Tag Archives: England

So that was Christmas

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I’m writing this at 10:30pm on Christmas night sitting in the living room at Aspley Guise trying not to nod off to sleep. The day has been a blur of presents, food and drink.

The day started early as the kids woke up and discovered a trail of reindeer hoof prints leading from the chimney to their bedrooms. Santa’s beer and snacks were gone and in exchange there were presents stretching from one side of the lounge to the other.

For 30 minutes it was a present opening frenzy. The kids found that Santa had answered every wish they had on their list. I found that Santa had managed to organise, among other things, a new iPhone and Jean found that a D&G watch she had spotted in Italy had been delivered by the jolly red guy.

Lunch was for 12 and included a turkey the size of a small horse, ham on the bone and potatoes roasted in goose fat. This was followed by the traditional pavlova (made by Gill) and ice cream (home made by Jean to an old Italian recipe). By 3pm all 12 of us were struggling to move.

From there it was all downhill. A round of party games saw us through to a light tea and suddenly it’s – now.

After events like today it’s traditional to thank the ladies for the spread and the blokes for bringing the booze. So thank you ladies and gents, our first UK Christmas.

Buon Natale

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It’s Christmas time already and with only a few days to go we are in the UK, waiting for the snow to start falling and frantically checking our Christmas lists – twice. Jean, the girls and I would like to take this opportunity to wish all our loyal and lovely friends and readers a Buon Natale (as the Italians say) and a full, fruitful and enjoyable new year.

We have really enjoyed sharing our Italian adventures with everyone over the last 9 months and appreciated all the feedback we have received. And even though we are no longer in Italy we will continue to write about our adventures over the next few months wherever they happen to take us.

Once again Buon Natale and best wishes to you all.

Jean, Graeme and the girls.

A weekend with Gill

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Our dear friend Gill popped in for the weekend. It’s easy to say, but “popping in” meant a ridiculously early flight for Gill from the UK on Friday morning to Pisa where the entire Mowday clan went to pick her up.

It was great to see her and the girls got straight down to business. Three bottles of Moet disappeared almost immediately followed by a couple of bottles of Chardonnay (one a kiwi chardonnay saved especially for the occasion) over a dinner of Jeans famous roast chicken and potatoes. Suffice it to say Saturday started slowly in the cottage.

There was a little “pool time” and then dinner in the Campo at Al Mangia. Because the Campo is being prepared for the Palio on Saturday 2 July, barriers and stands are in the process of being erected and we had dinner in what is soon to be the middle of the racecourse on 3 inches of hard packed clay with race barriers on each side. Imagine having dinner on the finish line at Trentham racecourse and you’ll get the idea.

Dinner at Al Mangia sitting in the middle of the Palio track

All around us Campo life continued as always with bars and restaurants doing their usual business – but all in slightly surreal surroundings. It wasn’t quite what we expected or had planned. Jean being the control freak she is spent the first 15 minutes saying “this isn’t right, no, this isn’t right” repeatedly and wanting them just to “put it back the way it was” but Gill pointed out it was a truly unique experience. A couple of bottles of wine and an excellent meal helped everyone mellow somewhat.

We will see Gill and family again in late July and can’t wait.

Visitors from distant shores

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We are starting to plan for the arrival of summer visitors. Today we bought a small freezer which now holds pride of place in the kitchen (and the dining room and part of the lounge) so we can do ice cubes, gelato and actually store meat for more than a day or two. And get beer really cold in a hurry.

The barbecue is being specified at present. We are thinking charcoal as that seems to be the accepted norm. Around here gas seems to be for gattino – look it up. Also a slew of other home comforts are being put in place because it’s the beginning of the visitor season.

In the next month and a half we have visitors galore.

Villa Crognole outside Radda in Chanti.

First up we catch up with Jean’s friend Kate Maclean who worked with Jean at Clemenger. Kate and her partner are working in the UK. Kate’s family are coming over from New Zealand for a holiday which involves a week in a villa in Chianti. It has been arranged through our villa wizard Olga and is the same one we stayed at in 2006. A fantastic place. We are popping up for drinks and dinner in mid June.

Next up is a flying weekend visit by Gill from the UK. We are thinking pool life combined with excellent meals in Siena. And the odd bottle of New Zealand Chardonnay mixed in.

At the start of July the Mowday family packs the car and leaves Tuscany heading for Positano where we have rented an apartment off the lovely family who own and run Eden Roc Hotel. The really good news is we get full hotel privileges (pool, bar tab, meals on the terrace, Tony’s cappuccino for breakfast, etc) but stay off site so the dogs don’t disturb the hotel’s peace and quiet. We are there for two weeks and Jean’s sister Charmaine, brother-in-law Mike and their baby James arrive towards the end of the stay.

Jean, Josh, Andre, Gill and Jordan around the pool in 2010 while the dolphin watches on.

Back to Toscana with Charmaine, Mike and Jimmy for a week and then Gill, Josh and Jordan arrive from London with Andre following after his pilgrimage to the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. We are still looking for large, slightly disturbing, inflatable animals to go in the pool prior to their arrival.

