Oh my, the excitement!  GP and I went to see Simple Minds on Friday night.  It was like going back in time.  Except with comfortable seating and less sweating.  The concert was great and the opening act was KT Tunstall who I love.  She has the most terrific voice.  Just like me in the shower!  However the lead up to the music was typically Italian.  If a situation can be made chaotic, Italians manage to make it so.  This was a concert for people "of a certain age".  (We are talking '80s music here).  The tickets were assigned seating in a concert hall that holds less than 1000.  Out tickets were for seats 1 and 2 in row 35.  Not great but not too bad.  When we were taken to be seated the usher told us that actually, the theater didn't have any row 35.  Or 34 or 33.  So, lucky us, we were put in row 11 which hadn't been filled up.  There were 5 seats available.  Unfortunately there were a lot more than 5 people who had tickets to rows 33 thru 35.  It was a complete fiasco that lasted till after the lights went down with the ushers putting people in and dragging them out of seats, asking time and again to see our tickets, trying to figure out who had f***ed up.  Fortunately we had arrived early so were never moved but we were asked to hand over our stubs at least 5 times.  In the end it worked out great for us because we were so close we could see the sweat pouring down these old relics faces.  Their voices are still as good as ever though and they are really pretty amazing as still writing, recording and touring after 40 years.

Yesterday we went hiking in a valley I'd never been to and found the most idyllic rifugio (hut for a better word but with housing and food service etc).  Most of these "huts " are owned by the national parks but are leased out and managed privately.  In the case of this one, it is family run and it's open all year as not too high up.  The family live there, taking their young son down the mountain to school daily by snow mobile or ATV.  It's a log chalet built in a clearing in a gorgeous pine forest.  In front of the chalet there is a "dry lake" which is actually a small river with islands and pools of crystal clear glacial water coming down from the peaks.  The larger portion of the river has been diverted to a hydroelectric plant down below where a small village sits beside a dam and the bluest lake I've ever seen.   We picnicked and slept in the sun on some rocks and watched the family take a walk.  Mom, dad, little boy, huge German Shepard and black cat all in a row.  Too cute.  We want to go back and do an overnight there in June.  Should be warm enough to swim!

The hills are alive... man look at the size of that ass!

the walk up

boy and cat

our camp site

the dammed lake

On our way home we took a side trip up to a place called Valmala that GP had heard mentioned but wasn't sure what it was.  Well now he does.  Valmala is a sanctuary dedicated to those killed and maimed in auto accidents.  Gruesome.  The outer walls are display cases for graphic photos, drawing and paintings of the accidents or victims, pictures of Mary and metal hearts of various sizes, from small donation worthy to larger donation worthy.  There is a huge church, housing for the pilgrims and restaurants, shops selling religious trinkets etc.  Basically it's a Catholic tourism hot spot.  It's a beautiful location but creepy and I find the whole religious tourism stuff a little off putting.  On the road to the sanctuary we counted more than 25 little shrines with the Virgin Mary and plastic flowers.  I wonder if this is where people were killed on the way up as the road is treacherously narrow and steep with no guardrails.  Would be a little ironic, no?

Today home, housework, yada, yada, yada.  xxoo me

Some pics from Castello Pralormo, famous for their April tulips.  Happy Easter!  xxoo me

We dropped Grace and friend off at the airport today.  They were anxious to get back to London and their lives there.  After a quick kiss she hurried off to the gates without a backward glance as I rather sadly and pathetically watched her.  That's it now.  My reality is that I'll always be watching her walking away from me.  So the rest of the day I've spent eating cookies, drinking tea, reading and napping.  Generally feeling sorry for myself.

