Life with a seaview

Amazing Graze...

2008-07-21T00:30:00.005+02:00

...Or Amazing Place, either way it was a beautiful wedding! The place was just like out of a fairytale and the bride too - looking like a princess. The ceremony was in a beautiful church in Milan and the party in Villa Panza in Varese, just outside Milan.

We had a great time with the people on our table which we'd never met before. Actually we only knew the bride and groom in advance. The whole evening we talked to a really nice couple and it was one of those times where you get along straight away and realise you might become good friends. Time will tell I guess...

Summer in the Fast Lane

2008-07-18T08:41:00.008+02:00

Have you all seen the MasterCard adverts? I have a new idea for them: Having your best friend visiting your expat home in France... - Priceless!!

Heidi and I had a great time the past 7 days. Well, I did at least so maybe it's better asking her for her opinion. The general activities were: 1) beach, sun, wine 2) beach, sightseeing, wine 3) resolving the world's problems on the beach and reading on the terrace with a glass of pastis ... and the days flew by. Oh, not to forget she is a great shopping support - she'll convince you to buy an expensive leather handbag with matching shoes any day! (I'm SO looking fabulous when I'm in Milan this evening - a bit Sex & the City Carrie-like with new Manolos)

So I thought I'd have more time to blog lately. There are posts I've had maturing in my little head for some time and I wanted to share but unless I have an Internet connection in the Azores that might be difficult. L needs to work there and I'm there for moral support and working my tan.

Seriously, I'm really curious to see the volcanic islands and I've planned to rent a bike or car to get around. The Azores (Portuguese islands) are usually the last islands for sailboats crossing the Atlantic and there's a famous bar there called Peter's Bar where the boat members gather and leave the name of their boat on the walls. The islands are also famous for their flora since it's hot and sunny in the summers but humid. Hopefully I can tell you more about it when I get back or if there's an Internet point in the hotel (crossing my fingers!).

Now I'm off to manicure my hands before we're off to Milan for a wedding before taking the plane Monday morning to the Azores. Pheeew, life is busy for a girl with new leather shoes and a matching handbag... :)

Provencal Pleasures

2008-07-10T11:53:00.005+02:00

A great advantage of living in the South of France is a large choice of local produce like fresh fruit and veges from the markets. Or like us, buying a house which turned out to have Pandora's garden - with fruity surprises all around. The last discovery was the apricot tree which gave us exactly two apricots and which tasted so, so good. Strangely enough the tree has survived our frenzied cuttings when the garden decided to turn jungle on us. We've just learned that fruit trees needs special care and can otherwise die if they are cut in a growth period.

The previous owners left a garden full of whatever plants and fruit trees. It's by all means not a big garden but it's rather packed with a lemon-, pear-, 2 apple trees, a hazelnut-, fig-, plum-, apricot- and a peach tree placed around the house. This might sound a lot, but it's only the peach tree and the lemon tree giving us a good quantity as the other trees seems to have a disease making the leaves black and curled into balls. Considering our gardening skills we'll hand that problem to a gardener this autumn.

Last year the peach tree gave us 14 kg of fruit, this year 16 kg and what on earth can you do with so much fruit apart from making fresh organic peach jam? Luckily my mother in law came that weekend to help us peel some of the peaches. Here are a few photos: From the garden to my Provencal kitchen and into jars.

Think Again

2008-07-10T10:05:00.005+02:00

There are so many cool photographic blogs out there and every day I take a magnificent tour around the world. However, on my many trips I've noticed that the photos I've liked the most have been taken with a Hasselblad camera. I had a vague idea of how the old film version of it looked and googled it to get some more information.

First link up was the right one, a little click and I saw this text:

If you thought you couldn't afford a Hasselblad. Think again.

Now that made me kind of hopeful. Until I saw the bottom of the page and I started laughing because for the small sum of €11,995 a Hasselblad H3DII-31 could be yours.

