Goodbye Szyszkas!

We hosted a bbq on Sunday to say goodbye to friends we've made over the last 2 years, Julia, Stepan, Stepko and Larissa.

They're moving back to the States, but we know this won't be the last we see of them, since they're active in Plast (the Ukrainian scouting group), so we could see them at various summer and winter camps going on around the world. In fact, Julia was instrumental in helping us create an active scout group here in London, when we were hopelessly lost trying to get anything going.

As a gift we made them a 'tarilka' (a plate) that everyone signed and I hope that it (as well as they) survives the move.

Pa-pa for now, hope to see you at UMPZ this summer!

Here's a lovely shot of some of the youngest party-goers trying to maim themselves using a toboggan and a Little Tykes slide.

Taxi Driver as Anti-Hero

My trip home from Madrid was marred by a few things (spending 4 hours in Madrid airport, having to carry my heavy bag with no wheels), but the worst was the mini-cab driver who was scheduled to pick Lisa and myself from the airport.

like a good passenger, I turned my mobile off on the airplane, completely unaware of the saga brewing in London for the duration of the flight home.

Apparently, 1 digit of the our flight number had gotten miscommunicated when Orest booked us the cab, so that the dispatch sent the driver to collect us from the airport 2 hours before our flight was scheduled to land. He was just on his way away from the airport when dispatch finally got a hold of me and made him turn around to collect us.

But I didn't understand where all the confusion was coming from since I had the text I sent Orest indicating the correct flight number. It was still a shock to see our driver turn his back on us and expect us to follow him without a word. I even had my hand out with the heavy bag, thinking he would offer to carry it for me, but he ignored me completely and stalked off.

I can understand that he might of been annoyed at having wasted the 3 hours, but surely he didn't have to take it out on the innocent parties involved? On top of all that, he regaled Lisa and I his woeful story of his day from hell, which included some little old lady having pee'd on the seat of his car ("Don't worry," he says, "It was the front seat."). It was only when he started invoking Allah's name that I began to worry that we were in the hands of some nut-job terrorist intent on destroying all of North London. I was beginning to reach for my mobile phone to see if I could surreptitiously ring home and get Orest to stop this maniac from detonating us and my bag to kingdom come.

Two minutes later I was home safe and sound - but no tip for the weirdo taxi man!

My Superhero

So did the kids miss me while I was away?

Orest must have decided to put on his superhero costume for the weekend, because the girls certainly had no complaints about their time with Dad in charge.

1. Pizza and popcorm movie night on Friday with Orest having borrowed the office's projector to show DVDs on the wall about 6ft tall.
2. Getting the girls off to skating by 8:30 am Saturday morning with packed lunches ready for Ukrainian school, followed by great fun in the Holland Park playgrounds.
3. Emcee'ing a Quiz Night which I had prepared for Stefanie's school on Saturday night.
4. Taking the kids to the park to play baseball on Sunday, despite a wicked headache.

What a star! I tried to weasel out of the girls if he may have fallen down on the job, but all I could get was that they didn't get a lunch on Sunday. Not bad, not bad at all.

The best comment was from Larysa, who said: "I like being with Tato, he sometimes makes us do stuff we don't want to do, but it turns out to be lots of fun in the end."

Awww, sweet!

Mad in Madrid

Time for another girlie weekend, this time to see Sara in Madrid. 12 of us flew in from various European cities (mostly UK, though) to do a little culture, some sight-seeing, lots of shopping, but mostly catching up with friends.

I was told that the hotel would be a 20 minute metro ride from the airport, so when 11 of us gathered at Terminal 2 in Madrid, we had no idea what was in store for us. The best any of us could say after switching trains twice and lugging our cases (mine without wheels!) up and down stairs, was: "At least the tube stations feel light and airy...not like the London tube." Needless to say, taxis were the preferred method of travel from that moment on.

