{quilt} while you're ahead

*58** postcards from Wimbledon

It took me a quarter of  a century but I finally made it to Wimbledon.

(Incidentally, if you really want to feel old start thinking in terms of 1/4 of centuries... in fact, don't.  It's a killer)

...  it was just as wonderful as I thought it would be...

 

So very very English.

Mr M and I had a fabulous time,  dahhhling...

 

Centre Court was magnificent... here Wawrinka got beaten by del Potro.  

Excellent match (who am I kidding... I don't know anything about tennis... I got tennis elbow after one lesson a few years ago - both elbows - and it took me a whole summer to recover...crap really).

The roof was open for a whole five minutes...

and then was closed again to allow the mighty Serena Williams to win her match.

One of these dudes is Roger Federer... who trashed Daniel Evans in straight sets.  Shame.  But awesome.  If you know what I mean.

 

More tennis in one day that I'd watched for the previous quarter of a century, to keep with the theme, but totally worth it.

 

Lots of Pimm's were drank.  (Ahem...)

Lots of strawberries were eaten...

 

Watching sports 'live' is always something else... more raw (even tennis), more exciting, more involving.

 

I want to go again.

104-2015

You know... I'm almost relieved it's Monday... the horrible news of last Friday have tinted the following days with a feeling of sadness and disbelief... and we were so busy, all of us, that there was no time to stop and reflect and trying to make sense of it all.  Impossible as that is.  I was glad of the family time.  I was glad to spend time with the boys even if it was cold and wet by the sideline.

On Saturday afternoon I went to a rugby match with the husband and child No 2.

Gloucester (our local team) was playing against Zebra and Italian team (not French... Sue) from Parma.

The thing is... I lived in Parma for years.  I still have friends there and I still consider it almost like a home town to me... (I have a few... we moved around).   So it was a real case of divided loyalties... Parma lost the first half and the overall match but scored more points in the second half so it wasn't too bad.

It's always a funny feeling when the worlds collide.  The old and the new.  Comforting and slightly disconcerting at the same time.

I didn't set out in my life to leave Italy and settle in a different country... it just sort of happened, you know one thing led to another and here I am...

Anyway, enough about me... it's Monday... things to do and laundry to fold.

70-2015 - postcards from Thailand -

A long taxi ride took us away from Bangkok to a famous floating market. We knew it had become a real tourist destination and not much was left of the original produce market... But still, if you squinted and skimmed your eyes past the plastic and the cheap sarongs... You could still find a little magic. A little. (There are better less touristy markets around, but only on the latter part of the week we were told. If you ever go to Bangkok go Thursday to Sunday, it seems to be a much better time)

 

 

The gondola had me puzzled I have to say... (Being Italian and all..)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After a bried rest by the pool we did what every visitor to Bangkok does... We went to a football match of course!

What? No?

We'll you don't live with this lot obviously ...

Actually it was fun.

Slightly surreal seeing a an English team plus there was no food or drinks served in the Stadium so we went hungry and crowd safety was slightly dodgy... But it was fun.

 

 

Until... It was mostly wet.

Ridiculously uncompromising unquestionably tropical thunderstorm kind of way wet.

Ankle deep wet.

Down to your pants wet.

 

 

Our shoes may never recover.

Pizza in the room at midnight was enjoyed by all.

And Liverpool won 4-0.

 

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39-2015

Randomness.

- All the boys have now gone back to school.  The only noise breaking the silence is the extractor fan over the cooker.  There's a vietnamese beef curry slowly cooking in the oven and if I don't leave the fan on I'll forget it's in there and leave the house without turning it off with disastrous consequences.

- By the way, don't ask me how I know, but if you REALLY burn a chicken curry (on a really slow hear... for about 5 hours) you have to throw away the pan because it will have fused with the chicken AND your house will smell for weeks, and you'll try everything even wiping down the ceiling and everything in sight and repainting the walls too.

- So don't burn food, ok?

- My mum's dog looks like a polar bear.

- Anyway, school... summer term.  Cricket.  I'm glad they didn't ask me about cricket when I took the Citizenship test... (there was a question on Christmas pudding though).

- It's boring.

- No 2's matches are now 30 overs long.  LONG beeing the key word here. Almost 5 hours.  And he has a match every 3 out of 4 Saturdays till mid July.  Plus mid week matches.

- Shoot me now.

- Last week I went for a lovely walk with a friend. The boys played in the woods.

- It was whole terribly wholesome and nice.  She has a wonderful house too

- Yesterday No 3's hockey team (aka County Champions) almost won the West of England tournament.  They went down to a dodgy decision in the final.  Losing 1-0 because the referee doesn't know the rules stings a little.  And it's hard to explain to a nine year old about human fallability... 

- No 1 is out of his cast and is, for now, all in one piece.

- We had a family outings to the rugby and watched Gloucester sailing in a blaze of glory to an epic win.

- In my absence yesterday No 2 uploade 18 go-pro videos onto my computer.

- Why?

 

- Sigh.

 

(78) 2014

It's time for a random catch up, what shall we chat about...

- Football?  No thanks.  England is out and the Italian team better pull their socks up for tomorrow's game or they'll be on a plane soon too.  Jeepers, it's pretty depressing around here, we hardly got going... and, well, we're back already.

