Positano and the Amalfi Coast

As I have mentioned before, this wasn’t our first trip to this part of the world. We had a two week holiday in Sorrento back when we were in university, and did a lot of travelling about and sightseeing during that fortnight. So, during this short break, Maria and I were able to revisit our favourite places and a couple that we didn’t see last time, with the minimum of stress.

The one place that we had determined to visit, even before landing on Italian soil was Positano. On our last trip we visited Amalfi, and we passed Positano on our ferry trip back to Sorrento. Positano fascinated us; this small town clinging to cliffs, with the houses built virtually in terraces up the side of the mountain. I wanted to see the place at closer quarters, and Maria was happy to oblige. I had only one condition; the journey HAD to be made by sea both going and coming back. When we visited Amalfi in 2000, we travelled by bus all the way round the Sorrentine peninsula and down the Amalfi coast and it was horrific! Don’t get me wrong, the views were sublime but I’m not a good traveller at the best of times and I was feeling so incredibly sick by the time I fell thankfully from the bus and hung over the sea wall in Amalfi. So I determined that never again would I make that road trip!

This day trip was much kinder on my stomach though. We made our leisurely way down to the harbour after managing to get into breakfast just before the end of the sitting. As it turned out, the ferries weren’t quite so frequent as we had hoped, and so we had a wait of about an hour and a half before the next one was due to depart. But there are many worse places in the world to have to unexpectedly pass some time than Marina Piccola in Sorrento, so we settled ourselves on a bench and watched the world go by. A few ferries arrived and departed while we watched, and a man did some business from the back of his little van selling fruit and vegetables to the tourists. Ice cream, drinks and granite (like slush puppies) sellers did a brisk trade, and eventually we gave into temptation and headed for a quayside cafe for some early lunch.

It was so incredibly relaxing, sitting there with our glasses of wine in the sunshine. Eventually though, the wine was gone (as was the food – it wasn’t a wholly liquid lunch!) and we headed back to the ferry stage. We found ourselves to be at the back of a very long queue, which meant that we had to sit inside for the journey to Positano – still glorious views, but not the opportunities for photography which I would have liked.

I think the boat ride took about an hour and a bit, although you’d have to ask Maria as she has a far superior memory to mine! I just remember a very relaxing time, watching the coast pass by as well as a number of smaller boats. I was surprised by the number of tiny villages we passed, nestled into little natural harbours which were barely more than little nooks and crannies in the cliff face.

When we arrived in Positano, the first impression it made was even more striking than the memory I had been carrying for the past nine years. We stood on the quayside for some time, taking pictures of the ferries, fishing boats and the glorious blue sea. After a little while we decided to explore. We only had a couple of hours to spend before the return ferry trip, but Maria’s guide book had assured her that this would be ample time to explore the vertical town. In the photo to the left, you can just see Maria in her red flowery dress standing in front of a display of pictures. Under the umbrella a man was working on a painting of Positano, and the other pictures were ones which he had painted previously and was offering for sale. They were lovely bright watercolours, typically Mediterranean in style and had I had any wall space left in my house I would have loved to have brought one home.

We hadn’t come to Positano for the shopping though (having already planned plenty of that sort of therapy for following days in Sorrento!) but to explore, so off we went. Of course, exploring in Positano seemed to indicate travel in only one direction – up! So we found a set of steps and started to climb.

Funnily enough (that was sarcasm there, my friends) we were largely alone on our climb up through Positano. We stopped every now and then to catch our breath and exclaim at snatches of blue sea visible over walls, and also at the number of houses only accessible by climbing these very steps. This is the place to go to improve your heart health! Although I dread to think how long it would take me to climb these steps if I were trying to bring my weekly shop and a pushchair along with me.

