Highs and Lows

I was so busy this morning! I had to get my husband's passport renewal off to the Embassy in Rome with enough time before his old one runs out! This involved a quick trip to the Consul, a visit to the bank for a draft and then finally posting it off at the Post Office. This wasn't so bad except it meant crossing the Arno 3 times, one after the other to visit each place! Anyway once it was done I went to buy a friend a birthday present then headed home.

This is when the low kicks in! Having been so busy I then came home to twiddle my thumbs as it were! So I studied a little Italian - very informative, I have a Berlitz PC programme that lets you record your voice and compares it with a native speaker, I now know why no-one can understand me, even when I think I am speaking perfectly correctly and clearly!!

Then I trawled all my friends blogs - happy women's day for last Saturday (this was a major theme!)

I also posted an hotel review on Venere for the hotel we stayed in in Venice. There was only one problem - we were moved to a different hotel so I couldn't review the one I wanted to. I got around this in the comments section, I hope. Anyone looking for a good hotel in Venice, check out Tribute To Music (that's really its name!) It's right on the water front, the rooms were big and the staff friendly. I'll be going back! And now I'm doing this!

I also received a very nice parcel from Amazon which should keep me busy for a while to come. I like getting parcels and DVD's and books are among my favourite things to get - doesn't matter if they don't fit and they rarely don't work!

Anyway, the upshot of this is that my Italian should improve!

Playing on My i-touch

Bat For Lashes - What's a Girl To Do?

Just love it!

Guess Where We Went For The Weekend?

A few hints at first, but I'm not going to make it too easy just yet! I'll let the photo's do the talking for once...

And if you haven't got it by now....! I suppose it could just about have been Las Vegas...

Watching TV Through a PC

I've finally found what looks like a kosher website for watching British TV live on my PC.

It's called UKTVLive and does what it says on the box! I'm currently on a 7 day trial after which I have to decide whether or not to pay a subscription of approx. £25/month to watch the Beeb and its competitors. I think SkyOne is also included, its 17 channels in total for the subscription.

The really bizarre thing about me even considering this is that for the first 8 months we were here we only had random freeview channels and then went for SKY Italia, which I'm very happy with. I also have Alice TV - by mistake, but I got the WI-FI with it so it costs next to nothing - which I rarely use even though the film catalogue is great, just all in Italian. So why am I even considering this?

Well, firstly I like technology and it feels really cool to be able to watch real time British TV along with my friends and family in the UK. Plus I really liked seeing the Ads in English, sad I know! And lastly, it was nice last night watching those ever so properly spoken presenters on Relocation, Relocation and Grand Designs, knowing that this wasn't some ancient programme from 3 years ago on Discovery. I'm a little fed up of hearing about the latest "Top Gear" exploit - they are still showing those from 2 years ago on Discovery, the new ones come onto YouTube faster (courtesy of the BBC, by the way!) or Dr Who that won't be on Jimmy or Prime for months! Is this worth £25/month? Well, I probably spend that on cappuccino and paste in the mornings and they aren't good for me either!

I'll let you know what I decide, but it's looking like a yes, unless I hear anything negative of course!