What has changed in the land of fog?

Did you know the name Novara (aka where I live) is derived from some crazy Roman name (which I forget) which means the land surrounded by mist? I'm starting to see why.

I LOVE autumn, with a serious passion! I love misty evenings, the wonderful earthy smells and the colours of the leaves as they turn and fall.

I hate how the condo heating is not turned on until the 15th of October... as per the law. It's too damp outside for washing to dry and it's too cold inside for the washing to dry. What a nightmare!

Ok, I am very aware of how terribly dull this makes me seem... worried about washing of all things ;) So to make myself seem uber trendy, I'll tell you about how we tried a new cafe for breakfast, the cake was ok, the coffee was ok, but nothing special, so we went to our favourite 'Gambero Rosso' for another coffee to make up for it and then explored some hidden alleyways before getting some sushi for lunch.

Considering we've been home for over an hour, we really haven't gotten much done on our huge 'to-do' list for the weekend :( I can't wait to have all the furniture bought and placed and all the boxes to be emptied and put into the garage so I can start to share pics of our place with you all!

Hopefully by the end of the month that will have happened... but don't hold your breath ;)

Itchy finger

Yep, I've been spending! I looked at my accounts and decided to spalsh out on what I consider my last kawaii stationery haul, of this year (at least). I've got my eye on a few boxes of Cavallini stickers, so I won't say it's my last stationery haul of the year, but I may ask for the stickers for my bday or xmas, so maybe it will be??

I also bought some vintage playing cards on etsy this morning.

The bf and I both LOVE vintage pin-up girls and had some ideas for wall art, but sadly what we want either doesn't exist or it's just VERY hard to find. Four of the playing cards are vintage pin up themed and I plan to put them in a frame to probably go in our living room. They're pretty fantastic. Unfortuantely the seller only had those four, but said she;s always on the look out for more, so I've put in a request for her to let me know if she gets any because I'd love to snap them up and make a collection. The other 6 cards have funky mexican style designs on them, which I'm planing to use in the kitchen.

My idea of the perfect kitchen is sleek and modern meets mexican kitsch. It's hard to describe, but imagine bright colours, yellows, reds, blues, oranges, greens and pinks, beautiful pieces on display, candles and/or fairy lights, but with our stainless steel modern appliances. It sounds pretty hideous to someone who can't see into my mind and sadly we're unlikely to achieve it in this kitchen BUT when we actually own a place, I'm going to go wild and do it exactly as I want it!

Our plans for our current kitchen are pretty basic at the moment and only stretch as far as yellow on the walls and some shelves we've picked (but not purchased) for above the sink.

But we'll get there. Eventually :)

To-do List

Things to do today?

• Go to the Municipio and get our residency papers and maybe bus pass photocards
• Check out some paint shops and see if we find any we like
• Check out some sofa shops and see if we find any we like

Sounds simple enough right?

Then you've obviously never experienced an Italian queue... or the mayhem of a Saturday morning when everyone who works finally gets a chance to do their necessary paperwork.

At least Sunday might be lazy? Oh wait we have to move our stuff from Cameri :\

I hope you all have a buon weekend! xx

Progress/sleeping badly

This is me hiding behind my second coffee of the morning and all I want to do is go back to sleep. I slept really badly last night, it was humid, too warm, I was scared of mosquitoes, so tried desperately to stay covered, which added to my warmth and I couldn't get comfortable all night.

Why did I sleep so badly? Because we spent the previous night at the new flat, or the new sound as we like to call it (Mighty Boosh anyone?).

Our first night in the new flat was great, we bought a bigger table for our kitchen because the small breakfast table we used in brighton was perfect for that long, narrow kitchen, but in the new flat, it just created a huge wasted space in the middle of the room. So we got a 4 person table and it fits perfectly, it uses the space well, it is bigger which is always a plus for what I think of as Italian dining, i.e. put everything on the table and help yourself, as opposed to English dining where everything is served onto plates in the kitchen and the plates are brought to the table, and yeah, it looks good.

Seeing as our electricity is still not connected, the bf bought a selection of cold goods from the supermercato, ham, crackers, insalata Russa, fritatta, focaccia and we had ourselves a little feast.

complete with screwdriver from making the table.

The light is poor because as the sun set, we kicked ourselves for not picking up some candles, but it added to the romantic nature of our first night there.

We finally slept in a real bed. Not just any bed, but a bed with a HUGE matress, bigger than our old one, which is firm and soft at the same time. I slept like a baby and enjoyed a nap after the bf had gone to work in the morning. Bliss. This is why I slept so badly in Cameri last night. The crappy mattress, the poor, unsupportive bedframe, yuk, it's done me no favours :(

Our order from UniEuro was delivered yesterday, so we now have a dishwasher, cooker, fridge and washing machine (courtesy of the bf's Dad, Mr.C), but still no gas or electricity :\ I jigged our kitchen around a little bit and I can't wait for the worktops to be fitted this weekend. It's finally starting to look like a home. Well, the kitchen is at least ;)

A Tour of the empty apartment.

The living room from the kitchen door


The Living room from the balcony


Living room floor tiles.

Kitchen from the door (looking right)

The Kitchen from the balcony (looking right)

Master bedroom from the door (looking right)

Master bedroom from the balcony

Second bedrom from the door (looking left)

Second room from the balcony, plus built in storage

Bathroom from the window

Bathroom tiles.

Moving Part II

Unpacking the van wasn't so bad. I got my usual job of standing at the lift/elevator doors and taking all the boxes and whatnot from there to their respective rooms. Now that the boxes are in, it doesn't seem like much. This flat is much bigger than our last. That and we have next to no furniture.