Friday evening was spent at Casa Pearce, and as you can see from the photo, much vino was consumed that evening. Sara put on a fabulous spread of local cuisine and Mike played waiter, making sure our glasses were full at all times. It was a cozy way to catch up on everyone's news. The next day, Sara took us shopping, and I scored 2 pairs of shoes and a summer ensemble. By the end of the day, everyone's feet were in various shapes of disrepair, but we still managed to hobble over for the evening's tapas meal in Plaza Santa Ana. With 13 of us, it was difficult to get all of us together at one table (especially since it's first-come, first-serve), but the waiters were very funny with their invisible line when we tried to put a few tables together. In the end, we sat at 2 tables set further apart, but the waiters got a wonderful tip in the end... they were cute!! Beauty conquers all, I suppose. We carried on to Plaza Mayor for more drinking and were kicked out by about 2 am(?). we walked back to our hotel and it was amazing to see so many people out have fun, and not the scary type of fun, where you're afraid some drunken yob is going to cold-cock you for no other reason than that you were within arm's length. Sue and I pretended we were 5 and hid in a doorway, no luck, they found us. Then some tried their best to get arrested in front of the police station and Lynn and Lisa had to walk barefoot (shoes were killing them). After a nightcap, I hit the sack by about 4 am. What a night!

The next day, I tried to get a little culture and spent a few hours in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (the Prado would have been too large to try and get through) and then it was time to say good-bye to everyone and start heading home.

The Hotel was a great choice, location was perfect and I particularly loved having the private hot tub on our patio, it really came in handy after a long day of shopping.

Helpful or not?

We were having a spot of trouble putting Adriana to bed the other night when Larysa offered to take her back upstairs and settle her (for the 3rd time). "How sweet!", I thought, "This is what I've been working towards all my life as a mother, having my children be so helpful and caring."
I thanked her sincerely when she returned and she said she'd read her a funny story and was going to sleep.

Not 5 minutes go by and guess who's come downstairs again? She's lucky I didn't immediately start shouting: "GO TO BED!", but she caught me by surprise with: "Mama, I can't sleep because my room is smoky."

What the...?!!?

I raced up the stairs two at a time only to find Adriana's school skirt slowly melting away on top of her spotlight. Whipping it off as charred flakes of polyester floated to the ground, I looked to Larysa for an explanation.
"I was trying to make her a nightlight because Adriana said she was afraid of the dark."

Well, the intent was good, but results? Not so much...

The next night, Larysa smoked us out again by microwaving the popcorn 1 minute too long and turning it into black blobs of corn with that putrid smell of smoke lingering in the kitchen.

Needless to say, we are keeping her away from all things electrical and fire-related for the next little while...

Camden Market

Sometimes it's nice to just hang around London, instead of trying to get away with the rest of the population for the Bank Holiday weekend.
There was a break in the rain on Monday, and we decided to head over to Camden Market (photo by Ben Wedmuller on Flickr). A magical place which reminds me a lot of Kensington Market in Toronto, except with Moroccan and Chinese food smells replaced the fish and cheese smells.
Did a lot of shopping and we are slowly indoctrinating Adriana into the joys of consumerism, but it's still hard to convince her to walk around aimlessly for 3 hours without the promise (read:bribe) of either something delicious to eat or some sort of useless toy. We spent most of this trip listening to her drop her "magic magnets" on the pavement over and over. It is advertised as: "powerful magnetic,when you toss them in the air and they tumble down,clicking like cicadas or bees. Fascinate your friends!!" But in reality, we were not fascinated, we weren't remotely amused as the sound these things made when they were tossed was more akin to having someone chuck a bagful of marbles at your ear - very loud and very painful.

Any way, barring any hearing loss, after putting a dent into your respective credit cards with clothes and clocks, we proceeded to Marine Ice for some great pasta and Italian ices. (except for Larysa who couldn't find any flavour she could live with - this girl's hard to please!)

Supporting our local arts & cuisine

It's great to have talented friends!

