Alla mostra di Doisneau

Un individuo di bassa statura si aggira misterioso per le sale. Segni particolari: un ciuccio in bocca...

My little family, here I come!

Here I am, on my way back home, with a few grey hair and a few wrinkles more, but happy to be only a few hours far from my little family.

These few hours are the hardest, because time goes slowly when you yearn for something, and at the same time the sweetest, because... l’attesa del piacere è essa stessa piacere*… 

My little family, here I come! 

(*) To look forward to pleasure is itself a pleasure; L’attente du plaisir c’est dejà le plaisir (Gotthold Ephraim Lessing)

The blade of grass

Red-handed

Preamble. There is a little corner at home. It’s really nothing special: a simple indentation on the wall in the tiny corridor that connects the entrance to the living room. Bare. Uncomfortable. Useless. But Leo keeps on going and sitting there. And he looks happy. It has become Leo’s corner…

The events. Well then, we were in the middle of the festa dei bambini, when Mathilde and I noticed Leo seemed not to be around anymore. We had a quick look around - our apartment is not huge - but we could not immediately spot him.

Almost at the same time, we noticed that Laura and Connor, a nice Italo-Irish couple friend of us, seemed to look for their daughter Luna, Leo’s classmate at the childcare, as well.

Initially laughing, we joined our efforts - but soon we got a bit frightened as we could not find them and they did not respond to our calls. Where the hell they have got to?!?

Caught in the act. But when we finally turned into the tiny corridor that from the living room leads to the main door, here they were: tenderly (too tenderly!) close to each other in Leo’s corner. And when they saw us, they immediately wriggle themselves free from each other, and they looked at us giggling as if they were caught red-handed.

Conclusion. All is well that ends well, and considering you never know what can happen with children, we were relieved to discover nothing serious had happened.

But blissful youth! They are not two years old yet, and they already disappear at the parties!!!

Postcard

Lahore by night

Saluti & baci. Matteo

La festa dei bambini

 Before

Well, yes, we have done something foolish. We have invited 10 (ten!) babies between one and two years old at our place to celebrate the Befana (the kindly old witch who brings children candies at Epiphany). We have bought coloured balloons, baked cakes and pizzette (actually Mathilde baked cakes. Matteo purchased pizzette at the bakery downstairs), and tried to make our place child-proof (we removed the crystal table from the living-room and applied child-proof outlets into the wall sockets to prevent children the temptation to plug-in their fingers).

The result?

Well, see below…

During

After

Si riprende...

Anno nuovo, tran-tran vecchio. Si riparte. 

Ci si vede in un paio di settimane*. 

(*) New year, the same old routine. Leaving again. See you in a couple of weeks.

Three generations of Marchisio (3)

Un anno dopo il primo incontro (e cinque mesi dopo il secondo).

I figli continuano a crescere, e i padri continuano ad imbiancare...

Il vecchio e il bambino (The Old Man and the Little Boy)

Rollo - one year later

Leonardo’s olive tree (Ref. one year ago)
 

Leo e l’asinello (Ref. one year ago)

Giusvalla - la casetta dei bambini

In a far-faraway land called Giusvalla, perched among the hills, hidden in the woods, there is a little wooden house where only children are allowed: la casetta dei bambini…

Leo e nonna a Giusvalla

A few years ago, a few months before Davidino was born, my mum (alias ‘nonna’ now) confessed me, with a slight sense of embarrassment and guilt, that no, she was approaching the birth of her first grandson without feeling any sense of ‘grandmotherhood’.

 

A few years later…

 

La grande famille - Noël 2012

Apres Noël 2011 et Eté 2012, La Grande Famille Noël 2012 !

Leo, what would you like to be when you grow up? (4)

Maybe a tyreman, maybe a florist, maybe a gardener… Maybe a truck driver??? 

