Thankfully, she’s cute

Well, today dear reader is May 8. THE most important day on the calendar. Why? Because IT’S MY BIRTHDAY and here I am in Rome. Guess there could be worse places in the world to be on your birthday. But I am missing being with hubs, Zeph, Zsa Zsa and the horses. Nevertheless, Happy Birthday to me!

But the point of this post is to tell you about my God-niece, Emily. I’ve introduced you to her before. She’s my God-niece because she’s the daughter of my great mate, Karen, and I’m part of the family. Karen’s mum, Fritz (whose real name is Rita) is my second mother. And so that makes Emily my “niece”. Thankfully, I can report she is one super-cute baby. I spent two days in Sydney, enroute to Rome. It was really too short but that’s all the time I had.

Now, I should preface my remarks by telling you that I’m not, and never have been, a baby person. Babies are cute to look at but that’s about it. Hold them cautiously, hope they don’t cry and pass them back to the mother, pronto. I haven’t avoided having kids myself; it just never happened. Wasn’t my destiny. So babies and children have not really been on my radar. Things like changing nappies or at what age a baby starts crawling may as well be from the twilight zone. Yep, I was a teacher for a few years but I taught mainly high school.

I wasn’t worried about how I’d cope with Emily or engage with her. I was just happy to be spending two days with my mate and her family. But to my great delight, I can report that I’ve never seen a baby smile so much. Not than I’m some living expert on babies but seems to me Emily is an extremely happy, vivacious bub. Every time I looked at her or she looked at me – smile time.

I managed to hold her without dropping her; I gave her the bottle without choking her; and even managed to put her in a cute little pink sleeping bag thingo without smothering her or breaking any bones. Miracle if you ask me. I kept her entertained whilst she did tummy duty. Emily doesn’t seem to be overly keen about spending time on her stomach, which is apparently something she must do to build up muscles for sitting, rolling over and crawling. I guess it also gives bub a different view of the world.

The most hilarious thing was when hubs and I Skyped. Emily was propped up in the corner of the sofa, sitting next to me and, as hubs and I chatted away, Emily would look at me or smile at the funniest moments. Almost on cue. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she was following the conversation and participating in it.

And this bub works the floor. She loves going out, so she accompanied us to several cafes and was busy eye-balling everyone. Doing her smiling thing. I’m hopeful that when I next pass through Sydney, she might be able to score us some free coffees because some waiter (ah, waitron!) gives in to her charm.

Super cute bub, Emily Addison.

How cute am I? Yeah, I know: too cute for words.

Mum and bub.

One of the many meals I enjoyed in Sydney. This is Breakfast Board #1 at Pablo & Rusty’s, Lane Cove.

 

Some curiosities

I don’t mean to single out Thailand but I was there recently visiting Lalida and I happened to spot some curiosities. And they are curiosities because regular readers know I love nothing better than to Spot The Mistake.

I’ll start off with less of a mistake and more of a curiosity. I’ve never tried a durian but I’ve smelt one. It’s a fruit and there’s not better way to put it – it stinks. To me, it smells like smelly feet mixed with manure. Awful. Disgusting, Phew. So I was pleased to see a No Durian sign at our hotel. Apparently, many hotels in Southeast Asia ban guests from taking durians to their rooms. I think Singapore public transport also bans durians.

And now to the mistakes. Lalida, hubs and I were quite fascinated with a sonic jewellery cleaner and went to a particular shop a couple of times to see it. Well, not really see it as much as whack our combined jewellery in it and get a free clean. I told you recently about the Chinglesh I spotted on a sonic jewellery cleaner box here in New Zealand. Well, the sign in Thailand was equally as good fun for me.

The astute reader will immediately see the mistakes – the misspelling of glasses (as glesses) and the incorrect spelling of Stationary (which should be stationery because when something is standing still, it’s stationary).

Then we went off to see some Art Galleries but, because of the threatened flooding of Bangkok, we didn’t get to many. One sign seemed to be confused over whether it was Opening Hours or Opening House – so ended up with Opening Houes. The other gallery was in such a rush to flee the oncoming floods that it totally messed up its sign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, people in Bangkok seem to slim up, as opposed to slim down. Curious.

 

The apartment

Well dear reader: I’m back in New Zealand, after flying around the planet for something like 33 hours. And what a beautiful sight it was – flying over the Southern Alps. The clouds cleared to reveal snowy peaks and then, as we flew into Christchurch, the geometry of the landscape was simply stunning. Light green squares of land, divided by dark green macrocarpa and fractured by meandering rivers and streams.

