Crap!

Shoulda guessed it wouldn't last, shouldn't I?  I've been doing the commute, you know, out to the arse-end of nowhere every day, leaving home at 6.30am, waiting for the bus, getting to the office between 8.00am & 9.00am, and leaving bang on the dot of 4.20pm, because I have to get the bus - ha!  It's been fantastic.  There's a nice man who drives us, seats, warmth, music (yesterday we had one of my favourites, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue) and good conversation with the man next to me who has an uncanny resemblance to Uncle Fester, (but I don't have the heart to ask if he's part of the Addams family...)

Anyway, as part of my punishment for having a holiday (that's a joke, I think!), I've been given oversight on a project which has been running for about a year, has had several project managers, is running massively late, and overbudget, has at least 66 major changes needed to get it into line with what was originally requested, and only two under-resourced and overworked BA's.

So, today, I drove to work, arriving at 7.15am, and left tonight at 7.11pm.  Knew it wouldn't last....

Oh, all right then...

The lovely AJ who frequently comments on my blog (so nice to know somebody else is out there...) as "A Peppermint Penguin" has begged, nay, implored me, to reveal what I actually bought in the fabulous Bassetti Tessuti shop in Rome... as she is a discerning woman of some refinement, how could I refuse?


Just a word of warning - if you aren't a fabric maven, or have even a slight interest in fabric, you might want to go away and come back another day...


So, here goes...


The gorgeous lilac silk jersey, next to an envelope so you can see the colour - I just realised it's exactly the colour of my kitchen cupboards!

A large remnant of shirting, 100% cotton, with gorgeous pique stripes and a tiny weeny darker stripe on either side, just to give the white stripes some oooomph...

The palest of pale lilac shirting, in a really fine pique.  Very soft.

A kind of weird choice, really, neither vibrant nor traditional... but I liked the colours - it's a sort of rough cotton, I don't really know what the name of it is.  Just enough for crafty things, I think.  I don't think I'd be seen dead wearing it!

And then, shirting in a really pale pink herringbone, excuse the shadow in the bottom of the picture...

Also a crafty choice - it had such a '60's look I couldn't resist - I'm sure my mother had a dress made of this in about 1964...

And then, a lovely crisp cotton, a bit heavier than shirting, with a sort of Japanese-y feel to it... I have no idea what I'm going to do with this!

And then, just a tad more shirting, in a pale pink, with a nice white square (is that, strictly speaking, a check?  I need to check my Fairchild's Dictionary of Fashion, I think.

And finally, the piece de resistance, or 'piatta forte', which Babelfish tells me is the correct interpretation of the French, the Houndstooth silk:

You can see from this that it's actually black and cream, not black and white - but it is still gorgeous!


Sadly, that's it.  If I'd only had more time, a shipping crate, another ten credit cards and a more willing husband, then I could have bought more, so some of you are probably quite pleased I had none of those things.  


Me, I'm already thinking about my next trip, and how I can survive a month in Europe with only 2 days worth of clothes to make extra room in my suitcase!!! 

The Final Trip Tease

So... finally, the best bit of my Trip Tease...

I found the most amazing fabric shop in Rome.  I lucked into it, an aside in an old guide-book led me to think it might be worth checking out, and I saw this article when I did a bit of research on the Fancy Young People's Internet (thank you Tony Squires) - and OMG, was it ever amazing!

I have never seen so much fabric in one place in my life.  Honestly.  I've been to Liberty in London (mostly pretty but boring), fabric shops tucked away in the East End of London where I was studiously ignored because, the shop owners told me afterwards, they couldn't believe a white person would be interested in buying African fabric, shops where my Vietnamese friend helped me get the best cash-only deals, shops where every single fabric was made from some artificial fibre or other, shops where I couldn't afford to buy 20cm, let alone 3 metres, Spotlight, Lincraft, you name it.  I have never seen so much fabric in one place in my life.  Oh, did I already say that?  Yep.  But it was worth saying again:

So, I'm 168cm tall, that's 5'6" in old money.  This photo was taken at my eye level, and the rack goes all the way up to the ceiling - maybe 20'/3 metres?  

We must have wandered through 10 rooms, and apparently, there are two floors.  I must admit I didn't take pictures of the suiting, the sheeting, the linings, the Chanel-y type wools, the upholstery fabrics, the denims, the stretch fabrics, the knits, the damasks, the laces, the wedding fabrics, the sequinned masterpieces, the handpainted silks, the hand-embroidered silks and satins, the velvets, the really nasty shiny vinyls, the viscoses, polyesters and even nasty nylons, but I couldn't resist the shirting:

This rack also went up to the ceiling, and you must admit, my helper does have a great arse.  Oops.  That just slipped out, honest.  Can you believe how many different blue shirtings there are?  They had every colour you could think of - from white to black with every shade in between, pique, pin-striped, checked and spots.  Man, it was difficult to choose, but I did.  Trust me.

