I'm on holiday!!!  And I'm alive to talk about it.  The horse pills did their magic and I am cured.  Last night GP and I went to the school's annual Christmas party/dinner.  It was in one of the sculling clubs that line the Po in Torino, Circolo Eridano.  This place, along with many of the other clubs, was built in the 1860's during some resurgence of river sports in the area.  They are basically little country clubs with tennis, pools, restaurants and bars where lots of elderly people with lots of money to spare sit around and play cards, smoke cigarettes and drink.  Our party was set up on the "enclosed for winter" terrace with fairy lights and beautifully set tables.  The food was great but as I have eaten so little over the past week I was full after appetizers.  I always choose a table where one of our science teachers, a hilarious Scot called McKenzie, sits.  He is one of the funniest, most inappropriate people I have ever met.  I know what you're thinking but stop right there!  He says things that not even I would dare say.  Strangely, he is always given the job of presenter at these things.  It makes for an entertaining evening.  Last night he introduced the two men leaving the school, one of which he can't stand.  They were to go up to accept gifts and make speeches.  He called up the operations director saying, in a much more colorful manner, that we were saying goodbye to a guy who he couldn't wait to see the back of and for whom he had no words to describe (but if you'd ask him later he'll tell you plenty).  Fortunately the OD is Italian and McKenzie's heavy Scottish accent combined with his use of puns and obscure words meant the victim missed most of it.  We native speakers, on the other hand, were roaring.  Fun, fun.  At 11:30 we came home with a bottle of Scotch Whiskey as a door prize.  xxoo me