MN Little Italy 13

[Rosa]

E primavera ...Buona Pasqua Tutti .......

let me down

ups, forgot to tell you that brange has been neglecting MN in favour of playing a new game on nintendo ds !

Had to read back all .. Weddings tax and smack the pony and school records!
Oh and MR poo- It came back taht it had some naughty bacteria in it but they dod not go in depth in fact it cleared itself up. MInd you today she has pooed 3 times ( 3 vests) so I am hoping that it is not starting again as the last one was a it green. I admit to not watching the budget as it does not affect me difectly anymore. Thinsg are bad enough here . Re Europ elections I can vote in them ..erm when are they ????
Brange put the ds down !!

Oh no Rosa, not the green poo again

I think the European elections are at the beginning of june.

Ha! I knew Franca would spill about my ds habit. Got a brilliant new game for my birthday and I haven't put it down since - I haven't even looked at the 6 books I ordered.

Lol at Rosa's secret pram buying. Do you lurk in the pushchair shed? Are you a secret hun?

Gio, do you know where your DS is in the graduatoria? Were there lots of children who didnt get into that particular school? Can you not find out if there are plans to open a new sezione? I agree with you re the nuns, my own aversion has been well documented on here.
Re holiday, we went to a place near Grosseto called Principina a Mare. It's only about an hour from Rome so handy for you. The beaches are great for children, large and sandy and the water is fairly shallow. Also, it wasn't expensive for things like eating out. We found a cheap apartment advertised in Kijiji, nothing special but then who cares as long as the beach is nice.

Haven't looked at the tax thread, really cannot be bothered at the moment, but hooray for the 50% on the high earners (although the very high earners will find a way of avoiding it anyway). I really don't see what the fuss is about, I pay that much in taxes here and no way do I earn anything near 150K. So there!

Right, I'm offski for now, Professor Layton beckons.

God You can see I typed that last post far too fast !!
Dh has decided he needs new fliters for his camera so is popping into town domani ( with the car ) using we need shopping as an excuse so thats Friday gone as he has pallestra in the sera, Sat he is working Sunday the fiera di electronica - for fun with the boys and he will by some useless cr*p- he bought a ' Magic Bullet ' last year no joke he used it for a month and it is now catching dust - he couldn't resist it as it was cheap ! ARRRGGGGHHH oh then MOnday he is working . MR now waking at 6 am I don't nap in the pm so he wonders why I am tired at the day . Tonight I left him 11 pages of poss places in San Candido so he could check the locations give me some feedback - he said he was tired but in same breath -we should book soon incase they all go - YOu know when you can't win !
WHinge over am now going to get into bed and hope she doesn't wake until maybe 7 tom ..I doubt it as she hasn't fed well this evening so my bet is she will wake for food !

Good luck with the sleep Rosa
So what is this game Brange?

Tomorrow we are going to visit a couple of english schools in Rome for DD, although 1 has a long waiting list so probably a no go. The other one I know vaguely as I took a stall selling honey there at their summer fair, years and years ago in my beekeeping days. Little did I suspect....
I suddenly had a wardrobe crisis as I'm too fat for all my smarter non winter clothes

Rosa 'Tonight I left him 11 pages of poss places in San Candido so he could check the locations give me some feedback - he said he was tired but in same breath -we should book soon incase they all go - YOu know when you can't win !'

exactly the same happened here...
'

Ok, pick one and say, "right I'm going to book that tomorrow unless you prefer any of the others"
Problem solved.
Not that we would have sucha problem in our house, as no holiday looking likely in the near future!

I picked the one he wanted, for once and after careful consideration. so we are all happy.

Yes, rosa, pick up the one you like best !

hello everyone! right in case you are wondering who i am... the poster previously known as "prima dell'alba".

i fancied a bit of a change

catching up quickly before i plunge into cambio di stagione- as usual summer has exploded without warning and i am still wearing boots because i have no idea where my sandals are...

the tax thing... tbh, it's pretty ridiculous. i mean where exactly did they think the money is going to come from???!!! THERE IS NO EFFING MONEY! we have been on the brink of Armageddon, and tbh we probably aren't that far still, we should be lucky we haven't had a massive financial meltdown the consequences of which would have destroyed pretty much everything we know (sorry i am being apocalyptic- but i have been reading a book about germany in the 20s and 30s and it kind of refreshed in my mind what actually happens when the shit hits the fan...)... i think we may even be affected by the thing, assuming dh gets some sort of bonus which these days is not a given, but i still think it was the right thing to do. there. socialist me.

rant over- let me go clean my cupboard...

Piccolo hotel temple has had a cancellation so I am going to book that plus they offer a nolleggio buggy ( so thats more space in the car)...

I cannot believe there was the poster on the tax thread saying that 150 grand does not get you anywhere in London nowadays. There is a layer of society that is not in touch with the real world at all.