On Friday night we went to see the opening of 2 short films directed by the dad of one of Larysa's classmates. Mal is going to be showing these 2 at the Cannes Film Festival, so he rented a cinema here in Soho to pre-screen it for his family, friends and any potentially interested parties. The two films were both completely different in style and atmosphere. 'Fluffy', was a whimsical story of a man getting too attached to his belly-button lint, while 'RedBlack' was a dark and somewhat disturbing tale, like 'Collateral', but with a gorgeous blonde replacing Tom Cruise. I would see RedBlack made into a full-length feature, as it left me feeling I needed to see more. I think Mal is on the verge of stardom for sure, so bookmark his website now http://www.malwoolford.com/ and you can say you knew him before he was famous!

After the screenings, Christine and Bill and Orest & I made the short jaunt up to Russell Square, where a fellow dog-walker had just opened up a restaurant nearby. Bruce is managing a goldmine. Balfour has a great location, fabulous food and a manager who makes everything tick along nicely. Christine and I had the duck and it was really delicious. We all tasted each other's starters and meals and couldn't find fault with any of it. We would definitely recommend this place to anyone looking for a nice Italian meal out, but doesn't want to go to Pizza Express yet again. It's at the corner of Tavistock and Marchmount Streets just north-east of Russell Square, because you won't find it in any food guides just yet.

forgot to mention Wicked

Did I forget to mention that we took Stefanie (well, Larysa too) to see a performance of Wicked for her birthday a month ago?

I was really impressed with the show, the costumes and scenery helped me "colourize" if you will, the book I had read last summer. The writers of the play had done the best they could focusing on one aspect of the book, since the novel itself was an entire history and background to the Land of Oz. So where the musical made the story more about girl power - to play to the thousands of girls and women who go these shows, the book took a more political approach in describing how the Wicked Witch became wicked and the power struggles in the Land of Oz.

The music I thought was great, the most memorable pieces being "Defying Gravity", when Elphaba learns to fly, and the love song between Elphaba and Fiyero, "As long as you're mine". Stefanie and Larysa were expecting a little less singing overall, though, and found it tedious to follow the lyrics.

The only problem I saw was the ending (don't read further if you don't want to know) was too "Hollywoodized", so instead of being disintegrated completely by the bucket of water that Dorothy throws, we're meant to believe that she's alive and off somewhere in hiding with her lover?

Very expensive nit-pickiness

I was dressing for tennis this morning and found the only top I had had a small stain right front and centre. After spending 10 minutes trying to remove it using various products (including a bath tile cleaner containing bleach) without success, I decided to go upstairs and find a sweater to wear on top of it.

Now Orest was in the shower and in the 20 years we've been married, he's never been able to see what I looked like without his contacts or glasses, let alone comment on it. But since he's had his Lasik surgery, he's been much more observant and says:
"You know you have a stain on that top?"

Great! 5000 dollars so my husband can point out things wrong with me that I already know about!

The funny thing is, he had not been very impressed with the results of his surgery (which had been done in Canada over Christmas) and decided to see someone here for a 2nd opinion. After a quick check, the opthamologist informed Orest that he had 20/20 vision and could get no better. I can only imagine his disappointment with the world in general, since from where I sit (with my 20/20 vision), it all looks good to me!
Or as Adriana like to sing: "I can see clearly now the rain is gone, I can see all popsicles in my way..."

Ni Hao

I did promise an update on my Mandarin Chinese course and the above title is just about all I feel 100% comfortable saying after 4 months of classes.
What's my excuse, you ask, since I am such a 'cunning linguist' as I often announce? Well, for one, the course is once a week, and in order to learn any language, the experts will say that this is not enough to absorb much of anything. Secondly, this is the hardest language I've ever undertaken. The written language is pictorial (characters), not phonetic and the spoken language is easy enough, except for the 4 different tones they've added, just to confuse and embarrass us non-Chinese.
So for example: 'ma' pronounced with tone going down is 'horse'; and 'ma' with tone going up is 'mother'. So every time you call your mother, there's a risk you're lumping her in with the equine species. (That won't get you any cookies, my friend!)

Another example is: "I criticize your leather drum carried on horseback" is translated as:

"Wo pi pi pi." ( the 'pi' pronounced in different up, down and flat tones)

Not that you'd say that phrase very often, but still, a telling example!

