Hello,
My wife is making focaccia in the kitchen. I, on the other hand, am blogging because we actually did a bit of stuff today.
We had a couple of things to do when we set out this morning. One was to go to Globo and spend £20 that we earned by spending about £100 (there doesn't seem to be a euro button on this Italian laptop, consequently I am pretending that the one means the other!). The other was to go and register me at the Italian equivalent of the Jobcentre.
I had my own personal mission as well, which was to buy a 3.5mm male-to-male audio cable, and we found one for a couple of quid (in addition to using pound signs for euros, I decided early on that I didn't want to lose the word "quid", so I'm using that for euros too) so I'm happy now. You may think that having an audio cable is a pretty lame thing to be pleased about, even for a man, but it means that I can connect my Minidisc player to my laptop, which means that I should finally be able to convert my music, that I made throughout my adolescence, into MP3s, as well as the cover versions that I romantically recorded for Monica, which means she has a little reason to be pleased too. I rather like listening back to my music, so it'll be nice to have it in a more well-supported format. If anyone's at all interested in having a copy, do let me know and I'll try and think of a sensible way to distribute it.
Other good news is that Monica found some jeans and a bobble hat in Globo! I know, I know - too excitment for one blog post, right? Seriously though, Monica has a hard time finding jeans she likes, because skinny jeans are in now, so it's pretty hard trying to find anything else. When we went to Globo last time we were looking for jeans for her and came back with nothing, so it is a result. The bobble hat is just nice, and it keeps my wife's head warm, which is something I approve of.
When we went to register at the jobcentre, we were perplexed to find that I didn't have my passport (I could use my driving license to register though) which was quite troubling. I kept my cool, but Monica was understandably a bit agitated. She phoned home and got her Mum to go on a passport search, which was fruitless, or rather, passportless I suppose. But a lady from the Jobcentre called while we were in the office saying that she'd found my passport, which she was only able to do because I had just given the jobcentre my phone number! Rather handy that.
Today the Blessed Sacrament has been exposed in the little chapel in S. Tommaso Apostolo, so Monica and I went to spend some time with Him, and apparently there's going to be confession later too, so I'll hopefully be able to make the most of that.
Monica wanted to try out using Skype to phone England, so we've bought some Skype credit and will give it a go. At the moment we get calls to England free, but only because Monica's parents pay (and were paying while Monica was in England) a fixed amount per month. If we use Skype instead, we can decrease their phone bill without them worrying that I'm never going to speak to my parents.
If you look here you'll see the comments section of one of James' blog entries where someone fairly randomly asked James and Ella if they did translations, because they had an old framed picture or Pius X with something written on it that they didn't understand. I'm not quite sure what James would have said to that, but I had a look, and instead of it being the impenetrable Latin that I was expecting, it was Italian! And I could translate it all without recourse to a dictionary! So I was quite pleased with myself. Which was nice.
It was quite a pleasant Friday, and it's not even finished yet.
