The joy of doing nothing.

Over these past few days we'e been truly blessed. The weather has been fantastic. Spring is heating up, the sun is shining and I've been spending as much time out of doors as possible. Sun dresses and shorts have come out of the wardrobe. Plans for the beach are being made. Sun cream has been bought.

The weather has completely put an end to my homesickness and reminded me that I love living in Rome. It's helped by the fact that it's raining in England.

What I've loved about the past few days is that when the weather's fine I just can't bear to sit indoors and so I've been getting up earlier- woken by the heat of the sun on my window- and have just been doing something, or a lot of lovely nothing.

Villa Torlonia

"Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering." 
-Winnie the Pooh 

While the sun and the heat are still novelties and completely delightful I'm really enjoying pointless walks, sitting for a minute as I go through the piazza and heading over the the park. The gelato tastes better and the Kindle is getting a lot of use. John Thornton and Margaret Hale will be out of my life in no time. Which is actually a shame, because I'm loving North and South.

It's alarming how much time I've actually whiled away in the sun over the past few days. Today, for example, I was somewhat surprised when I realised actually been at Villia Torlonia for three hours. Blanket out, Kindle out, zoning out. There's something so peaceful and calming about enjoying your surrounding entirely and letting yourself get lost. Yesterday I ended up having a cheeky nap when Anna and I were at the park and earlier I'd been devastated when I realised that it was time to get up and head over to uni, having been enjoying my time in the Parte Antica, after finishing work at the Cimitero Acattolico.

"You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let you mind think."
-Mortimer Adler

So far I'm having a great week. I've been busy, but I'm most busy doing nothing. It's lush!

p.s. New favourite song, as of today.

A real page turner.

When I was home my mum gave a book. A book she read over a year ago, but I've had to wait for, as naturally she leant it to all of her sisters and half of her one thousand friends before I got my hands on it. It was definitely worth the wait though and I gobbled the whole thing up in less than a week. God love transport for the time it gives to bookworms!

"Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself."
-George Bernard Shaw

The book was Me and Mine, a portrait of an Irish family living in London. It was heart-warming, anecdotal and quite honestly it made me think so much of my own family. Not just because they were from Longford and reading the Longford Leader, which once reported my own parents marriage- completely inaccurately! This book is a real page turner and I quite literally couldn't bare to put it down. I'd thoroughly recommend it to anyone. It depicts family exactly as I think it should be, a hub of loving intrusion and jest, both in spite and because of each member's imperfections as well as their strengths. 

"The definition of a page-turner really aught to be that this page is so good, you can't bear to leave it behind, but then the next page is there and it might be just as amazing as this one."
-John Burnside

As you know, at Christmas I got a Kindle. This was a very practical decision, supported by two very simple reasons. 

1. Books are very expensive here, especially foreign ones.
2. I have my luggage allowance to think of, and lots of books would certainly weigh me down.

As much as I enjoy playing with my new toy and the delights of finding literary freebies, it was wonderful to have a real book in my hands again. A real page turner, complete with pages to turn!

Having devoured this treat so quickly I have now returned to my new found technological ways and you could say I'm even being conscientious by having started North and South, by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. This is one of the set texts for 'The English Nineteenth Century Novel', a module I hope to take next year at Warwick. I'm really enjoying it. I can't help but wonder if people really were as eloquent as characters in these old novels though. Margaret Hale, the protagonist, speaks so poetically as she describes her old rural home to her new friends in the North that I wonder have we forgotten the power of poetry, simply become too lazy to fully describe all that we perceive, or rather have become sadly unaware of the beauty and the music in the world around us? 

I'm just a quarter of the way through now- thank you Kindle and your handy little percentage bar- and am really enjoying this read. I hope the rest of the books on this reading list treat me as kindly.

Also, yes... I have seen a BBC adaptation of this tale. And no, it doesn't hurt to imagine the dashing Richard Armitage as the leading man, John Thornton. Do you judge me, fellow Literature students? 

I'm going to stop now as I have a book to be getting back to...

p.s. If you like the sound of either of these books, here are the links to them on the Waterstones website.

• Me and Mine, Anna May Mangan,  http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/anna+may+mangan/me+and+mine/7441649/
• North and South, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell,  http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/elizabeth+cleghorn+gaskell/north+and+south/8585681/

Dancing in the street.

"Callin' out around the world, are you ready for a brand new beat?
Summer's here and the time is right for dancin' in the street."
-Martha & the Vandella's.


May Day. A cheeky bank holiday to celebrate in the spring time. We all know it's steeped in tradition; such as white dresses, dancing around a May pole, etc etc and yet all it really means to most Brits today is a long weekend and a week without that Monday feeling.


In Italy, Primo Maggio (1st May) is still a holiday -yay!- but apparently is a much bigger deal. Also known as Festa dei lavoratori (Workers' Day) it its actually celebrated on 1st May, and not the nearest Monday. This means that on Tuesday, next to nobody was at work and there was a great deal of fun to be had.


Here in Rome the occasion is marked by a huge concert in front of San Giovanni. It was so surreal to see a massive stage rigged in front of one of the city's most imposing basilicas. The streets were packed from early afternoon through to midnight and the atmosphere was really relaxed and lots of fun.

I spent the afternoon on the rooftop terrace of a friend, living very nearby, where we had a barbeque. After a showering of rain earlier in the day we feared this plan may yet go awry but in the end we were very fortunate and enjoyed a wonderful afternoon.

After watching the sun set, which was even more stunning with that view, we headed back down to the piazza to enjoy the concert and the atmosphere. Most memorable May Day by far. Grazie Roma!

That's all for now- so much shorter than my last post!

p.s. We dip-dyed Rosa's hair. We're proud of the results!
p.p.s. Anna has a really annoying habit of looking cool in photos!