Our teacher recently informed us that come September, they'd offer a cost-based course for those who've already taken the current course and another free taster course for beginners. We're not cheap, but going back to the beginning again appealed to most of us who'd felt like they'd only absorbed 10% of what they'd been taught!

The psychology of parenting

Stefanie injured her finger again (this is the same little pinkie that she broke 18 months ago on the trampoline) and I'm trying to not let her get away with zoning out of her activities completely and spending all her spare time doing sweet f***-all. Does that sound harsh? I know my daughter very well, you see, and if you let her, she'll milk this for all it's worth.

So I gave her a choice the other day: "Either you come with me Adriana and watch her do her ice-skating lesson, or you go down the tennis courts with Larysa and take care of the dog, while she does her lesson. But you're not going to sit around at home MSN'ing and watching telly all afternoon." Stefanie chose the tennis courts, and what do I find when I get there an hour later? She's been cooped up in the clubhouse the entire time not caring for Jessie at all! I wouldn't have minded, but it was obvious there were a few people put out by her inattention. First, there was the lady who was deathly afraid of dogs, hid behind her husband the entire time; another one hid in the clubhouse she was so frightened of her; Gwen had to poop and scoop after her; and finally Jessie got into the clubhouse (a big no-no!) and Stefanie had apparently done nothing to remove her.

My mortification complete, I tried to spell out her misdemeanors to her, but all I got was a surly apology and the brush-off at the courts. In the car on the way home, I tried again to impress upon Stefanie my disappointment in her irresponsibility, and all I got was deflection. The old "It wasn't me, it was my sister" routine is great to confuse and confound the parents most of the time, but this time I wasn't buying it since Larysa was in her tennis lesson the whole time.

It wasn't until I was on the phone later with Orest, recounting her behavior and the possibility of selling the children (we've since discovered that selling them piece-meal - one organ at a time gets a greater return) that she finally delivered the heart-felt apology and remorse that was required under the circumstances.

I know this is just a regular part of parenting, but boy, nobody told me it would be so exhausting! Shortly after sorting this all out between us, I was (gently) snoring away on the sofa, unable to continue on in my normal evening duties. I'm going to need a resident analyst on-hand, pumping me with some stock phrases, instead of me having to tax my brain to come up with all this myself!

Ukrainian Easter Myths

We got back from skiing late Easter Saturday evening and very little time to put the usual 4 baskets together (1 for each child, plus the family one which carries all the "icky" stuff the girls don't wish to contaminate their baskets with, like horseradish, mustard, butter, etc..). Luckily Halya had baked the paska for me (the traditional Easter bread), because I had no desire to sit up until midnight and beyond doing it myself. Over the years, I have found that most traditional Ukrainian food is very:

1. Time-consuming - as if to perpetuate the chauvinistic attitude of keeping women in the kitchen, Ukrainian food preparation must have been invented by some cossack intent on keeping his women subservient. It takes hours to make any of the recipes I've been handed down, and there have not been any labour-saving devices to minimize the effort it takes to present a plate of pyrohy that will be gobbled up in 10 seconds flat. Plus that fact that most Ukrainian mamas and babas will sneer upon any attempt to short-cut and recipe by using new technology.

"Hunky Bill's Perogie Maker?? Ty zdurila (Have you gone mad)?? When I was child on the kolhosp, we had to stay up til the crack of dawn until it was right!"

2. Labour-intensive - forget tennis elbow! Have you ever had to knead and stretch paska dough? Man, it's a killer! It seems an awful lot of sweat-inducing back-breaking work for something that's ended up looking like a hockey puck instead of this:

2. Fiddly - almost any recipe I have ever tried seems to miss one minute step or one vital ingredient to as to make yours look and/or taste like nothing your mother-in-law has ever presented; thereby perpetuating the myth with the men in your life that "There's nothing better than Mama's borsht!" (I think this one was dreamed up by Ukrainian women, not the men. It keeps the men dependant on them for the rest of their lives if they want a "decent meal".)