I was so eager to get to the top of the steps and out to see a proper panorama that I was able to put to the back of my mind the threat of coronary failure and I pushed on. Maria is much slimmer and fitter than me, and was leaping up the steps like a veritable gazelle, although I have to give proper credit where it is due – she climbed all the steps in heels! A wonderwoman! Anyway, eventually we arrived at a road a fair way up the cliff, and decided that some liquid might not be the worst idea in the world, as we had to be fairly dehydrated by this point. And then we turned around and saw this vista;

It was completely worth the climb. We bought drinks, and could have looked at the view for hours were it not for the fact that the ferry would be leaving in about forty minutes. So, reluctantly, we made our way back down to the harbour. Not having had the breath to do anything other than focus on staying alive on the way up, on the way down I decided to count the number of steps we had climbed. I was somewhat hampered by an Italian man gently pursuing us wanting to talk about the Prince of Wales and what we thought of him and the rest of the royal family! I think I was probably quite rude, as I was both counting and descending the stairs at too fast a pace to hold a conversation! We were amazed though, when we got to the bottom and realised that we had climbed 334 steps in a relatively short space of time.

After a short look at the shops we boarded the return ferry and left Positano. I just have a couple more pictures I’d like to share with you;

This is a photo taken from the ferry as we were leaving Positano. Circled in blue you can see the cafe where we gratefully stopped for a couple of Sprites after our long climb. 334 steps and we hadn’t even got to the top of that particular cliff! Looking at this picture, I’m disappointed now that we didn’t have the time to carry on and climb all the way to the top. However, there’s always next time!

And finally, another picture of some of the steps we climbed;

Imagine being presented with this, on a very hot day after already having climbed a couple of hundred steps. It really did seem a little never-ending at this point, but I’m so glad we persevered. You can also see in this picture a couple of entrances to houses on this flight of stairs. Just carrying shopping or children up these steps would wear me out, never mind the preceding hundreds! The reason that Italians have fewer heart attacks has nothing to do with olive oil and everything to do with towns and villages like this!

Sorrento

Just a couple of photos today. I am acutely aware that I’ve been meaning to write about my holiday for nearly a month now, but I just don’t seem to have the time! So I’m posting a couple of my favourite pictures.

The first one is the iconic image of Vesuvius from Sorrento that I’ve carried in my memory since I was last in Sorrento in 2000. Strangely, it was a lot larger and closer than I’d remembered, looming over the Bay of Naples. The cragginess of the outline only served as a reminder that this isn’t an extinct volcano, and could become active and extremely dangerous to the thousands who live on the slopes and in the surounding area at any time.

This photo is to prove that I was actually there, and that I’m not just using a friend’s pictures! I think this might have been taken on the first day, which would explain the lack of beaming smile – I was worn out! All the travelling took its toll on us and we were asleep very early on that first night. Back to the photo; I’m standing by railings which are on the edge of the cliff on which Sorrento sits. Some of it (the old and new harbours, for example) are at the bottom of the cliffs, but the majority of the town is many metres above sea level. From the sea, we could see lots of staircases cut into the cliff face leading from the hotels at the top down to their private beaches. One way to lose weight whilst on holiday, and ensure that you get your daily cardio workout!

And finally, for today, Vesuvius at sunset, it’s peak masked by a blanket of cloud. Had I been a proficient artist I could have captured the colours in the sky much more effectively than did my camera, but you’ll have to make do with this! Isn’t it beautiful? We stood and watched the sunset for ages, having gone down to the old harbour in the almost village-suburb of Marina Grande speciafically to see it from such a good angle. In fact I think that we saw Vesuvius pretty much each day at this time, from various viewpoints.

More to come, I promise. I’ve lots of lovely pictures of our trip to Positano, the local harbour festival, the Amalfi Coast from the boat trip we took and of our hotel. However, at the current rate I’ll be lucky if I get all of that written by Christmas! Oh well, please bear with me!

Italy, baby!

In the optimistic spirit of celebration, rather than commiseration at the turning of another personal decade, Maria and I decided that the ideal way to commemorate our 30th birthday year would be to return to Sorrento, where we had a fantastic holiday nine years ago.