I fancy un cambio di nome anche. I love the name of the poster anyfucker, rude and always brings a smile to my face.

London basking in sunshine again.

Oh the piccolo hotel tempele is lovely! (I still remember fondly the breakfasts with granary bread and speck!)

Masseuse I like your new name and I agree with you!

Mccloud, I love that poster name as well

Hi everyone,

masseuse, like the new name, fancy a change too, but can't come up with anything.... ah, I used to be so creative in my past life.... I need new mid-season casual/flat shoes too... can't fid anything that says "buy me"... only hear the "when-am-I-going-to-wear-them" shoes calling me

and I agree re the tax thing.. but from experience, the only people I know always complaining about money are the high-earner ones...

lovely sunshine but this stupid wind is making my eyes the size of a football and my nose like the niagara falls

nice name. lovely day. agree on that idiot re 150k does not give you a greT LIFE IN LONDON. sorry for caps. L'll change name when smthing spring to mind. McC if it rains tomorrow I'll shoot myself.

can you tell I've got a busy day !

Back briefly while I have my pausa pranzo and wait for the pizza to cool.

Lol at Sunflower's shoe dilemma. I ahve the same problem. I keep getting drawn to the "only from the car to the restaurant/bedroom/anywhere I won't be doing any walking" type shoes, of which I already ahve far too many don't use as those days are sadly long passed. The sensible ballerine just leave me cold.

Rosa, I think your DH and my DP were separated at birth, I get the same response. I asked him a month agot to discuss our holiday arrangements for this summer so I could book the centro estivo for DD and he kept saying "later". So, I haven't booked anything, haven't even looked as there's no point, yet what do you bet that it'll be my fault we haven't got anywhere booked later on this summer? Of course, he is still gloating from having been the hero last year and finding that cheapo crappy apartment at the last minute, but only after he'd driven me up the wall with his indecision beforehand. Grrr!

I think whatever you earn is not enough. I remember the days when I survived on 1.200.000 lire al mese, yet now that my salary is decent it still doesn't seem a lot of money. I think you adjust your stile di vita in line with your income, get used to that, then having to do without something that was previously a luxury becomes a hardship.

no, no holiday issues here, we're only going to italy as usual, I'll got with the DCs for 4 weeks (do I really want to listen to my mum and dad arguing and my sister's tantrums for 4 weeks? must be going mad... only doing cos DS loves il mare....). every year we say we'll have a "proper" holiday NOT in italy, but never happens... DP said the other day we should go to Spain or greece next year, but we're meant to get married, so not sure it'll happen...

You see, you're lucky in that your home country is somewhere nice and sunny. I wouldn't want to risk wasting my only 2-3 wks a year somewhere where it's likely to rain or be cold. I've spent far too many Julys in gale force winds and horizontal rain. I like my sun sea and sand too much!

brange I totally agree on that. Same for me here where I felt I was 'rich' on my meagre waitress's tips. However while one can moan about the 'lack' of money at home it's is nice to keep a bit of a perspective and remember that a two week holiday abroad is not an essential and so many other things. A lot of what the pippi's family's got is really so not needed and we could so do without. and we are not at the 150k level.

this is not a moan at you obviously but at that attitude.

Sunflower i have just got myself a very nice pair of flats (or in my case quasi flats due to tendinitis in achilles...) at Dune. supercomfy too.

people have no concept of money. i remember when i started working (in investment banking) a woman telling me and a bunch of secretaries "it's so hard to find anything decent to live for less than 700k in London"... this was in 2002 and none of us made more than 25k a year...

both dh and i quit the investment banking industry for more laid back and less prosperous tangential careers, and some of our friends who stayed on have ing conceptions of money and what constitutes an acceptable lifestyle. we are still v well off imo but it drives me nuts that people are so in denial about the real world...

holidays... i am going to italy for 3 weeks with the girls. v nice, but last year i was on mat leave and i was there for 2 months...

Me too. Lots of things we have are not necessities. Also we live without a lot of things other people think of as necessities and expect us to have. For instance, we don't have a flash car, ours is tiny and pretty crappy but gets us from A to B. We also only have one car and everybody seems to be surprised that I'm not interested in getting a car for myself, as apparently "someone in my position" should have a car.
My sister for instance has always had flash cars from the days when they both earned quite well and now that they have less money she won't downsize and it's never occurred to her to use the car less. She just buys cheaper food.

i know someone with a massive mortgage (7 figures), who prides herself in buying her kids' clothes and shoes second hand on ebay... it's not the latter that shocks me it's the combination of the two things... maybe because i am italian and used to put too much emphasis on appearance but it seems to me a weird choice of priorities...

agree with you Brange re flash cars- we couldn't care less. designer clothes and handbags the same- and although i am partial to shoes i don't think i would ever have the stomach for designer prices... otoh i am terrible with food and always buy the most expensive things in the hope they'll be a bit nicer...