Anyway, got to church at 8 am the next morning with said basket to be blessed by the priest, only to find that we were an hour early for Mass and that there was almost nowhere to sit. Luckily, they had reserved the first few rows for children and senior citizens (with police tape, no less) and we were able to wait it out sitting down. Two and a half hours later, it took me 15 minutes to get me and my precious load out of church, as the next Mass was starting at 11 am and just as many people were pushing to get in as were pushing to get out. What chaos! I'm surprised there weren't any serious injuries with a sharpened kabanosy, or something!

First (and last) skiing of the season

Isn't it amazing that this is the first skiing I've done this season?
First no snow in Collingwood over Christmas
Then, the wind storm that stopped me going to St Moritz in January
and February half-term's wise decision to stay home while Orest took the kids skiing.

So here it is April 1st (no joke) and we have beautiful conditions in St. Johann in Austria for our annual ski camp with the Ukrainian Scouts. Four days of sun and enough snow to shush down on, it was probably the best time to go. Now if only I could duplicate that next year (don't tell Orest)...somehow manufacture a lack of snow or cyclone for each planned trip, so that I only have to go once a season instead of 4-5 times.

Heresy, I know, but after you've been doing it for 20 years, (barring those times I was heavily pregnant or with infant too small for ski school), it gets a bit old. But I married one of those "avid skiiers" who practically wrote these trips into our marriage contract, so not much of a choice.

Anyway, skiing was great, Orest won the slalom race for the menfolk (and fastest in the whole camp again), I came in third for the women, Larysa also came in third and Stefanie unfortunately 'bit the biscuit' 3/4 of the way down the course and got a DNF, poor girl. Oh well, better luck next year.

New Vocab

Kids these days! The things they come up with...

Stefa has been using the word "emo" a lot lately. I asked her for a definition and was told:
"It's kind of like when somebody's depressed all the time or like my friend's brother who like when he gets anything less than an A at school, comes home and cuts himself."

Nice!

I was trying to remember if we had created any word similar to that in my youth, but all I could some up with was cry-baby or Wendy Whiner (from SNL). Not quite as powerful, I think.
(But then again, self-harm wasn't the in-thing in my day... if you were going to use a knife, either you go all the way or not at all!)

This new word's rubbed off on Adriana as well. She said to me the other day:

"Mama, how come I don't have a emo address on the computer?"

Stefanie's 13th Birthday party

I'm very happy that's over and done with! Stefanie, in her typical style, made me do the invites over 2 months ago and had been nagging me non-stop since then that I had to finish the plans for the event. Sounds like a military campaign, doesn't it? Well, almost...Stefanie is a big fan of American reality shows like Amazing Race and Fear Factor, and she wanted to her birthday party to imitate those shows (as you can see from her invitation).
We started off with the Fear Factor portion of the party: I switched labels from a tin of dog food and beef stew (amazing how alike both products looked!) and told the girls that the first one to finish off their bowl of "dog food" would win their team 5 extra minutes for the race portion of the party. One girl claimed she was a vegetarian, so it was left to the fearless (or those with a penchant for Pedigree) to step up and take one for the team. It was only after they had all finished that I told them that I had switched the labels. One team insisted that dog food would have tasted better.
Next, we had them try and find a piece of bubble gum from a plate full of whipped cream. The first one to not only find the gun but make a respectable bubble from it would also win their team an extra 5 minutes for the race. Not especially hard, but it was fun to watch them get covered in cream!
Now, the race...I had gone around some of my local shops earlier in the day and asked for their help with this one. First I made them go to the Library and find a specific book with their next clue in it (Nancy Drew, of course - America's Favourite Girl Detective), then off to my hair salon, where they were required to present a shorn lock of hair (theirs or someone else's) to the receptionist to get their next clue. They were then given a pound coin each to purchase as many items as possible at the corner shop to get their next clue. They then had to get up to the local park as quickly as possible to where Orest would be waiting with Jessie (our dog) and the next clue was strapped to her collar. Their task was to catch her and get the clue. I know it sounds easy, but if you know our dog, she's not the type to get close enough for you to grab anything off her (balls, sticks or otherwise). Plus I advised Orest that he was to make it as difficult as possible by calling her to him every time she got close to one of the racers. I wasn't there to see it, but I was told the sight was similar to that of a greasy pig-catching contest.