As I have the family to think about, and she has a big important grown up job, neither of us could go for the two weeks that we enjoyed last time we were there. We settled on a five day trip, and found a slightly more luxurious hotel than we stayed in last time!

We booked an airport hotel at Gatwick, as our flight was reasonably early in the morning and, having driven through the night before flying before, we don’t ever want to do that again! We stayed at the Gatwick Mercure, which was very nice and had good room service at 11pm. However, if you ever stay there, make sure to request a room away from the lift shaft. Our room backed onto it, and I didn’t get much uninterrupted sleep in between each occupant of the lift trundling suitcases in and out all night! However, the journey to the airport terminal in the morning was short and straightforward, and we had plenty of time after check in to find ourselves a good breakfast. Which was just as well, as it turned out.

Maria has coeliac disease, as I may have mentioned before, and so when we were booking the flights with BA we made sure to request gluten free food for the flight (there was a long list of tick boxes to choose from regarding food options in the booking process). However, when we were on the plane and the snack was being delivered by the stewardess, on requesting the gluten free snack, a cheese sandwich was offered rather than the ham sandwich. NOT helpful when you are allergic to gluten and are therefore unable to have any sandwiches at all, unless specially made with gluten free bread. However, as we had already had substantial breakfasts in the airport, we put it down to lack of knowledge on the part of the stewardess and declined the cheese sandwiches without further comment. However, on the way back, Naples airport didn’t have the catering options that Gatwick did, and so Maria was extremely hungry by the time we boarded. On being offered a sandwich again, I explained that we had ticked the ‘gluten free’ box due to food allergies, and couldn’t eat the proffered sandwiches (I had put myself down as gluten free in a gesture of solidarity with my friend, and also in the hope that fresh fruit might be offered rather than the yucky airline bread rolls!!). The steward on this flight at least did understand what gluten was, but told us that gluten free food is only offered on long haul flights. Well how chuffing useful was that. This should have been made far clearer during the booking process. If no other dietary requirements are catered for on short haul BA flights, the options tick boxes should not be a part of the booking process. I was (and still am, as you can tell!) really annoyed about this lack of service, and it will definitely make me think twice about flying with British Airways again. Rant over!

There was one very good part of our flight to Naples; flying over the Alps. I’m a bit of a sucker for trying to take photos out of the aeroplane windows, and I couldn’t resist trying to capture a picture (or twelve) of the Alps as we flew over them into Switzerland. Their peaks were standing proud above the cloudline, and I wa imagining what it must be like to climb those mountains, ostensibly in bad weather only to suddenly emerge above the clouds and be able to see all the other peaks rising up as well. We had been told that we would be passing close to Mont Blanc, but it was only when I got home and looked it up on Google Earth that I realised I had actually managed to take a half decent photo of it as we flew past. And this was it;

Isn’t it beautiful? Just the way it stood proud of the other mountains captured my attention, and I was so glad that this picture, of all of them, came out well.

The flight arrived in Naples on time, and we found the transfer to Sorrento easy, as there was a bus going directly there, waiting just outside the front door of the airport as we stepped out.

And that’s all you’re getting from me in this post. I’ll tell you more about the main body of the trip in other posts, but I think my rant about British Airways has taken up all of my available time today!

Catch up time starts now!

Oh my goodness, nearly three weeks have gone by since I last managed to write anything here, and so much has happened to write about! I think a few updates will be needed to get back up to date.

First then, my best friend, Maria, celebrated her 30th birthday earlier this month. She had a fairytale themed party, and we all dressed up.

Maria dressed up as the blue fairy from Pinocchio (I can’t remember her name, sorry!) and I was a princess. It was nice to wear a big posh dress for once – much swooshing was done by all the ladies!

Almost everyone really got into the spirit of the themed evening – this is Maria with her mother and younger sister, all looking beautiful!

