More cupcakes!!!

And what were the girls up to when Patrick and i were doing our "macho" stuff, you might ask? Well, Christine taught them how to make cupcakes with a creamy heart and coloured sugar-icing on top including lots of figures also all hand-made out of sugar. You can tell they enjoyed it, can't you?...

Here's the result of a whole afternoon's work. I can assure you that they tasted deliciously, especially after the mountain hike Patrick and I had done... :-) Although it was kind of a pity having to eat them, wouldn't you agree?

The Pradarena Adventure revisited!

Patrick, my brother-in-law, has a rather adventurous nature. And even though he thoroughly enjoyed staying at our house and just being in the middle of nature and its overwhelming silence, he was looking forward to a bit of a challenge after a couple of days. So I proposed that we'd drive all the way up the Pradarena pass and see how high we could get from thereon. The ladies were terribly busy doing "ladies' stuff" (of which I will report more later on) so there was nothing that could stop us. We jumped into his car and drove off, hungry for the ultimate thrill.

The road towards the pass was perfectly clear and the sun was shining as brightly as always so we didn't encounter any real problems getting up there. But the higher we got, the more we couldn't stop noticing the enormous pile of snow on either side of the road. Like white, concrete walls that became at times higher than the car itself. Perhaps they provided the ideal surface for a fanatic skier, but as we hadn't brought any skis with us, or not even a pair of snow shoes, the thrill suddenly appeared a bit bigger than we had anticipated. There, high above us, I saw the "Monte dell'Asino" ("the Donkey's mountain") where I had hoped we could climb onto, like I already did last September. But with this enormous pile of snow, this began to appear impossible. Anyway, we're two strong lads and not easily intimidated. We would at least give it our best shot!

Once we arrived on top of the pass, we saw a group of other adventurers like us. But at least, they had been smart enough to bring their snow shoes with them and they easily marched off into the woods that lead in the direction of the mountain top. We were just standing there with ordinary hiking shoes. Hmmm... let's give it a try anyway. We've driven all this way up here, it would be a pity not at least having tried.

Surprisingly, the snow was that thick that it supported us quite well. Every now and then we sank into it up to our knees, but on average we managed quite well to walk on it. There, in the far distance, two hundred metres higher than where we were standing, we could see the top. We just had to do it! The trees suddenly stopped and we were all alone from thereon, with just this big white carpet stretching out in front of and above us. It was heavy work because ploughing through the snow is still something else than just walking uphill. Then again, it wasn't too hard either because the snow provided us with solid steps to climb on. Halfway between the tree line and the top we arrived at the weird pile of stones (see previous Pradarena post) and we took a brief rest. Already there we felt like being the kings of the world and although the sky was a bit less transparent than last time I was here, the view was still spectacular. And you could hear... absolutely nothing. Not a bird, not the slightest breeze... absolute silence.

After five minutes or so we continued. We could see the top and we were going to make it. We just had to. Still fifty metres left to climb... forty... thirty... We rushed forward, powered by adrenaline and the promise of the ultimate sensation that lay ahead. So close you could almost grasp it. And finally... we got there. You can see how proud we were, can't you?

The amazing panorama immediately took our breath away. Click on the following link for a 360° view, from northeast to northeast...

https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Pradarena/Panorama%20%28small%29.jpg?w=b4e4a516

Unfortunately, the wind was freezing up there, so we didn't stand there for long. A pity we hadn't brought any big plastic bags or something to slide all the way downhill. We had already done this in our field and it was great fun. But this would have been one hell of a ride! :-) Anyway, we leapt and stumbled down through the snow as if we were still kids. Boys will be boys or something... Well, at least we felt pretty much alive. Yes, you only live once and that day we truly took everything out of it that we could.

One last picture before we would disappear into the trees again...

