24/12: We wish you all a Merry Christmas!

We wish you all Merry Christmas and a very happy 2011!

7/12: frosty memories...

This morning it was -8 degrees.
I go to work cycling and one of my finger was so frozen that I had several attempts before typing my password correctly!

Beside that, the view from my office window was great: frozen lake, white frosty trees... it brought me back a lot of memory from... few years ago, few jobs ago, few thousand of kilometres away: Finland!

9/10: Visiting Saffron Walden

I've been in Saffron Walden recently for a race and I noticed that it was unexpectedly different than Cambridgeshire: it is not flat, not at all!
(This is something that you end up noticing while running :-)

We decided to go back with all the family for a daily excursion and with a warm and supporting weather we had a really nice day out.

In the picture we were in a beautiful public garden.

1/10: starting a new job

Today is my first day at the new working place.
A new exciting adventure begins...

27/9: grape harvest

For the second time we did the grape harvest in our garden.

This time we had three plants making very sweet fruit: surely a good year!

17/9: last day at Airvana

After two years and two month, my staying at Airvana comes to an end.
It has been surely a challenging and interesting time.
A very good learning experience overall.

I wish to thank all my colleagues for the fantastic time I had.
Time to move forward now...

21/7 - 15/8: Vacation in Italy!

We had a long and great vacation time in Italy this summer.
We have been there together for three weeks and half.
We spent a lot of time in the seaside and many friends visited us, including a few that we didn't see for a long while...

Thanks to all of these who paid us a visit, especially these that had to travel... a lot!

This picture was take at Portonovo.


The following family picture was shut in occasion of our friends Giacomo & Lidia wedding.

1/7: Paolo is two!

Happy birthday Paolo!

5-6/6: Peak district

We concluded our tour by joining our friends at the Peak District, where they were camping.

We also visited Chatsworth House: a huge tenancy (where they filmed Pride and Prejudice) with amazing gardens.

There was also an older time dressing room that Agnese and Rachele enjoyed very much.... (not only them... even people looking at us!).

A fantastic vacation overall!

2/6 - 4/6: Lake District, central and north side

More pictures about our tour.
A dragon fly hunting is happening at Derwent Water, near Keswick.

At Seatoller we had a brief hiking. All of us in the picture (one of the rare occasions).

Buttermere was my favourite spot!

Ullswater was the latest lake we visited.

30/5 - 1/6: Lake District, South part

From 30th of May till 5th of June we had a family vacation.
As we did last year, we rented a camper van and travelled around.
Here are few sample pictures...

First stop in the Lake district was at the bottom of Windermere lake: Fell Foot Park.

AGNESE is Seven!
We celebrated Agnese's birthday in the camper van - as she wished for since long before...

Rachele had to help to prevent Paolo blowing to the candles...

Esthwaite Water was a fantastic and quite spot where to relax....

Here the girls were enjoying to do some art craft with flowers, while Paolo was testing their strength by breaking them.

Our van at High Cross passage.

A very 'steamy' steam engine train in Haverthwaite. We escaped a raining day by enjoying a tour with an older time train and visiting a beautiful aquarium. And yes, the train was remarkably similar to 'Thomas the engine'.

22/5: Inter wins the Champions League!

I still can't believe it: after 45 years Inter FC has won the Champions League: it is now the best team of Europe.
It comes in the same year when they won also Scudetto (league) and Coppa Italia (Italian cup).
I am totally satisfied about football... actually now it would make sense to stop following it.

On the while... let's celebrate!

18/5: Rachele is 5!

Happy birthday Rachele: she is 5 years old!

3/5: Impington Fun Run

As last year, we partecipated to Impington fun run.
Children run 1 Km, including Agnese, Rachele and their friends Sandra and Nicole.

25/4: Histon old vehicle parade

Every year there is a parade in Histon about old vehicle: not only amazing cars but even motorbikes, military vehicles and tractors.
Really interesting.

9/4: Visiting the Botanic Garden

A visit to the Botanic garden is a must, probably better one for every season.

In the picture, the warning to Rachele (*) came too late....




(*) the warning was: "Be careful not to get yourself wet!"

27/3: new gardening season

A new gardening season has started...

while we got rid of some conifers, something else appeared in the middle of the garden...

6/3: West Stow anglo-saxon village

With spring weather coming we decided to visit West Stow anglo-saxon village and museum.

The ruins of that site and these in general of the time, allow only to have a good guess about how they build villages, houses etc.

However it was quite shocking to see how they were willing to face the winter.

Apparently they use to take a bath only in summer seasons and during winter they cover their bodies with animal fat.

Rachele was impressed a lot and very interested especially in the museum.

Two days later she was playing about saxons... she found Paolo's vaseline cream, put all of it in her body, including hair, and she claim to be ready for the winter season!

24/2: The Pizza lesson

Agnese and her class went today for a special lesson:

the Pizza making lesson!

It was on a restaurant and kids were all excited about this, including Agnese obviously.

Only one snag: the restaurant was Pizza Hat!

Is this moral for an italian? ;-)

20/2: Festa di Carnevale

The italian children group "Girotondo" from Cambridge, organised - as happened for several years now - the 'Festa di Carnevale', which is typical in Italy for this time of the year.

Children get dressed with some character clothes (typically princesses in my house) and they have a party like that.

They dress what they fancy to be or become....

(Thinking about that, I never dressed as a computer programmer when I was a child!).

30/1: Agnese and Rachele first dance performance

Saturday 30th of January Agnese and Rachele had the first performance at Mumford Theatre, in Cambridge.

The dancing show was Pinocchio and they were both performing a role of a sea perl.

I could see only the general rehearsal, but it was a nice and well prepared show and - obviously - they were super happy.

8/01: House renovation - The End (almost)

The 8th of January we marked on the calendar the End of House Renovation works.

The last act was having the cavity wall insulation filling done, but at the beginning of the same week we had installed - the long time waited - wood burner (we replaced a gas fire place with it).

This technically marks the end of renovations, but only for these parts that require professional workers to do it.

In other words, we have plenty of decoration still to do...

our target is to end before the London Olympics!

(In the picture: Bob the builder is leaving...)