One year later

A year ago today we arrived in France, where we spent a month having breakfasts looking at this view.

Pretty sweet.

Aside from confirming my suspicion that my French was nowhere near as good as I liked to tell myself it was (although I did somehow get by), that month away taught me one thing.

Actually, it didn’t teach me anything I didn’t already strongly suspect. The time in France simply confirmed that I had somehow managed to live long enough to find (with the help of a mutual friend introducing us) the guy who is perfect for me.

And after thirty days and thirty nights in France, I knew that I wanted to fall asleep and wake up with this man every day for the rest of my life. Happily for me he felt the same.

We’ve been co-habiting for four and a half months. Have we got as much done as we thought we would have by now? No? The truck still hasn’t been hired. I still haven’t finished packing up my house, but we’re close.

And now we’re planning another awfully big adventure.

A rather different view from the Venice apartment in which we will be residing.

I’ve been to Venice twice – both times in my twenties, so it’s been a while. On neither previous visit was the Biennale on my agenda. (To be completely honest, whilst I was aware of the film festival, I knew absolutely nothing about the Biennale until Dirk told me about it.)

From what little research I’ve done so far, all I can tell you is that our Venice apartment is very close to the Ukrainian pavilion, so that should be interesting.

There will be at least one day trip to Murano, of course. He’s a glassblower, isn’t he?

I don’t know where I get off referring to this fortnight in Venice (and week in London) as an awfully big adventure.

Later today, my friend Joe is getting on a plane to Rome – the first stop on a three-month tour of the land of his birth. Not only that, but he’s taking Georgie with him!

Now that is an awfully big adventure.

And get this!

They’re going to be in Vicenza when we’re in Venice, so we’re going to meet up halfway for a day trip to Padua!

I know London will be fun. I know Venice will be magical, but non vedo l’ora di vedere Joe e Georgie a Padova.

Oh, yes, that’s me all fluent in Italian. Oh, ha, ha, ha.

After nearly 300 days of doing Italian on Duolingo I know I have added virtually nothing to my vocabulary. I could already have said “buongiorno”, “buonasera”, “buonanotte”, “ciao”, “arrivederci”, “si, per favore”, and “non, grazie”.

What have I added? Mi chiamo, mi piace, vorrei, hmm. What else. Must memorise “Vorrei due biglietti di andata e ritorno per Padova, per favore”. And I have to remember that you don’t pronounce the g in biglietti.

Oh, mamma mia, questa sarà interessante.