MN Little Italy 14

[Penthesileia]

Ciao, welcome!

Was wondering where you-d got to Bucharest.

ROFL ROFL ROFL at pisello towel!

I have rather ineffectually and vaguely named DDs bits her bottom and foldy bits. Should come up with something else really. Fifi sounds nice but her bath ducks are called that for some reason.

I am planning to get a mooncup just as soon as I establish I am not yet menopausal.

Lol at the thought of Bucharest having to explain about mooncup in an Italian pronto soccorso !

Sorry to hear about next year teaching. Yes, bidelli is a typical italian categoria. I have fond memories of mine though (when at liceo). She'd make us espresso on her tiny gas and cheer us up if we got a bad mark. Bless!

Oh that's what bidelli do! I did wonder as there are 3 of them in the gabiotto on the phone organising their holidays/renting out their house in Calabria/calling various relatives when I go to pick DD up. I initially thought they were there to stop strange people from coming in and kidnapping the children, but they appear to let anyone in without a glance.

Lol Bucharest at the firmly wedged mooncup. That's exactly my fear. Did you splatter the place when you finally managed to pull it out? Did it go pop?

Franca, I have a choc cake recipe but it's quite long in the making and a bit grown up in flavour. How about making a normal victoria sponge and adding cocoa to the mix? Then you can sandwich with cream and melted chocolate, whisked together and left to cool. Just use milk choc if for kids (or even melt some dreaded kinder barette).

The bidella at DD-s school was really nice with DD when she used to cry every morning.

Re hammer incident, the teacher initially told DH this morning that such a thing was impossible, then changed her mind when she saw the bruise, which is small and very black and really looks like it was caused by a hammer. She then wanted to know who did it but DD clammed up. We will try this evening to get her to point to him on the school photo, although actually my number 1 suspect is not on this year-s photo. I am really angry about it, if he had hit somebody-s head it doesn-t bear thinking about.

Brange, can you talk me through your victoria sponge thingy? No, I won't use milk choc btw

They are not called bidelli anymore btw, the pc way is commesso. The one at the entrance in ds's school is incredibly efficient and elegant and is one of the reason why parents choose the school, I'm told !

I cannot believe that there are parents who let their young children carry hammers to scuola materna !±

DD seems to talk about piselli a lot lately. We were once having a discussion about what she had for lunch at school and we got to peas. She then veered off on a complete tangent and said "il pisello di papà è rosa, vero?" This on our stairwell with 2 lots of builders redoing 2 apartments.

OK, will dig out the recipe. Give me a moment.

I'm also wondering why a small boy would use a hammer as a weapon. Might he have seen someone else use it that way?

They're called collaboratori scolastici here apparently.....
My mooncup didn't pop- no, wish it had, would have been less ouch-y am sure....it was more of a pleeeeeeeeup (very drawn out) it just wouldn't let go of its suctiony bit....
It was terrifying. Never ever again.
A boy at dd's nursery got his arm broken by another boy wrestling with him on Monday. I would have been down there with an avvocato if it had been me.

She is probably wondering whether some of them are green

According to DD he hid the hammer in his school bag.

Monza's not very pc, nor is anywhere else in Brianza (see Berlusconi as prime example of un-pc brianzolo), so bidelli are still bidelli here.

Lol at the elegant one! Do people really choose a school based on the quality of a bidella? Am I missing something here?

It's a man. He is very educato and deals with any problem occurring at the school. He is perfect, really.

Well if it-s the boy I-m thinking of he is a nasty piece of work, and I know you shouldn-t talk like that about 4 year olds. But he is twice the size of anyone else and a real bully, on DD-s first day of school I caught him hitting another kid. We went to a party once at another boy-s house and this kid systematically trashed his toys that were out, as well as trashing several of his classmates.

OK, basic Victoria spong recipe:

Equal quantities of flour, butter and sugar, so
100g. flour (self raising, or add metà busta di lievito vanigliato)
100g. butter
100g. sugar
2 eggs.

For a chocolate version substitute about 30g. flour with cocoa powder.

Melt butter, add sugar and mix well, when cooled add beaten eggs, then sift and fold in flour or flour/cocoa mixture. You should now have a dropping consistency, ie the mxture should drop nicely off a spoon without being to liquidy. If tto stiff add milk, if too liquid add more flour.

Pour mixture into 2 greased sandwich tins and place in oven at 180° for about 20 mins or until a knife comes out clean. Leave to cool then sandwich together with cream and chocolate mixture (melt 1 x 100g. bar of chocolate, then fold into whisked cream. If too liquid, whisk the cream up with some icing sugar. Sprinkle zucchero a velo on top of the cake (for effect, buy a doily and srinkle the sugar on top of that, then remove the doily carefully for an amazing pattern that will be the envy of your friends ).

Another option is to add chocolate buttons to the cake mixture, so you have gooey melted chocolate when you cut the cake.

sputnik meant to say before am totally at hammer incident. little sod of a child! I hope you find out who it is.

Thanks Brange, you are great!

I think the maestra should really find out who did it and give him/her a good lecture and tell his/her parents.

I am now feeling bad that maybe she has been picked on as she doesn-t fit in, her Italian is still not that great and she has said some of the kids ignore her because they think she doesn-t understand. Doesn-t help that she is shy too.

Oh well, just a few more weeks then she-ll be at the english school next year.

Sputnik do not feel bad. My DD couldn't speak much english and did not understand much and yet wasn't picked on/bullied. It's nothing to do with your little girl but with those other nasty kids. I hope teachers make a big deal of it tbh.

at the hammer! at 4?!?!? poor DD, it's not nice being a shy kid at school... maybe the teacher can teach the class some english words, make it a game...

Bucharest, think I'll forget about the mooncup after the un-popping incident then! btw, I've seen them in eco-type italian websites too!

So it sounds like the teacher got to the bottom of things. No one relevant was there when I picked DD up, but according to DD when I asked her at home it was a rolling pin not a hammer (maybe there was confusion between martello and mattarello?), the teacher found out who it was (not the kid I thought it was) and made them sit alone for a bit, I guess that-s appropriate punishment at that age.

We are going to draw a line under it all anyway.

Awwww Sputnik, glad to hear the teacher nmanaged to get to the botttom of it

Oh Sputnik! Poor DD - that is horrible. As franca says, I'm glad that it has been brought to light, but poor poor wee girl. You must've been beside yourself. My stomach lurched just reading about it. How is the bruise today? Is it fading?

LOL at all this mooncup/tampax/fanny/willy/pisello talk!!!

My DH calls private parts "friend", so "my friend/your friend" etc. I ROFLMAO when he first said it to me! But now I quite like it. If pushed, I sometimes say "front bum", but I am inconsistent and need to sort this out before DD starts talking!

LOL at not liking "vagina". There's a brilliant Billy Connolly sketch in which he says he likes the word as it sounds like an exotic holiday destination!

Sputnik that TWAT Ben has been fired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YUppieeeeeee!!!!

pippi, you beat me to it, blooooooooooody time!

Oh hooray for the firing of Ben!

The bruise, DD seems strangely unbothered by it. It took a day and a half just to get her to tell us what happened. DH is now saying maybe we should show it to the doctor as there is kind of a lump there. Knowing our paed she will send us to pronto soccorso which will be pointless, what can they do? Not sure what to do now.

Where do you think DH has hidden the chocolate raisins?