Don't you diss my anima

Sorry for the delay in posts but I have had my hands somewhat full over the last week or so. V went off to the UK to hang from trees....at least that was the plan, though wisely, they wouldn't let her.

I was left with the boys, Karri (my mate from Vancouver who I haven't seen in 5 years - check out her amazing restaurant at http://www.chambar.com/ - best restaurent in Vancouver!) and a couple of newly-weds enjoying their honeymoon.

I must admit, the couple of days before V left I was a little bit tense. Juts a wee bit. A tad snappy perhaps? Partly this was the injustice at being deserted, abandoned and left to fend for myself with all this work to do (despite the fact that I'm way ahead on the weekend away score sheet). Mostly it was fear. Fear that the boys would be unhappy, insecure, and consequently evil.

And don't get me wrong, it hasn't been an easy few days. Trying to keep up with a constant barrage of phone-calls and emails while being a full-time child-carer is no easy matter. Every time Sam went for a nap I would dash straight into the office and type feverishly for 2 hours. And after the boys were in bed it was back into the office for me.

I felt most badly for Karri. She's come all the way from Canada to see Tuscany (and us, I guess) and to get some down-time from her busy life and equally young family, and she's been stuck here with me and my brood. And the foul weather hasn't helped. Still, she's been bloody marvellous, keeping an eye on the boys when I needed to sort anything out, helping out around the kitchen...a real busman's holiday for her, poor petal.

Anyway, the long and short of it is, I loved it. We all got along brilliantly. Harv was the star of the show, being super-helpful and fun, spending loads of time with Sam, and just being an all-round superstar kid. Sam showed signs of stress early on but then really enjoyed spending time with his old man. We all got on like a house on fire, and I managed to keep enough of my work going to keep me happy.

More importantly, it made me realise what I've been missing. I have got to get a better grip of my work-load so that I can spend more time with the kids. It's all very well seeing them several times a day because we live and work in the same place, but it's not enough. I'll have to move more of my work so that I can do it on the PC in the house, and think of other ways to reschudule my work, even if it means working more at night. Whats the point of bringing our kids to grow up in such a fantastic place if I don't get to see any of it?

The next crisis

Last Thursday morning my main office PC started spitting nasty error messages at me, and while I tried to patch things up by rolling back the system but not luck. Things got suddenly very bad indeed, and it took me two days just to be able to get my data of the bloody machine. I then spent the next two days solid (well, as much of Sunday as V would let me use under these special emergencvy circumstances) rebuilding the machine from scratch. And here I am, finishing the blog I started over a week ago on the now-working machine.

It's amazing how much time techology can save, but if I add up all the hours of my life that I've wasted sorting out techology nightmares, I truly wonder if I'm ahead or heavily over-drawn.

Our first 2009 Patrignone dinner

Well, V and I haven't quite got our arses into gear yet because we nearly had 'a situation' on our hands on Saturday. Neither of us had properly checked my calendar and realised at midday that we had a meal to cook for our guests - all 8 of them. And to top things off, it was Independence Day on Saturday, with nearly everything finishing at 1! So I had the throw Sam in the car and dash around to three seperate towns lookig for a supermarket where I could get a few essential supplies, while V had the marigolds on and was cleanning Caminetto.

We had a few moments of pannic that had more to do with the shock of realising we were about to expose our cooking to our guests than the fear over ingrediants. Needless to say, it all went swimmingly. I tought my pork was over-done, but the pasta and cake were amazing, so V saved the day.

Anyway, just in case some other crisis takes over that prevents me from publishing this for another week, I'l press the button now, and check the spelling later!