A quiet day. Everyone slept in until 8-ish, then Nick walked the mountain route to Minori and back for exercise, while I did Chi Kung. We were both pretty hot and sweaty by the end of our endeavours so were happy to spend ages in the pool with the kids. It is amazing how much progress Katie and Dash have made swimming every day. The pool closes at 1330 (presumably so that the staff can have a siesta or maybe just lunch), so back to the room where the kids watched their tablet computer for a bit and Nick and I had naps. It’s a hard life! Katie and Dash really wanted to eat out tonight so we are doing so in shifts – Nick is currently out at a restaurant with K & D while I mind Jack. When Nick gets home I might go out, though if he has remembered to bring beer, I will probably just have Parma ham and bread and a nice cold beer!

Today is the anniversary of my mother’s death and, in the normal run of things, would be the occasion of my annual trip to church. However, although, having been brought up a Presbyterian, I can pretty much bluff my way through a CofE service, a Catholic service in Italian felt like a bridge too far – I just wasn’t sufficiently confident of not messing up in a way that would offend the locals.

Level 2 Chi Kung. Microcosmic orbit. Egg and anchovies on toast for breakfast – yum. Herculaneum! Not as mind-blowing as Pompeii but smaller, almost empty, and much more manageable with the children. We had timed our visit for late afternoon/evening which helped, but it was still so hot that sweat was trickling down our faces like tears. Arrived home about 9pm absolutely starving, so it was good that there was large quantity of risotto leftover from last night which I quickly fashioned into (very) rough and ready arancini which we ate with a bit of salad and (in my case) a large glass of prosecco. Yesterday I was really cursing my decision to make risotto. At home I always make the Ligurian version, which is baked in the oven like a rice pudding, but here there is no lidded oven dish so I made it on the stove top – I had completely forgotten what a pain it is to do that 20 minutes of constant stirring! And worse in an unsuitable pot with only a pasta spoon to stir with! But hey, it really filled a gap when we were all tired and hungry tonight so it was worth it in the end.

Thinking of my old friend Nick Evans today when I made soft-boiled egg and anchovy on toast for breakfast – so yummy. And so stuffed with yummy breakfast that it was a couple of hours before I felt like doing Chi Kung (I normally do it BEFORE eating anything). Fortunately (?) there was a couple of hours worth of dish washing, tidying and organising of children needing to be done so I made myself useful – though at a very relaxed pace as it was even hotter today. Level 2 Chi Kung (hands definitely on floor – fingers though, rather than palms). Lunch at the restaurant with the fabulous gelato: Parma ham and perfectly ripe melon – a dish I could happily eat every day. Too hot to eat much, though (sadly for waistline) just the right temperature for gelato – mint choc – utterly, indescribably wonderful. Took Katie swimming in the hotel pool – I would have preferred the sea but she had already been to the beach with Nick while I did Chi Kung and she was, for some reason, determined that I should ‘try’ the pool. Parents will no doubt recognise the boredom of supervising young children in swimming pools for long periods. I entertained myself by carrying out the only aqua-aerobics exercise I can recall from a single class with Susan Laborde and some very toned-looking septuagenarian French ladies in Salies, many, many years ago – a manoeuvre involving walking backwards in the water with flat feet and clenched cheeks. I recall that, the day after the class, I ached in places in which I hadn’t previously been aware that there were muscles. Watch this space…

Fully into the holiday spirit now. Took Dash and Katie for a swim first thing – the beach was, if not deserted, then certainly much less crowded. By the time we left around 1030 it was packed. Most of the other bathers seem to be Italian. At one point, a man bumped into Katie, patted her on the head and then looked around to check for a parent. I wasn’t particularly close by – I was in the water with Dash, she was playing in the sand – there were at least 20 adults closer, so I was slightly surprised when he spotted me immediately. Then I looked around and realised that Kate, Dash and I were the only three people on the beach with pale skin and blond-ish hair! When I think that, of my children’s great grandmothers, one was part-Maori and another Anglo-Indian, it is astonishing how very white they are. Those Viking genes have obviously run roughshod over the rest.

Level 2 Chi Kung. Microcosmic orbit. Jade egg practice.

After a full-on day yesterday, we were aiming for a cruisy day today with Nick and I (separately) taking longish naps, while the children remained worrying lively throughout. The sticky heat of high humidity is not as appealing to me as the dry heat of Crete but Maiori is lovely, the sea is warm and our apartment is very clean and reasonably well equipped.

After essential shopping (milk, butter, juice etc) Nick took the children to the hotel pool in the middle of the day while I had a nap and, in the late afternoon, I took them to the beach while he had a nap. At the risk of sounding like Richard Bolstad, who appeared to be pleasantly surprised that it was easy to obtain decent espresso in ROME :-), I can report that, on the way back from the beach, the children and I ate the kind of gelato of which dreams are made!