Yesterday I took the girls into the city to go to the market and then to visit the Mole Antonelliana.  (http://www.museocinema.it/mole.php?l=en) It is the tower that represents the Turin skyline and houses the Cinema Museum.  It's a beautiful building topped by a spire with an elevator that goes way up to the top and an observation deck.   It draws thousands of visitors and yet until yesterday I had still to see it.  You know what they say about your own backyard.  Anyhow the view from the top is spectacular and if I weren't afraid of heights I probably could have gotten some even better shots but that's tough while using one arm to cling to a marble column.  At least I wasn't as bad as the lady actually hiding behind the column.  xxoo me

Looking towards France

Anarchist occupy the building below.  Says "occupy and resist"

Happy Easter to one and all!  Or happy "Little Easter"as the Monday following is called.  Today is traditionally a day for a picnic out in the countryside.  GP and I went to a friend's farm for a BBQ.  Just what we need after yesterday's 4 hour meal.  About yesterday's meal.  The shame!  The loss of face!  The disappointment!  This was our 5th year having Easter lunch at the same restaurant in the country.  In the past it's always been great but this year they opened a couple of extra rooms and put in more tables.  The kitchen couldn't keep up and it was merely mediocre.   NOT acceptable says MIL.  Next year we'll go elsewhere.  Now today was something different.  Friend Bepe has an old farmhouse in the country that's half abandoned and rundown.  His family keeps an apartment in a part of the main building and an old bachelor acts as tenant farmer and keeps up the land.  We ate in a wood paneled party room his father put in sometime in the 70's with walls of dusty wine bottles, a big stone fireplace and a long table for feasting.  The BBQ was made from an oil drum and a shopping cart.  We had grilled meats and veggies, local cheeses and lots and lots of wine.  I plan on living on water and lettuce leaves for the next few days.  xxoo me

Easter break has started!  Yippee Ki Yay!  School ended at noon today.  At 10:30 I was told I had to have my book order in by the end of the day.  In the 5 years I have been at the school I have never had a budget so have never dealt with regular orders.  I have to beg and scrape money from here there and everywhere for new books.  I've been asking for months, going to meetings, sending emails, trying to get money just to replace all the lost and broken books from the past couple years.  No answer.  Today at 10:30 they tell me to put in an order.  By 12:00.   Are you FLIPPING kidding me?!  I have no idea what I wrote down.  I just filled in as many order forms as I could in the time allotted.  4 pages.  Incredible.  I'll probably open a box filled with 50 copies of The Railway Children.  THE MOST BORING KID'S BOOK EVER WRITTEN. 

Grace and a friend fly in tomorrow.  They'll be here through Thursday.  We have no plans for the week apart from Sunday lunch with MIL at our usual Easter place and a BBQ with friends Monday.  GP and I are gong to a concert next Friday night.  For all you old timers like us a flash from the past.  We are going to see Simple Minds.  We loved them back in the day and when saw they were coming here to a smallish venue thought we had to go.  The audience will be all people in their 50's undoubtedly.

Old lady signs off.  xxoo me

So I lied.  I'm back with another self-indulgent report on my not-so-extraordinary but very pleasant weekend.

As Spring has supremely sprung and yesterday was Saturday, GP and I went north to visit one of the smaller lesser-know lakes along the Swiss border, Lake Orta.  It's a gorgeous little lake surrounded by mostly farmland and a sprinkling of villages.  We went to the village of San Giuglio which sits on a little peninsula that sticks out into the lake.  There is a paved walk all around the peninsula that took us well over an hour to walk.  The village itself is tiny and half rundown.  But it's still beautiful on a sunny day with lakeside squares and a public boat area for water taxis to the other villages and an island in the middle of the lake that is home to a Monastery.

I love warm weather Sundays here.  Sundays are "Family Lunch"days. Either they eat out in restaurants or meet at someones house, but rain or shine it is a day filled with wonderful smells and the clinking of silverware and glasses.  Like Sundays in the States are days to mow the lawn, here it a day to cook and eat.  I'm sitting out on my terrace, the sun is shining, the birds are singing and Italy is stuffing itself.  It feels so homey.  I miss Maine tremendously but sometimes I sit here and think that at home I'd still have the heat on, there wouldn't be a green leaf to be seen and I'd have weeks left before I could spend a day outside.  Hmm.      xxoo me

I can't do it.  I simply can't write about my daily, boring life when He Who Shall Not Be Named is destroying everything day by day.  Now he supports Assad??  Sure he does.  The Russians support Assad.  Doesn't matter that the guy just attacked his own people with chemical weapons!  Have you seen the pictures of the children?  Jesus.  And OH MY GOD will someone take his DAMNED PHONE AWAY??!!  me