- Moving swiftly on... the weather has been glorious.  Thanks to a welcome breath I didn't notice the sun so much last Saturday and managed to give myself a very attractive (not) red, triangle-shaped tan line in my back.  Stupid woman.  And then, I must have missed my right knee when applying sun-cream to my legs on Sunday because I not have a random shaped red patch right on the rotula.  Which is why I'm wearing trousers today.

Seriously, you'd thought that by now I'd have it sussed.

- My ironing basket is empty.  Empty folks.  I thought about taking a picture but that would have been rude.

- I started playing tennis after  - ahem, cough cough - 17 years and... well let's just say that a) my right elbow went out of action after 23 minutes and I'm now playing with my left hand (I'm sort of ambidextrous) and b) to add insult to injury it was very tactfully 'suggested'  I might want to move a 'slighlty easier group... I might enjoy it more, I was told...

Basically I was total rubbish.   But because there's no way I'm going to get beaten by my children yet... I'm perseviring...  Tuesday morning 'beginners' here I come!

-  And speaking of being beaten by the boys, Mr M and I took them down to the athletic track yesterday to let them ran around and blow some steam off.  They had the best of time.  No 1 wanted to practice his long jump ahead of his sports day... so that's what we all did.

Let's just say that when we all did a standing jump from the edge of the sand only No 3 was behind me... and only by an inch or so... and he's 8.  

Sigh.

So then I rested and grabbed the camera, and I think I got it... sometimes all you need to have fun is jumping

(yes, No 1's feet are as long as they seem, longer than Mr M long feet)

(no, No 3 didn't know chop his tongue off on landing.  He timely retracted it.  Phew)

 

 

(2) 2014

The rain stopped.  The sun is out.

I have no excuse.

8 months is a long enough pause.

I have a funny relationship with running.  Once I'm out, music in my ears or an audio book... I'm happy.  Even if it hurts.  I'm just rubbish at the actual 'going' out part. You'd be amazed by the excuses I can come up with.

And the first few times are hell.  I've done enough running through the years to know that the 2nd run is the worst.  Urgh.  So what keeps me going... why do I always choose running to get fit? Mmmmmmhhhh.

Swimming up and down a pool bores me to death.  Jumping up and down to music in a room full of lycra cladded people on of whom shouts at you... is hell. My rights and lefts get all jumbled out and I feel totally stupid.

It's free.  And it's me alone; a big plus. Win Win.

And there's always THAT moment... when you break through the 'wall', when you reach some sort of weird balance and it feels like you could go on running forever... that's worth the pain.

Although... judging by the way my legs feel at the moment... if you ask me tomorrow I might give you a different answer!

122**2013 - a rugby party -

You know about boys and sport...

You also probably know about boys' dads and sport...

Combine the two, add a birthday and a world class rugby player  and you end up with 12 8yr olds, 12 rugby balls, a whistle and a very loud party.

(I'm not sure that's exactly the proper kicking technique.... but it sure makes a funny photo!)

 

My baby is eight.  Totally not fair.

 

 

98//2012

What a night... 

I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves otherwise I might start crying again...

I was there.

And I will never be able to forget the roar of the crowd, the cheering, the raw emotions.

It was a real privilege.  It was a beautiful thing.

Pinch me, please.

 

 

96//2012

It was a dream come true.

I don't know if you've ever made a list of the things you most would like to do before you die... well,  I am quite certain that I won't get the chance to dance on stage with Bruce Springsteen, but this day was a huge tick  

(By the way I can't remember the other items on that list... a part from walking to Everest base camp...  I was a strange teenager, obviously).

We were lucky lucky lucky to get tickets for the athletic morning session.

We got to London EARLY.

No queues to get in...

We were ready.

We took our fabulous places (row 7!)

and for the next 3 and something hours we admired and cheered athletes who trained all their lives for that moment... to throw further, jump higher

or longer

or run faster...

...when Mo Farah entered the stadium the whole place erupted!

The 10,000m Olympic Champion was ready to start his 5,000m quest.

We were all behind him.

I can't stress enough how wonderful it was to be there.

How well organised it was

How I've never seen so many people (and we're talking thousands of people!) walking around smiling)

How beautiful.  (the flower beds were crammed full of the most glorious wild flowers)

I hope the boys will look back at this day and remember it all and appreciate how lucky they were to have had the chance to be part of it.

Even if at the time... they were a bit... tired!

 

And the best thing?  I'm getting to do it all over again on Saturday night!

 

 

* 113 *

- I can't believe I've been absent for so long.

- I ran the 'run' yesterday (it wasn't a 'race' it was a 'run'... big difference)

 

It was gruesome.

And wet

 

very wet and windy.

I felt good I've done it. Mentally.

Physically... well... next question?

- Yesterday it was also No 2's birthday party:

 

a testoreone fuelled/petrol-head kind of party.

9 boys, 9 go-karts.  A lot of noise.

- And I forgot the cake.

- I didn't leave it at home.

- I didn't leave it in the boot of the car.

- I simply didn't make it.

- I didn't even think about making it.

I - FORGOT - TO - BAKE - MY - SON - A - BIRTHDAY - CAKE.

Now if you'll excuse I'm going to take my lactic acid-laden limbs and go and cry in a corner.