Mr. Apennines

These days teaching English isn't going well for me anymore. It's rolling like a train! After the first school there soon followed a second one, where I now go to every Saturday morning to teach for four hours. And I've also already given two hours of "trial" lessons at a third school. The teacher there said she would also be very happy to have me to assist her, but I'm afraid that this school doesn't have the budget for this school year. Perhaps next year then? And two days ago I was contacted by school number four. This school (in the town of Ramiseto) in fact falls under the same management as the first secondary school where I now teach (in the town of Busana). It was the original intention that I would teach at both of these schools for a total of sixteen hours for the rest of the school year. But then I got the unfortunate message that the Ramiseto school had already found someone else in the mean time and so the sixteen hours were split between me and the other English mothertongue teacher. However, the real (Italian) English teacher of the Ramiseto school has now contacted me in a kind of panic. It seems that the English lady who signed up for the 8 hours there, suddenly doesn't want to come anymore and she begged me if I could take over in stead. Which I obviously gladly accepted. I found it a bit shocking that when you've not only given your word to a school, but when you've also signed a contract, a so-called "teacher" says after only one or two hours that she's not interested anymore. Not only is she letting the school down, but more importantly the kids who are so eager to learn because they realise all too well how important English has become. A real shame, that is, but on the other hand it's all the better for me.

The Italian teachers already told me how difficult it is to find an English mothertongue teacher because most of the English are either not interested or give up after a brief period. On the other hand I can understand this because teaching has to be in your blood. It's not without reason that so many teachers get a burn-out after ten or twenty years. It's very energy-consuming and at times it can be frustrating as well. But in the end, when you've managed to get something across and you feel the appreciation of the children (sometimes even with applause!), it's ever so rewarding. Yes, to my own surprise, teaching must truly be in my blood. Then again it's not so big a surprise because when I was a teenager I already taught Astronomy to younger children at the Urania observatory in Hove, near Antwerp. I really loved it back then, and today I love it just as much.

I also try to make my lessons a bit funny and to include as much interaction as possible. After all, the most difficult bit is to get the children to speak so I try to "force" them a bit. Either with the aid of games like "who am I", word riddles, bingo etc, or role plays. Lately I made a whole Powerpoint presentation about airports, from check-in to boarding and everything in between. At the end, I invited one student to be e.g. the check-in lady whereas another student had to play the passenger wanting to go to Chicago. In order to spice things up a bit, I joined the passenger queue, holding a big student's desk. I explained - and very nicely too - that I wanted to go to Chicago as well with my precious table. The check-in lady then had to try to explain that it was too big and too heavy and that I had to pay an overweight fine. Which was obviously a very unpleasant message for me so I insisted she'd call the manager. And so on... Or when we played the security screening, I suddenly became John Wayne with his gùùùn (trying to imitate a heavy cowboy's accent). And I just walked through the beeping security monitor without a care in the world. "Oh... this gùùùn? That's only for shooting pigeons. It's completely harmless..." :-)

Only the "crown jewel" is still missing on my list of schools and that is the higher secondary school of Castelnovo ne' Monti, where all the kids of the whole region go to as from the age of 15. I already had a chat with the (very friendly) Headmaster who was so sorry to inform me that she had already found someone for this school year. Indeed, just before Christmas the original teacher suddenly left for England (there you are...) but they had immediately contacted the local ministry of education in the city of Reggio Nell'Emilia and they had already found someone for them. Nevertheless the Headmaster kept repeating that I had done a very good thing by presenting myself and she definitely gave the impression that she was most interested. Perhaps for next year? A nice thing she told me was that she's a close friend of the Busana English teacher, who will undoubtedly tell her about my exploits and make some very good publicity. In the mean time I can also already present a very nice CV with references from three different schools and, of course, my TEFL licence. I WILL add that school to my list as well. It's only a question of time... hehehe... :-D

Our first visitors!

Phew! What a couple of weeks these have been! My sister-in-law and her family, including two wild girls of 11 and 14, came to visit us and the B&B part of our house was still far from finished. Actually, it was still closer to "derilict" than to "habitable". Only a concrete floor, dust and dirt everywhere, no doors, no bathroom, scattered cardboard boxes and other stuff of which we didn't know where else to put it...

