Backlog from July! ...Tho we're actually chilling in GK's lounge in birmingham the next few blogs will take you on a magical journey back in time. oooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooo.
07_07_06 HAPPY 5TH WEEDING ANNIVERSARY TO US
so in keeping with our tradition of having romantic gettaways for our anniversaries... we figured that pretty much our whole trip has been one extended romantic gettaway, so we stayed @ villagio verde... watching the sunset over the swiss alps (waaaay in the distance, but still the swiss alps), getting nibbled by the tender mossies, being serenaded by the biker beer fest that arrived in the park next to the house (including the tribute bands included g'n'r, helloween and iron maiden... good covers just bad music. thanks for the memories tho...), drinking the local asti (and it was spumante!) we felt pretty special. made us think lots back to a time in a dark room in a cold palmerston north filled with all the best people in the world. sorry if you couldn't be there. we are thinking of getting remarried at the earliest opportunity, so will keep you informed...
10_07_06 VILLAGIO VERDE, ROMAGNANO, PIEDMONTE [getting kinda close to switzerland and france]
kinda wondering how many mind blowing places 1 human being can experience in 3 months. have been welcomed to a new organic farm - villagio verde - here is the blurb...
'Villaggio Verde' is a community project situated in the Novarese hills between Valsesia and the lakes. The property is of 8 hectares of which 3 are cultivated as pasture, fruit orchard and for vegetables and the rest is woodland. There are 15 horses and they also have 7 beehives. Accommodation in room (may need to share) or caravan (trailer). Meals in the communal dining room and are vegetarian and using organic produce as much as possible. Length of visits to be arranged between April and October. Children welcome (there are 5 in the community), any cats or dogs need to be able to socialise with theirs! English, French, Spanish and Japanese spoken.
anyone wanna come stay? surrounded (again) by a regional park (little streams, mighty oaks and tender ferns) we are sharing this place with 5 families, the above animals and perhaps the country's highest concentration of mosquitoes (there is no room for exageration... they swarm, on any m.trukka in any uniform... all day and night... no respite... the DEET is helping my faux acne but frying my brain... but i am investing in a leather gimp suit so i can at least perform our WWOOFer tasks (mostly weeding the cool gardens... growing pomadori, melanzani, pepperoni, basilico, potatti, zuchinni, cippolla (as far as my vocab stretches...) all organic, using permaculture styles... so we are learning some good gardening skills and honing hand eye co-ordination annihilating mossies (it is my new mission in life).
i digress... the community is a centre for all things spiritual and peaceful - they run courses in yoga, shiatsu, aikido and a bunch of other stuff that i don't know the names of yet... they share meals in the weekends so during the week we have free reign of the industrial kitchen (and industrial fridge yeah!)... some people work full time managing the gardens / courses etc and some work in regular jobs. it is a very relaxed and peaceful environment, we can be as involved as we want to be, with there being no pressure to behave in any way... so a nice opportunity for us to do our own thing but maybe learn some stuff too. yes.
10 July 2006
italy wins the football world cup (soccer that is). italian's are the best winner's i've ever seen. they love winning. It also happens they're really good at it. not necessarily the winning bit which after all is just a means to an end, the end being able take your pants off and run around in your undies hugging and kissing, dancing and shouting for hours on end. italians (without exception) are 90% more enthusiastic than your typical rugby fan (and 130% less homophobic). it shouldn't come as a surprise that they're so good at it; italy has more public holidays than the usofa has wars. these festivals, while under the guise of celebrating the lives of italy's numerous saints, are pretty much for the express purpose of practicing (and training the next generation in the art of ) jumping up and down and being enthusiastic. The esteemed celebrated saint (the merits of whom can read a little like a psychological diagnostic text; heard voices, believed they were god's chosen, lived as a hermit on the top of a pole...) and their relics (flagellation tools, mummified body, fragments of femur, dried drop of blood...) generally don't really get much of a mention on their feast day. it also seems that often their very sainthood came about under rather dubious circumstances; it used to be heaps easier to become a saint (mother teresa barely makes the grade today). but lets not dwell too deep. lets be italian; have desiccated finger: can party. i don't care if i don't learn to speak italian. i just wanna party italian.
11_07_06 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY (j) MUM!
we are still figuring out our lives (3 months of holiday just hasn't been enough!), so we are trying to find another italian wwoofing place for one more month... (cos we still can't speak italian). mother keenan, who is currently jetsetting around the world, is due to pay us a visit next month... maybe we will find ourselves in germany for the world cup of ponies?
12 July 2006
villagio verde_a secret training ground for the worlds most ferocious biting insects. the vege garden thing is a cover up; i think they may be farming our blood and selling it to vampires. have retired the DEET - it had started to corrode my sunglasses - and moved on to a herbal mixup including tea tree oil, rosmary, sage and eucalyptus. kinda feels like self-basting yourself before you slowly roasting in the sun. gravy anyone?
spending a shady afternoon thinking about how good it is to be here and wondering where the goodness we will be in the next month or so. for todaaaay i'm listening to franks beautiful soulful mix (thanks frank and others for cd mixes: you are bless) ...and drinking beer whilst planning day trips to turin (home of the shroud and nutella), the lakes and milan...
phat cat
phat cat is a really really fat cat. we love phat cat. but we fear his thunderous affection.
later
another storm breaks overhead. phat'r than phat cat. you're not in wellington now darling honeroa, look how the lightening lingers all day thundering up the sky. and maybe we shouldn't have gone walking when all seemed calm but really was the eye of worse to come. and maybe it wasn't so smart to take that turn and end up in the torrential rain on a busy main road that led to i'm not sure but i think homes this way and isn't that lightening awfully close. but maybe i could lost and saturated with you forever?
lago maggiore
seems this is where all the english go on holiday when the italians are at the beach. snowy sun starved flesh on show and glowing. despite being such a popular spot it was surprisingly quiet. italian boat tour touts sporting short shorts and sailor caps (jon was jealous) were keen to show us a good time. but we were already having one. not wanting to get ripped off we declined the offer and took an overpriced ferry to Isola Bella (where we discovered the local taxi which was much smarter but we already has our return tickets so sucks us). we swam. swam. swam. (we didn't quite swim far enough to get to switzerland, but we could have) swam. lay in sun. swam. lay in sun. swam. drank wine. lay in sun. feel asleep. swam. drank more wine. had lunch. swam. lay in sun. swam. The island once belonged to a man who was rich and also he was a priest and maybe was in hiding or didn't want to catch the flu so he made himself a castle and gardens that looked like a botanical tiered cake and together they covered the entire tiny island. he (or maybe it was one of his relatives) had napolean to stay (with his lady and his mistress), and later mussollinnii and churchill visited. they didn't manage to stop world war II but they had a really nice time.
20_July_2006 Buon compleanni alla bella Kerryn!
21_July_2006
lago d'orta
we love you two times. so good we came back for more. 20yrs ago this enchanting lake was a stagnant catchment pool for local industry effluent but thanks to a splendid water treatment plan (we heart planners!) lago d'orta is now good enuf to drink. but we preferred to swim in its 23 degree deep blue depths, followed by a spot of lying on our favourite jetty overlooking the medieval village on the island in the middle of the lake which we visited later by boat as the sun was setting before winding our way home through quaint cobbled streets... ahhhhhh lago d'orta. also happens to be the home of the best gelato in the whole of italy. mio dio.
23_July_2006 Happiest birthday in front of warm log fire out of stormy winters way to the lovely Karen.
