Phew! It has been an intense month, a whirlwind of Paris, Disneyland, London, Legoland, new museums and old parks, Milan, now Florence. We have travelled, eaten, taken rides, grown (some of us vertically, others horizontally), had an inordinate amount of fun…and worked and planned. To avoid depriving the children of my presence during their waking hours, I worked from 6am to 9am which, considering Caterina is still waking up at night every two or three nights, means that I am shattered and need a holiday after the holidays. It also means that I had virtually no time to scrapbook, collage, paint, read or do anything else anything beyond some basic backgrounds I did on a couple of afternoons when Niccolo decided to paint.But I have plans, big plans, and they are finally taking shape behind the scenes. I have to say a huge thank you to my ever supportive writer friend Leslie and to Andrea Singarella who, instead of sending me packing for having emailed her completely out of the blue to ask for moral support, was extremely encouraging and kind. If customs duties weren’t so crippling for items coming in from the US, I’d buy her entire stock tomorrow because 1. it is great and 2. she is great.Now, Nicco’s school resumes in ten days, and that’s when I’ll start making things happen. So watch this space…. 

Gosh I don’t think I have ever worked so much in my entire life. Day and night, night and day, trying to bring myself ahead, and all for the sake of a few days off next week. We are heading to Paris and Eurodisney, and I most definitely will not be able to do anything there. A few nights, while I was working on my laptop in bed, words dancing in my head, Caterina sleeping in her cradle next to me, I wondered whether it was worth all this effort.

But you know what? I think it will. Nicco is so excited at the idea of going to Paris. We have read a few Madeleine’s stories, re-read Laurence Anholt’s Degas and the Little Dancer, planned to see it (and Mona Lisa) at the Louvre, and talked about the chocolate shops and ice cream parlours we’ll hit.

Faced with this, what does it matter if I am tired, sleepy and headachy? After all, it’s nothing a good croissant can’t cure.

Three days without the children. I had plans, great plans. I would finish off all the articles due this week, bring myself ahead with the stuff due next week, lay the ground for my pet business project and even enter a couple of crafting challenges.

Ha. I should have known better. The commute, which I had forgotten all about in the last few months, turned my short consultancy day in the office into ten good hours out and about. Add to this errands to run, the laundry that was piling up and needed doing, shopping for groceries, catching up with the post, going to the bank…and I have barely had time to finish the pieces due in this week.

Which means that next week I’ll have to work on whatever pieces are due, and that my pet project and crafting remain a chimera.

Oh well, at least I got to snap a fuzzy but lovely picture of Caterina trying to figure out where her mummy’s voice was coming from (the answer is IChat, but she wouldn’t understand).

Caterina and her papa

More than the Summer of Fun, this should have been dubbed the Summer of Frantic. Because that’s how the last couple of weeks have been for me—having a baby and three boys aged three to five under the same roof kind of does that to you, even when there are two more adults to share the work with. Throw into the mix a hefty dose of homeschooling (in preparation for ‘grown-up’ school starting in September), a new gig (I have started writing about property and travel for Italymag.co.uk, whey-hey!) and Niccolo’s birthday party (with another bunch of preschool boys all slaying a dragon with inflatable swords) and I am actually surprised I am still alive.

Birthday boy


On the obstacle course (aka knights’ training camp) part 1


On the obstacle course part 2


Slaying the enemy

I am also surprised Caterina is still alive. Brotherly love (and cousinly love) can be a bit destructive when the givers are young, boisterous boys and the receiver is a helpless baby girl—hugs tend to resembles wrestling moves.

Caterina: surviving against all odds

Despite having had to grow eyes at the back of my head though, I have been more crafty over the last few weeks than  the previous months put together—except that I was engaged in rather different activities than my usual vintage-infused collages. Instead, I put together cardboard swords and daggers (times three, at least twice a day), toilet-roll rockets and even a dragon pinata (made of tissue paper so it could be broken with the inflatable swords and shower my little knights with sweets and small presents). When I was not running around fetching water (for watercolour painting), collecting broken pieces of crayon (for wax resist painting) and admiring the production of “a Ferrari submarine underwater” (by both my son and my nephew—however did they come up with that?).