I also bought some beautiful lilac coloured silk jersey, don't ask me what I'm going to do with that, and some exquisite silk with a tiny tiny Houndstooth print, with fantastic drape, which would be perfect for a cowl neck blouse and I have just the pattern, Butterick B4132...

For the shirting, I'll probably use this pattern, or something similar. Ah, joy.  Nice to be able to feed the addiction...

And that's it for the holiday.  Admittedly there were other events, other venues, other meals and other locations, but I'm sure you're as sick of reading about it as I am of writing about it.  I'm going to bore you rigid now with planning my next one, in 2013, just in time for our 20th Wedding Anniversary.  Any suggestions?

Ciao!

   

Was it something I said?

I note that between going on holidays and coming back I lost a follower... was it something I said, or more the fact that I've kind of morphed away from burbling on about the crafty things I make, and am now just burbling along???


Just wondering.  


Anyway, if you do still drop by from time to time, just to check if things have returned to their crafty origins, please leave me a note saying why you stopped following... as a novice blogger (but master-burbler), I want to make sure you keep reading by writing exactly what you want to read.  Actually, that's a load of crap, but it might make you feel better?  Maybe?


But I digress (no surprises there...) - we were lucky enough to spend the weekend with our lovely friends Kaz & Az, where we spent a very relaxing weekend eating, drinking and the odd spot of nature-watching:

All left behind by the wildlife living in the reeds...

Damn but birds are hard to photograph!  Can't say the same about Zoe Dog, who just has a knack for knowing when to stand still and look gorgeous!

And in the garden, the three stages of the Rose's life:

and we met this little cutie:

and I didn't even take the sewing machine, fabric or zippers with me - how very slothful! 

Whilst you were sleeping...

 Whoever said "English food is crap" has never eaten here, where we had a fantastic lunch in Hove in the company of some people who were purportedly locally and internationally famous*, but can't really have been, because there was no minder, no bling, no mobile phones, no entourage & no tantrums.  

We wandered up & down the seafront, reminding ourselves about the bygone beauty and tragically lost opportunity of the West Pier, and admired the bathing huts - what a typically ingenious English use of space - kettle, chairs, table, umbrella...

and we admired the English determination to soak up every last ray:

What a hoot - sound asleep in the midday sun - at home he'd be burnt to a crisp in about 3 minutes.


And we went to Beachy Head, where I very gingerly stuck my head over the edge & looked down - ooh, nasty:

That's about 300 metres down, Gentle Readers.

And then we went to the site of the Battle of Hastings, which, interestingly, is in Battle.  We walked round the entire site, and it's really hard to see how the Normans could have won, given that the English had the advantage of home ground, higher ground, and the moral imperative...

The battle was nearly 1000 years ago, and it was hard to imagine such violence in such a beautiful place..

Unimaginably, the Abbey which was raised on the site, and finished in about 1094, was allowed to be partially destroyed during Henry VIII's "Dissolution of the Monasteries" in the 15th Century, but the ruins are very picturesque.

And they sell great teatowels in the shop!

*Edited to add, JUST for AJ - *Norman Cook, AKA Fatboy Slim

The Traveller's Tale

 And our trip went like this:

Rome-Milan (3.5 hours)

An hour wait in Milano for the connecting train to depart (lucky we could wait on the train!), then Milano-Ventimiglia (4 hours)

A 45 minute wait in Ventimiglia for the connecting train, spent entirely in the Ventimiglia ticket office, and I was so rushed I forgot to validate the tickets (Come & get me, Mr Train Police!) which were sold by a lovely man with excellent English... and why do I mention this?  Ah, patience, patience.  

Ventimiglia-Nice Ville (50 mins).  The suburban trains that run between Ventimiglia and Nice are amazing, with glass doors, fabric covered seats and entire sections set aside for travellers with other needs, such as, old people, mums with babies, and other niceties that wouldn't last a day on the Sydney train system.  Clean, shiny and no graffiti, either.

In Nice, we tried to sort out the problem caused by Mr G's wallet being stolen in Rome, which was the fact that the Credit Card used to buy the train tickets from Paris to Dieppe, had been stolen, and so we couldn't get them out of the vending machine (which had been our intention during our nice 3 hour wait in Nice).  Mr G likes to be prepared, doncha know. 


An incredibly rude man in the information window handled our request for information, in my extremely limited French, by pointing to the ticket window, then lowering his head and ignoring every other word that came out of my mouth.  Luckily, the woman at the ticket window was incredibly nice, and she cancelled our original tickets and replaced them with two new ones, at very short notice.  Talk about the sublime to the ridiculous!

The rest of the 3 hour wait in Nice was spent in the bar devouring our meal of the day, two panino with ham, mozarella & tomato, and coffee, and beer for Mr G.  The Nice Ville-Paris (5 hours odd) trip was on a 300kph TGV, and it was amazingly comfortable.  I fell asleep on the train, with my feet up on Mr Golightly's seat, and my raincoat for a blanket.  Smooth as... and quick - we traversed the entire 900km in five hours. 

