Christmas in Italy

Christmas day, after the presents were opened, we got in a car and drove to Italy to spend 3 days at a farm near Bergamo, with our friends Leila and Mike and their twin boys. The farm, accessable only via a rickety bridge, produces their own food and then cooks it for you, so for 3 days there was no cooking for us, which was nice. Unfortunately there was rather too much rain (and even an ice storm); the upside of this was that Bluet and Ilona discovered a frozen patch on the lawn where they could ice skate.

Also, there was a lovely, cosy recreation room with roaring fire to relax in and seats to sit on, as well as cows to watch being milked, goats to watch escaping, and even a pony ride for the kids (the highlight for Bluet, although she said it was a bit wobbly and she worried she might fall off).

Trip to Italy

Last week we had visitors all the way from Wyoming - Kara, Greg, Ben* and Teo. They are doing a grand European vacation, stopping in Zurich on the way out and the way back, with a sojourn in Italy in between. So we accompanied them on the first leg of the trip, and hired a huge people carrier to travel to Lecco/Malgrate on Lake Como in the north of Italy. Before we were even over the border Ilona announced that she wanted to live in Italy for ever. I assume this is because of the food, pasta, pizza and ice cream forming the majority of her food pyramid. This was also a nice way to celebrate my birthday, especially as we found a sea food restaurant for lunch.

*Ilona was heard to exclaim several times "there's 2 Bens" with great wonderment

Birthday Lunch



For some reason it was necessary to remove flip flops and drop them in the water



On the way back we stopped at a service station for lunch, and Leroy-Della, Ilona's Scottish sheep make a break for it, and fell out of the car. Fortunately someone found her before he could get too far, sticking her in a tree where she couldn't be missed

And some more photos from Italy

From our second day in Como, including the boat ride