For sure it won't be mine :))

See my New Bathroom

2008-07-07T10:10:00.005+02:00

Yesterday they finished, well almost, the bathroom. That means I can now decorate the bathroom with curtains and new towels. And most importantly, I can have a shower in my new spacious shower cabinet. *Happy Sigh*

The tiles are 20x40 cm, and the mosaic is rectangular as well. I wanted a sober colour scheme which I think I achieved compared to the pink flowered bathroom it used to be. *Another happy sigh*

As for the bathtub, it's still broken. The guy's been telling me for weeks that he'll talk to his friend who knows a guy who can fix these things. But I needed to "understand that these things take time and it's complex". Bullsh**. I called Ideal Standard today explaining the problem and within a minute I was told that a repair kit is available with the exact colour coded paint as my deep wonderful bathtub. Now it's ordered and on it's way.

It's been 2,5 months and I've learned a lot:

Lesson 1: Next time I'll be the most irritating and controlling client ever.
Lesson 2: Don't be so confident that the contractor know what he's doing.
Lesson 3: Don't count on other people to repair what they have broken - without proving that they're incompetent first. (Sounding bitter, no. Sounding pissed off, yes!)

Oh, and the tap is still leaking after the guy apparently fixed it twice. Hmmm...

I. Need To. Have...

2008-07-02T23:25:00.008+02:00

I was surprised to find so many things that I liked today considering most shops also dig out whatever's been lying around the storeroom for the past decade. And I'm not a big shopper in general. For instance, I have a strained relationship with shoes, trousers and underwear. Either it's a pain to try on 19 bras to find one fitting without making me feel like I've swapped breasts with Jordan, or the perfect shoes are too small in n° 38, too big in n° 39 and 38.5 never exist. Or all trousers are made for 2 meter tall models!!

Shopping. Not only once today but twice. A friend rang and told me she managed to get off work early and wondered if I'd come along to the sales. It wasn't hard to convince me. Really. A few things for L and a few things for me and these babies. It was love at first sight. The shopkeeper told me it was a great brand in France(?). Whatever. It was a perfect fit and a "I need to have" situation and that means I don't care what the shopkeepers say as long as my Visa is with me.

Les Soldes

2008-07-02T09:09:00.003+02:00

I don't know why but every region in France have a different start date for the summer sales. Promotions and sales are strictly regulated and shops get a heavy fine is they get caught starting ahead of the rest of the commerce. Here it starts today and I'm off to catch some bargains hopefully. However, I never seem to find anything when I decide to go shopping but if I just happen to be in town for a stroll I find heaps of stuff. So I'm bringing my camera, so if nothing else I can get a shot or two that might be suitable for the expo in September. (Ah, and that's a post I've been planning for some time now and haven't yet taken the time to write).

Stay tuned, I promise some more interesting posts shortly.

2008-06-29T22:12:00.002+02:00

Just a quick note to my brother:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY :) GRATULERER MED DAGEN :) TANTI AUGURI :) BONNE ANNIVERSAIRE :)

Summery Problems

2008-06-27T10:32:00.004+02:00

From April to now the weather has been pretty bad according to the spoilt Southeastern French people. A few hazy clouds will draw a frown from most people - "Argh, cloudy now again!" They've all been wondering if the summer had skipped this region this year but then last Wednesday the temperature rose, the clouds disappeared and all the cigales came out from their groundly hidingplaces to make their characteristic noise all day long. Summer's here! It's hot in the morning, it's hot in the evening and sleeping becomes a hot affaire but we love it and love to complain about it too. Well, I don't. I'm too Norwegian for that. But don't get me started on the moustiques, mosquitoes... There must be some flashing neon arrows saying "Great Blood" pointing my way.

I'm now here, after our more-than-welcome B&B guests have gone back to their own homes, tidying away all the warm winter clothes and taking out all the swim gear. My skin colour is way to white for being the end of June so in a moment or two I can be found on the beach catching up on some reading and sunbathing.

