I'm sitting on the sofa thinking about what to write today, but it seems all the ideas I had during the weekend are now gone. Maybe 'cos I am pretty sleepy this morning. I went to bed at 2 in the morning last night, and pounding wind and rain woke me up at 5:15 AM. You should see the shadows under my eyes.

My sweetheart and I will go to our letting agency this afternoon, in order to discuss the unpleasant situations recently occurred (them entering our flat with a spare key without prior notice). Wish us luck, please, we'll need it! I feel differently about my home right now. It no longer feels like a safe place...

I'm so sorry this is happening now that my parents are here for a visit. I didn't want to drag them into our concerns. Anyway, I'm glad they are here for a few days! We had a lovely weekend…

(Edinburgh Caste)

(A close-up)

… and we are all off to Isle of Mull on Wednesday, and I'm sooo excited! Time for a huge cup of coffee now.

UPDATE: in the late afternoon we have been at our letting agency. We talked with the director and explained all the situation. We exposed our concerns and have been assured that it won't happen again. He accepted our request that any further access to our flat has got to occur in our presence, after we receive written notification. All the problems seem to be solved. Thanks for your comments, dear friends. Hope to visit your web-homes at some point tomorrow. TTFN!

Dear Scotland, one year has passed since we moved here from Italy, and I must say it's been interesting and a teeny bit surreal. I clearly remember the weeks preceding our departure. The excitement for our new adventure, but also a bit of nervousness.

My sweetheart and I have never experienced so much rainy and gray days in all our lives. You have no concept of proper seasons, but at least you have offered some amazing rainbows to us. You sure are gorgeous when the sun is shining on your green hills and colorful flowers (guess all this rain is good for something!) and charming castles! During these 12 months we have met remarkable people, gained a few kilos (eating a lot of Fish 'n' Chips and Potato Scones), listened to the guys on the streets playing the bag pipes, seen many hairy legs (there are a lot of men in kilts around) and fascinating places… goals for the next 12 months? Well, driving on the left side and watching a man tossing a caber (Highland Games), and seeing a bit more!

Tonight we will make a toast to you, dear Scotland, with a glass of Irn-bru and one of cider! Cheers!

Dear readers, if you didn't know us last year and you want to know how did we get here, just click on "blog archive" and scroll down to archive 2008. Thanks for stopping by! Until we blog again, big hugs and smiles your way!

They did it again! It's the third time that someone from our letting agency enters in our flat without asking or telling us first. They have a key that they can use only in case of emergency or after a written request. You can imagine how worried I was a few minutes ago to hear someone unlocking our front door! Grrrr... now I don't feel very safe in my own home!

UPDATE: Zeno and I are a bit concerned about the experience we are having. We will read our rental contract very carefully this weekend, and will go to our letting agency on Monday. I will also try to contact A.R.L.A (Association of Residential Letting Agents) and the Citizens Advice Bureau. I do not think they have the right of coming and going as they please, without us knowing about it. Oh, since Darylynn and Jaana asked: the guy did ring the front door bell, but I was ready for a shower and I had to get dress in a hurry. Plus, after a few seconds, he was already using the agency key...

I think I'm going to moan about the weather more often, it seems someone was listening! We had a gorgeous blue sky for 3 days in a row.

I was planning to blog yesterday, but the day got away... I only added a bunch of photos of Glasgow and Ayr to our Photo Album.

New addition to the Family... No, not that kind...yet.

Meet "her", our new digital camera (macchina fotografica digitale): Pentax K-m. Might not be the best out there, but we're just amateur photographers and this is our first DSRL (digital single-lens reflex camera). We were a bit disappointed by the fact that here stores just sell what they have in stock and do not order the model that you are looking for, but we fell in love with this camera and decided to take it right away. These are two of our very first shots: a seagal...

...and a Grey Heron (airone cenerino).

Well, we will improve along the way. Hopefully!

A few of you asked how did we get the shot of the moon in our previous post. Well, mainly thanks to our new camera, some 50 attempts (each with different settings) and (most important) the aid of a pile of books placed on our windowsill instead of a proper tripod. Ah, the lens we used was a DA L 50-200 mm.

Thank you all for your nice comments and visits. Have a great evening. Later gators!

