July In Between Times

I've been remiss in my posting lately. Partly because I cannae be arsed to go through all the photos, and partly because I've not been around much. With 2 holidays on the go, we've been busy!

Anyway, while I work on the rest of our Italy and Norway photos, here are some domestic scenes from the in between times of July. We had some nice weather, which as usual, we took full advantage of.

We love to eat outside, which is unfortunately a rare event - so rare, it must be documented. Here's the set up.

 

Whoops - timing is off!

 

And the finish

 

We purchased a tiny but perfect bbq with some birthday money and set to.

 

 

Rosie isn't quite sure about it

 

 

My little potted garden has been doing ok. The lavender is blooming and has grown considerably from last year.

 

We have some tomatoes - not quite red though.

 

And some yummy Greek basil.

 

The 2 pepper plants from the neighbours now have peppers.

 

And the mystery vine has been revealed as honeysuckle! I gave it some plant food and it started blooming, so I'm quite pleased with its progress.

 

As said, nice weather is a bit of a rarity - it's usually like this:

 

Which means there're a lot of cuddles and reading going on.

 

 

 

We (i.e. Ole) thought it would be fun to get some en premier Port from 2007 as a nice wedding gift to ourselves. 2007 was classed as a vintage year for all houses and should produce some remarkable port, but we won't find out until many years from now. The box was finally delivered and is now safely stowed in an unmarked location until our 25th anniversary. Mark your calendars!

 

 

 

 

Roma

We're freshly back from a fantastic holiday to Italy. We spent 4 days (5 nights) in Rome before heading for the hills. Our B&B was a little gem, 5 minutes' walk from the Vatican. It was recommended by an Italian colleague and we enjoyed the taste of Roman apartment life. Much better than a stuffy hotel.

The first day, we hit the pavement and spent most of the day at the Colosseum, Forum, and Palatine Hill. A Roma Pass meant we jumped the healthy-looking queue, which made Ole quite pleased. After we tired of ruins, we strolled "home", catching things like the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, Plazza Navona, and Castel Sant'Angelo along the way. It really is astonishing and overwhelming the amount of history and significant architecture prevelant throughout the city.

The next day, we hit the Vatican Museums bright and early. I booked our tickets for the first "showing" of the day and this turned out to be the best trick. We were some of the first public in (regular doors open at 9; we went at 8) which meant we had many of the rooms - including the super impressive maps room - to ourselves. We ended up spending a lot of time here, primarily because the stewards kept opening new rooms up as we went through. The downside of this was that they also closed exits off, which meant we had to keep going back through the same rooms in order to progress. As a result, we saw the Sistine Chapel about 4 times, each time it was progressively more packed with people until you could hardly move. I snuck a cheeky photo, which turned out quite blurry. Oh well.

Joni & Derek joined us later that day, after a massive delay in their flight. We visited the Spanish Steps that evening after our dinner. Even that late at night, it was still packed with tourists.

On Saturday, Ole & I got up early again to head back to the Vatican. This time we saw St Peter's Basilica. Wow. What an incredibly beautiful church. It's so different from the northern European cathedrals I'm used to. It's so ornate - guilded, frescoed, mosaiced. Amazing. We lugged ourselves up 500+ steps to the dome to enjoy the view over the city. I posted some cards from the little post office at the top - wacky! Later that day, the 4 of us visited the Borghese Gardens and sought cool comfort from the afternoon sun in the Etruscan Museum.

On Sunday we caught the train to Amelia.

I managed to snap 786+ photos during our stay. I think I've reached Dad proportions. For your sake, I've edited them down to highlights. Here are the first batch - Rome.

The bird is the word

A couple days before we left for Italy we heard some little things falling down the chimney in the front room. We assumed it was bits of mortar crumbling, which maybe a bird had knocked off the top of the stack.

Part of that assumption was correct.

Today, I heard flapping. So, we (meaning Ole) opened up the hood and we (again, Ole) withdrew a wood pigeon. Bloody nuisances, they are. And huge too! I was surprised this one was still alive, given it's been in there for a couple weeks.

The unassuming fireplace

 

Ole with the prize catch

 

The culprit