Mountains as far as the eye can see

The Dolomites were as amazing as ever, with snow stretching in endless slopes, and my skiing varying from pretty good to ....... well..... The villages are all incredibly Heidi/Sound of Music, and there is even an Edelweiss Valley.... But much good wine was drunk, good food was eaten, and good conversation was enjoyed - the photos give a teeny taste.

Lake Garda, Cat Pee, The Dolomites and Ice Cream Snow

My last day in Vigevano was planned to be a trip to Milan, but a rail workers' strike changed our plans to a much better option as it turned out. Katy drove us to Lake Garda and the winter light on the lake with all the beautiful old hotels lining the shore was just magical. We took a boat to Isola dei Pescatori (Island of the Fishermen) which is one of the beautiful Borromeo islands in the lake. It is still the home of many traditional lake fishermen, their dozens of cats, and a pervading aroma of cat pee due to the lack of rain to wash it all away!!!! Despite this it is a beautiful place which made me wish I could paint to capture all the changing shades of light and colour on the water, the mountains and the lovely old buidings.

The next day it was off by train and bus to the Dolomites, past the towering cliffs between Verona and Trento, with teeny hillside towns and monasteries watching over the valley as the train slid through. The bus trip from Trento to Campitello is more ooh-aah territory as we passed through town after town straight out of the Tyrolean picturebooks, as this is regarded as Sud Tyrol rather than Italy by many inhabitants for whom Austrian German is the first language rather than Italian.

I have now spent a week zooming all over hundreds (quite literally) of kilometres of snowy slopes covered in ice cream snow. Alas the ice cream is becoming a bit too frozen as we need more fresh snow so I am doing my skiing early in the day while the grooming and man-made snow keeps things nice, then I go sightseeing in the afternoons. We hope to go to Bolzano on Tuesday to see the Ice Man, then it is off to Milano for a brief morning's sightseeing before heading to NY to see Steve and Anna.

Ciao and love to all.

Vigevano

Katy Hannan collected me from Milano Linate airport and has brought me to stay with her in the lovely historic town of Vigevano which is every woman's dream as the shoe capital of Italy. I have done my bit for the local economy by acquiring the obligatory minimum of two pairs of shoes from the local market. Katy's apartment is a very stylish place in a remodelled section of the walls of the ancient fort - my bed is under some very ancient looking beams, so, please, no jokes about old ruins in the same room. The inner part of the town is all cobbled streets and tantalising glimpses of courtyards through iron grille gates, plus a lovely piazza for leisurely strolling.

Tomorrow we go to Milano for a day of sightseeing, so I hope I do not feel too much like the country-cousin-came-to-town alongside the elegant Milanese women. I am pleased to hear that the scaffolding is off the front of the cathedral, so I shall have an unobstructed view of the clean and shiny version of the building's facade.

On Friday I shall be off to Campitello, where the Internet cafe is "out of action for the winter"!!!!!!!!! so my next update may be a while.

Last Days of London

The last weekend in London has been rather a blur of activity - meeting up with Mary Thoreau, the British Museum, the Lion King, and sung Latin High Mass a Westminster Cathedral - whew!!!!!

Mary (my co-author for the two books is running a language school in Spain and was in London for a conference. We met up for gossip and coffee before I hit the British Museum with K&D. We did the "Lonely Planet five must-see sights" which of course only scratches the surface, but gave us a great taster, as we oooohed at the Elgin Marbles, aaahed at the mummy collection, whizzed by the Rosetta Stone, zoomed down to the Benin Bronzes in the basement, and were suitably impressed by the splendid dome of the Reading Room.

The Lion King was a stuning performance with top-calibre performances, music, costumes and enchanting animals. The Hyenas were probably my favourite, but a surprising beautiful acrobatic ballet segment was a close second. Thank you Father Christmas and K&D for the ticket.

A change of pace for the morning saw us absorbing the beautiful choral music at Westminster Cathedral, and dredging up the forgotten memories of singing the Pater Noster along with the little postcard choir boys.

Tomorrow is dealing with the Tube strike to make my way to Gatwick and on to Milano...... Ciao .........

The O'Sullivans of Killarney

It is a miracle that Auntie Annie O'Sullivan ever made the connection with our long-lost O'Sullivan relations in Killarney as the name is everywhere in Kerry. In the space of 100 metres in the main street of Kilarney there is O'Sullivan's Bike Sales & Service, O'Sullivan the accountant, O'Sullivan Photograpy, O'Sullivan's Pharmacy, and O'Sullivan's Bike & Outdoor Shop, then at Beaufort Bridge I turned down the road to the old O'Sullivan farm, beside O'Sullivan's Foodstore................

So I found my old Irish cousin, Danny O'Sullivan who at 90 years old is still milking his 18 cows twice daily in his modern cowshed, except when they are dried off in Dec/Jan for calving - scarily he is still driving too. He is full of the Irish blarney, and despite my only understanding 1/3 of what he said because of the thick Irish brogue, he regaled me non-stop for three hours with tales of family folk-lore. His mother was a great cook apparently, and meals for 15 were no problem - often including many Republicans on the run......... As a small boy he was drilled in not telling anything to anybody, especially the Black and Tans, even an especially Irish saying, "Mister, there's not even a house where I live.." We also had a very pious cousin called James who used to come to Danny (a lifelong teetotaller) early in the evening before a visit to the pub so "I can say my Rosary now in case I'm too drunk to say it when I get home.." On the day of Danny's Confirmation he walked two miles early in the morning there and back to do his farm work, put on his best suit then walked four miles there and back for his confirmation, came home, took off the best suit and helped with the milking!! Obviously a recipe for a long healthy life...