(Picture: courtesy of Constance)

Cuginetti & cousinettes

Cousinettes

Cuginetti

Nonni & bisnonni (2)*

Bisnonni

 

Nonni

(*) Nonni & bisnonni (1)

Frammenti di vacanze - Christmas

Leo has two passions: pebbles and books. Finally Santa Claus opted for the books…

Frammenti di vacanze - Le Cap Ferret

The second leg of our tour was Le Cap Ferret, the southernmost tip of that thin tongue of land that divides le Bassin d’Arcachon from the Atlantic Ocean.

Known as a summer resort for the high French society, we enjoyed it in its most ‘romantic’ appearance: deserted, windswept by the ocean’s winds and drizzle, lit by the soft light of the winter sun…

More in the next few days…

Frammenti di vacanze - Milano

As it seems to have become the rule in the past few years, our Christmas vacations have now literally turned into tours de force. Last year we drove more than 3,000 km in 12 days. This year we covered six places in 13 days: Milan, Le Cap Ferret, Milan again, Giusvalla/Parma, Rollo, and back to Rome.

We are not complaining. Despite got (geographically) closer to our families by moving to Rome in fact, we don’t see them often. Christmas has thus become the moment in which we can all be together. And this has now become even more important with Leonardo, as we learnt to value more and more the time he can spend with his grandparents, aunties, and cousins... 

But it’s true that we got back to Rome with the feeling we needed a few more days of vacation to recover from… our own vacation!

The first leg of our tour was Milan. As per tradition, all a bit in a rush: many things to do, many people to meet, many commitments to attend - but Christmas in Milan has, to me, always the taste of Christmas…

2013!

Les M&M’s are back from their vacations, with plenty of memories to share and pictures to show. We’ll post them, little by little, in the next few days.

 

Meanwhile, happy New Year!

Nebbia in Val Padana

Home sweet home…

I’ve been living out of Milan, the city where I was born and grown up, for about 14 years - more than one-third of my life. And I have spent the last two years in Rome, the antithesis of Milan.

But have noticed that the Milanese in me is well alive and kicking - when, after a seven-hour drive under the starry skies of Italy, at the Melagnano toolboth, the southern gate of Milan, Leo and I were welcomed by a wall of thick, almost impenetrable fog. And, taking with confidence the right exit from the motorway (with that thick fog, an impossible operation for a foreigner), felt the incomparable sweet taste of being at home…

Ps: we’ll be in Milan until Sunday morning, and then fly to Le Cap Ferret, on the Atlantic Coast near Bordeaux, where we’ll stay until Friday 28. We’ll then be in Liguria around New Year’s Eve, and finally back to Rome on January 1. Not sure how often we’ll manage to update the Blog in the next dozen of days. If we won’t, a very merry Christmas and a happy new year to all of you since now!

Quando sarò vecchio*

Leo or Santa Claus? 

(*) Courtesy of Jovanotti.

(Re-) Discovering a Christmas tree - one year later

A few hair and a few centimeters more, but the glance of Leo (re-) discovering a Christmas tree is the same of one year ago… 

The best moment of my missions

Returning home...

Leonardik

C'è un supereroe in ognuno di noi...

East is East

Philippines. See you in one week. Byo!

Tonight Momix

Tonight our ‘monthly’(which has become ‘bi-monthly’) sortie à deux. Tonight Momix.

We liked it very much!

Autumn in Rome

24 November

Having both a job here now, the chances of staying in Rome for quite some time, or of eventually returning to Rome should we decide to be outposted for a while, are quite high.

And although the ‘rental subsidy’ - the subsidy we receive on our rent - is quite a disincentive not to rent, we are in fact considering buying.

At the beginning timidly, then more and more daringly, and now obsessively. Our lunch-breaks, after-work hours, and often our week-ends are spent frenetically visiting apartments. There is no real estate website that we have not consulted and that we don’t keep monitored. Real estate agents know us by name by now.

The problem is that we have been too spoiled with our present apartment, and now we don’t even take into consideration anything that is not in the centre, at the top floor, with a huge terrace, and with a breathtaking view. (And with a garage).

Well, where is the problem? you would wonder.

The budget…