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

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.

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!

Niccolo is off for a few days with the nonni. It is the first time he has been without us since Caterina was born and I was a bit worried that he might have a difficult time. Looks like I fretted for nothing. He couldn’t wait to hop on the aeroplane with Nonna last Tuesday and he has been having a whale of a time ever since. He was apparently ‘too busy’ to speak to me on the phone and rightly so, considering he absolutely has to play football, do some gardening, walk the dogs and go and look for enemies in the woodland (dressed in full knight regalia) every day.

Nicco the diver

Oh and wear his diving suit (even though he is a fair few miles away from the sea). Caterina and I are joining him tomorrow. It will be her first aeroplane journey—I wonder how she will take to it?

Niccolo is so much into knights just now that I thought it would be fun to have a medieval supper. I have done this kind of stuff before—complete with authentic recipes from Le Menagier de Paris and Maestro Martino—and love it, but it rarely is a hit with other people. Manfredi endures it patiently, everyone else usually runs away as fast as they can.

So imagine my joy when it turned out Nicco loves it too. He wasn’t too keen on eating without forks initially (he must be the only four-year-old who doesn’t like to dirty his hands) but really enjoyed using a trencher (in a small deviation from authenticity, I used a double trencher for him—wooden board and slices of stale bread—to contain the damage to the tablecloth), and eating by candlelight. Much to my suprise, he even took to the idea that knights often started their supper with fruit and gobbled up an entire apple before his roast beef. Sadly, his enthusiasm did not extend to the Menagier’s split pea soup and Maestro Martino’s swiss chard tart. Guess I’ll have to find another ruse to make him eat vegetables.

Sir Niccolo at the table

He liked the whole thing so much that he asked to eat like knights again yesterday. This was unexpected and, in Manfredi’s case, not entirely welcome. Therefore, he tried to trick Niccolo by subtly adding modern comforts (such as fork, plates and a little electricity) to our knightly table—only to be stopped in his tracks by the little one.

“But papa, knights did not have forks. But papa, knights did not have plates. But papa, knights did not have lights.”

So there was nothing to do but eat roast chicken off wooden trenchers with our fingers in the encroaching darkness. Well, at least two of us thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Nicco’s drawing of Julius Caesar, complete with sword, shield and…crown!

Now, however, things may be about to take a turn for the worse as Nicco is developing a fascination for Julius Caesar and the Romans. We have already added a Roman shield and gladius to our armoury, and included a Roman re-enactment video in Nicco’s Youtube staple of medieval joust re-enactments and Fifth Gear car tests. So I expect we will soon have to try hosting a Roman banquet. But then even I will have a problem at the prospect of eating liquamen-soaked snails!

What a packed day. Nicco ran the first race of his life, and I had so much fun watching him. There is little as cute as a bunch of three to five year-old children engaged in a relay race. The things they come up with—like the kid who did the entire bean bag leg of the race (bean bag on the head, arms out) with his head bent forward. The bean bag kept sliding of course, but no amount of coaching from teacher or parent could persuade that little boy to change his mind and lift his head up. That was the way he was going to run and that was it.

Going fast

I have also discovered that Nicco is fast, very fast. I always knew he could run—he started to run practically on the same day he started to walk—but hadn’t realised just how fast he could go until I saw him alongside other small children. That said, he hardly took off like the wind when his team mate handed him the baton (or rather, the ring). He stood stock still for a while, waiting and waiting for the teacher to signal he could start running. Clearly, he is not very clear on the rules of a relay race!

As I feared, Nicco has started showing signs of distress. He is biting his fingernails with gusto—a sure indicator of stress which he has ‘inherited’ from me—and trying to attract attention by misbehaving. If he gets reprimanded, he either becomes aggressive or oversensitive—once, he even told me: “No one loves me any more,” which very nearly broke my heart. Apparently, though, it is good that he can articulate his distress rather than bottling it all up, so I am trying to encourage him to do so. Yesterday, I also kept him home and played with him the whole day. Hide and seek, knights and villains, archery, running, football, reading stories—we did it all (thankfully, Caterina sleeps most of the time).

Niccolo the archer

At the end of it, he seemed to be a lot more cheerful and hardly misbehaved at all, to the point that we decided to go out for a meal, as he wanted to eat fish, and there is no way I am going to cook the thing at home (not that I would know how to, having a deep-set diffidence towards all food coming from the sea).

It was Caterina’s first restaurant outing, at the grand old age of 16 days, and she slept through it all. Niccolo, on the other hand, had a whale of a time. He thoroughly enjoyed his grilled seabass and even ate a plateful of fried courgettes, thanks to Manfredi’s inspired white lie, which passed them off as whitebait. I had long suspected Nicco’s aversion to all vegetables except peas was more psychological than real, and this is proof. I am now going to serve fried ‘fake whitebait’ at regular intervals and see what happens.

More importantly, though, the meal out really seemed to restore his good mood, and this morning he went to nursery school without a peep. I am not deluding myself that this is the end of his difficult time, but hopefully grown-up things like going to the restaurant, in which Caterina can’t really participate, can help soften the blow.