Maria’s mother put on a tremendous spread of food – many of us feasted for a few days after the party,as well as on the night itself! And a friend of the family made the birthday cake, which was tremendous;

All but the bottom layer was gluten free, as of course Maria and her sister and mother have coeliac disease and can’t eat gluten. But look at the decoration and attention to detail – it’s the ultimate dream cake for so many little girls (and big ones – Maria was thrilled!).

All in all, the party was excellent. The DJ, Jumpin’ James, was excellent. He did an hour’s entertainment for the children before the main disco started, and then played all the music that Maria and her sister had requested, together with impromptu requests from other guests. I can’t remember the last time I enjoyed the music at a disco so much. Usually I find that the music is far too cheesy, but Jumpin’ James played a great mixture of pop and more rock-y tunes like ‘Queen’. I don’t think I’ve been to a fancy dress party where people have made more effort than this one – the number of people who had dressed up far outnumbered those who hadn’t, and the standard of the costumes was very high. My younger son saved up all through the summer for his costume (he dressed up as Buzz Lightyear) so I think he deserves extra credit for that! The children thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, especially being allowed to stay up until past ten o’clock! Maria enjoyed it so much that she almost immediately started talking about a Hallowe’en party!

Eight years ago

Where were you eight years ago today?

On possibly the most significant date in recent history, most of us can remember where we were when the Twin Towers in New York came under attack and were destroyed, with such a huge loss of life. I remember I was in Cardiff, shopping for a present for a friend who was feeling a bit down. I remember the shop assistants listening to radio news while I paid for my purchases. I remember wondering what was going on, but being too shy to ask the people in the shop. I remember feeling an unexplainable overwhelming desire to get home to be with my husband, and seeing the headlines printed on newspaper boards by the newspaper kiosks. I remember reading the special supplement of the South Wales Echo on the bus on the way home, because I felt as if I couldn’t wait to get home and watch the news on the television. I remember the shock on my husband’s face as we watched BBC News 24. I remember the confusion and disbelief on the television news as the updates came in, claiming that the first tower had collapsed. I remember holding my five month old baby and crying as I thought of all those hundreds of people who wouldn’t be going home to their families that night. I remember the feeling of guilty relief I experienced because I didn’t know anyone who would have been hurt or killed. And I remember the subsequent panic as the western world braced itself for further attacks.

Of course, we have been braced for further terrorist attacks ever since, with increased security almost everywhere. And yet, as my parents pointed out (having just come back from a holiday where they travelled to several countries), most people in pretty much every country round the world just want peace. They want to live their lives, bring up their families and look forward to the future. And yet so many live in fear.

Has the fear increased since 9/11? I don’t know. Maybe it has just brought it into sharper focus.

Anticlimax and confusion

My children both went back to school yesterday. They are in year 4 and year 1 now, so even my baby is well into his school life, being as he is in his second full time year at school. And going back to school was something of an anticlimax. For which I am, actually, quite grateful. My children take everything in their stride. It has always been thus, and I expected no difference this term. Getting ready for school yesterday felt like we hadn’t had holiday. They slipped right back into the routine, were ready in plenty of time, walked to school as usual and then waved goodbye as they headed towards their new classrooms with no qualms, no looking backwards towards me or anything. And I’m glad because I’d hate it if they didn’t want to go to school, if they were stressed or worried about it. I’d be miserable all the time they were away from me, worrying about how they were getting on. But as things are, they both have a nice group of friends, like their teachers and enjoy their schooldays. So we’re back into the old routine straight away.

The confusion (maybe not the right word, but as near as I could get) arises due to the problems I’ve been having with my hands recently. I’ll be seeing my doctor on Tuesday about it, and hoping that she’ll have some answers. In the mean time, in case it is a repetitive strain type injury, and because it flares up when I’m typing at work (and sometimes at home) I’m severely cutting back on my internet time. This will be a real challenge to me, but I will prevail!

