500 Up and Still Going

This is my 500^th blog posting and whilst I have thought about stopping the blog and starting on my book again (nothing for nearly 2 years – writer’s block maybe !), I always get the urge to pen something, no matter how banal. If my life is boring sometimes, you’re going to share it with me – so there!

So what wonderful things do I have to say on this momentous occasion – nothing much really. You may have noticed that I keep changing the fonts on my postings. This is due to the new template I am using which I think is quite a bit more modern and professional than the previous one and I was quite chuffed to see that quite a few blogs are now using it including the Cannonball Run blog which I featured yesterday. The downside is Google’s frustrating ability to change the published font, almost at will and so I have to review and change it. Maybe one day it will settle down. I actually thought that the first font I used on the new template was OK until Tan said that it made his eyes go funny, but I reckon that was just the booze from the night before!

So what’s been happening out here? The world cup ended with me giving Tan €20 because Spain won but I’ve not paid him yet and he’s not had the brass neck to ask – so we’ll see how it goes.

I was actually picking up my latest visitors (cousin Sue and her husband Alan and my brother Robert) when the final was on so I recorded it and we watched it when we got home and had had dinner – about midnight! We finished watching it at 2.15am and as I’d warned Tan not to shout over the score or even go out on his terrace (so we wouldn’t know who’d won), it was like watching it live. I managed to resist the temptation to fast forward at 16 times the normal speed but I’m appalled to say my Brother still managed to fall asleep during the half-time break – maybe that had something to do with his 6 pints of IPA (beer) during his 6 hour stopover at Gatwick Airport!

We ventured off to SanRemo in Italy on Wednesday and in addition to the market being absolutely mobbed, it was the hottest day by far this year. This didn’t manage to stop J from finding a mink jacket on a market stall on sale for the princely price of €2,900. Who, in their right minds, would buy a mink jacket costing that much from a market trader? J says the jacket was a copy of a design by some fancy fashion house (D&G, Dior, M&S, Primark ?) and had actually started negotiating with the stall holder. I just fainted.

We went for lunch at Garby’s which does an amazing meal for €15 – 4 plates of pasta (each), a main course (my brother had a huge Duarade fish complete with head, tail and teeth!) and then a dessert which includes the best Tirimisu in Italy (apparently). The problem was that I’d booked a table inside and when we arrived we’d been usurped some some Italians. I have long since recognized that you don’t argue with Italian men of the older variety because they have some ‘interesting’ relatives – nuff said!

We ended up on our own on their roof-top terrace which had magnificent views of the washing on the balconies of the surrounding flats, the roof of the fish market and a guy (fat, greasy, sweating) who was sunbathing on his balcony in a pair of grey underpants which looked as if they’d never seen the inside of a washing machine.

Nevertheless, the food was as good as it usually is and we headed home with everyone asleep except the driver – me! Final point about the trip was that I was only offered one watch (huge,silver Rolex) during my visit and if you’re wondering about the relevance of that remark, look back a few postings and you’ll see one about SanRemo watches.

So it’s now Friday and my visitors go home today after an all too short visit. My cousin (my mother’s sister’s daughter) managed to trace my brother after some 40 years and we’re now ‘genes reunited’ and it’s great to see them again.

It was Sue’s birthday whilst she was here, appropriately enough on Bastille day, when huge firework displays lit up the coast. She’s still not too sure if I’m being genuine when I said I’d paid to have the displays just for her!

Photo is of us at lunch on Thursday. From left to right – my brother (Robert), Sue’s husband (Alan), Sue (my cousin), J and Kitty.

And finally, finally, if you’re waiting for an update on the wasps, I still haven’t plucked up the courage to hit their nests with that deadly poison which doesn’t work!