House!
Hello
I went to London last night because I had been asked by my Aunty Jan before I left for Italy to spend the night there in order to keep and eye on the packers who would be boxing up her flat in Chelsea. I happily obliged and was met with a rather vast quantity of high-quality food she needed dispensed with (you can't very well pack the contents of a fridge now can you?). It occured to me that I was actually going to be paid to sit on my arse, eat food, sleep and then open a door. It was at that point that I figured I was sort of like the totally unprofessional security guards you see in large apartment buildings - I liked it :)
Sometime in the evening however my lovely Aunt managed to break her finger packing a suitcase and had to go to the hospital to get it put in a finger cast. Consequently I spent the morning looking after Oliver and Tara (twins), my little cousins. I spent most of my time with Oliver, he's learning Drums which I didn't know (hell yeah, Drums kick ass. Me = Drummer) and we had a lot of fun, even whilst the house was being covered in cardboard all around us.
When I left the flat in Tite Street, Chelsea, I had to walk to Sloane Square as it was the nearest tube station. The walk takes you past the beautiful houses around that part of London (indeed some with those Blue "Someone cool lived here" plaques - Oscar Wilde is on her street :D) It was raining so I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up and hit the iTunes play button. The music which met my ears was nothing other than Madness: The Sun and the Rain, a song about walking around London in the rain and loving every minute of it. It was one of those moments where everything just clicked together to create a brilliant atmosphere and I had my love of London rekindled (it had been slightly dented by the 6 months I spent in my room not leaving it for fear of my grandmother's Dementor-like ability to sap the happiness fro my thoughts).
Then later on in the day, after I had gotten home and gorged myself on some truly brilliant pasta, we went off to take a look at the new contender for the title of our house. I can simply say that it was the best house I have ever seen. It was massive; 7 huge bedrooms and 6 Other equally vast rooms, had incredible grounds with absurdly massive trees and had a wonderful charm about it. I took a bunch of photos but for some reason ever since april of last year my father's digital camera has had trouble with shutter speed which leads to outdoor photos being hideously over-exposed. Not to worry though as I'll grab some more with my Camcorder when I'm next there and post them for you to see.
The house itself is a converted farm and requires a lot of work inside. Its not structurally falling apart or anything but the interior needs a revamp. Nonetheless, there is a lot of space in it and I am in love with the place already, as are all the rest of us.
My room would be the smaller blue room. Yeah I know there are 7 bedrooms but 1 will be needed for my Uncle Jason who would probably be staying with us and I dig rooms of that particular size. Big rooms make my stuff seem like its not a lot (which, in terms of pure volume is at least correct) and as long as the room can fit a double bed, my computer desk and a few cupboards I'm happy :D
Anyhow, more on that at a later date, now its time for another Holiday snippet :)
Luigi! Itsa me! Maaaaario!
On the day of our departure I was sitting with Ben and Richard and talking about what we would be doing in Italy. I said something about how good the food was (woot for stating the obvious :D) and how good and cheap restaurants were in Italy when Ben said something about all Italian chefs being fat, with a massive moustache and a string of sausages around their necks. Naturally this suggestion was laughed at as we berated his use of such a blatant stereotype for an Italian chef.
However on the 1st day, having eaten our Lunch at the Half-Board hotel we decided that the evening meal would be had at the little pizzeria my family had eaten at the previous year. It was a very small little restaurant who's tables were set out on a little platform out on the street, where good Pizza could be eaten and beer was served on Draught and cold.
We got there and after much maneuvering to get all 11 of us into position we all sat down. At this point the chef walked out to talk to us. Lo and behold the man was short, tubby, spoke with a ridiculously high pitched voice at times and sported a substantial moustache - he was in every effect the very image of the chef Ben had described the day before. As you can imagine we all cracked up and I had to give props to Ben, his skills of divination were far more substantial than I had previously assumed :)
Right I think I might do a bit of site re-design because there is only so long I can live with this template, especially in its current half-implemented form :)
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at July 25, 2003 08:57 PM