Il Milanese più Bello

2008-06-24T10:55:00.004+02:00

This cutie is here with his parents for a few days and I get to squeese, hug and hold him as much as I want. The photo of Gabriele was taken his baptism earlier this June.

Tai Cuc

2008-06-17T10:55:00.003+02:00

Yesterday evening I finished the first of four cycles in Tai Cuc (Tai Chi)!! Below you can see what I'm able to do now (shown by my teacher ;-) ... and see what sometimes keeps me sane, so voilà :

Beyond P.I.A**

2008-06-12T21:49:00.007+02:00

Thank god I had my Tai Chi class tonight otherwise my head might have exploded. The bathroom saga seems to only have begun...

You'll never guess what I found out this afternoon - a few hours after the shower door revelation. A person working in our bathroom has broken and cracked the corner of my new, chosen with care, plenty of euros worth, new bath tub. I was less than happy to say the least!! Not only has it been broken by someone but that same someone hasn't told anyone and had just tried to hide it with a white paste... Did he really think we wouldn't see it???

Changing it would involve breaking half the bathroom and the new tiles to get it out. I'm utterly gutted. Mr Company Owner told me they'd try to fix it but he couldn't even tell me how because he didn't know yet. Will they ever finish? I guess if we're lucky, we'll have the bathroom done by Christmas. FYI, we're talking about a 5 square meter bathroom and not a bathroom suite in some Saudi Arabian palace.

*Breathing deeply and thinking Ying Yang thoughts*

I'm oozing of wellbeing today - yup there's definitely a happy vibe coming from my blog today... (irony ;) Sorry about that.

** see link in previous post

2008-06-12T16:02:00.002+02:00

I'm so insanely happy I'm married to a guy (the most handsome and lovely of course) that just takes matters into his own hands and can manage to verbally make someone want to go to hell - in capital letters. He is making a nice little phonecall just now...

Oh, and that, sometimes, just makes my whole day, week, month and year!
*happy sigh*

Royal P.I.A.*

2008-06-12T14:30:00.006+02:00

So guess what?? - The shower door seem to be faulty and it might have to be returned. And that means we'll probably have another 3 week delay to finish the bathroom!!

#Pulling out my hair in despair#

The light in the tunnel : UPS has managed to send missing bathroom stuff from Spain. It should be here... soon?

*find a fitting meaning from this list

Strike / Grève

2008-06-11T13:08:00.005+02:00

I've never been a supporter of strikers or grèvistes. It always involves innocent people. When truckers block the motorway - who suffers? The company or all the other people trying to get from A > B ? Both. And is that fair?

I'm even more pissed off about it when I'm affected personally.

I understand the cause and the strikers but there must be other ways - for goodness sake, we live in a modern society. Yesterday, in an interview, a lady was worried she would get fired from her new job because her train arrived late because of the grève. Her statement was: You have a job, now let me keep mine! I couldn't agree more!!

I'm angry because now my carreleur can't finish the job in my bathroom because the last few bits missing are stuck in Spain on the motorway because of the truckers, they've blocked the border between France and Spain for everybody. Arrrgh!

To answer the question I see coming, yes! they have been working in my bathroom for what seems like an eternity! Two months and it's still not finished... *sigh* And on top of that I came home last night to find that Mr. D had assembled the shower door wrong, and drilled a hole in the new tiles. The instructions were so easy to read - IKEA like, and he got it wrong.

I wonder if Guinness book of records have a record of countries in the world where there are the most strikes. If so I guess France is on top of the list!!

Sardinia 2

2008-06-10T10:21:00.005+02:00

I love the design on these ferries!

An empty bay which in the summer is too crowded...

I have a facination with flowers and plants (though I can't seem to keep them alive at home :)

The Family!

The rock contains a lot of iron and gives the beaches a red glow...

For enhanced colours keep your polaroid sunglasses on...