Anyway, the last clue told them to leg it home as quickly as possible. It was amazing how quickly they finished, because I had scheduled enough time to get from one to clue to the next, thinking the race itself would take 1 and a half hours, only to have the first team cross the Finish line within 35 minutes. Luckily these were 13-year olds able to entertain themselves for the rest of the time with trampolining, Playstation, DVDs and pizza.

Apsley House and Wellington Arch

Went with the Canadian ladies to visit Wellington's house at Hyde Park corner: Apsley House. (Named after its original owner.) I tried to get as little traffic as possible in the photo, but you have to image a four-lane highway right in front of what's known as "Number 1, London", so it was difficult. (We weren't allowed to take any photos inside, either.)

The tour was handled by a fellow Canadian, Belinda Beaton, who has been studying Wellington and written her dissertation on him, so she had a wealth of information about his life, his military tactics and the politics of the day. It was really easy to picture the post-Waterloo celebrations at Apsley House with Wellington as its host and hundreds of the military elite sitting down to dinner in the newly built west wing banquet hall. (The re-creation painting of it certainly didn't hurt, either.) Wellington amassed hundreds of gifts of paintings, dinner services and other artifacts to see, and what amazes you is that all of it was gifted to him. Wellington could have obtained it by looting and pillaging during all the wars he fought, but you could really see what a principled man he was.

We then went across the street to walk up to the top of Wellington's Arch. The photo here does not give it justice, but the horses on top are amazingly detailed and life-like. The views over Green Park and the back of Buckingham Palace were lovely too. I think the views would have been more interesting had the Arch been in the same place as when it started, facing Hyde Park and Apsley House, but back then it was being used as the smallest police station in London and as a thoroughfare north and southbound. They ended up moving it to its present position on a traffic island off south east of the House when they decided to widen the main east-west route in and out of London. (I don't think you could fit some of the 4x4's through the middle of it anymore anyway.)

My worst little nightmare

What a day I had with Adriana yesterday.

She normally cannot be relied upon to remember much of anything, and I do try to keep in mind that she is only 5 and a half, but man, sometimes she tries the patience of a saint. For some reason , she woke up early (6:15 am) and proceeded to wake everyone else up by her trying to get the stairgate open, knocking it backwards and forwards. A little while later, she threw a hissy fit because I needed to log on to check the weather report online and I kicked her off the computer.
Finally got her to school and went about my business until I tried to get on the computer myself only to find the mouse had disappeared. (Been hidden, more like it...) I didn't want to accuse her of something she hadn't done; but it did look fishy...
When I went to collect her from school, she came out wearing someone else's sweatshirt (fairly obvious since it hit her knees) and had lost some money I had given her to buy a red nose with (in support of Comedy Relief). I would have been ok with all this and taken my usual "if I weren't laughing, I'd be crying" approach, but Adriana decided to blow all of us off and run to the playground to play. This sort of made me lose it, and we spent the next 10 minutes searching for her sweatshirt and money by me dragging her around behind me. Then I got more cross with her when she admitted to hiding the mouse on me in the morning because she was mad at me.
Things went from bad to worse later when I tried to take her to her ice-skating lesson. For some reason, she decided she hates ice-skating, she hates me and wants to go home. I was trying to wrack my brains for a reason that sounded reasonable to her coach, as to why she refused to move on the ice and just stood there, but I had nothing.
Was she trying to assert her will after I had run roughshod over hers at school?

Was she upset that I hadn't given her anything to eat before going on the ice?

She did say she was too cold to skate in her spring jacket...was she coming down with something?

About halfway home, I was trying to hash this out with her:

"Adriana, why don't you like skating anymore?...Adriana?...hello?"

I looked in my rear view mirror; she'd fallen fast asleep! Poor thing was exhausted and I just didn't recognize the signs.

20 years of facsinating adventures

So what do you get the man you've been with for over 20 years?

