Human Lifestyle

Hello everyone, I'm back! I've been a bit busy in the last days, because my uncle Romano and Gabriella (one of his dearest friend), came here in Holland to spend Easter with us. We really enjoyed their company and they were lucky to find such a beautiful weather. It was like summer! And I've loved my apartment in these days, it was full of flowers that Alberto has bought for the guests!
We've been to Amsterdam a couple of days and we've spent the last day in Utrecht..for "wild shopping"! (I'm considering to move there...). 
Here some pictures about these pleasent and funny days. 









Ciao a tutti, sono tornata! Sono stata un po' impegnata negli ultimi giorni, perché mio zio Romano e Gabriella (una sua cara amica), sono venuti qui in Olanda per trascorrere la Pasqua con noi. Ci è piaciuta moltissimo la loro compagnia e sono stati davvero fortunati a trovare bel tempo. E' stato come d'estate, incredibile! E l' appartamento in questi giorni era troppo carino, pieno di fiori che Alberto ha comprato per l'arrivo degli ospiti!
Siamo stati ad Amsterdam un paio di giorni e abbiamo trascorso l'ultimo giorno a Utrecht ..per lo "shopping selvaggio"! (sto seriamente considerando di trasferirmi lì...). 
Ecco alcune foto di questi giorni piacevoli e molto divertenti.

Yesterday, at the end of the post, I've told you that we went to Amsterdam to visit a couple of stores that I saw in Ingrid's blog. I love this kind of places and when I've read about them, I immediately thought that it would have been cool go to Amsterdam and make some shopping! That's why I enjoy so much Ingrid's blog. You know, when you move to another country is not so easy find places that are not "famous", especially when you don't have so many friends that have the same interests. For this reason, when I read in some dutch blogs about interesting shops or second hand stores I write immediately in my agenda the address and the web site! Is a kind of "wish list". Anyway, we went to Neef Louis and Van Dijk & Ko. Neef Louis has a beautiful vintage collection: chairs, lamps, coffee tables, most of them from very famous brands. In Van Dijk & Ko you can find old furnitures from Hungary, Romania and Belgium..everything is beautiful and the choise is really difficoult. My first idea was to find a "commode" for our bedroom, but unfortunatelly our rented car was to small..So, we bought a very nice bench for our entry. I love it! What do you think, is not lovely? And also a pink lamp for my studio..the vintage touch that I was looking for!

During my xmas holidays, I went to Milan, to "Casa Facile - Temporary Shopping Loft" (http://blog.donnamoderna.com/fuorisalone/?p=8581), a beautiful event organized by Casa Facile magazine.
I had the opportunity to visit a very nice concept store, a kind of industrial space arranged as an house, with livingroom, bedroom, kitchen etc. The sharp thing is that every pieces was on sale with reduce price. I bought a very nice ceramic bowl (now is in my bedroom) for my little treasures and a table runner from Tablecloths (http://www.tablecloths.it/), a young italian company that create tablecloths, place mats, runners and minirunner, shopping bag. 
The runner that I bought is printed with a very romantic Jacques Prevert poetry, "Cet amour". Since is so nice, I decided to put it on the top of my white Expedit! 

Durante le vacanze di Natale, sono andata a Milano, al "Casa Facile - Temporary Shopping Loft" (http://blog.donnamoderna.com/fuorisalone/?p=8581), un bellissimo evento organizzato dalla rivista Casa Facile.
Ho avuto l'opportunità di visitare un concept store molto bello, una sorta di spazio industriale organizzato come una casa, con soggiorno, camera da letto, cucina ecc. La cosa forte è che ogni pezzo era in vendita con una forte riduzione di prezzo. Ho quindi comprato una ciotola di ceramica molto bella (ora è nella mia camera da letto!) per i miei piccoli tesori e un runner di Tablecloths (http://www.tablecloths.it/), una giovane azienda italiana che crea tovaglie, tovagliette, runner e minirunner, e shopping bag.
Il runner che ho comprato è stampato con una romantica poesia di Jacques Prevert, "Cet amour". Dal momento che è così bello, ho deciso di metterlo sulla mia Expedit bianca!