Heard Outside the Post Office

2008-06-07T12:43:00.006+02:00

Funny episode happened yesterday outside the post office. A small lorry had parked and blocked my car in the parking space. Quickly I realised that the driver, standing 20 meters away, was about to receive a fine from a handsome Gendarme.

From his body language it was clear that the small Moroccan guy was not at all happy. After 5 minutes he turned on his heal heading back to the lorry while shouting something to the Gendarme. At first I didn't realise what but after a few repetitions I understood:

- "Je vous souhaites que du mal !!" (I just wish you harm)

I thought it was kind of funny that he'd use the polite form for 'you' (vous) when clearly his statement was not polite at all.

Apparently he had parked in the middle of the road to buy cigarettes blocking the road for 10 minutes. And clearly the fine didn't teach him better manners because he didn't apologise for blocking me and my car in the parkinglot for another 10 minutes either.

And how stupid is it not to realise that the policemen are just doing their job as everybody else? The lorry driver was just making a bigger fool out of himself by not accepting the fine and not taking responsibilty for his actions. If I park on a yellow line I know that I'm breaking the law and that I'm risking a fine. If don't get it, well I'm relieved. If I do, on the other hand, I suck it up and pay it. I don't go around blaming the world or wishing harm to all the policemen.

Raining Spiders

2008-06-06T15:10:00.003+02:00

I opened the window and something fell to the floor. It looked like wall plaster. As I expected I saw another nest of what I always believed to be some type of flying insect.

I paused and looked out, breathing the rainy air.

Then I looked down to the floor and guess what I saw - 5 big spiders. Yikes! Falling, they just missed my head and face by a few centimeters. I think they were dead but functioned as big spider egg machines because they didn't move when I whacked them with my slipper but they did make a big mess. I'm officially grossed out.

Sardinia 1

2008-05-31T15:43:00.005+02:00

Our trip to Sardinia was just relaxing which was also mostly due to the fact that Lorenzo's parents were spoiling us :) Apart from one excursion we didn't do much other than reading, walking, sleeping, taking photos and going out with L's parents' small canadian boat along the beaches and bays nearby. So in the next few post I'd just like to share a few photos with you. L's coursin with wife (Ciao Cri!!) and their beautiful little son Giovanni were also in Sardinia and we met them one afternoon. (By clicking on the photos you can see them in a bigger format)

Sofa

2008-05-30T15:18:00.001+02:00

The sofa turned out to be so much nicer than we expected!! We're thrilled. Long boring story very short; we basically picked it out from an online catalogue which is something I would never, like never, normally do with such an important piece of furniture. But it turned out to be spot-on what we needed and wanted in our now cosy livingroom.

Our friends decided not to come because of the bad weather we have had, and still have here in the south of France. When is the sun coming back??

Where's the Popcorn?

2008-05-28T15:32:00.004+02:00

Just a little note to say that we're back. The cat too. All three of us are feeling better and more relaxed and full of renewed homesickness - remind me why we live in France again???!

There are some completely uninteresting news I'd like to share. With this blog-thingy going on you're in for the worst and the best right??! In sickness and in health... you get the drift!

One: New Sofa is being delivered tomorrow. From Italy. But since nothing is ever just straight forward I need to rent a van and pick the sofa up in Cannes, as in Cannes Film Festival city, as in 120 (x 2 = 240) KM from home. Lorenzo working = me driving and picking it up. Note to self: Practice tonight that blond and cute attitude to charm the trasportatori to off- and on- load sofa into my van.

Two: Friday is Monster Cleaning Day. Our friends are coming from Milan to see us! Yeah! Since living in across the border in France is like living on the other side of the world for the normal Italian, this is a big event indeed. Why monster clean you ask? Well, our normal standards are high but in these bathroom renovation days, the house is a mess. There's a ever present white dust covering everything and even though I wipe it away another layer has formed within an half-hour. What's a little bit of cleaning when you get to spend a weekend with good friends?? :)

Three: I've almost forgot what it's like to go to the cinema. Seeing Brad Pitt or Harrison Ford speaking French just doesn't do it for me. I don't even know when I last went to the cinema even. So the point is: we're going to the cinema to see the new Indiana Jones film. In English. Which means we need to go on an excursion to Aix en Provence or Marseille. Something we've never done before, just for a silly film.

