Well, the volcano has caused a mild amount of chaos for us - work-wise mainly, with shipments grounded, as well as people stranded, on holiday and at work. This week I have been on call and in demand almost constantly for a site audit in Finland, meaning that all normal work goes out of the window. My only solace (apart from constantly having that Monty Python song in my head "Finland Finland Finland, the place I'd quite like to be" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5gdx1c6xdo), is that those people causing the rumpus are now stranded in Finland. My colleagues who were there from Germany have taken a car to the coast, a ferry over to Germany, and then hire car again to get back to near Frankfurt - fairly easy for them. However, our drugs stuck in the UK that we have worked very hard to get ready for our patients all over the world are now stranded in various European destinations which is a nightmare!
This weekend was cycling down at Marina di Alberese - a sort of flat (yay!) umbrella pined park, on the coast, with horned cows, green fields, some sort of white egrets, and the odd Hoopoe or two. Lovely cycle ride, Dawn giving her bike a good road test, afer I'd fitted her very expensive handlebar extender on to it, and my trusty Claude Butler mountain bike, just about staying in one piece despite all it has been through. We cycled the nice cycle paths and into Alberese for some food - a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere - and chose what we were eating, had it all sorted when I realised that I had forgotten my wallet. The guy though, bless him, told us to pay later, which we did after we had cycled back, Dawn had fallen in a bush, and we were driving home. As I've said previously, so far, the Italians have been overwhelmingly nice, by and by.
As we were cycling along, in the lovely sun (approx 21C I would guess) there were a lot of cracks in the cyclepath and kamikaze lizards kept jumping out of them and doing their best to get themselves run over by us. Actually, they were rubbish kamikaze lizards as none of them got squished but it always seemed so close. Lizards are everywhere - but I don't think I will get used to them - funny little things! These ones in the Maremma were two coloured - green bodies and blending into an orange tail. Some of them had tails missing of course :)
Dawn has been given a new car, courtesy of the company. Well, she gets one for a month, then another until the end of the year, and then next year she gets to choose. It's quite a nice perk, but the car that we have now is just odd. Super Italian - I think it's called a Lancia Mura - although I'm not sure. It looks like it's a small car, but is actually quite large but has these tiny tiny wheels. And some gerbils under the bonnet. Actually the gerbils are quite good. The most frustrating thing is the foot space. I can't get my foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal without taking my foot right back and around and then on to it - it is the smallest foot pedal cavity that I have ever seen!
Since buying a Concept II rowing ergometer (vogatore) a couple of weeks ago, I am trying to get myself back into shape. Since I have been here, I have had several good weeks on the training front, but no great weeks, and certainly no good 2 weeks, but I hope to change now. Had an excellent week of training last week - cycled in 3 times, went to the gym 5 times, cycled on the weekend and 90 minutes on the ergo last week. Hopefully, I am turning the corner on the grassottello (chubby!) front, but it will take a lot of work, as I had managed to let things slip, well not slip, tumble, slide, erupt, into a very state of decay. But, I am happy that if I can keep the consistency of training it will be fine, and considering how much work I have last week, and that I managed to train well, I am buoyant that I am moving in the right direction.
Saturday night was RockBand night at Rob's. Great fun after a long time away. Well, not only RockBand but Guitar Hero too. Great stuff. Played "Run to the Hills" by Iron Maiden over and over again. Fantastico.
On Tuesday this week, the expat society, well really our Italian teacher and HR, took us on a tour of Monte dei Paschi di Siena. This is the oldest bank in the world, having been established in 1472 (although the ledgers say 1471 since at that time, Siena was still using the old calender that didn't recognise a new year until the 25th March). This was amazing, the bank is well known (although I had never heard of it) and is the other big employer in Siena, plus it owns huge amounts of land and buildings, and does give quite a lot back, charity donations, sponsorship etc. The HQ is in a nice square - Palazzo Salimbeni, but it really is surprising what lies behind the doors. It really is very innocuous for a huge banking powerhouse to be HQed there. We had a wonderful tour given by dottore Tasso (Doctor Badger!!!!) who had an equally wonderful white moustache. The bank was originally the home of the Salimbelli family, but really is now part of, and at times, the guardian of Siena. The bank has many amazing works of art, including pictures of the palio in times before the spaniards came in and cut down all the 80 towers in the city, and when it was more of a bull thing than a horse thing. Of course, most of the history focuses on the many battles between Siena and Florence over the years, largely the Florentines won them all, except for one big battle, 7 centuries ago. There are ledgers from every year in the museum, great leather bound works detailing all the accounts, and also the first piece of paper detailing the establishment of the bank, and also the world's first ever traveller's cheque, from around 1660! The finale was the family tower, with the best views all over Siena, better than the tower in the Plaza di Campo in my opinion, as you can see all directions at once. One of the viewing galleries was quite funny. The artist who was commissioned to paint the walls and ceilings, decided to paint well known Siena prostitues and drunks on the walls in positions of authority rather than the usual expected people -family people, bank people, Dante etc. We were very lucky to get a tour of the bank, very few people get such a privilege and I certainly found it amazing.
Right, week 2 of being fit, fingers crossed - incrociamo le dita!
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