After being in Italy for 2.5 months, two things immediately struck me. The first thing is that New Zealand has so much space. As we neared Christchurch, I could see large farm houses smack bang in the centre of acres of verdant paddocks, dotted with sheep, horses and cattle. The second thing that struck me? So few people. New Zealand’s population is roughly 4.4 million but only 24% live in the South Island. As I went through the airport to the carpark and we drove home – all I could think of was how empty the landscape is. Empty in the sense of no historic ruins, apartment blocks or hundreds of people milling about. It’s such a contrast but I do love New Zealand for its beauty.

And I hadn’t realised how friendly New Zealanders are. When I fronted up to immigration and they realised I’d been away for some months, there was chit-chat about what I’d been doing (I realise they were asking pointed questions) and then a friendly Kia Ora, Welcome Home. And you know what? NZ now feels like home. I transited through Sydney and as we were winging by the Harbour Bridge and Opera House – I didn’t have any real tugs of emotion for the city I’d spent my whole life in up until 2010. It is a visually gorgeous city though.

Anyway. The point of today’s post is to show you the apartment I lived in during my stay in Rome. I realised that I had forgotten to post photos. It was an odd apartment I must say. It spanned three levels and was located on the bottom level of a large terracotta-coloured villa, just opposite Circo Massimo (Circus Maximus). From the balcony on the top level, I could sit in the morning sun and have my breakfast overlooking ancient Roman ruins.

I say the apartment was odd because it wasn’t really all that comfortable. Fully furnished yes, but nowhere to comfortably sit and relax. All the chairs were stiff wooden antique type things and the beds and sofas were pretty well rock hard. My great mate who came to stay for five days declared it all very bizarre. The three levels were connected by a spiral staircase that you had to be a bit of a mountain goat to get up and down.

In the area were a few restaurants and a patisserie I frequented, but the liveliness of an Italian community was missing because this was largely a tourist area. Next time (should there be a second contract), I plan to live in Garbatella – a former working class area of Rome that is pretty quirky.

This is the living room area on the entrance level, which can be converted into a bedroom. There's my green suitcase ready to pack.

Strange ladder thing in the entrance area.

Spiral staircase that connects the three levels.

The main bedroom - it has a small ensuite bathroom.

Small ensuite bathroom with one of those showers in the bathtub situations I hate.

On the top floor was the main living area plus very tiny kitchen.

View from top balcony - you can see the ruins of Circo Massimo.

The main villa is a terracotta colour but looks more yellow in this photo.

Looking down from the top balcony at the entrance archway.

Front door to apartment and very small entrance way.

The basement level had a bedroom, bathroom and utility room.

Basement level bedroom, looking towards staircase going up. This is another staircase, not the spiral staircase.

Kitchen on top level - really small with no preparation area.

In case you didn't realise this is the kitchen, there is a sign on the wall saying Kitchen.

The villa from the street.

Huge amphora next to the gate that leads out to the street. The villa was pretty secure with alarms everywhere. Not sure if it's the landlady who was a bit paranoid or if there was something about the area I didn't know about!

Entrance archway - my apartment was behind the gate.

Instead of using the front door, you could enter the apartment through this garden gate. Behind the gate is a very small patio with a couple of chairs. I never used it - not sure why.

The villa as you enter the front gate.

 

Arrivederci Roma!

Well dear reader: this is it. Last day in Rome. I’m sad but also happy to be going home to New Zealand. I’ve really loved my 2.5 months here and experiencing the Italian way of life. I’ve enjoyed the job and working with a great team of people, who are really dedicated to reducing poverty around the world.

So on my last day in Rome, I decided to take it easy and go to the places I really like and do what I like to do. So that meant plenty of walking for a start. I started off around 8.00am and walked into Testaccio (about a 15 minute walk). I visited my favourite cafe for a cappuccino and jambella (large doughnut dusted with sugar). I then visited the local markets, browsed around and ended up buying a cute little dog-decorated shopping bag for Euro 5.00.

Then the French lady I work with came around to my apartment and I gave her what I reckon happens a lot with international consultants -  a food parcel. All the stuff I didn’t get through: some bottles of wine (that was hubs who left these behind); pasta, rice, vegetables and so on. In return, she helped to pack my red handbag in one of the suitcases. Since she goes on a lot of missions, she is an old hand at packing strategically. I was stressing out a bit that I wasn’t going to fit everything into my two suitcases. The green one hasn’t quite carked it, so it’s going back to NZ. Why toss it when I might get one more trip out of it!