You would have thought that knitting and crochet would be the last thing I should do, but it appears to actually be beneficial to my hands. Yesterday, I had a very bad day in work as my hands were aching so badly, and I nearly didn’t go to my Stitch and Bitch meeting. However, I decided that I could always sit and chat rather than knit if my hands wouldn’t play ball, so I went along. At the end of the evening I realised that I had steadily knitted all evening and that my hands were much less painful than they had been. I think it must be because I don’t hold the needles tightly, and knitting only involves small and gentle movements. Maybe it’s almost like a form of physio? Knitters, what do you think? So, to conclude, I’ll still check e-mails most days, and read blogs, but I’ll not be doing as much typing until I’ve worked out what’s wrong. Before any of you suggest it, it’s not arthritis (thank goodness) as I had blood tests for that earlier in the year. Neither does it seem to be a carpal tunnel problem. Websites that I’ve looked at seem to suggest that the pain would be on the other side of my hands (my problems are mainly wrists and middle to little fingers, whereas carpal tunnel apparently affects more the thumbs and index finger side). So it’s a mystery!

Things to do

Today will be an organised day. I have lots to do and so Handsome and I made a list. School starts back for both Handsome and Cheeky tomorrow, so we have to prepare school bags, find lunchbags, do a last check of the uniforms etc etc.

I’m posting lots of parcels this week. I’ve sold a few more things on Ebay, and so I’ve got those parcels to send, and of course I also have the packages for my giveaway winners. All I need to work out now is how customs etc work, and what I need to fill in to send chocolate to the US. The websites for the post office and the US customs, or FDA or something, are as clear as mud on the matter. In one place it said that if the food is a gift you only need to fill in the standard customs form, but somewhere else said I need to make a prior notice something or other…well, it’s all a learning curve! By far the easiest thing to do would be to ask at the post office, but I’m nice and comfortable here in my house and that would take a lot of effort! Only joking, I’ll be off to the post office tomorrow, and they can sort it all out for me.

I’m also lining up quite a lot of crafting presents over the next 113 days (until Christmas, don’t you know!) and so I think I will need to give myself goals to aim towards in order to finish in plenty of time. So, I’m taking inspiration from Sarah’s post on her blog today, and I’m making a list of craft projects that I want to see finished by the end of the month.

1. Mystery project which has been steadily driving me towards a straitjacket which needs to be finished TOO SOON
2. Crocheted bag to take on holiday later this month
3. 2 Christmas presents
4. Christmas cake
5. Mincemeat
6. 5 Christmas cards

There. Not too onerous a list, and suitably non-specific when it comes to the Christmas presents as I’ve not got a definitive list yet to say who’s getting what. Also, making my Christmas cake and mincemeat in September is something I’ve always aimed towards, but generally fall short of by a couple of months. So feel free to nudge me towards the end of the month to make sure that I’m getting through it all!

August competition results!

So, I have listed all the commenters who were so kind as to leave me a note during August, removed my comments and my mother’s (sorry Mum, nepotism and all that, but I’ll make you a bookmark for Christmas if you’d like!) and have picked a winner, via www.random.org, my trusty online number-out-of-a-hat-picker!

So, without further ado, the person who will be getting my little package of chocolate, bookmark, postcards and lanyard is…Doggoned Mysteries! Congratulations, I’ll be sending you an e-mail shortly asking for your postal address, and I’ll get the package in the mail as soon as I can thereafter!

However, with so many lovely commenters through the month of August, I have been regretting only posting that I’d be giving one prize. So, I’ve decided that two runners up will each be getting a large bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk as a consolation prize. Those two people are (once again, after consulting Mr Random.org) Existere and Kathleen! More e-mails are on their way, and well done to both of you.

Doggoned Mysteries’ blog is one that I’ve only recently discovered (via my mother, who would tell me all about her every blogpost, so I thought I’d better start to read them for myself!). I’m really enjoying what I’ve read, and am glad that my mother has the habit of passing on things which amuse her!