The infamous dragon pinata






Crafty kids

But I had oodles of fun, and am happy to announce that I have discovered one craft that, above all others, will keep the kids engaged for at least 15 minutes, and smug for at least a week—draw your own t-shirt. I gave them fabric markers and three cheapo vests and they came up with their own (somewhat colourful) designs. Then I set them with the iron, and they have been proudly wearing their creations ever since.

I was too ambitious. I decided to homeschool Niccolo during the summer, in preparation for the start of (semi)real schooling in September. My chief aim is to help him learn to stay still for longer than half a nanosecond, but should he pick up something else along the road, I certainly wouldn’t mind.

After much pondering I opted for a literature-based homeschool programme because Nicco really loves being read to. I based it loosely on Sonlight because I like their choice of books. And indeed stuff like Milly Molly Mandy has been a great hit. But, overbearing mum that I am, I opted for replacing some of their recommended books—which Nicco had already read or which he no longer enjoys because he finds them a bit basic—with classic, picture-less stories. My idea was to help him concentrate on the story itself as a first step towards reading chapter books. Well, it turns out it was a BAD idea.

I read about two of these stories to him, which I printed out from Project Gutenberg, before he made it clear that he wanted “a story from a book.” Upon further investigation, it turned out that he didn’t object to the stash of loose paper I was reading from, but to the lack of pictures on said papers. So I backpedalled quickly (for fear of putting him off reading altogether) and we are back to illustration galore. I never learned the concept of age appropriateness faster than in the last few days.

That said,  there are a couple of knights stories that I printed out which I think he would really enjoy. So my next project is to find suitable images to illustrate them—something like this knight from Karen’s Whimsy.

If I find the time, that is. Because just now I am knee-deep in another project: setting up the scene for Nicco’s birthday party on Saturday. More to come as I struggle to turn my in-laws garden into a medieval tilting yard….

Phew! My schedule is getting even more crazy now that Niccolo is off nursery school. good thing we are about to decamp to the seaside where the nonni can help take care of him and Caterina. Or maybe not—I have just remembered that there will be two more preschoolers (my nephews) with us during the week, and said preschoolers plus another baby (my niece) at the weekend. So my life may well end up being even more hectic.

This sustained craziness obviously means I have little time to do anything beyond work and childcare (unless you include working with Nicco on some crafts—we are in the midst of making a tree-shaped seasons booklet).  I did, however, find enough time to take a few pictures of our family’s eyes, which prove beyond doubt that Nicco has my eyes through and through and Caterina hasher father’s eyes. I had obviously noticed this, but seeing the similarity in picture is shocking. You can barely tell my eye from Nicco’s (OK, mine is the one with the wrinkles around it).

Nicco’s eye


My eye


Manfredi’s eye



Caterina’s eye

I can’t believe how crazy the last ten days have been. Lots of work, nursery school singalongs, birthday parties and playground jaunts meant that I had no time to update the site, let alone put together a collage, digital or otherwise. But my friend Leslie—who is even busier than me with writing and childcare but manages to work some friendship magic anyway—has made one for me. It came unexpected on a week when I know she is really pushed for time, and is much much appreciated. Thank you Leslie (and yes, I’ll post the nursery school singalong video soon, I promise!).

Leslie is the best

Long white hair rippling down his back, a knight in full Templar regalia stops to peruse the goods at the weaver’s stall, unmindful of the drizzle that wets the sword at his side. A lady in flowing green robe—her blond hair pulled up in a soft chignon under a gleaming tiara—glides past him, while a young boy in a green and red tunic gapes at them in a slightly undignified manner (for a page).

