Planes, Trains and Friggin Automobiles

It has been a week since my parents left and only now have I finally felt it possible to write about their stay with us. Ok, so you may think that I am being overly dramatic, that I should just suck it in, deal with it and just get on with life. However, in all honesty saying goodbye to my parents at the airport was not only the strangest experience ever for me, it was really difficult. I am a family person, I love my family and they annoy the hell out of me at the same time, but I would never be with out them so saying goodbye to them was extremely hard for me. Anyhoo, I think I can now type without getting all teary, but I am not 100% sure this is really the case.

I was so nervous before they arrived; I constantly thought that I would disappoint them somehow. I thought that when they got here they would finally see what a flim flam I am, how little I have actually achieved in my life and I was worried they would see the desperation in my eyes. Maybe they did, but they never said anything to me. Not in an overt way anyway, but I am sure they did, I have always found it hard to hide my real emotions.

At Glasgow airport we were the only 4 people in the entire airport who ran to each other, embraced and cried tears of joy. I suppose everyone thought we were complete whack jobs, or they just thought “oh another bunch of ethnics” I can’t help it, I cry – deal with it! I have never had such an emotional holiday, 3 weeks of discovery is what I would call it. For 2 of those weeks we were in Italy and you can tell that you have been on a woggy, dago, garlic munching family holiday when 80% of your photos consist of images like this …. (ok all anonymity is going to go out the window here … oh well it was good while it lasted I suppose)

It isn’t a holiday it is a war of attrition I swear to God. If you come back from one of these holidays and haven’t put on weight then I want to know your secret. I don’t think I have eaten so much food in my entire life and the worst of it is that it tastes so damn good that you can’t help yourself. I felt like that character out of the Monty Python movie The Meaning of Life “oh come on it is only waver thin”. At one stage I thought I seriously was going to die from over eating, honestly.

I don’t know about you, and this is a massive generalisation I know but from our experience the difference between Anglos and Italians is that when you go to an Anglo house they ask if you want a cup of tea and a biscuit and instinctively we say “no thank you” and then for the next 3 days they never ask you again. It was just a reflex people! When you go to an Italian house, they ask you if you want a coffee and food and for the next 5 times you keep saying “no thank you” until you finally give in. Because you know that if you say yes straight away you will get 20 cups of coffee and 20 million bowls of pasta shovelled down your throat.

This trip to Italy was like flippin planes, trains and automobiles as we went from the top of Italy to the bottom and back up again .

We flew into Milan, Bergamo and in two weeks we travelled to Rome, Calabria, Orte and then back to Bergamo where our flight departed from. In those two weeks I have never been so sleep deprived and over fed in my life that it was insane. We stayed with my father’s cousin in Bergamo for a couple of days, caught the Eurostar to Rome where we stayed with my father’s niece for a couple of days. We then caught the bus all the way down to Civita, my father’s village in Calabria – stayed there for a couple of days, caught the bus up to Orte and stayed one night with my uncle. The worst thing we ever did was catch the sleeper train from Orte to Bergamo because I can tell you this it is a LIE – you don’t sleep, not at all. It has to be the noisiest train I have ever caught in my life, and I have a good mind to write to the Italian railway people and tell as much. We had a 4 person cabin, the G-man and myself on the top bunks and my pa and ma on the bottom bunks and the most amazing thing was that even though the train was noisy as all hell, we could still hear my pa’s snoring over the train ! How the hell is that possible, that is some supersonic snoring capability going on there.

I must admit, it was a great experience even though I am only now catching up on sleep. My pa took me around his village, showing all the places he used to work and where he used to live. It was really interesting; all these people would come up to him and say “Mario, do you remember me? I used to work with the goats with you” and my pa would say “take your glasses off I might remember” so they would take their glasses of and then he would say “nope don’t have a clue, who are you?”. You couldn’t walk around the village without being stopped and the stares from the crazy old people wooo weeee – the G-man, my ma and I started to get fed up and when asked by the locals “who are you” we would answer “we are people who are you?”

Anyway I am prattling on now, and I don’t want this to turn into one of those boring, un-intellectual, self absorbed blogs that get hammered for lacking any literary imagination and full of mundane drivel. Oh why oh why didn’t I mention Nietzsche or Foucault in this blog? Then I might have some credibility …. Sorry just being a bit of a shit stirrer.

I would post more photos, but I am not sure 50 million photos of us sat around the table with over flowing bowls of food would be all that interesting. Anyway I have shoved them all onto my Crackbook if you’re interested.

From an emotionally drained Sakura – laters peeps!

Moments like these

Last night, as the rain lashed against the window panes and we all watched crappy British TV I had a little ohhhhhhh moment. Tucked up in the corner of one of our couches was my dad sitting there in his jimmy jams telling me about how he plays online checkers nearly every night. Now I didn’t realise how into checkers he actually was until then. I knew he dabbled here and there, but as he sat there regaling to me how many games he has won, what level of expertise he was up to and how he was going for the online championship I saw a different side to my dad. Here is this 66 year old Italian Australian man telling me how to log on to the internet to play checkers with people from all over the world. He was telling me that you can chat to people, but not that much and you can not swear because you will get “booted off”. I asked him what he chatted to people about he said “oh not much I just type ‘good move’, ‘be right back’ or ‘are you still there’ you know just stuff like that and you know can write in abbreviated way because it doesn’t take up as much room?”. I thought this was really sweet, now he is talking about getting a mobile phone even though he is dead against them, causing brain cancer and all, but “you know they are very handy sometimes”.

