Hello all – its been quite awhile!

I’m back in Rome for February and March and studying Italian again. I shall be 90 by the time I have mastered it but I will master it. “Sol per sfogare il core.” Which means “Just to set the heart free.” Isn’t that the loveliest way to put it?

I have been here since the end of January but courtesy of Google, unable to access my Blog up until now – you see I had to open a new Google account to then get to my Blog but all the instructions were in Italian and the dictionary doesn’t really cover “computer speak” and then the internet kept dropping out ……! So FINALLY here I am.

Arriving back in Rome was a bit like coming home; I knew the streets and places and the shops and so forth. The most amazing part was that everyone remembered me from last year which I found very flattering – Italians I’ve met are such warm and wonderful people. Even Signora Franca, the vegetable lady at the Campo dei Fiori remembered me – I got a big hug and she dragged her daughter Sonia over to give me a big hug and I had to hear all the news. You have to understand that Signora Franca has no top teeth, always bellows at the top of her lungs and speaks faster than a carny.  So by the time she was finished everyone in the market knew I was back: the butcher, the baker, the flower lady…etc. She also had what had to have been the oldest and ugliest teeney, tiny little dog who’d chomp on your fingers given half a chance. Well she (the dog not Signora Franca) passed away at a ripe old age and has been replaced by her younger clone, called quite grandly – Hortensia – the name is bigger than the dog – and she also tried to bite me. Maybe it’s just me…?