I seem to have been doing nothing other than rushing around like a mad person of late... i have Venice and Rome trips to update on... and no time to do it... so in the mean time i shall say:

Sara! Cara! glad you're back, thought you'd fallen of the interweb!

PROPS to Cus for sending me the MOST amount of fabulous music in the post - hurrah!

and Kat... I think 20six might need another WI challenge... things need livening up round here... and i think Cat has left a legacy we need to continue... let's get creative baybe!

kisses kiddies!

xxx

Was fun... and here are your pics...

This is the rather un-hinged cat who lives with my friend in Rome. When I first got to Italy nine months ago i stayed with Soph in Rome and the cat had recently had a bit of an accident. Deciding that the confines of it's new fifth floor Roman home (it had recently emigrated from Paris) were decidedly uninteresting and not really providing him with enough excitement, he had decided to take a little excursion. Seeing a window open, he hopped onto the sill, and leapt out... five stories down. He survived, but I don't think he's been quite right since. Has a very odd fetish for jewellry as well... pics it up in his mouth and hides it. Possibly a magpie in another life. Anyway.

Friday night we went a bit out of town to a party in what's known as 'The Villa' - twas a friend of a friend of Soph's birthday, and you had to be invited, and so it seemed, half or Rome's youth had been.

I was out footwear/togs spotting as per...

same but fuzzy:

Nice shoes and trews:

Nice back and bum:

Yellow shoes...

Which for some obscure drunken reason were being used as telephones...

handbags hangin' out...

This new fangled stuff on 20six is all very well, but the 'currently playing' thingummy doesn't really do much for me as i'm invariably sitting in an internet cafe as i type, listening to, well, other people typing. Therefore i am adding my own category, as above.

Saw a girl with this bag in black in a bar the other day and was instantly overcome with the most severe case of bag-envy ever. She had it in black, but what with my fetish for white accessories, this is the one I would have to proclaim undying love for:

 The St Tropez Ivoire small hobo in ivory chevette...

get that for a mouthful of a name! And it costs pretty much exactly a months salary... eeek!

What are you currently coveting?

with my credit card and a pair of cholé shoes at the weekend.... eeek! Am having to learn to walk in them, which is no mean feat, i can tell you... 4 whole inches of heel! Ayayay! Now just need to purchase clothes to match! hurrah!

Finally managed to see Venice in the sun last weekend... fourth time lucky! Every time i go it mings it down... Last time i went, about a month ago, i set off on a glorious, blue skyed day. As the train got closer to Venice though, the sky was getting moodier, and quite ferocious looking... got off the train, onto a vapoetto to meet my friend who i was having dinner with and it just started to POUR it down... and my footwear choice quite distinctly did not correspond with rain. Argh!

Anyhoo, last weekend it managed to stay glorious for my entire visit, so have some pics:

My shadow in St Marks Square...

Had another bout of shoe related accidents... accident numero uno comes in the shape of these little beauties: 

Emanuel Ungaro Mary-Jane style points with a fuschia pink sole and turquoise inside to add a touch of frivolity to anotherwise rather sensible shoes. Well, sensible for the likes of my white barbarella-boot wearing self. I feel all a bit secretary in them... although am significantly smaller than Maggie Gyllenhaal and my boss is relatively unlikely to call me into her office and spank me. That said, I did find outthe other week that the evil headmistress (my boss) did once have a cat fight with a female teacher in teh corridor at school once, so, y'know, she's obviously prone to violence of some kind.

The secretaryness:

Anyway, yeh, so that's them. The other footwear related accident to occur was one involving actual real-life danger thather than just financial ruin by credit card abuse. Crossing two lanes of traffic on Elsie (my bike) my white pointy slip on shoe decided to remove itself from my foot, and fell into the middle of the road. Eeeek! The traffic going in both directions had to wait while i grappled with shoe and insole to get it back on my foot... this operation was rendered all the more difficult as i was in hysterics at the time. Anyway, shoe, insole, Elsie and myself are all safe and well so tis all good.

Laters peoples.

Teaching English as a Foregin Language truly is la dolce vita, with the exception of the peanut salary of course, which is no use when you have a shoe habit to fund. Was out with an Italian friend a month or two ago, and a new guy i'd just met... general chit chat about jobs and the easy life we English teachers have.

"So,if you only actually work 25 hours a week, what do you do with the rest of your time?" he asks me.

"er... ummm"

"Christ alive", I'm thinking "what the feck do I do with my time? Read magazines, watch MTV and Italian reality shows, potter about at home, research the range of icecream available in Verona's gelaterie or dream up imaginary outfits most of the time..".

"er..." I said.

"Well don't you even go to the gym?" he asked incredulously.

"Well, no, I don't, but like what is it with this country and going to the gym?" I asked " Like everyone goes!"

"Yup," he said, "It's like if you don't go to the gym you're sfigata or something"

"Great" I thought, "I'm sfigata." Not a good look. So, I decided, if not to fill in my time (which i was doing pretty well at already with my general pottering) but to add something useful to my extra curricular activities, I joined a gym near my house. This has its good and bad points.The Italians are a body conscious style obsessed lot, goes without saying. And the one does not impair the other when they're working out. Now, I am typically celtic of skin colour, which basically means my natural skin tone is glow in the dark white (with freckles), and also means that exercise tends to turn me a distinctly inelegant shade of pink. When you are surrounded by middle aged women with perfect bodies who manage to exercise and still look perfectly groomed (coiffed hair, full face of makeup wearing skin tight all in one leotard/leggings things), this is not terribly confidence inspiring. Plus, nobody seems to get that over exerted. I'll do a half hour class and come out of it destroyed and unable to speak while my fellow Italian exercisers look like they've just been for a leisurley stroll to the shops. Anyway, it's not all bad, as actually the gym's function in terms of a keeping fit seems to come second to its use as a social venue...

And it turns out that the people who work at the magic shop-downstairs-from-my-house where i find all my footwear treasures all go to my gym... consequently, I have been befriended by them and found myself invited to the manager's boyfriend's surprise birthday party, and have been out for dancing and fun with one of the shop girls who turns out to be as prone to bad behaviour as me... hurrah!

So last Saturday night saw us go to Alter Ego... a fabulous club situated high up on a hill above Verona. Without doubt one of the best nights out I've had since I've been here... the music was excellent, the crowd beautiful, boys plentiful and the entrance free, as my new best fashion friend's fidanzato is the club's manager... I flirted with a boy called Fabio who liked my 1960's dress while I liked his rather fetching coordinated polo shirt and visor combo. We danced right till the very end when we stumbled out into the daylight to the sight of the sun rising over Verona, glinting off windows and warming the red rooves of the city. Alter Ego is one of theose kind of clubs you used to find in Britain in the mid nineties - the sort people just LOVE so much they keep on going back to it every week and come from far afield to dance there... it seems to inspire a kind of dedication because it's just such an obscene amount of FUN. I saw a girl as I was walking along the street last week with a glimpse of tanned back showing between her jeans and her top and she hasd a little tatoo: AE ... it took me a minute to work out why I recognised the typescript... it's the alter ego logo. Now THAT is commitment to a club! Kinda like a religion. Well, I'm a convert fo sheezy, so I shall, without doubt be back again tonight....

good weekend peoples!

Have the pichurs:

Pre carnage:

Toilet pics!

As in all good Italian discos there were quite a few boys wearing inordinately large sunglasses: