Where Have You Been!!

Oh god! Sorry Sorry Sorry. Give me a kiss. Sorry. I've neglected the damn blog. And am now only stopping by -just flying by, barely getting out of the car, you understand, to say we're off to Venice right this minute and won't be writing anything for at least a week. But then! Oh boy! Watch out! You bet! Our keyboards will be aflame and loaded with poetry, insight, and clever tips for navigating the Lido. Oh well, I might come in for a quick Shiraz...you can tell me what to bring you. Lace?

Let me just say quick, before you get a word in edge-wise, that we're leaving from Liverpool where we no longer live at a 6 in the A.M. which is a very small number, but the plan is to go to bed at 7 and wake up at 3 all packed are rarin' to go and zoom down the M61 snick-snick through Halewood God Help Us, hop on the RyanAir 9602 and away we'll go into ether snoozing soundly for two blissful hours before alighting in Treviso, where no one ever goes, I don't know why.

We'll find our little apartmento by the Ponticello Rialto, fling our bags in its direction, leap into a vaporetto, and will be stomping around the islands of Venice's northern lagoon by 2.

The one thing looming in the offing like an Ottoman caique is that B has a cold in his chest and his ears and one of those sudden barking coughs. Venice in winter is not known as a sunny clime ( I anticipate something rather
opium-induced: gondolas slipping through a blue exhaust-like fog into
the ruins sort of thing, don't you?), and ch-ch-ch- chilly among the mud flats, so we may just hole up
in a cafe and eat artichokes (carciofi) and say things like, "Lei
voille un po piu de vino?" "Would you like a little (un po) piu (more)
vino?" and "Si, mia cara"

Right now, B is at work in the slurry and mud of Salford Quays, and the wind and sleet blasting in from Ireland with his
cough, which it makes it hard for him to sleep, but we are not complaining or attracting the attentions of a vindictive Fate,
because there is currently a wave of "Winter Vomiting Sickness", a
Norwalk virus, going 'round and the hospitals are clogged. So. We're
happy with the cough, thanks.