The new house that Danny built in the 1950s stands beside the stone house that O'Sullivans lived in probably for hundreds of years - Republicans on the run and all - it is now used as a farm outbuilding and the old kitchen fireplace is used for an activity that would give Kevin the horrors. He feeds his cows silage in winter, so every few days there is a large plastic and netting cover to dispose of. Danny gave me the prime fireside seat to warm myself as he prepared his ritual. A sheet of newspaper in the fireplace was splashed with diesel from the tractor with a brush and an old paint tin - 90-year-old Danny then lit this, and when it didn't burn so well, more diesel was splashed all around. He was very pleased with himself that he was drying me off after our ramble through the muddy farmyard, while I was trying to edge myself discreetly away from the roaring flames!!!!!

However despite these activities he is a very spry fellow and wonderfully full of stories. The surrunding Kerry countryside is very beautiful and quite like New Zealand in many ways. Echoes of the past were noted in the sign outside the cathedral in the evening where there was a benefit concert for "Homeless Kerry Emigrants in England" - despite the Celtic Tiger there must still be some who fall through the cracks.

So a few Irish beers, and a quick and too-brief drive through the stunning countryside, and onto Ryanair back to London.

Squashed Rocks, Volcanoes and Dinosaurs

Today was the Natural Histroy Museum, with lots of dinosaurs, all manner of tectonic plate models, varied samples of squashed rocks (as seen here) and a huge map of the world with volcanoes flashing red - and no New Zealand!!!!! Ah well, it does stop one from getting delusions of grandeur, and thinking that everyone, especially the Brits, knows all about the home of the mighty All Blacks..........well, at least that we exist ................

Royal Opulence

Hampton Court enchanted us with its beauty and depiction of life at the time of the various Henries, William and Mary etc. History does come to life as you wander under Anne Boleyn's Gate, and down a corridor which one of Henry's wives (Catherine Howard??) is believed to haunt, as she ran down it in desperation to plead for mercy from Henry to avoid her execution, but was caught by the guards before she reached the King, and dragged back, to be ultimately beheaded!!! Puts "a bit of a domestic" in a whole new light.... It also inspired us to come home and search the Internet for little bits of history that we were vague on. Exactly why did Wolsey fall from grace, and hence lose Hampton Court to Henry???? What did happen to that Prince John who was kept hidden from the world??? (Coincidentally that was the film on BBC TV that night.)

Even in winter the gardens were stunning, but Kath and I decided to give the Maze a miss as we couldn't even figure it out on the aerial view plan outside - search parties would have been needed for us at dusk, we are so directionally challenged! The vast size and extravagance of the palace and gardens certainly remind us of the difference between the haves and have-nots of those eras, and make the mansions of Lakshmi Mittal or Bill Gates seem like summer cottages.

Happy New Year

The New Year fireworks at the London Eye certainly lived up to the "spectacular" label - great fun with all the crowds on the Embankment, and more police to the square metre than I thought possible - no doubt aimed at deterring bad behaviour from the harmless drunks or the less harmless types that London has suffered from this year. The most dangerous thing we came across was the abundance of horse poo on the roads from the wonderful police horses that calmly stood amongst the seething crowds.

Getting home was a major mission due to the Tube strike, and the decidedly strange way that the police had blocked off streets and funnelled all the crowds in one direction. This caused a rather claustrophobic jamming of everyone into confined routes, until at one stage in a narrow street leading up to the Strand I had to say to K&D that I would have to wait in a little space in front of a pub for the crush to dissipate, as I could not cope with being jammed in to such a degree. Fortunately after a while the police held the oncoming crowd back to allow the street to clear so we could get through.

Today we went to The Science Museum which is the sort of place I could imagine Kevin spending days at - there was one marvellous working model of a steam-powered factory, similar to the one powered by a steam engine on display that used to power 1700 looms by an ingenious combination of pulleys and gears - my Uncle Howard would probably just have spent his whole time staring lovingly at this one item. I felt a real museum piece myself as I watched children manipulating a model of a slide rule (as used in my high school days) as if it was from the same genre as Babbage's mechanical calculating/computing machines. Other delights were the actual lancets used by Jenner to inoculate a little boy with cowpox pus, followed by smallpox pus (where was ethical approval in those days - was the little boy even asked his opinion ????), as well as Babbage's brain!!!Tomorrow is Hampton Court .....................

Portobello Rd and Hyde Park

Today was a "neighbourhood" day, starting with wandering through the stalls of Portobello Rd. Nana's china and cutlery was heavily represented, along with every variety of beautiful and bizarre antiques. The food and vegetable stalls were rather mouth-watering, so we gathered our bag of fresh ciabatta and croissants for a leisurely lunch. Kath made sure I walked it all off afterwards with a very energetic ramble through nearby Hyde Park, starting at the ginormous Albert Memorial, then on to the more symbolic Diana memorial - I think that bit of water I am standing beside in the photo represents Camilla - a very rough patch indeed. We then came through the most expensive residential street in London - Kensington Palace Gardens - which is largely embassies, but some have now been sold off to private buyers. The one I am standing on front of is described below:

Kensington Palace Gardens is a private road running alongside Hyde Park, literally only a stones-throw away. There are just 21 buildings, most of which once served as embassies. But with cash-strapped countries starting to sell off their expensive embassy buildings, you may just get lucky, like these new residents:

- 18-19 Kensington Palace Gardens was recently sold to Indian-born steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. The price-tag was a staggering 70m pounds, making this the world's most expensive private residential home. The 12-bedroom property has enough space for 20 cars, and the building's marble was imported from the same quarry that yielded the raw material for the Taj Mahal.

Tonight we are off to the fireworks beside the London Eye................