He could never have imagined as a small child growing up in a tiny village in Calabria all those years ago, having to wear hand me down clothes, working from 3am in the morning to 6pm at night from the age of 4 that he would he playing online checkers and contemplating buying a mobile with blue tooth capabilities. I suppose a lot of immigrants have thought the exact same thing. It makes me feel that I really haven’t accomplished much in my life – I really should get cracking.

And another thing I never really realised how small he was, he always felt taller and bigger somehow, now he looks really small.

It was just a really sweet moment.

My Kryptonite

I haven't seen my parents for ages, roughly about 4 almost 5 years now, not because I don't want to see them, but just because I live in the UK and they live back home in Australia. Now for ages I was so excited about having them stay with us and don't get me wrong it has been fantastic having them here with us, but the G-man made a really interesting observation. He said to me one day "your father is your kryptonite". Now I thought about this for a long time and it is true, for some reason I feel compelled to impress and gain my father's approval even though I know deep down that I don't have to do this and he doesn't want this from me, but when I am around him I go from being Superwoman

to being a 5 year old girl with pigtails desperately trying to get approval. How strange is that?

However, I have learnt something during their stay and that is, I don't need their approval because dammit I am doing pretty good all things considered and that they love me and are very proud of both myself and my husband. During our Tour of Italy (which I will blog about later) I heard my dad telling people how well we are doing, and how proud he was of us etc. All the things I wish he had told me a long time ago. I guess I am lucky to have heard him say it anyway - god I love my parents to bits and they drive me insane but that is the best part.

I'm back

Oh my God, how fast do your holidays want to go? I'm back at work today HURRRAH, as you can tell I was not doing the happy dance this morning when the alarm went off. Spent the last 2 weeks travelling through Italy with my parents, but I am far too exhausted to blog about it right now, plus I am up to my armpits in paper work and millions of emails - YAWN. Just letting you know I am back and will post later when I am in a better frame of mind.

Laters beautifuls.

Oh Happy Days

Hi everyone,

Just to let you know that I won't be blogging for a while. My parents arrived from Australia on Monday - you should have seen the scene at the airport, what a bunch of emotional ethnics !! It was great actually and we love having them here, especially when I get home and dinner is already made and they have cleaned my bedroom up HA Score !

No really it is fantastic to have them here, haven't seen them in such a long time.

Anyway from next Monday I will be on 3 weeks leave YEEEHAAAAAAA and not able to post, but I will blog like crazy when I get back from holidays.

So from the little Sakura it is ciao for now and I hope you are all well and take care - smooches!

The sheep are staring at me

It has been a bit of a mental couple of weeks since last I posted and now I can take a deep breath, sit back and watch the black faced sheep that seem to be staring at me through my office window.



Let's do a recap shall we (cue wavey effect):

Wednesday 29th - On the way back from Glasgow after cracking my molar and getting it fixed the G-man and I had to assist at a car accident. Thankfully the driver wasn't injured, slid his van off the road and into a 4 meter ditch on the side of the road. He was shaken and obviously sore from the incident but other than that he was ok. We hung around in the drizzly rain until the police arrived and then carried on our journey home.


Friday 31st - Major fuck up at work, we had a major product recall big style. So I spent all day Friday following up customers who recieved our fresh food product on Thursday to advise them it was toxic and had to be disposed of. Obviously they were pissed off by this and saw it fit to take it out on me even though it was out of my control. It's a long story but basically the Government monitoring system fucked up and we were having to deal with it - just what you need on a Friday. However, we did have a bit of luck we managed to get all our furniture, couches, spare bed, dining room table and mattress Friday afternoon just in time for when my parents come over to visit from Australia (YAY!). My parents arrive next week and I haven't seen them for bloody years and as you may be able to tell I am ever so excited to see them again and the great bit is that I have managed to get uber long holidays to spend with them GO ME.


Saturday 1st - Went to a mates house and got absolutely shit faced. Oh it was great, drinking, eating take out and being surrounded by dope heads (meaning I didn't have to smoke anything to get a tiny bit stoned). Got home at 5am, it was obviously a good night because we had the crying, the laughing the political debate and the randy couple in the kitchen getting it off. A very well rounded evening I would say.