Maddy starts as she means to go on by bouncing on the trampoline before work! Level 2 Chi Kung. Microcosmic orbit. Took a moment to think about Charlie, my parents’ beloved companion animal, who took his last trip to the vet while I was in Crete, and feel grateful to Marg Matheson who has looked after Charlie since Dad died 6 years ago. As Ann Eade said, ‘sometimes we have no choice but to watch the people we love suffer when they would rather go, but with our beloved pets, we have a choice’. I won’t say RIP Charlie, as, dogs having nothing to atone for, I expect he has already trotted off to his next incarnation.

Level 2 Chi Kung. Microcosmic orbit. Got a pedicure. Jade egg practice.

I woke up smiling this morning, after dreaming that I was sitting at my desk doing Connirae Andreas’ new Wholeness Process and experiencing total boundless bliss.

I am taking this as a sign that the unconscious mind is finally (finally!) happy with the way the conscious mind is running things. So, all I had to do was … leave my job, get loads of exercise, spend a week in Crete, and do Chi Kung (until my tendons ache) and Jade Egg every day. Simple really …

Bought sandals for Jack, track shoes for Dash and a small half-price toaster for travel – it’s a tough universe out there and Jack needs to know where his next slice of toast and marmite is coming from. It was fortunate that I had brought 30 jars of the black stuff back from NZ prior to the earthquake so we had sufficient to last through marmageddon. Wandered home with the kids through more brilliant sunshine, and did a bit more packing before the beautiful Madalina arrived just in time for family movie. Maddy will be house and dog sitting while we are away – a real win-win as she is living in a shared flat with no garden at the moment and is looking forward to having a whole house and garden to herself – and she has wanted a dog since childhood and never had one. Sherlock liked her immediately and I’m sure he will be much more at ease in his own home than boarding. Family movie tonight was Frozen (again). I wasn’t expecting to like, much less approve of, Frozen – after all it is a Disney film about princesses – but I have to admit to being grudgingly impressed. The imperilled Princess Anna is told that she can be saved only by an act of true love – and assumes, as does the audience, that this means a snog from the greasy Prince Hans. But, betrayed by Hans, Anna saves HERSELF by an act of heroism, not in aid of some undeserving guy (a la The Little Mermaid) but to defend her sister. Whatever Disney paid for Pixar, they got a bargain – and Frozen has John Lasseter’s fingerprints all over it.

A day of such beautiful weather that even a walk to the local shops is a treat: bright sunshine, a warm breeze, clear blue skies with just sufficient fluffy white clouds to make a good photograph. It was Nick’s day to go cycling out into the countryside but the rest of us had a lazy start to the day with Katie coming to snuggle in bed with me and asking for stories about when the children were younger – I have a stock of these and the children never seem to tire of hearing them. This segued into looking at old photos on the computer for another hour or so. Finally went downstairs and made everyone their choice of breakfast about 10 am, then negotiated an hour without interruptions and went back upstairs to do Level 2 Chi Kung – Body and Mind Method and the microcosmic orbit. Very satisfying progress today and afterwards I managed to teach Katie how to stand on one foot (which I had noticed her struggling with when she was trying to copy me doing chi kung a few days ago). I’m aware that, for most people, balance is associated with the ears, but for me it is definitely visual. And, as I’m guessing that Katie probably has my extra-wiggly ear canals, I thought balancing visually might work for her too. It certainly did – she spent much of the rest of the day casually standing on one leg like a stork! After Nick got home (flushed with triumph after achieving a very good time on one part of the route (in the top ten of some league table of networked cyclists) we took the children to the local shops and got shorts for Jack and Dash and new bathing suits for Jack and Katie. As sometimes happens, it was cheaper to buy designer shorts on half price sale than to buy normal shorts at normal price – so the boys will be swanning around Italy in designer shorts this summer! We’ve just got to get new sandals for Jack and then we’ll be sorted. When we got home Katie was desperate to try out her new swimsuit so I took a book, some nice blue cheese, and a glass of wine down to supervise her in the pool. Later I finished all the children’s packing while Nick put the finishing touches to the automatic watering – it feels weird to be organised this far in advance, but I could definitely get used to it!

A cruisy day. Level 2 Chi Kung Body and Mind Method. Microcosmic orbit. Jade egg practice. All good. Booked some theatre tickets, sat on the swing seat with Katie and did cloud-gazing (one of her favourite pastimes) and starting packing the children’s clothes for Italy. We don’t normally start packing until about midnight the night before we leave but this time I decided that it would be a pleasant change to be organised. Plus the children have all been growing so fast (must be all that good compost I spread around their feet) that I thought it might be prudent to check what still fits them while we still have a little time to shop before we leave. Nick has been busy sorting out the automatic watering to keep all the newly-planted stuff going while we are away. Tomorrow we are going to buy a small, lightweight toaster to take with us. Toast is essential to Jack’s happiness and we haven’t forgotten the struggle to obtain it on our last trip to Naples!