We then went to Campo de’ Fiori (near Piazza Navona) to sit at a cafe, chat, have a cappuccino and I had (another) jambella. Then she dropped me at the hairdresser and after that, I scoffed a Diavola pizza, which is supposed to be hot and spicy but isn’t really. For my sins, I then walked to the Colosseum (about 30 minutes) and did a circuit of this stadium, then headed to Circo Massimo. I live opposite Circo Massimo (Circus Maximus) but, in the months I’ve been here, I’ve never walked on the huge field that was once the largest stadium in Ancient Rome. So I did two circuits (another 30 minutes or so) and then walked up the 30+ steps that lead to Via del Circo Massimo. Up the hill a bit more and I came back to the apartment to do some more stressing over packing.

I’m not a great packer. Hubs usually packs the suitcases because we travel together. I’m sure I have wasted space but just so long as all my stuff makes it back home, I don’t really care how badly it’s packed. I then had a Skype chat with hubs and he showed me Zeph and Zsa Zsa, lazing in front of the log fire. Yep, good old NZ – it’s October already and we need a log fire.

So five days home and then it’s off to Malaysia to train Knowledge Management consultants for a Malaysian company; then on to Thailand. As you’re reading this, I’m already in transit – Rome to Dubai; Dubai to Bangkok; Bangkok to Sydney; Sydney to yippee – Christchurch. Mad eh? Well, my great mate has told me to chill out, watch some movies and enjoy (she likes long haul travel, whereas I get fidgety and bored after 5 hours or so).

Adieu dear reader. Until the DailyOxford becomes the DailyOxford again (and not the Daily Rome) – I leave you with photos of Zeph and Zsa Zsa lazing, along with the cappuccinos, jambella and pizza I scoffed on my last wonderful day in the world’s most amazing city – Roma.

Wonderful Italian cappuccinos and a jambella (well, two of them) - basically a large doughnut rolled in sugar. Yum!

Really, this is the first whole pizza I've scoffed since being in Rome. It's Diavola - hot and spicy.

Zeph is on the right. Both of them are lazing on their cushions in front of the log fire.

Zeph: not too happy to be woken up for a Skype chat.

Hubs with Zeph (who was listening intently to me saying I would be home very soon).

 

Diva pears

This is the first time in my life that I’ve not been working. I’m talking to people about some consulting work but, frankly, no more full or part-time jobs for me. I’m enjoying the freedom far too much. I’m doing stuff I always yapped that I would do if I had the time – writing, learning new stuff (in this case, about horses and farming), doing something totally unexpected (moving to New Zealand) and……cooking.

When I was in my teens, my father suddenly took up cooking. I suspect this was because my mother had a pretty limited culinary repertoire – curried sausages with mash was trotted out a lot, along with a suspicious looking meatloaf. But my mother was very good at making cakes and biscuits. My father could whip up an excellent veal schnitzel with hot potato salad. And so I took up cooking with my dad and baked things like orange almond cake, flapjacks (a biscuit) and my specialty – Canadian meat pie. I know that some of my loyal readers will be rolling on the floor in hysterical laughter at the thought of moi in the kitchen.

But I now have some proof – photos. I have all the cookbooks of my grandmother, father and mother, as well as some of the handwritten recipes I whipped up as a teenager way back. And so I browsed through some of the recipes and decided to cook some spiced pears in red wine sauce. We bought some local produce at the Oxford Farmers’ Markets last Sunday, including some juicy pears.

So I am becoming quite the domestic diva and here are my diva pears. I prefer the recipes of “yesteryear” – somehow they just seem much easier to follow and with less ingredients.

Spiced pears in red wine.

Hubby couldn't resist slapping on some vanilla ice-cream but I think they would go well with some lovely thick cream.

The recipe is actually from my mother’s handwritten recipe book, which is her collection of recipes spanning the 1940s to the 1970s or so. Should you wish to do amazing things with the humble pears sitting forlornly in your fruit bowl, here’s the recipe. I would say it’s from the early 1960s – certainly it’s pre-1966 when Australia went metric, so I had to convert pints into millilitres. You can substitute red wine for white wine if you like but I prefer the richness and full-bodied flavour of the red wine syrup.

6 medium pears

1 cup sugar

568mls water

568mls red wine

grated rind of 1 lemon

1 dessertspoon lemon juice

4 whole cloves

Cinnamon stick

Peel your pears thinly and leave the stalks on (this helps them look good when serving). Place the pears and all other ingredients in a saucepan. The liquid should just cover the pears but if necessary, add more water and wine in equal measures. Cover the pears and simmer gently for 20 mins or until just tender. Don’t cook them to death. Strain the syrup and pour over pears (use a nice glass bowl for the pears). Chuck the pears into the refrigerator. Serve with the syrup spooned over pears. The pears taste even better the next night as the spices and wine have really kicked in. Enjoy!