Monday 3rd - I had to follow up on the product recall and do an incident report for the company, again there was a lot of yelling at me by customers, but by this time I was numb with exhaustion. Although, had a funny incident with a government official - well actually his PA and looking back it wan't exactly funny but insulting, yes it was insultingly funny. Because of the whole broooo ha ha with the recall I had to call the Local Environmental Health Officer in the area where the toxins occured, got put through to his PA who is most obviously a very bright spark. She asked me who I was and where I was calling from and all the other shit they have to ask, however she forgot to put me on hold and I was on speaker phone. She yells out into the office "Got a phone call about the recall, some girl don't know what her name is but I think she's Australian" and then proceeds to make fun of my accent to the laughing crowd in the office. At this stage I am aghast and say into the phone "psssst I can actually hear you" - Phone line goes dead as she puts me on hold. Next thing the government official picks up the line, discusses my issue blah blah blah, at the end of the conversation I say "oh by the way tell the girl on the phone that she is a smart one because I am from Australia" to which the official replies "oh she is terribly embarrased and apologises for that". Yeah well it gave me a good story to tell when I got home and it did lighten up my day for a little bit amidst all the crap.


During all of this I had my good Ol' faithful - alcohol ahhhh bliss, is it wrong that I drink when I am stressed?

Aggro Weekend

This weekend has been really strange, a bad vibe going around and some serious aggro happening. I know why this is the case. It all started Friday around 5pm when all I did was email off a simple question and it started a barrage of bullying and arguments from the directors of the company. One simple little question and I was made to feel as though I had just asked "why is the sky blue?" Obviously I am so think that they needed to explain to me in child like language why we weren't going to send out a letter advising that we were intending to increase our prices, I thought it was just common courtesy to do so. How silly of me.

From that it also spiralled into a session of virtual mutual masturbation about how good they all are, how much smarter they are than Company X and how we shit all over them blah blah blah blah blah - this is when I start to revert to the "Whateva" and "Am I Bovvered" attitude which probably isn't the best way to be, but I was starting to feel sick with all the wanking going on.

Having feeling totally shitted off about this, I went home. Only to find that my husband had a meeting with his boss about pay rise, promotion etc. The outcome ... ... ... if you work over 100 hours by doing this and this and that a week we may think about giving you a pay rise, but you have to prove yourself. As you can imagine, he was not a happy bunny about this, as he already works 70 odd hours a week working his guts out and for what? This meant that Friday night we were not happy at all, so we had a couple of drinks and tootled off to Homebase (home and hardware store in the UK) to buy a few things and see if our order had been collected from another store. Guess what? It hadn't the manger forgot about it and has to go pick up this week - right it isn't like we are working to a tight fucking schedule here (my parents are coming to visit us - they arrive on the 10th of September we still have no sofa bed, no dining table - that is another story it has been on order for a month now).

So we thought, Fuck It! let's meet up with some mates and have a few - didn't really work because we were still bloody stressed and pissed off to enjoy ourselves - damn my brain never shutting off bastard of thing.

Saturday, we worked like crazy people ( I can say that as I am officially crazy) on the hallway, paining the skirting boards with the first coat and generally working our arses off all day to get the place looking decent. Amongst all this, there were arguments going on like you can't believe. The G-man and I were picking on each other for bloody well every little thing - was not a fun experience. The only laugh we had was when we stopped to watch The X-Factor.

Sunday got up nice and early, The G-man went off to work and I started work again on the place and general domestic stuff. It was nice, I was singing my lungs out (take that you little shit brat upstairs who thinks you can sing like Whitney at 3am in the morning) I know I can't sing but I just don't give a shit anymore little fucking brat.

The G-man gets back from work at about 2ish we decide to put the new curtain rods up in the lounge room, again arguments ensued and we were yelling and shouting at each other like a couple of banshees. After putting one curtain rod up, we were took fucked off to do anything else so we thought we would watch The Matrix: Reloaded - to chill out a bit. During the movie I got a bit peckish as you do, I thought shall I open those Maltesers or maybe I should have a bowl of muesli instead it is healthier. Went for the healthy option, and then after one mouthful CRACK! What the Fuck ! I cracked my back molar in fucking two didn't I. Oooooh yeah that's right take the fucking healthy option and that is what you get for your troubles stupid bitch bastard fucker bitch and more expletives. I should of just gone with the Maltesers, oh cruel irony!

So there I am panicking like a mother fucker, crying, in pain and stressed because the nearest dentist is fucking 2.5 hours away. Oh yeah, that's right you heard me, the local dentist in our area isn't taking new patients, even for emergencies - you son of a bitch.

I calmed down after a few stiff drinks and some ibuprofen, thought this is ok. I will call the dentist Monday and sort something out, it's ok. Went to sleep at about 10pm a reasonable hour I think considering we had to get up at 6:45am the next morning and then from 11pm onwards that little shit head upstairs was making noise all night / morning. I was so pissed off I was even imagining her being run over by a bus, is that a bad thing? I don't understand all day they are quiet as mice, on the weekend nothing not a peep and then during the week she decides to do the fucking vacuuming at 12pm, sing her lungs out, and make a fucking noise until her boyfriend comes home and then they sit up and talk until 6am and then I fall asleep and 20 seconds later the alarm goes off.

So as you can imagine I am in a really brilliant mood today, I mean really great mood. Tonight when I get home from work I plan to have a little chat with her, and if that doesn't work then I will call their landlord. I don't want to sound like a complaining old neighbour, I mean I don't care if she sings her lungs out during the day, runs about and whatever, but for fucks sake when it comes to normal sleeping time give me a break. Maybe I am being too harsh what do you think?