We are also expecting a mate from work, Danny Malone, to put in an appearance at the end of July on his 2011 European trip to round things out. An excellent month at our place.

We then head south to Rome for a weekend at the end of July with Charmaine, Mike and James before aiming the Peugeot at Nice for a car swap in early August – and a week at the delightful Hotel Welcome in Villefranche sur mer. See an earlier post for rave reviews.

After that we are ready to welcome other kiwi visitors – you know who you are – through August and September as the summer crawls to an end and our thoughts turn to autumn.

Excitingly it looks like our old friend Isabel and Charlie will be visiting in late September/early October as well. I think I can call Isabel an “old” friend as we both have had very significant birthdays this year.

Let the fun commence.

Invading Europe

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It was as simple as driving to Folkestone, flashing our passports at a seriously un-interested french customs officer sitting in a little booth and boarding the channel tunnel train.

Onboard the Chunnel Train.

Thirty five minutes later you drive off at Calais and head into Europe. Importantly remembering to drive on the other side of the road.

Bon Jour France.

Heading South

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Tomorrow we are departing English shores for the continent.  We’ve had a fantastic time with Gill and Andre and the kids who have really looked after us.  We will miss them terribly.  The good news is that we meet up with them again in July in Tuscany for a week.

Poppie making sure she isn't left behind.

Heading south means taking our car – the mighty Peugeot 308 wagon – through the channel tunnel by train and then driving south to Lille where we will spend the night. From there it’s a bit of an adventure until we get to Tuscany sometime later in the week.

Blog post regularity may suffer a little depending on access to the interweb, but please keep watching.

Friday 29 April – Just another day in the UK

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The papers the day of the wedding.

Well not really.  That wedding is on and the whole country has been given the day off and intends to make the most of it.  The team at Peers Drive, Aspley Guise are heading to the local village of Woburn (in the shadow of Woburn Abbey) to watch the wedding at the Black Horse pub.

The pub had gone out of it’s way to make people welcome and when we arrived it was full of locals – some dressed in their best frocks and hats or Sunday suits – watching proceedings on the big TV mounted in the corner of the bar.

Jean explaining the nuances of the dress to 11 year old Josh.

Once again the English proclivity for patriotism and pomp and circumstance meant the whole pub joined in to sing Jerusalem and God Save the Queen.

Union Jack flags, hats and bowties were handed out to anyone who wanted to look suitably silly.  And the plastic tiaras went down a treat with our ladies, as did many glasses champagne, of course.

The lads tended to show their support for the wedding from a distance – the length of the bar to be precise – and marked significant milestones in the ceremony with a series of celebratory pints.

Locals enjoying the show. Although the Queen Mum doesn't look too happy.

We ended the day with lunch at the pub and then home for endless TV replays and a wee sleep on the couch.  Lovely.

Footnote: apparently 23 million Britons watched the wedding which, by my calculation, is about 1 in 3 people in the British Isles.

Sick Poppie

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Having got the dogs here and then having had them treated for various things that might affect them in the UK and Italy, Poppie’s body finally said  – enough.

One unhappy little dog

It was the most innocuous treatment – essentially an English version of Frontline – that proved the last straw and saw her transform from a happy little dog to a very agitated, unhappy and unwell dog in the space of 2 hours.

For the last 5 days she has only wanted to sit on someone’s lap or hide herself among the pillows on the bed.  The world has held no interest for her and she just wanted everyone to go away and let her be.

After 3 trips to vet and a total bill of £250, we were none the wiser but were armed with skin washes, antihistamines and antibiotics, all the things that might help.

But in the end it was time that did the trick.  But it’s fair to say we will be looking for an alternative treatment for fleas and other crawlies for Poppie in the future.

Rule Britannia

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April 23 is St Georges Day. A chance for the English to celebrate their patron saint – and their sheer englishness.

The team off to the St Georges Day Ball - the Puppy stayed home.

We were lucky enough to be invited to the local St Georges Day Ball which was held in Bedford, about 20 minutes from where we are staying.

It was a black tie affair and included a reading from Shakespeare’s Henry V, the parading of the roast beef by the chef and members of the local Queens Guards regiment, and the singing of Land of Hope and Glory, Jerusalem (an odd choice of song to celebrate England I thought), Rule Britannia and, of course, God save the Queen.

And when I say singing, I mean at the top of our voices and accompanied by frantic flag waving – St George’s crosses of course.  Anyone who walked in would have thought we had all been drinking – which we had.

The Parading of the Roast Beef - of course. On our feet for Rule Britannia

The serious side of the evening was fundraising for a local mental health charity, and the fun side was enjoying a level of patriotism that we Kiwis don’t really understand, mixed with some great Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding and some fine company.

A very special thanks to our friend Andre who managed to squeeze us onto the guest list.

On our feet for Rule Britannia

The countryside is turning yellow.

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The fields around Aspley Guise are turning bright yellow.  The crop is Rapeseed (Canola Oil) and the flowers are an intense, intense yellow.  In a week or two it will be harvested and the land will again be shades of green and brown but right now it looks stunning.

The English countryside is glowing.