A good visit to York Cemetery today. I'd arranged a visit to John Waterston the Warden at 11am regarding the website which I'm collaborating with. I needed to take some photographs, but needed permission, and I also wanted to talk to him about some of the practices used in this cemetery.

We walked around the large Cemetery, which I know well as Gill and I have a plot booked, and about 20 years ago I planted a few trees on the new section. John told me assorted tales about life as a Cemetery Warden, and his plans, and how he deals with the public, and his employers the Trustees. All very interesting and I'll be able to say more once our website is launched.... not long now!

After the chat I took a few photographs with Gill's little camera, and I hope that my colleague in Canada likes some of them, and then the Warden allows us to use the ones that we want to use. Whilst wandering round, I chatted to a woman who was tending the grave of her parents, and I asked her if I could take a couple of photos, and I got her contact details in order to get permission to use these. Complicated stuff, but probably easier than having to purchase the rights to use images.

After the Cemetery, I called in on Alligator for three small bags of compostables, and then on into town as I needed to purchase a new journal/notebook. I'd been given a £10 WHSmith token over a year ago by one of Gill's sisters, and Gill had found it recently, so that's where I went. There were plain paper notebooks in 3 areas in the shop, and I eventually found one for £7. I queued up to pay for it, and was told that they didn't give change. Oh bother... what to do? I then spent another half hour trying to find something useful for as little over £3 as I could, and found lots of lovely books for around £20, but finally plumped for a tiny book called 101 Grow to Eat Ideas, by Gardeners' World Magazine, for £5. This checkout person told me that I could have put the £3 on a a card to spend later.... but I decided that as I'd spent half an hour trying to find the £5 book, I might as well have it. So, it took me an hour to spend a £10 token and a £2 coin. You can see I'm not very good at shopping.

Home via Country Fresh, where Richard's brother, Martin, who owns the shop, told me a woman had come in and bought all the carrier-bags of compost that I'd taken in... about 6 of them I think, and had given him £15 for the lot. Gill says this is a good price as in the Co-op, you can get an entire grow-bag for £1.15... but methinks this must be peat-based, and my stuff is really rich and needs to be mixed with other less rich soils, or top-dressed on existing growing media. So I was happy with my £15 and Martin asked me to bring in more bags. I'm delighted it's being used!

Home by about 2pm, lunch and some quiet indoor time, before doing a little bit outside.

In the evening I had a meeting at The Black Swan with my two friends from the World Naked Bike Ride.... we discussed publicity and permissions and stewards and many other things. It is all coming together well.

Home by 11pm, lit the stove, hot water for Gill to soak her feet and me to do the washing up, a pretty normal evening.

Gill woke me at 9.30 and asked me if I'd switched off the boiler last night as it wasn't working this morning. I told her that I'd put the thermostat down to 20 degrees last thing, but the central heating was still working when I came to bed. The pilot light had gone out and I couldn't work out how to relight it; there were no instructions or obvious places where to put a match or to press an ignition knob...

Anyway, we had to leave today so we stripped the beds, packed our bags, emptied the fridge, repacked our bags, worried about the time and whether the bus was going to get through today, worried about whether the pipes would freeze if the heating remained off, but got out of the house for 11.20, as Gill had looked at the bus timetable and told me that the buses were at 22 minutes past the hour. But the bus timetable at the bus stop said 52 minutes past the hour... so we waited. And waited... and the bus came on time! We got to Scarborough at the right time, 12.30, and were on the 12.47 train home and enjoyed sandwiches for lunch.

Back in York there wasn't more than 15 minutes to wait for the number 10 bus back to very close to our front door. The house was freezing! I lit both stoves and Gill went back into town to try to find some bits and bobs for the boys' Christmas presents.

