Talking Italian

Just a few days till we depart for our Italian holiday....hooray! By some strange yet happy coincidence, this past week I've been working on a clinical report for a client that ran some trials in hospitals in Italy. In a moment of that infinite wisdom that is held in reserve for the most inept (or possibly bowing to budget cuts), the client decided not to get the patient data listings properly translated in their entirety, but to rather bang together a shoddy collection of common Italian medical phrases and words plus their English equivalent, thereby leaving us writers to trawl hundreds (and thousands) of pages of data to match up Italian phrases with the English, as we attempt to describe what actually happened to the patients and whether any of it is of clinical significance (di rilievo clinico).

Consequently, over the past few days, my grasp of the Italian language has come on leaps and bounds ... I'm not entirely sure how useful it will all be in the holiday context., but some of the following phrases would definitely put an authentic Italiano slant on the conversation....

testa e collo - meaning "head and neck"....as in I love the sunshine on my head and neck

fuori dalla norm - "outside the norm", could be teamed with many other phrases...say, di rilievo clinico...perhaps in response to the waiter's polite query if "everything was all right?"....The food was outside the norm, but don't worry, it's probably not clinically significant

diarrea and crampi addomiali - "diarrhoea" and "abdominal cramps"...I take back what I said to the waiter, must have been the prawns

aumento volume naso and aumento volume mani e piedi - corresponds to "increased volume of the nose" and "of the hands and feet"...clearly a literal translation, yet still a slightly alarming situation to be describing, possibly a consequence of too much sun or chianti...I felt my nose/hands/feet had increased in volume [wonder if there's one for stomach?]

senso di gonfiore - refering to "a sense of swelling"....endless possiblities, some probably best kept for the bedroom...

ispessimento generalizzato - or "generalised thickening"...see above

frattura ii dito piede destro - possibly a little too specific, unless I have the misfortune to "fracture the second toe on my right foot"

sindrome depressiva - literally "depressive syndrome"...probably most apt at the holiday's end, when we're about to head home to dark and gloomy days... I feel depressive syndrome coming on


[With apologies to all Italians and anyone fluent in Italian]

Retail Therapy

This past weekend, B and I had a marathon shopping session. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a big fan of shopping...crowds, screeching children and (typically) overheated shops do not bode for an enjoyable experience.But if I hate shopping, B abhores it (as in detests vehemently). Getting him to step foot inside a shop (weekly grocery shopping included) is an effort in itself and I usually do not subject him to the "torture"...or myself to his tortured looks, eye rolling, tutting and general grumpiness. However, there comes a time (every couple of years) when he realises that he is going to have to face his demons...usually around the time his butt starts hanging out of the seat of his worn-out jeans. While he buys everything possible on the internet, clothes shopping by mail order has never been that successful (and I have tried!).

So, we resigned ourselves to a day of hell at the mall (mkone to be precise)...we were up early to (a) get a free parking spot close to the mall entrance and (b) be there as the shops open, before the crowds descend....something both our sets of parents advocated way back in our youth (you know you're turning into your parents when....), and we would scorn them, as at that time (when we were laid back and unphased by crowds...and mainly didn't really have the cash to spend on anything, so going to the shops was pretty much null and void anyway) having a lie-in on a weekend was top priority (to sleep off a hangover and 4 am bedtime ).

Apparently, half of middle England had the same idea as by the time we got there, the free parking was rapidly filling up and the mobbing masses were already migrating up the mile-long walkway that runs from one end of the shops to the other. We were going in with a pre-determined Battle Plan: get in and get out in under 2 hours....with a completely new wardrobe for B, the bulk of the Christmas shopping and a new cocktail dress for the upcoming Christmas parties for me...yeah, right! Six and a half hours later, we dragged our sorry bodies back to the car, arms at least 5 cm longer from carrying the 6 massive bags we'd acquired....but we got almost everything we went there for, including lots of Christmas presies and this dress for me....

It's rare that I find  a dress that actually fits without my unmentionables falling out and that falls flatteringly to hide the tum 'n bum. I found a black, silk floaty cardi to go with it too, so all set for the "party season".

B reckons he's not going shopping again until he's 90 though....we'll see!

Sun, Sand and Soul

It was fantastic week....long walks on the beach, lots of reading (I devoured three Douglas Kennedy novels) and probably far too much eating and drinking of wine. BLISS!