Four: My father in law is a genius! By the end of June we'll have (hold on tight now!!) a satellite dish giving us English, Italian, Scandinavian and French TV channels. FIL has been working on this for weeks, making a motor so that the dish will rotate to find the right satellites when we press the remote control buttons. The best?? : All these channels are completely subscription free.

Conclusion? : If I am to draw a conclusion from the above four points I will turn into a couch potato watching VO (Version Original) TV from my brand new sofa sending my friends to the cinema and calling someone (from the comfortable sofa) to come clean the house. I have nothing but a bright and comfy future ahead of me.

Off to Sunny? Sardinia

2008-05-22T14:35:00.003+02:00

In a few minutes Lorenzo will be here and we are off to Genoa to jump on the night ferry to Sardinia. Ahhh... don't you just love the rumble of the big engines and the small waves that help you sleep?! Sardinia will be in flower now and the best: we will probably be alone since the tourist season hasn't started just yet.

The cat will be dropped off in her private hotel in Cuers - luckily the Pension owner is a veterinary assistant as well and don't see a problem in nursing my little (fustrated) kitty. Since she doesn't eat paté, I have cooked enough chicken to last her a week but strangely enough, bringing our own food doesn't give any discount at all... Anyway, the important part is that our cat will be fine there and we don't have to worry.

Kitty Update

2008-05-21T11:53:00.004+02:00

My poor kitty is quite ill and is walking around with a cone on her head.

The vet found a big abscess full of red pus (not blood) next to her bum. In his words this abscess was enormous. But the worst is that he didn't find out why she had developed it which means it might return.

The funny part here is that before Lorenzo could take her home from the vet yesterday, they had to re-disinfect her and my (slightly sentitive to gooy stuff) husband almost fainted holding the unhappy cat down on the table. Bless them!

To say the least, Topolina's not happy. She keeps on scraping the cone along the floor, banging into obstacles and doesn't understand that the cone is there to prevent her from cleaning herself. She also have to take antibiotics for the next 10 days which isn't all that great since we are celebrating our anniversary in Italy the next 5 days and we have to leave her in the Cat Pension.

Ze Cat is ill

2008-05-20T11:10:00.004+02:00

The last few days my little Topolina has been behaving strangely and she has been sleeping a lot. When she came to sit on my lap I got even more worried because she never, never seeks that close contact. (Now I know she was cold and needed to be warmed up, poverina!) So yesterday evening we called the veterinary on call to ask advice as she hadn't been eating or drinking all day long either. He told us it might have been caused by ze bird she caught the other day and to bring her in this morning for a check-up.

It turned out she had 40 in fever and had an infection of some sort around the tail/bum. He couldn't tell before she was sedated and he could touch her without causing pain. I felt guilty for not having noticed she had such a high fever but her nose and ears have been just the right temperature the last few days. The vet calmed me down saying that in some cases that 'trick' doesn't work and the nose stays cold and wet regardless of a fever or not.

When I left the clinic I heard her mewing loudly, something she never does either. It was hard to leave her there but hopefully when I pick her up later this afternoon Dr. Vet would have figured out the why's and how to cure her.

One Year Anniversary

2008-05-19T18:11:00.007+02:00

One year ago, more or less to the minute, we were standing on those steps overlooking the bay in Sestri Levante. If only we could do it all over again; have another glass of Ferrari, dance a little more, eat a little more of that lovely wedding cake... Aaaah, it was all so good. It was a day where my happiness felt like the bubbles in a champagne glass - they just floated to the surface in a continuous stream... And they still do :)

Happy Anniversary amore mio!