New York, London, Paris.. Portofino
Ciao Everyone,
Welcome to what will be my last update for a while. Next Friday I am off to Milan, then Dubai and then Melbourne in another 30ish hour odyssey. As I am flying Emirates, bets are open as to the accuracy of my “itinerary”. Though I hope that Murphy is kind to me this once as I can’t wait to drop home (one of them) for a visit.
This week has been another week of normality. Genova welcomed in the first day of spring (21/3) with a lovely day full of rain and grey clouds. But other than that the sings of spring are starting to appear; warmer days, wild flowers and daylight savings (or legal time in Italian) which started today.
As I write the letter one of our 3 adopted cats has come for dinner. At our new house there are three regular feline visitors whom, in preparation of Vilija’s arrival, I have started to try and
befriend/tame. One I have named “Fatty Fatty Fat Fat” or just Fatty for short as he/she/it is quite rotund and I believe knows the neighbourhood suckers well and does the food rounds during the day. He is the friendliest and actually allows me to pat him. The second I have named Gabby II as she has very similar colouring to Vilija’s parent’s cat, curiously, named Gabby. Whilst not as tame she is my favourite as I don’t think she does the rounds as much as Fatty and is generally always around to welcome me home or wish me good luck as I leave the house in the morning. The last I have not named as I think that he is the missing link between domestic cats and wild cats. Very timid and from the way he looks at me I think the only thing running through his feline brain is “you look like you’d be tasty…”. If looks could kill I would have had my jugular bitten and been dragged away to the den weeks ago.
This weekend has been quite, yesterday I ventured back to the pool for the first time after my skiing incident. It was lovely to get into the water again and helped loosen up my knee. Once again I did my best Zoolander impression as in the beginning at each end of the pool I involuntarily used “Blue Steel” to change directions. Towards the end to the shock/amazement/delight of the other swimmers I broke out “Magnum”. Also on the way home from the pool I dropped into Genova’s equivalent of Chadstone (big shopping centre for the non-Melbournites…). Here I just had a look to see what was about. I saw too many bum-bags and mullets that my eyes are still recovering. Personally I believe that some fashions should NEVER be repeated, Mullets and bum-bags are the top two!!!
Today I ventured off to Santa Margherita (Santa as the locals call it) as I wanted to go to Portofino. This time I took the train as I have been told my MANY people that parking in Portofino is nigh on impossible. Yesterday the morning was overcast and in the afternoon the sun burnt the clouds off so I hoped for the same today. Unfortunately the sun was worn out after yesterdays exertion and the clouds remained and provided a wonderful romantic backdrop of misty rain.
When I got to Santa it was roughly lunch time so after a quick snack I bought a bus ticket to Portofino and took the first one that came along. The bus wound along a tiny road that hugged the edge of the hill and passed through Paraggi and then onto Portofino. Just before we reached Portofino all the passengers were inspected and those not meeting the minimum dress standard were taken aside. This included me as my jeans, runners and polartec just didn’t cut it. When I responded that this was all I had on me I was take aside again and lent a double breasted reefer jacket, cravat and a pair of boat shoes. (Not really but this helps you picture the atmosphere in the town). London, Paris, New York… Portofino! My gosh it’s a tiny little town that up to 150 years ago was isolated from the rest of the world except by sea. Now it is home to the sick and obscenely wealthy. You name it every Italian (and others) designer brand had a boutique there. When I arrived I message Vilija and politely suggested that when we come back together we “forget” our wallets as with them it could be dangerous to our financial wellbeing.
Other than that the town was lovely. A small harbour surrounded by step hills and a little town with pastel coloured buildings surrounding the harbour. On a better day it would be possible to sit in the sun and spend hours watching the world go by. I got a coffee and a small something to eat and the prices weren’t that bad.
Rather than take the bus back to Santa I followed an old walking track that paralleled the road back. It was a lovely stroll and at times the view was wonderful. If you the weather was a little nicer.Speaking to Vilija this week, she told me a story that I thought was worthy of including. On her way into work on Saturday morning she was stopped at some light. As happens the world over a woman offered to wash the windscreen for her. Vilija politely declined but a there were no other customers around to approach the woman insisted, regardless of Vilija’s wishes and lent over to clean the window. In preparation she sprayed water on the windscreen and all of a sudden the windscreen wipers started and washed all the water the woman sprayed on the window on to her.
Here I should mention that Vilija was in our new Golf of which one of the MANY gadgets is automatic windscreen wipers. So without any mal-intentions on Vilija’s behalf when the woman put water on the windscreen the car thought “its raining” and promptly turned the wipers on. The now drenched woman shot looks of daggers across to Vilija who was protesting her innocence with both of her hands in the air as if at gun point.
The story has two morals, if you are washing windows at an intersection and someone doesn’t want there windows washed let them be. The second is that if you have automatic windscreen wipers and you choose to accept and have your windows washed ensure that you manually switch them off
before hand.
Well, that’s about it for the week. I will just add that I will keep the shutters competition going for a while though I am very disappointed with the lack of interest. No entries to date, only an apology from Amie who mentioned that she usually asks others for help on similar matters.
It might be a few weeks before my next update but I look forward to catching up with as many Melbournites as possible in the two weeks I have in Melbourne whilst I finalise my Visa.
I hope you are all well
James
P.S I have some miscellaneous photos that I will put onto the web early this week. I will upload
them Monday morning my time. For those that are interested http://james.manners.net.au
Tags: Italia, Portofino, Santa Margherita