Wordless Sunday (photo taken right after midnight)...

Another rainy day here. Tonight, temps dropped down to 2°C/36°F, brrrr. The sunshine fought its way thru the angry clouds around 7 PM, but it's raining again now.

It seems like it's winter again. Around noon we checked on the internet the temps here and in other places. This is our shocking finding:
Paisley (Scotland) 6°C/43°F (but feels like 2°C 'cos of the wind), rain;
Stockholm (Sweden) 15°C/59°F, sun;
Trondheim (Norway) 14°C/57°F, fair.

Surfing the Net we have found the gorgeous site of Guido Daniele. He is an Italian artist that lives and works in Milan. He is an eclectic artist: photographer, commercial artist, painter. What really caught our attention was his body painting work. He is great at it, as you can see visiting his website HERE. The site is both in Italian and English. Just a little warning: there is some "nudity" (photography). His handimals (manimali) are marvelous, aren't they? The Toucan is our favorite, but they are all beautiful. We have also been amazed by his trompe l'oeil. If you are in Italy, you probably know him for his commercial of Müller yogurt.

Happy Mother's Day / Felice Festa della Mamma, to all of the Moms out there! Go hug your Mom now!

Welcome to busy-land. Grab a cup of coffee and a cookie, it's gonna be a long post.

We've been terrible bloggers lately, but we hope to get in the swing soon. It seems that HaloScan and Adobe PageMill (the program we use as an html editor) don't get along really well. Adobe PageMill does not recognize the HaloScan code so, every time we re-open a saved html file, all the code is messed up and we have to re-enter it. So, we are now trying to figure out what to do with our comments. We won't add them to every single entry, that's for sure, at least for now, until we decide to move to a different html editor.

The days are getting longer quickly. The sun rises at 5:22 AM and sets at 9:07 PM already, which is about as many hours of light one gets in Italy in the height of summer. There is just a wee difference: in Italy days are not obscured by rainclouds… the sun is out most of the time… and in May the average temperature is of 22°C / 72°F and not 15°C / 59°F, like here.

Just when we were beginning to enjoy the wee bit of sun around here, Mother Nature declared that winter was not yet left behind. It's been raining on and off (mostly on!) since Monday. Yesterday, we happened to see a very strange rainbow. It was very flat and large compared to what we usually see. But beautiful.

Spring is not that bad here, don't get us wrong. It's just different. You just have to keep in mind that you have to make the most of the sun 'cos you never know when it will be back. And we all need our Vitamin D, right?! We spent a lovely afternoon on Saturday at the Botanic Garden in Glasgow. Hearing the birds chirping outside and smelling the scent of spring flowers all around us was just heart lifting.

The latest news on inflation and unemployment are quite depressing, aren't they? Rimanere in mutande is an Italian expression that literally means "to be left in ones underwear" and it is used to stress the fact that someone has "lost everything".

Ok, better focus on positive things. Congratulations to Susan and her family! Her daughter Renee is expecting her second child. Congrats also to Sonia and her three adorable men for the new beautiful house in Montpellier.

Got to scoot now, our new toy is waiting for us.

We'll drop by for a visit to your blogs ASAP! See you soon-ish!

May 1st is Labor Day (or Workers' Day) for most of the world. In Italy, it is not just a workers holiday, but a day for political parties (mainly of the left wing) to hit the streets and protest their various causes. The atmosphere is usually festive, like one big street fair, however protests can sometimes get carried away and become a little too rowdy. Every year on this day the Unions of workers organize a big concert in one of the big squares of Rome, and many Italian singers perform live.

Here in the UK, May 1st is not an holiday. But today I've been at home, off work, since I cover the Italian line. Same thing for those who cover other parts of Europe. My British colleagues will be off on Monday the 4th instead, while my French, German and Italian colleagues will be working like me.

We had rain on and off all day. In the early afternoon the sun came out and the clouds cleared up a bit, so we decided to go out for a walk.

We took a few pictures. The trees were full of flowers in the past few weeks, but rain and wind have taken away most of them now. Streets and gardens are covered with petals. Just few flowers resist on some branches.

We got back home just in time to avoid a heavy shower. Then rain on and off again, but not a trace of any rainbow.