The bf's parents have given us their old kitchen. When I say old, I mean they stopped using it last year when they moved, so it's not 'old', just old. We've put the cabinets where we want them, and the bf's dad put up wall cabinets in the kitchen and a couple in the bathroom. He also sorted out a couple of light fittings for us yesterday too. Bless him :) It's pretty handy because he has more tools than your average handy man. Seriously.

Yesterday we also ordered our 'white' goods, which are mostly grey, except for the lavatrice/washing machine. We're not sure when they will be delivered, possibly wednesday or thursday, but they said they will call the day before delivery. I'm excited to get the kitchen looking more like a kitchen :) At the moment we have a half-sized kitchen. It has a sink and draining board, an electric hob with only 2 plates, 3 drawers and 2 cupboards for storage and almost no worksurface space. The biggest space is wide enough for a kettle and that's what is there. A kettle. It's going to be a joy to cook in a real kitchen and have a real freezer and a decent sized fridge that works properly. YAY!

The plan for tomorrow is to call all utility companies to get everything turned on and get it in our names. Well, probably the bf's name. Seeing as he's back to work tomorrow (BOOO!) his Mum is driving over to help me sort that out. We may also try and get a worksurface for the kitchen and she may even coerce me into deciding on a sofa.

Slowly but surely things and shaping up :)

Moving

I've spent the past 9 days in London, helping out my mum, feeding the cat, enjoying the sun and packing. Why is it that packing always leaves me with horrid bruises on my forearms?

Just before we started to move things from our storage compartment in London, my bf suggested I take pictures of the process. He was half joking, but I wish I had now, I would have loved to show our amazing packing skills and would have made for a pretty boastful post.

But alas I did not.

The most important points in the moving/packing process went like this...

• fitting a 150cm wide matress into a 154cm wide van where the door space was only 147cm wide.
• Said mattress was too tall to stand up in the van, so we had to pack a bunch of boxes (which were rearranged by me twice to use the space most efficiently) and then lay the mattress ontop of them.
• Then realising we needed to fit more boxes in underneath we had to suspend the mattress as best we could from the ceiling of the van and slot more, very heavy boxes in underneath.
• This also involved propping said mattress up with shoulders and/or heads while manouvering/shoving boxes into any space available.
• We then had to squish the bedframe in between the mattress and the ceiling of the van. This was not easy either and involved 3 people pushing, pulling, squishing and swearing for at least 10 minutes until the miracle was performed.
• Me using the side door and previously redundant space to fit in any slimmer items like folding chairs and clothes drying racks, so the van looked like a twisted game of tetris crossed with a bizarre and difficult jigsaw puzzle.
• Realising we hadn't packed the breakfast table, tv, pc, shelves and tank for the snake and having to shove them in at the back willy nilly.
• THEN realising we still had 20 4-packs of baked beans and 4 bottles of sauce to shove in somewhere. These too got shoved in at the back wherever possible and led to almost crushed toes when opening the back doors of the van.
• A last minute scramble in the morning trying to pack the snake's tank in somewhere because it was too big for the spare seat at the front of the van.
• Accepting that we'd have to leave behind our amazing selection of cocktail liquors, my white boxes full of random crafting bits and a box randomly packed last september which just happened to contain my FAVOURITE mug.
• A final sigh of relief as the bf and his brother drove off to Dover to catch the ferry.

I am pretty proud of how much we managed to fit into that van. If either me or the bf had ever seen the inside of a renault trafic, I'm sure we would have pleaded for a master, but seeing as we got the van for free, we didn't complain too much. Although there was a LOT of swearing on Wednesday.

The tightly packed van is currently in France but shall be arriving in Italy this afternoon.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you how much I'm dreading unpacking the darn thing.

Hmmm...

There have been a few things going on here and there, but I keep forgetting to post about them. I photographed a freak occurence last Friday and I took step by step pictures of two home made meals from this past week, but my uploading skills seem to have escaped me and you've all been left in the dark :(

I promise I will update a little more now that our internet is back up and running properly.

Also, my bf's parents gifted us 6 bottles of red and 6 bottles of white wine *squeeee* I love free booze ;)

We're going to sign the tenancy agreement for our potentially new apartment in NOVARA tonight. I'm super excited and can't wait to get the keys and start decorating etc. But first the precautionary measure of putting down cockroach poison (I shan't be caught out again!) and then the move from London. We'll be in my hometown from the 3rd of August helping out my mum, packing up our stuff, seeing old friends and eventually moving all our crap back to Italy.

It will be awesome to have my bf off work, but BOOOO!!! to the amount of stuff we have to do. I was sincerely hoping for a nice relaxing holiday, of at least 3 days this year, but it seems very unlikely now :/

Oh well. Such is life. but YAY for new apartment joy :D

Hot and Humid

I'm terribly hot. It's terribly humid and so I'm terribly sticky.

I cannot wait to move. Apparently we should get the keys to our new apartment on the 29th of July. I'm counting down the days :D

I'm really looking forward to homemaking, the new place is unfurnished, we'll be picking up our stuff from the UK early in August, but there are other things we need to get hold of too. Like a kitchen. I'm hoping to buy a bed for the 2nd bedroom now so we can start moving our stuff from here and living there asap. It's too hot to sleep here.

Oh and it's flying ant season now. I've already been bitten by one this morning. On my foot, so it's flip flops for me until it goes away. Good job I brought some back with me eh?