Getting away

(from here via here)

We're heading north, we're taking the tent. We're keeping our fingers crossed for the weather and that the midges stay away.

We'll be spending time with family.

See you soon

DG & IB

Congratulations to aDizzyGirl who is marrying her Irish Boy today

(D from here via here, G from here, & from here, I from here via here and B from here via here)

The eyes have it (part 3)

Surgery..................................

It is something that both O and I have considered. At the moment neither of us can afford it. There is also the niggling doubt about risking a surgery that isn't truly necessary. Both of us are reasonably well accommodated through glasses or contact lenses. However on the other hand those contact lenses and glasses are very expensive, it wouldn't take many years of replacement glasses and monthly contact lens payments to recoup the cost of the surgery.

I've never done any proper research however I don't think I would be a suitable candidate at the moment. My eyes continue to get worse and I believe that they need to be stable for a reasonable amount of time before they would perform the procedure. 

I've heard varying reports about laser eye surgery. Gaynor's husband who bravely and very successfully had it done the week or so before their wedding. A colleague at work also recovered incredibly quickly and has never looked back since. However I've also heard some true horror stories which include absolute agony for weeks after the operation to a continued sensitivity to light months and months later.

So I wait and listen for peoples tales of success or failure and wonder whether I'd ever make that step.

part 1 and part 2

Italy: Day 2 Rome, Vatican

We'd planned on going to Castel Sant'Angelo but discovered it was closed on Mondays. There was an exhibition of highlights from the different regions of Italy so we spent some time trying to understand what was going on - all the descriptions were in Italian. Then we headed towards the Vatican and into Piazza San Pietro following the crowds. The queue into St Peter's was already stretched through the herding pens and across the Piazza, but we'd decided before we travelled that we weren't going in there.
I cannot recommend enough pre-booking your tickets to the Vatican museums. We'd booked our slot at 2pm - expecting to have been busy for the morning. All we had was an email so a little nervous we decided to figure out what we needed to do when our timeslot came. As we walked around the walls of the Vatican we quickly came across the other huge queue. Worried that we might need to wait in that queue we kept walking to the front and finally spotted someone who looked like they were in charge. He waved us towards the doors where we noticed a separate entrance. We went through the second door, passed our belongings through security and quickly got our tickets validated. It wasn't long after 12, which had been the first available slot we could have booked. So we thought we would head straight to the Sistine chapel in the hope that it might be a little quiet. HA!
The flow through the Vatican museums on the way to the Sistine chapel seems to be one way. However there were some diversions on the way to see other collections. We went for a couple of these diversions however soon learned that they were big loops that took you almost back to the beginning so you had to go through the same bit again. 
We learned as with lots of places that you have to time things just right. You need to get yourself between two tour groups. This doesn't give you a lot of time to stop, look and take pictures because you'll be caught and then have to wait for that group to pass you (and you'll end up with photos of their flags). We also learned to look instead of taking pictures - we still have a lot of photos. Several photos named Vatican floor 1, Vatican floor 2 etc. Vatican ceiling 1, Vatican ceiling 2 etc. 
We finally crammed our way into the Sistine chapel, which has to be the least peaceful religious building I've ever been in. As many people as possible are crammed in and the guards shout at people to move on and stop taking photos. I appreciate that huge amounts of money and man hours have been spent to revitalise the ceiling and restore it to it's former glory. But personally (just my opinion) I think the ceiling to too bright and new look, it just didn't look historical.
By this time we were starving so found somewhere outside to sit and eat the snacks we had with us. After looking at the various versions of the Pope mobile and seeing some of the other exhibitions we decided we'd had our fill of the Vatican and the crowds.


Images all by me or O

CP & CPOH

Today is a special day for a lovely lady who likes:

Wishing Zoe and CPOH a brilliant, fun and love filled day.

(1, 2, 3 via here, 4 via here) 

Jiggling in all the wrong places

I used to be a regular at a pilates class every Thursday evening. I still go but can no longer say I'm a regular or I'll get all sorts of abuse from my husband. I no longer go every week and it takes more and more moaning and nagging to get me off the sofa and into the car to class.

Last night I went along and for the second time my teacher had brought along new toys for us to try out - Flexi bars.

Apparently Coleen (link to the Sun newspaper so feel free not to click and just trust me on this) is all about the flexi bar!

A flexi bar is as it says a bar that is flexible but weighted at each end. You hold the bar in the middle and lift it whilst doing other pilates moves. The aim is to make the bar move and then to keep it moving. The vibrations through the movement of the bar tone up the muscles.

Vibrations = Jiggling

Jiggling in bits of me I'd rather be under the illusion are firm, pert and unjiggleable. Think I need to do some toning.

This is in no way a sponsored post unless someone wants to become my personal trainer - but I'm told they're not all they're cracked up to be either.

Why does it not surprise me that I've never done a post about exercise before - I'm too energy efficient.