So when they announced they would like to visit us, we kind of went into overdrive. I need a bit of pressure in order to get going, but this was close to madness. In a matter of weeks we had to decide about which wooden floor to put on the first floor, whether we were going to use the same tiles for the guests as in our bathroom, which bed we would order for the guests, which doors we would choose, find nice second-hand wardrobes we could restore and to do all of the actual work. In the end, we didn't really make it. The doors couldn't be ready in time (in spite of big promises), the flooring company hadn't ordered enough wood and Dopey Dwarf, the magic plummer, had made a total cock-up of the guests' bathroom. Some of the plumming had been put too deep into the wall, making it extremely difficult to connect e.g. te tap for the sink. Or the two exits on which I had to connect the shower tap were too far apart by almost a quarter inch. In the end, we hired some help with placing the tiles because we couldn't manage ourselves anymore. By the previous Sunday, when our family arrived, Christine and I were both knackered. Exhausted to the point of collapse. Fortunately Cosetta, our Italian mum, lent us a hand with the enormous cleaning job. Christine had also had to finish the plasterwork on the stairs which had created a mess you wouldn't believe. Even Thomas was surprised about it! :-)

But in the end she's done a cracking good job. I'd dare challenge all professional plasterers to do it just as well.

When my sister-in-law and her family arrived and saw our guest room, they were speechless. Even though there still weren't any doors and the toilet still has to be glued to the floor. No, not bolted because otherwise we'd probably pierce through the floor heating tubes! ;-) So it would just be a question of sitting on it very carefully. Hehehe... I'll post some pictures of the result later. Let me just conclude that they had a wonderful holiday here in Italy and that we all throughly enjoyed the warm sunshine during the outdoor lunches...

And a last picture of the two sisters...

Courtcase number 3!!!

We're going for the record!!! :-D 9 months in Italy and I'm already involved in 3 courtcases! I dare anyone to do better, hehehe!

It was to be expected that Nasty Little Nezio would go sulking and moaning with his sollicitor, not coincidentally Big bad Danilo's little nephew. This courtcase isn't cast in stone yet. For the moment his sollicitor has only sent us a very polite registered letter, asking us to pay our good friend Nezio 37.000€ plus 200€ for "sollicitor's intervention". Failure to do so within two weeks will result in further legal action. This figure is, of course, vastly exaggerated and is based on Nezio's calculation, totally neglecting the fact that Nezio can't count. If you subtract the things he counted twice or the works he had planned to do but hasn't carried out, the total is already down by a third.

Unfortunately for Nezio, I don't think he has already informed his sollicitor about the "slight" water problem we're having. It's only a minor detail, I know, but nevertheless I think that his sollicitor would like to know about it. So our sollicitor will take the burden off Nezio and inform him herself with a very kind reply letter. She will also include the expert's report that will soon be finished. The expert eventually found the drainage tube, just put in the ground like that without any cloth to keep the holes in the tube from being covered in dirt. The tube was also laid at a measured depth of... 30cm, whereas our foundations go down as much as 70-80cm. And this measurement was carried out somewhere half way. Since this tube is supposed to be laid in a slope, we can only guess what the depth at the beginning would be. According to the expert there is no doubt where the water in our walls originates from. The problem now is that since we had a wall constructed behind our house to stop the hill from crumbling down, there is no more room for a crane or bobcat to make excavations behind the house. Whoever is going to repair the damages will probably have to dig by hand. Through thick clay and rock.

But I haven't told you the best bit yet. A couple of days ago, we received a visit from the local stone cutter. He's a very friendly man but he had a very delicate message. He had already been asking our good friend Nezio about the money the latter owed him for the external window sills on our house (which had already been installed in autumn 2009). And do you know what Nezio told him?

- "They refuse to pay me so if you want your money you'll have to ask them!"

So that's why the poor stone cutter came to visit us. We explained that we indeed had paid Nezio. We've paid him about 3/4 of the total amount due and we've certainly paid him for the works carried out over a year ago. And then we've showed him our internal walls. The man's eyes opened so wide that his eyeballs almost popped out. He immediately understood what a nasty trick Nezio had played on him. He also showed us the total amount due. It was about 600€. This gave Christine a shock and when the man had gone, she immediately leapt upstairs to find her notes. In Nezio's estimate, he claims that the materials for the window sills, installation excluded, amounted to almost 1.150€! Nearly twice as much! We had already found a couple of serious discrepancies between Nezio's price for the materials and their real price. But this was obviously a rip off.

So, what are we going to do? We are going to the stone cutter and pay him his 600€. Not only will it make this man very happy, it'll also be another blow to Nezio because we can then subtract another 1.150€ from his bill. "Ah... of course, because we've already paid for the window sills! You asked the stone cutter to send his bill to us, didn't you?"

Oh... I'm really beginning to enjoy this! :-D