Still grey

Change of plans: my hairdresser is sick, so by default I'm embracing the grey. And I'm actually quite happy with that :)

The old grey mare

Time for a hair change. I've been avoiding the hairdresser because I couldn't decide whether to grow it or cut it, colour it or embrace the grey. To hell with it! Had it cut short on Tuesday, and am going in for colour today. But for a few days, this is what it looked like. All the blonde (the most recent colour) is gone - which gives you an idea of how long I've been dithering - the regrowth was (ahem) quite significant.

So now I know what my natural colour is. It's been something close to 20 years - mostly blonde (it was blonde to start with, but I kept lightening it as my natural blonde darkened), but with about three years of pink/purple/blue variations, and a few years a while back (perhaps 10 years ago) of bright orange followed by shades of darker brown. I attempted white blonde, but my hair has a lot of red in it, and it didn't stay pale for long without violet shampoo.

Thought about leaving the grey, but will delay that a little longer. In half an hour, it will change again ... Stay tuned!

August reading

Four Seasons in Rome [Anthony Doerr] - saw this in a bookshop and had to have it. A writer and his family (wife and 6 month old twin boys) head to Rome on a study grant, and this book follows their 12 month stay and discovery of the city. Loved it! Want to live it!

Fleshmarket Close [Ian Rankin] - borrowed from my mother. An Inspector Rebus murder mystery/crime novel. A lot of threads happening simultaneously - some fairly predictable, others with interesting twists.

The Final Judgement [Richard North Patterson] - bought from a fete, as part of a Readers Digest Select Editions book containing four edited novels. And therein lies the problem, I think. While they were easy enough to read, I was left with a vague sense of dissatisfaction, and I suspect it was because some detail of the original novels was edited out. None of them were the sort of books that I feel compelled to now read the original to compare, so I guess I'll never know for sure, but I probably won't bother with another of these compilations, even if it did only cost me 50c. This one was about a US judge caught up in a murder investigation/trial of a family member.

Icebound [Dean Koontz] - as above. A group of scientists isolated on an iceberg, split from the main mass by an earthquake/tsunami. And a hell of a lot of explosives set to go off in a very short time, right under them.

That Camden Summer [LaVyrle Spencer] - as above. 1916, and a divorced woman (the scandal!) comes back to her hometown with her three daughters and upsets the status quo. Things get nasty, but they all live happily ever after in the end (except the bad people, which is how it should be).

Wildfire [Susan Geason] - as above. This one was interesting as it was set (mostly) in Sydney, against a background of the 1994 bushfires. I was there, heard the news reports, saw the fires, breathed the smoke, and this novel brought that back very clearly.

July reading

The Eyre Affair [Jasper Fforde] - borrowed from the public library. More fabulousness from the twisty passages of Jasper Fforde's mind.

First Among Sequels [Jasper Fforde] - borrowed from the public library. As above :)

When in Rome [Ngaio Marsh] - passed on by a friend. A murder mystery set in Rome in the 1960s.

The World's Greatest Trials [Tim Healey] - from a fete bookstall.

The Terrace Times Minimum Effort Maximum Effect Cookbook: The Rocks Edition [Helen Arbib, Pauline Clements] - passed on by aunts-in-law. Anything with 'Minimum effort Maximum effect' in the title will get my attention! This is the second of the Terrace Times cookbooks, published in 1976, and it's full of old-fashioned recipes, delightful pen and ink sketches of the Rocks area of Sydney, and snippets of local history. I think my favourite line is in the introduction: "... we feel there are enough problems in the world without having to suffer in the kitchen as well ..."

Getting a feel for Venice

Lately, when I have a free moment, I've been reading about Venice. At this stage, I'm trying to get a feel for the city - without having been there! - and an idea of which area I might like to stay in. It's not a huge place - I've read that you could walk from one end to the other in 40 minutes - so location probably isn't crucial as far as being able to get around is concerned. As we'll be there for a week or two, it's not as if we have to cram everything into a couple of days, and long meandering walks sound like a great way to get to know it.

I think I would prefer to have a little distance from the Piazza San Marco and the Rialto Bridge - the immediate area that all the day trippers from the cruise ships flock to. Of course, we'll go to both those places, but I'd like to stay somewhere a little further out - perhaps Cannaregio?

La Bella Lingua

I read Dianne Hales' book, La Bella Lingua, some time after coming back from Europe, possibly around December last year, because I can't find it on my monthly reading lists that I've been keeping here since January. It's a fabulous book about the history of the Italian language - how it evolved into the expressive, evocative language it is today, alongside what eventually became the Italian nation.

My attention was drawn to it again today through a mention on a travel forum I frequent, and there was mention made of a connected website, so naturally I had to take a look. It's only been a brief visit so far, but I skipped over to her blog, and I love the way she's set it out, focussing on phrases relevant to a single subject in each post. Such a natural way to learn a language!

It's interesting, and makes a lot more sense than labouring over  the technicalities of a language, when all you really want to do is communicate. No matter how many Italian lessons I might take, and how word perfect I might become (hah!), I would never pass for a native Italian, and nor do I necessarily want to. But I do want to be able to visit and be able to talk to people, whether it's in a shop or with someone at the next table at dinner.

So I have bookmarked Dianne's blog, and will be a frequent visitor, as I count down the days to my next trip.

Early planning stages

In approximately 15 months I'm planning to head to Europe again, this time with the boy child (who will be 9 by then).


The Olympic Games (just in case you live on another planet) will be in London next year, and while the Games themselves will be over by the time we're heading to Europe, I'm not convinced there won't still be some knock-on effects (quite possibly in the form of higher prices!), so we're going to skip England this time.

Instead we'll head back to Paris, then to Venice, and back down to Rome again. At least, that's the broad plan at this stage. I was really pleased with how things worked out last year, so we'll be looking at the same sort of thing again - spending a week or two in each city, doing a lot of exploring on foot, and taking it at a kid's pace (although apparently there'll be less time spent on the carousels of Paris - the boy is less keen on them). We'll base ourselves in an apartment in each city, and maybe do a day trip or two, although I probably won't pre-book too much - we'll just wing it when we're there.

Definites:

• Up to the top of the Eiffel Tower again (the X-man has asked for this).
• Rides on the canals of Venice - perhaps on a gondola, or maybe just on the vaporetto.
• The Colosseum and the Forum in Rome.