The cottage we rented was tiny but cosy....part of an original stone farmhouse, just 5 minutes' stroll from the sand dunes of Embleton Bay.

Embleton Bay

We settled into a sort of daily routine of....sleep till we wake up naturally (around 9ish), a walk on the beach before breakfast, packing a picnic lunch then heading out for long walks along the coastal path, a lunch stop before the walk home, reading/snoozing until early evening, another stroll on the beach, then back at the cottage for a glass of wine and nibbles followed by a bung-something-in-the-oven type dinner.

We ventured as far as Holy Island one day and had tea and scones at Howick Hall (birthplace of Earl Grey tea) but otherwise stayed within walking distance of the cottage.

Lindisfarne Castle, Holy Island

The weather was far better than we'd hoped for....decent spells of sunshine, a bit windy some days and rain on one, but otherwise very pleasant and good hiking weather. Nothing like lungfuls of fresh sea air to cleanse the system...apart from one memorable hike across farmland that coincided with the manure-spreading activites of the local farmer....he obviously has a bit of grudge against walkers as he's (legally) diverted the public footpath through some neetle-overgrown, trench-filled paths that kept us downwind of the farmyard smells for a good hour.

Beadnell Bay

There's something about being close to the ocean that makes me feel so much more alive...one day, I really hope to live on the coast.

My inner calm feels restored...for the moment....

We're All Going On a... er... Autumn Holiday

Northumberland beckons....

A moment of madness from the last trip

Back in a week.

Time Of My Life...

The famous lift in 'Dirty Dancing'

It was 1987, my first year of high school....and this film (and Patrick Swazye) were the hottest items on the planet! One of my classmates went to see it twenty seven times in the cinema. There was not a lot happening in the mid 1980s in Zimbabwe, especially in an all-girls Convent school run by stern German nuns who lived by the rule of "no-nonsense-tolerated-and even-less-freedom-of-thought-allowed". But we got by...

It's sad to see another icon from my youth lose the battle against cancer.

R.I.P.

Birthday Bash

It was my mom's 70th birthday recently. To mark the occasion, B and I splashed out on a private lunch for family at a country hotel in Kent... a manor house that was once home to emminent politicians, writers, Lords and Viscounts, set within 22 acres of rural parkland.

We were seated in the library....surrounded by hundreds of interesting (and probably highly valuable) old books, we munched on

Smoked Ham and Poached Leek Terrine, Apple Chutney
Slow Braised Blade of Beef, Caramelised Carrots, Cocotte Potatoes and Morel JusSharp
Lemon Tart with Lavender Crème Fraiche Ice Cream

And for the children:

Seasonal Fruit Platter with Mixed Berry Coulis
Roast Chicken Breast with Potatoes and Seasonal Vegetables
Ice Cream

We had a bottle of bubbly with the starter and tea and coffee was served with a birthday cake I'd ordered and delivered to the hotel early in the morning.

The food was excellent and all in, it was a lovely day, although my dad was taking a bit of strain (this was the day before he was admitted to hospital with the blood clot). My niece, J, loved the experience...."It's all so posh!". Her younger sister was less impressed, stuffing herself on bread rolls then complaining she was "Full from my brain to my toes!", but not suprisingly quickly finding an appetite for ice cream....and the handmade chocolates that came with the coffee.

Happy Three-Score-n-Ten -Years birthday Old Q!

Back On The Radar

Last week was a tough one. After a good 12-week run with relatively few side-effects, my dad's chemo bit back, and we were reminded of just how delicate the treat/poison balance really is....

He'd been experiencing debilitating chest and shoulder pains that he insisted were nothing more than trapped wind. In fact, he'd developed a dangerous blot clot in his left lung, that thankfully was picked up on his routine scan, and he was whipped into hospital for some hard-core blood thinning treatment. Now safely home, he is fast resembling a pin cushion and will be getting daily heparin jabs for the forseeable future. On the plus side, his oncologist is pleased that the chemo seems to be stopping the cancer from spreading, and he will be carrying on with more cycles with the double-hard-ass stuff as long as he can handle it.

And so we continue....

Emotionally, I feel like I've been whacked over the head with a very big stick. I'd almost gotten used to the fact that my dad was living with cancer and that the future was uncertain. The whole dreadful business had settled into the back of my mind. It's all now just been brought back into focus.