Eyes That Light up.

It may have snowed here over night, but this morning all I can see is cold, wet greyness. So why not feast my eyes on some mosaics, from the Baptistry, they looked so modern, and the wings on the angels and the cherubim are fabulous I think.

Love me till I'm dead

It is a certain fact that on this day, 15 years ago it snowed in Northumberland. Quite a lot, about a foot and a half of beautiful powdery snow fell overnight.

This morning pater familias and mother bumped into each other in the kitchen during the morning melee and he said with a smile "It's snowing in Northumberland".

Ah.

Why the heck do we include this here?

Well the perfect recall of the meterological conditions of the north east of Britain all that time ago is due to a significant date. We had just arrived there on our honeymoon and overnight it snowed. We woke up to our second full day of marriage and the world was all white.

Fifteen years of marriage. Cool.

And you love me till my heart stops.

Here are some places we went to , St Minias, he was a determined chap, an Aremenian who carried his head up this hill after the wicked people had chopped it off, that's a 13th C mosaic up there, good eh? More gorgeous mosaics inside and astonishing marble floors from even earlier. Santa Croce, suffered from terrible floods, and is last resting place to Michelangelo, ( local artist apparently), Marconi, Dante, Galilei Galileo and possibly one of those Machiavellis, but I wont swear to that one.

A And the Duomo. Hugely impressive, and lovely marble. Must have taken hours.

And to share the same space for a minute or two.

Back to work today after the weekend away. Bah humbug. It was cold and rained, Humph. Wish we were still there.

I'm just an animal looking for a place.

Bet you can guess where we went this week? Wow.

I really mean wow. It was amazing.

Really. Not just saying that. It really really was.Where to begin. First of all one remarkable thing was that the elderly parents went together, and the offspring didn't. First time in eight or nine years that that has happened, so thanks to grandmacat for the essential support.

We started by flying from Liverpool to Roma, well outer Rome. Then getting to Rome termini. Then with the help of a rather charming english speaking drunk we got a train to Firenze. Then a coffee and a butty and by Thursday afternoon we were staring slack jawed at the Duomo, that's an insterior shot just there. Wow.
You may gather there will be more pictures to follow, but we had the most fabulous time. River views at the hotel, visiting the market, the Trevi fountain by night....wow. It was great.

I don't know where he went

Hey! Did you think we'd forgotten about this? No well it really has been a particularly busy few weeks and some of us are into our fourth decade here and don't have the same bounce back that the younger members of the family have.
This is Rosie, as you can tell she is a kangaroo and she spent the weekend with us a little while ago, she reported back to year 1 about the fab time she had had, doing car maintenence and.......................... going to parties with these people, his name is Alex, he's a good friend, and although his interest in Star Wars figures can be rather intense he's a jolly good egg. Later there was a really funny Sunday afternoon when the off spring had friends round, in a group, well one group each and we 'entertained', my what a hoot. We needed a large cupotea after that one. The other parents who ferried the guests to and from spoke to us in hushed tones, perhaps amazed at our skill and stamina, perhaps fearing for our sanity....anyways it was a good time. Sadly it was so good no one had time to take a picture.

Here the nights are drawing in, the weather is colder and this is a common sight to be found....two tired souls under a duvet on the sofa, had problems with the pictures so you get two the same......must find that other lost one then.

Pater has such huge piles of books around now that it's getting harder to get to the computer, titles such as 'Karl Marx on sociology and social philosophy' are enough to put the faint hearted off. 'Social work and the third way' hmmmmmm, I'm off to finish knitting that dolly nightdress.