Technological Issues!

Not very punchy as a title I know! I just reviewed my previous post and realised that I'd said I was going to post photo's - then didn't! The wonders of technology have prevented this until now. My camera card wouldn't allow me to download all my photo's to Picasa or to the laptop until yesterday! In the end I had to delete 180 photo's off the card one by one before the rest could be put on my laptop!! Also I've been having fun with my laptop. I run it permanently from the mains without the battery in. The battery gave up the ghost about 3 months ago. I also had to buy a new charger/transformer as the old one was melting the casing surrounding it's wires! All good stuff. Then the laptop started just shutting down about a week ago. I think it was a dodgy connection from the new transformer....My darling husband doesn't want to buy new hardware until windows7 arrives and he won't even consider Apple, so I'm stuck with tin cans and bits of string until then!!

I've started to use my i-touch as a mini-laptop more and more, consequently the battery on that is starting to die faster and faster! When I come to get it changed I will lose all the books I have stored from www.drinkmalk.com as you can only download them straight to your i-touch and you can't back up on your pc!! I just hope the site is still up when the time comes!! Aargh! Technology!!

Anyway I will put some photo's on here in a bit!! :))

Tecno

Summer is over, again!

It only feels like I was posting a couple of weeks ago that we were all together again for the summer! School started for Alex on the 6th September and for Antonia on the 14th. As if to order the rain started on the first day of school here in Italy and it hasn't stopped since! Surprisingly the temperatures are still in the high 20's but it does make it difficult to know what to wear! I wear jeans and a jacket and I boil but if I dress lighter I get wet or cold!! It is much more like Spring in the UK but warmer than Autumn to be honest. Very strange. I have this every year, not knowing what coat to wear or jeans or sandals or wellies!!

In fact come the end of October it will be the end of our 3rd year here! Where it has gone I don't know! What I do know is that my Italian is still crap while Antonia's is almost perfect. I have picked up more and more but I just find it really hard to sit down and study and as for watching tv to help with my Italian............

Over the summer we went to Spain for a week, visited Galleria di Ferrari in Maranello and a quick visit to Modena on the way home, visited Lucca for the day, Fiesole, played tennis and went to the pool a few times, played croquet (!) and finally put the climbing frame up properly. Last, but not least, we visited Genova for a couple of days and did the Aquarium - probably the hit of the summer, alongside the Ferrari's that is!! I've posted a load of photo's on Facebook, but I'll put a few favourites on here in the next few days or so. :)

All Together Again....

Not been on for a while - well, nearly 2 months to be exact! No particular reason other than laziness! My mum always made me write to my relatives who lived far away - I hated doing it! I could never think of anything to say! Now it isn't that things haven't been happening here - we were back over in Spain at the end of May, my Mother-in-Law, who featured briefly in my blog last year, died at the grand old age of 83 back at the start of May, I have made new friends over here, some of which I have been surprised by! What else? Not a lot, nothing that would be of mind blowing interest anyway on a blog - or so I believe! More than anything I am spending more and more time on Facebook...I find it more immediate and a better way to keep in touch with my family, which was the initial reason for starting this blog, as well as to generally talk about my life here in Florence. Also an expat blog isn't exactly ground breaking stuff - every expat seems to do one at some point, so unless you have a USP you are going to get lost in the crowds! I know mine is read, but I genuinely don't know by how many people, I track traffic flow but not numbers!

Anyway, back to the title. The summer holidays have started, just over 3 weeks ago in fact. Alex is here until the start of September and Antonia until the middle of September. My OH is coming over every other week, except next week when we will go over to him in Spain. So far we have taught Antonia to ride her bike without stabilisers, met up with quite a few friends, visited the Crystal exhibition at La Specola - small, but very good if you are interested - visited Galileo at Palazzo Strozzi - most of the exhibits are from the Science museum, which is pretty empty because of this, so if you were planning on a visit there, don't, go to the Strozzi instead! We've seen a few films, the new HP among them (Star Trek is better...), Antonia has been to the ballet in the Boboli gardens with her dad, dressed up to the nines, we have been to the beach and out for a celebratory meal for my OH's birthday plus a trip to I Gigli for his presie. So this first 3 weeks have been pretty busy. The temperatures are high but that is summer!! Hopefully I will return with an update and some photo's before September!