Existere is a new mum to two gorgeous babies and so could probably use the sugar energy from the chocolate! I’ve been following her blog for a few months now, and really enjoy her way of writing, as she generally manages to be humorous even in the hardest of times. And Kathleen is a new commenter to my blog (I believe – correct me if I’m wrong!) and I love to meet new people here so this is great!

Well done to all of you. I hope the postman gets the parcels to you nice and quickly so that you can enjoy the sugary goodness!

Another month down

How is it possible that we will be into September in just under two hours? How is it possible that the summer holidays are nearly over? It only feels as if the boys have been home for about a fortnight.

The theme for NaBloPoMo this month was ‘Tomorrow’. I’ve not adhered to the theme, and yet on this last day of the month, all I’ve been thinking of are my tomorrows. Preparing for school to restart, buying uniforms and food for lunchboxes. Thinking about my upcoming holiday and making lists of things to buy and do before I go. Thinking about Christmas and what sort of presents I can make for my family and friends. And it goes on and on. So much to think about, and these are just domestic tomorrows!

I’ll be back tomorrow to announce who has won my August giveaway. Happy September to you all!

Mindful consumption, and teaching children to be thoughtful consumers

Something I meant to write about it my last post (but completely forgot, or at least got sidetracked!) is my effort to teach my children to be mindful consumers. I always seem to forget to write about WHY I do things like make jams and preserves at home, rather than take the easy and cheaper route of buying low price preserves at the supermarket.

In recent years, we as consumers have been made very much more aware of the journey that our food takes to get onto our plates. We have seen campaigners like Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall using their influence as high-profile chefs to highlight the poor conditions in which a significant number of animals are kept before being killed to produce meat for our tables. We have heard about harmful chemicals being sprayed on food crops, and have witnessed the rise in popularity of organic food.

We don’t have the space ourselves to grow more than a couple of tomato plants and a basil plant as we have only windowsills but no garden. However, the boys have enjoyed this windowsill horticulture, and are on a daily hunt for the ripening tomatoes and chilli peppers. So, as we have no garden ourselves, I’ve enjoyed taking them blackberry picking in our local park, as they get the experience of seeing food growing at first hand, and can start to appreciate the work it takes to prepare food truly from scratch rather than buying pre-made foodstuffs in the shops. It was an added bonus this afternoon when I was able to take my younger son, Cheeky, outside our flat to pick even more fruit (the elderberries) within view of our front window. We will ask around to see if anyone has any cooking apples ripening that they can spare for our jam making, and then the boys will help me to make the jam which they will love to eat on their toast, in their sandwiches and in their porridge through the coming winter.

This all fits together with my teaching them about where their sausages and roast dinners come from. Jo has been a great help in this, as my boys have been able to get to know her various livestock and realise that animals should be treated well (like royalty, in Jo’s case!) even when they are destined for the dinner table. They have also had the opportunity to learn and accept from a young age that the sausages, ham, bacon and roast gammon they both love, as well as the minced beef in Cheeky’s favourite lasagne and Handsome’s favourite cottage pie have all come from what was once a living animal. I’m doing my best to teach them to buy meat according to whether the animals have been treated well, and I’m also trying to teach them to question where their food comes from, rather than just accepting whatever arrives in front of them. They have both eaten and enjoyed meat from Jo’s pigs, even when they’ve known the pig. I’ll admit that at first, they were a little wary and squeamish of eating meat from a pig they knew and talked to, but they are very receptive to reasonable argument and so after I’d explained that there’s really no difference between eating pork from a pig you’ve known and from one you haven’t, they were both fine with it.

Well, this post has got away from me a bit, but I’ve been meaning to write all of this down for some time. Sometimes I feel like I don’t really write much about what I believe to be right. It’s much harder to express beliefs than it is to simply write down the events of the day.