We didn't see a lot of Paris, but I took some photos from the taxi which took us from Gare De Lyon to Gare Du Nord, and yes, I know you're going to say "why didn't you take the famous Paris Metro?"  Well, gentle reader, I'd had an 18 hour day, about 7 hours sleep (which is definitely not enough, trust me), and the sure and certain knowledge of another long day travelling) was enough to make me forgo the experience of yet another metro, in a language with which I have no absolutely no facility... apart from "please" and "thank you"... so, we took a taxi.

The train to Dieppe was fairly full until Rouen, and then we had the whole carriage to ourselves - nearly as bizarre an experience as the time we went to see the latest Star Trek movie in our local cinema and we were the only people in there...

And then, we got to Dieppe.  It is apparently a nice town, with some good restaurants, and some interesting buildings.  But, as we couldn't find anywhere to leave our suitcases, we had to sit in the Ferry Terminal for five stinking hours, waiting for the boat to Newhaven. What an absolute waste of a day.  However, it was unavoidable - frustratingly unavoidable - how hard would it be to offer a secure facility at the Ferry Terminal so that people could  dump their bags & go back to town for a few hours?  Too hard, apparently.  


We did have a rather nice Croque-Monsieur each, at Dieppe, and Mr G played a couple of games of pool and learned some Greek swear words from a nice Cypriot boy who was going back to Brighton to study... then we got on the boat, and sailed, and sailed, and sailed:

and then, finally, we were there!

The wheels on the holiday... come off

So, Gentle Readers, there we were in Milano (also known as Furniture World), contemplating our return to Water World, when the volcanic eruption causing havoc throughout places further west of us, hit.  Suddenly, in a flurry of activity (not necessarily volcanic), the airports started closing down one by one, and it looked like it might get a bit ugly.


Back to Venice we trotted, to wait it out.  The email from EasyJet was apologetic, but clear.  "Sorry, your flight is cancelled.  Click here for a refund".


Plans?  Well, I thought we'd be better off in Rome than Venice, trying to get out of the place, and as Mr G was thoroughly fed up with Water World, it seemed like a sensible plan.  Hmmmm... anyway, after seeing the queue to deal with a real person in Venice station, we managed to negotiate the vending machines and get tickets for the trip to Rome on the 19th.  We arrived in Rome in good time, though the train was a lot fuller than the first time we'd done the journey, and with a lively air of speculation - on a lot of topics - eating, sleeping, travelling - drifting up and down the carriage.


Rome Termini was a zoo.  We hadn't needed to brave the ticket office before because we'd ordered our initial journey tickets on the internet, and so were able to go straight to the platform and on to the train.  This time, there was a lone woman standing in front of a barrier, with a sign on a piece of A4 paper (297X210mm), saying in Italian that "all trains to Northern Europe are full until 23 April 2010".  


This poor woman did not speak any English.  I speak enough Italian to buy food, wine, bus and train tickets and fabric, the essentials of life, really.  Not enough to negotiate the 20 other angry, tired, frustrated, foreign, people surrounding this woman bombarding her with questions, and certainly not enough to deal with the incredible Italian talent for getting your face in front of whoever you want attention from.  Whoever said "Italians don't like to queue" was exactly right.  Except for train tickets, apparently.  There must have been 1000 people in that queue.


Anyway, we made a reverse call to the "Don't leave home without us" people, who found us a hotel in Rome.  They couldn't get us any train tickets, though, because, like anybody who buys them 'not in Italy' has to get them from an agency, and they were just as stuck as we were.  Interestingly, the nice chap we spoke to was very keen to help us with a hotel but didn't want us to talk to the local "DLHWU" office.  Not sure why...


So, after the thunder and hailstorm, and after a very nasty previously frozen Panini, we got a taxi to our station, round and round the one-way streets of Rome.  Taxis are amazingly cheap in Italy, and the (woman) driver helped us with our bags and avoided collisions, crazy tourists and other taxis, all for E10.00.  Bargain.  


So, we spent a fabulous, but frustrating additional five days in Rome, explicitly not going to the Vatican Museum, but doing other things, like spending E41.00 on two Gins & Tonic in the hotel's fabulous bar:

And finding this just round the corner:

  
And on our last day in Rome, going for lunch at the fabulous place where we'd had this the first time:

Yum.  And I had one mouthful of this:

before Mr G had his wallet stolen by a very clever young man who slid into the seat behind him, reached round into his jacket's secret pocket, and helped himself.  I can't quite understand why he didn't also take Mr G's passport, but, thank the Absent Gods that he didn't.  

It was quite irritating enough to spend the rest of the afternoon going from the restaurant to the Hotel (room key?  In the wallet!) to the Carabinieri, to the hotel Bar, where even the E41.00 Gin & Tonics were not enough to assuage Mr Golightly's extreme irritation with himself for being so careless, and for that very clever young man, for being so clever.

So, the next day, we got on the train!