you all with.  Ahem.


Now, Qantas.  We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to catch our 12.20pm flight.  We checked in.  Mr Golightly printed his bag tag, I stood there looking slightly smug and superior, because I bought an electronic one some time ago with FFP*, (and so no more hard-to-apply bag tags for me), then we dumped our bags on the belt, whisked through check-in and sat down on the incredibly uncomfortable chairs they have in Perth airport, to wait.  At 12.40 (note the time...) they announced that our flight was cancelled due to the ash cloud.  Anyway, we had to retrieve our bags, see the staff and then go somewhere else.  We took a cab back to Mum's, and kept a close eye on the website, as instructed.


Well.  Let me just say that the Vatican gives out more info on how to commune with the Devil than Qantas gave out about what do do.  Not only did they say absolutely nothing about how we were going to get home, they didn't even offer up information about how to get our money back.


So, in order to get home, we ended up buying tickets early on Thursday morning at the very reasonable cost of $574.00 each (versus $189 to get there), and hopefully our insurance will cover the difference, after we get our money back.  Apparently we have to go to the Qantas website and beg, nicely, for that to happen.


Anyway, I missed another day of upholstery school, and so I now have to abandon my slipper chair to start on the Club chair, which we need to get to a certain stage before we go into Second year, to make sure we aren't too far behind the students who are already working on theirs.  


I'm going into school on Wednesday (all day and half of the night) to get the slipper chair finished, because there's not that much left to do... blah, blah blah.  You remember the list from the other week?  All that's gone from it is 'cover bottom of the seat with calico' (which I don't even think was on the list), 'put the border on' and 'attach the box and the chair'.  Still a way to go, but I should be able to finish it on Wednesday.  Hopefully.

And here for your delectation is a picture of Miss Caroline's finished chair - absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion.

And that, Gentle Readers, is where I was last week.  I promise more later, after I've crawled out of bed.  And yes, it is 11.43am.  I like to live it up, you know.