What a load of tripe...

Sitting in my hotel room looking at the Duomo in Florence and packing for my flight later today.  It is a wonderfully sunny warm day here and though there was a brief thunderstorm last night, it has blown through now and the city is still as stunning, and the air is a little fresher. I seriously love Florence, it isn't just a living museum with art and history everywhere, it is a living, working city and there is something interesting going on in every street and the smaller crowds of tourists this summer made it feel far more Italian and human and that was lovely, here are some pictures of Florence (River Arno, Duomo, Santa Croce, Room Mate Hotel Luca).

First let us get down to Tripe, something I never liked but my grandparents and many of their generation loved. It is big in Florence; people eat it as a snack, and it can be found in the high-end restaurants as well as cheap cafes. I ended up eating it by accident last week in a lovely Osteria near the Duomo. We ordered one thing that was not tripe and the kitchen delivered something else that was and before she had the lovely waitress had the chance to tell us, I had eaten most of it.  So, it turns out, Tripe mixed with Mascarpone and cooked inside raviolis is lovely. 

 

I did not spend all my 6 days in Florence this trip, I headed to the Tuscan coastal resort of Viareggio, which was not as I expected.  All the beach is managed by concessions who keep it clean but also charge upwards of E15 per day to access the beach.  The beach is exceptionally long and almost 99% of it is private beach, the public beach is a few square metres squashed up against the harbour wall and every inch of sand is covered. I decided to pay for a deckchair and umbrella in one of the concessions called Bengasi (they all have names, some like Poseidon, Apollo, Dolphin etc.)  My fellow tourists, almost all Italian were friendly and guarded by bag when I went to the concession bar etc, or when I went into the sea.  I can now see the value of taking plenty of water and snacks and renting a deckchair. 

I came back to London in the midst of Storm Francis and there is nothing like moving you to pray like landing in 50mph winds at City Airport. It was good to be on the ground again, but I would have happily stayed in Italy another 6 days.

In the past few weeks I have done a lot more reading (usually inspired by some recent tv viewing). I read 'Brave New World' (a total classic) and after watching the movie version of 'Brideshead Revisited' I have decided to read that book having skipped it at school and not even watching the classic ITV show in the 80s.

So, my redundancy happened on August 13^th (and who says 13 is unlucky ha ha) and I have been busy applying for jobs and even interviewing but thanks to being paid notice and unused leave etc. I can afford not to work for a few months and possibly get back to studying for my professional qualification (ICSA) that I had to put on hold as work did not allow time for.  I still feel bitter about how the redundancy was rushed through in a cloak of deceit and didn’t allow for a proper goodbye to my colleagues and within 2 weeks the ‘new’ role in my team (restructured of course) was being advertised on LinkedIn etc.  I am still unsure what is new about it, maybe someone at Nest knows.

"Be patient and tough; someday this pain will be useful to you." - Ovid

August 31^st, 2020