Tuscany

I'm sat in a thick woolly cardigan in August. As you can assume, I am in England and it has been raining.

As such, I am missing Italy, where I've spent the past week with some of my favourite friends. The weather was very, very hot, and although there were enough mosquitos to eat me for dinner, the whole place was rather beautiful.

We stayed in this gorgeous old house, full of beams and stone steps, with grape vines and peach trees in the garden. The house was at the top of a hill, behind the bell tower, and was surrounded by mountains and the rest of the town. Which was essentially a village.

The week was spent trying not to faint or get burnt, whilst simultaneously seeing all of the cool things that were near us. We spent a day in Pisa being the cheesy tourists that climb the tower (and then nearly die climbing down the leaning marble steps), as well as visiting Florence for lots of ooohing and ahhhing over the ridiculously romantic city. I have decided that if I ever get proposed to, it should be there. And, if I ever need a sabbatical to write, it should be there. Or if anything else poetic is needed, it shall occur there. I really loved it, if you hadn't noticed. Full of statues, piazzas, sunshine and market type stalls and shops, it was a bit of a geek fest for someone that likes history and literature and italian. And by italian I am rather partial to italian food and funny words.

One of the girls made a rule at the start of the week, that we had to try one different type of gelato every day (this being the famous italian ice cream). Without hesitation, we all agreed this was essential holiday happenings, and embarked upon our challenge with gusto. This was made much easier with the aid of the local gelato man, who was about 20, and italian. He served us three types of ice cream, every day, for two euros. I think we might've eaten our body weight in ice cream.

And then there was pasta, and pizza, and barbecues, and Tiramisu.

Forget the body weight of ice cream, I fear we ate all of Italy.

Now that I'm back in the land of Olympics and rain however, I must face the fact that I move back to London in a week and must therefore attempt to get organised. This would be easier if I had a clue what I needed to do or how to accomplish it. Still, all things work out in the end,.

In the meantime, take a peek and get a little jealous... XO