It is the last Sunday of the medieval fair in Pavone Canavese, and the whole village dresses up for the part. Every nook and cranny houses a craftsman carving wood, making candles or weaving wool. Stalls sell helms, swords and charms. Taverns throw open their cellars, where they serve meat cooked over an open fire (although they do give you forks, in a slight departure from period authenticity). A juggler works miracles with balls and scimitars, falconers fly their birds and a minstrel sings.

Knights milling about before the tourney


Papa gets what he deserves


Nicco assesses the wares at the market


With a falconer

But best of all—at least as far as Niccolo was concerned—is the jousting ground, where knights prove their prowess in a tournament. Two tournaments actually—the Italian historic duel championship, and the international one. Sitting on Manfredi’s shoulders, Niccolo soaked it all up, and occasionally waved his wooden sword to take part in the action (coming perilously close to chopping off his father’s ear).

Watching the tourney

I was seated a bit further back on the butcher’s bench feeding Caterina—the young blue-eyed lady offered me a place to seat when she saw me fiddling with bottle and baby—and only heard the clang of the knights’ swords, slow and measured at first, then fast and furious as the pace changed. I am happy to report that the clangor of swordplay doesn’t spoil Caterina’s appetite (after all, it is far less noisy than the building works we are forced to endure at home).

Caterina enjoys the tourney

Indeed, it was alse less noisy than Nicco’s laughter when he tried his hand at the medieval games in the games court. He was pretty good at the period equivalent of skittles, failed miserably at fish the bottle, and loved firing a mini crossbow against a knight-shaped target. But his favourite game was rolling a ball along two poles then opening the poles up in time for the ball to drop into a bowl. It was devilishly difficult, and he succeeded—which is probably why he liked it so much.

Playing skittles


My little crossbowman


A novel ball game

It was reat fun, but my favourite bit was bedtime, when Nicco, perhaps inspired by all the valiant action he saw during the day, came up with a story about a dragon.

“One upon a time there was a baby dragon. One day, some bigger dragons came. They were big and fast and hurt his family. And so the baby dragon blew out fire, and made a wall of fire and sent the bigger dragons away.”

It’s short and simple, but I love that he came up with it all by himself and told it to me at bedtime.

Off to the Alps but before I go, here is my entry for the red challenge…Nicco’s collection of ‘pebbles’ on a red background.

Stones against a red background

I have a confession to make. Summer puts me in a staggeringly foul mood. The weather is too hot, mosquitoes are out in droves, and beach life—which I had to endure every single day of every single summer when I was a child—is incommensurably boring.

Living in London, where there is no beach (unless you count the Ruislip Lido) and you can always rely on a generous downpour to cool the air and send mosquitoes packing had gone a long way towards reconciling me to the season.

However, things reverted to default three years ago when we started spending most of June and July by the seaside in Italy. I usually start getting cross in early June and only snap out of it after mid-September.

Thankfully, my friend Leslie came to the rescue last year when she came up with the idea of having a summer of fun—journeys, trips, excursions and dinner parties to fill the long hot days. Her ‘recipe’ helped make last summer a lot more bearable, so I am taking her up on it again this year (even though she hasn’t officially launched the summer of fun 2008 campaign—possibly because summer hasn’t yet started).

The plan is to cram as many jaunts, activities, crafts and interesting things to do every day between now and September that I won’t physically have time to get in a bad mood (or go to the beach, which is one and the same).

Captain at the helm



Caterina’s first boat trip

We have already started—last Friday, we all went to Sardinia for my mother’s birthday and enjoyed a long weekend of countryside walks, boating and bouncy castle action. Now we are getting ready to go to a small Alpine hamlet for a medieval style fair complete with knights’ joust. I am also planning a trip to Eurodisney (another Leslie-induced idea), and excursions to Hever castle, Legoland and Leeds castle.

Looking for enemies among the bushes


Playground fun


Marvelling at everything

But there are so many more days ahead that I need more ideas, preferably of stuff to do while at the seaside or at home. So if anyone has any brilliant summer plans to share with me, please shout!