I left the boys in the house, happy to be back on the computer, and went to Country Fresh to get some veg for Christmas meals and pick up the compostables before the three-day-weekend-closure. I decided to pop in to the Novotel, where I've worked for the past 5 or so Christmases, to check that all was OK for tomorrow. My agent had booked me for this in early spring, and as it was a repeat booking, I had expected it to go very smoothly. BUT... I'm so glad I went to say hello. The new manager told me that I wasn't booked and they had got another entertainer. But I knew that I had a contract with my agent. So I said that I would ring him and get back to the hotel... the manager said would I like to ring from the hotel. My agent wasn't at home, so I rang his mobile. He had just arrived at his son's house and was settling down to a glass of sherry. I explained the situation to him and he asked to speak to the manager. Ten minutes later, the manager appeared again and passed me a mobile phone and said that my agent wanted to speak to me. He asked if I could remember how much I was due to get paid for the gig tomorrow... and of course I remembered as it's one of the best paying gigs of the year. I passed the phone back to the manager, and a few minutes later, the phone came back to me and my agent asked me if I would be prepared to do a reduced gig tomorrow for reduced money? I felt that if I tried to hold out for my full employ, that might cause difficulties and might jeopardise future work at this hotel. So I agreed a short Fiddlesticks slot with no Father Christmas appearance for a very average fee, less than half of what I had agreed to for doing the full entertainment. The other entertainer would do some magic and do the Father Christmas stuff.

So, not very happy, despite not having to do Father Christmas which I don't enjoy doing. In retrospect, I wonder if I should have said that I wanted to do the work I was contracted to do and demanded my full fee? Not an easy decision to make.

I cycled back via Freshways who were glad to see me and were generous with their unsold limp herbs and over-ripe bananas.

The boys hadn't noticed I'd been away for an hour (!) and when Gill rang from town, she asked if I'd go to the Co-op to get some basics like cereal, milk, pasta and the like. I had put my bike away so I walked down, got a good pile of stuff and on the way back, the bus drew up and Gill got off, gave me a lovely kiss and we walked back together. We are just a great team!

We had a shop pizza for tea, with broccoli, and continued to keep the stoves going to try to warm the place up. A relatively calm evening.

Quite a busy day.. Both boys feeling poorly so they stayed at home. I had to go to a meeting in town and after that popped into Pauline's, and got back at midday, via Freshways. I sorted out their compostables before lunch, and rescued some leeks and tomatoes, spent half an hour preparing them and made a large pan of what turned out to be soup. I also did some logging, chopped a load of the ones John Bibby gave to me, and split them, stacked a few round the back. I did a lot of washing up... loads of jars for refilling and recycling, also soya milk cartons.

During the middle of the afternoon I cycled down to Foss Islands Road to 'Staples' as my eldest needs a new school bag with no logo. I did find one the right size, right number of pockets, only a small maker's logo, for £35. I bought it.

Probably the most exciting thing to happen today was getting a message via vskips from a York person who was responding to my offer of compost, and wanting to have two tonnes for a new raised bed. I can probably oblige, as this amounts to between 2 and 3 cubic metres of compost, and I'm sure I have this, dotted around. It'll release a lot of space... I hope it happens! Quite a big job, though, bagging up maybe 100 sacks of compost and taking it up to the front. Will take all day. Keep me fit.

Or maybe the most exciting thing was a thunderstorm whilst I was working in the garage?

Loved my tea... leek and tomato soup plus Polish bread, this also just past it's sell by date but made excellent hommous sandwiches to go with the soup.

Worked outside til 10.30pm. Then came in and switched on to Ideal, the last episode. I'll miss it... it is so surreal and funny. I'm not a massive fan of Johnny Vegas but I've grown to like him as Moz, the hero of Ideal. I really hope they make another series.