Yes, Orest and I just celebrated 20 years of wedded bliss(and not-so bliss), and how better to do so, than by taking him on a surprise weekend trip to Florence? I'd booked this long ago, but I needed Orest to take the Friday off in order to maximize the amount we could take in. So here's a recap of of that conversation:
"I'm busy at work, I can't take too many days off, blah, blah, blah". he says.

"So what you're telling me is that you've got time to go skiing whenever you want, but you don't have the time to celebrate the fact that we've been married for 20 years?!?"

Silence....

"Ok...Well, if you put it that way...I'll put it in my calendar."

Ya think?! Men, sometimes they just not on the same wavelength!

Anyway, the trip went really well (considering we flew RyanAir for the first time). Our hotel was fabulous, very modern; one of Salvatore Ferragamo's hotels. (He's the famous shoe & bag designer, originally from Florence and has about 4 properties there, plus a shoe museum.) Our room overlooked the Ponte Vecchio, so we couldn't be any closer to the centre of old Florence.

We spent the first afternoon just doing a city tour, walking and taking in the feel of Florentine architecture, much of which dated back to medieval times. (I'd read the Birth of Venus by Sandra Dunant over the summer and was intrigued to see how much of what I'd read was there before my very eyes.) The next day, we went in to two of the most important churches: the Duomo and Santa Croce and then spent the rest of the day at the Uffizi gallery, to see Boticelli's famous Birth of Venus. And the final day we went to see Michaelangelo's David at the Academmia and drove up to San Miniato al Monte for a final vista of the lovely bridges over the Arno river.

It was probably the best way to spend 2 days in a city, because when we left, we felt we truly had seen everything there was to see in Florence (historically, architecturally and artistically). I'm sure if we had been on our own, we would have just wandered around aimlessly and never gained the in depth knowledge that both Orest and I received on not just Florence, but the de Medicis and the political history surrounding this beautiful city.

Druggies and Druggists

Did two tours this week...First one was at Dennis Sever's House in Spitalfields on Monday evening. I was ready to be shown an interesting take on living in the past as the house is billed as a step back into time. But get this description from their website:
"Whether you see it or you don't - the house's ten rooms harbour ten 'spells' that engage the visitor's imagination in moods that dominated the periods between 1724 and 1914. Your senses are your guide."
Things get weirder still as you walked around the house in the semi-darkness and relative silence, with no tour guides or brochures to explain what you were seeing. Instead all we got was cryptic notes laid around, like:
"...the Kitchen - which addresses your simplest state of consciousness: your Soul. Here - in every object - form and function are at one, so that with nothing to explain, you may simply "be". N.B. - like a contented infant."
Huh? It wasn't til I caught a whiff of 'spliff' that I realized the people running this place have smoked a few too many joints in their lives and have transcended reality to somewhere in pot heaven.

Next tour was still on the theme of drugs, but slightly more legal. It was the Apothecaries Hall, where the society of Apothecaries began their trade centuries ago near Blackfriars. It was a treasure trove of mortar and pestles and some other interesting tools of the trade (including a scraper they used to bleed people).

I didn't take photos at either place, but I did get this one sent to me of an apothecary table and items.

Potties are not impotent

At least that's what I thought Adriana said in her fake little English accent....

Actually it was quite funny; we were in our usual rush trying to get from Ukie school in Holland Park to a birthday party for one of Stefanie's friends in Winchmore Hill; going along teh North Circular, and when Adriana saw that we were passing our normal exit at Henly's Corner to go home, she started whining that she was tired and wanted to go home.

I tried to explain to her that we had to drop Stefanie off first at this party, so that she wouldn't be late and that's when she came up with the gem above: "But parties are not important! Playing at home is more important!", dropping her r's all the way through.

I laughed out loud and explained: "We'll see just how important parties are when it's your birthday and Mama decides to cancel it, shall we?"

I don't think she realized the connection, because her next question was:
"Mama, could I have my birthday at Clown Town?"

I could have continued on with the "important" comment again, but I didn't want to risk a fresh attack of tears...she's only 5 and her sense of humour's definitely not fully developed to handle this kind of ribbing.