To boldly blog…

So here we are. After not much planning and even less packing, I’m now officially ‘travelling’. Living the life, so to speak. Any conceptions you have about how awesome what I am doing is are most definitely true. My life is infinitely better than yours, and I’m never coming back to England. Of course not. But here’s what I have been up to so far.

The nonni (grandparents) I’m staying with are very nice, their apartment has some furniture I know my other half would be very jealous of, and the makers of Cluedo might want back at some point, and the boys seem like a bundle of laughs. I’m not actually living with the grandparents per se. I’m living in the flat below their apartment. I have a whole properly sized bedroom, bathroom, and living space with decorative kitchenette to play with, but I’m not allowed any friends over. The younger of the two kids, who came with his grandparents to pick me up from the airport, spent most of the journey home quietly staring at me, smiling when I did, and eventually came out with ‘how are you?’ after some very prolonged thought. He also winks back at me, but as yet I don’t know what he knows. The other didn’t come with his grandparents to pick me up didn’t do so as he banged his leg whilst doing something, amply demonstrated by him hopping about when I arrived. Over the past week he has started to come out of his shell, trying his hand at a bit of English, and even remember what I taught him some of the time. He’s a little stubborn, but what ever I’m doing seems to be working.

The younger of the two, the strong silent one on the ride back from the airport, has been set on impressing me from the off. He answers me in English when he can, and asks if he doesn’t know how to say something, and if he wants to ask me something. At first he pointed and gestured hopefully, but I got wise to that pretty soon and demanded he said what he meant.

What’s more, for such as small, obscure town, completely overshadowed by the neighbouring metropolis of Milan, I’ve actually managed to find someone doing what I’m doing in the same small, obscure town, who I’ve met and is in pretty much the same boat I am, although her boat came from Spain, so she’s a relative old hand. Although she’s not old. But she does have hands. Fortunately.

Now I’ve not managed to avoid going to Milan, as the other half is there and demands all the time she can get out of me. And I’ve happily obliged. It’s pretty much as I left it – there are odd disabled beggars doing all sorts, a cute old Asian man carving awesome out of root vegetables (I kid you not, I meant to write exactly that), the people selling bracelets, books and roses, and the Milanese generally putting up with all the obnoxious tourists and all of the above.

I’m going to try and find a mythical large park with my out-of-Milan buddy tomorrow morning, and then it’s only two more afternoons until Saturday, which I think both the nonni and I are equally relieved of. So, until we meet again…

Jack out.