Italy: Rome stereotypes

We'd been in Rome a day and a half and all of my Roman/Italian stereotypical expectations had been met.

• I'd seen nuns driving a van
• A priest on a moped
• A woman slap a man in the face in the middle of the street before they fell into a passionate embrace. (Ok, I might have made up the passionate embrace but the slap happened - they just continued to fight)
• A woman parking a car by battering her car into the surrounding cars. Forward bump, backwards bump, forward bump-scrape, backwards bump-scrape.

(I've never seen so many designer shops)

(photos by me on camera phone - still embracing the "effects")

Italy: Day 1 Rome

We got up at a ridiculous hour of the morning to board a flight with a cheap airline. Yup one of those I'd promised never to fly with again. In my defence there doesn't seem to be a way to get from Scotland to Italy without using a cheap and nasty airline. 
We packed light - we only allowed ourselves hand luggage and knew that we would need to be carrying all of our belongings for at least a couple of days of the holiday. I don't really know how to pack light. I still managed to come home with one clean t-shirt, a pair of shorts and a jacket that more or less only got worn in Scotland to and from the airport and then carried around various places in Italy.
The bus from the airport deposited us at Roma Termini after which we were on our own. It was Sunday and there were no tourist information offices open. Luckily two lovely people had lent us guide books which came with maps. That and the fact that my husband is amazing. He basically navigated us out of the station and on to the right road by the position of the sun. He appears to have an inbuilt compass. This internal compass doesn't work so well at night apparently it is harder to navigate by the moon. 
We wandered aimlessly slightly dazed by the early start and the dramatic increase in heat. Italy is warmer than Scotland – who’d have thought it. We came across a little park outside the Quirinal and studied the map. Then we wandered on through tiny meandering street coming across beautiful Piazza’s, screaming mopeds and fashionable people. Almost by accident we stumbled across the sound of running water and rounded a corner to find the Trevi fountain. How can the street leading to the fountain be so quiet and yet the Piazza itself hold so many people? We took photos and watched people throw their coins. There was a champagne cork floating in the water, I wondered if someone had recently gotten engaged. 

(I seem to have become I little obsessed with the effect on my camera phone)

We kept going and found the Pantheon – most of this time I thought we were just wandering turns out that O was wandering in a deliberate manner. Outside the Pantheon we bought a sandwich and discovered just how expensive things are in Rome. We sat on a wall and ate reading what the guide book told us about the Pantheon before we headed inside to look. I tried and failed on several occasions to take a picture of the roof and the Oculus. The guide books say that the Pantheon is particularly spectacular in the rain or the snow where the elements come into this ancient building unashamedly. Conveniently for us it started to rain while we were inside to demonstrate this wonder! So we spent a little more time inside than we expected.
Deciding that it might be time to go somewhere else to avoid the rain we took advantage of a break in the showers to head towards our hotel. After a nap and the rain had stopped, we went out to enjoy the rest of the day. We headed towards the Spanish steps – another must see tourist attraction, via the Piazza Navona. It isn’t exactly a peaceful city Rome and it continued to amaze me that so many people were crammed into all of these places. Thinking of the films that have been shot in Rome how did they ever get rid of all the people? We took pictures from the bottom of the Spanish steps, we climbed the steps and took pictures from the top.
We went to see the Trevi Fountain by night and still there were the same huge crowds. I wondered if it was simply the same people and perhaps they never leave.


We ate, we gave our feet a rest for what was going to be another huge day and we slept.


(if you can't tell - all photos taken by me on my camera phone)

What happens when I lose my blogging mojo?

Weeks, no months, go by without writing anything meaningful. Ideas drift through my consciousness but time passes before I can write them down and they lose their relevance. Weekends of inactivity pass leaving me with nothing to report. Weekends of absolute bedlam pass leaving me with so much to report it is too much to capture and translate. Weeks pass when I sit staring aimlessly at the computer reading your blogs but not being able to pull words together to comment let alone write a post myself. I post endless randomness including photos of toothpaste and towels hoping that my readers won’t completely abandon me. Even the cats have stopped providing a source of bizarre inspiration. I promise myself that this evening it will be different. This evening I will write something, I will schedule a post. I won’t share all of my news on Twitter leaving me nothing to blog about. I won’t post random drivel, I will spark a debate/conversation and capture the attention of my readers. I doubt that I will ever find anything interesting to write about, I doubt that I ever had anything to write about at all. Maybe planning my wedding was it, maybe there isn’t anything to continue with.



But no I can’t abandon my little community, my new friendships I must continue.


I will think of something interesting. I will share my innermost thoughts and fears. I will share the random spare thoughts that sparked all this off in the first place.


I will try harder, I will do better.


Come back mojo I want to continue.


Its not just me right? Everyone goes through patches like this right? 

Ciao

(source)

We're off to Italy to eat.

Possibly heart shaped pasta but I doubt it.