Deb on the Web

Hungry?

Here are a few random photos from France Okay I hate to say it but this is all you're going to get today.  These two photos took over 20 minutes to load.  But I gotta tell you I ate the most wonderful sweets in France.  And cheese!  Those photos to come.

I promise we will have knitting photos soon too.  I have been knitting away on the "Leafling" sock.  I love the pattern and medium weight STR is really my favorite I'm just past the heel on these guys.  They are going fast!

Retraction

I got a call last night from the restaurant.  The sighting was wrong--no Patricia Clarkson. 

almost celebrity sighting

So I'm at the mountain today.  I called down to the restaurant to make sure they remember that a customer is coming in to do a photo shoot today (she is a model).  However, I have the whole thing wrong.  They are actually making a movie.  There were 50 people in the restaurant.  One of which was Patricia Clarkson!  I love her roles.  I will have to find out what actually is going on.  The customer had emailed us while we were gone asking permission for the shoot.  I just assumed she meant to take a few photos.  Pretty exciting that it is for a movie.

Easter

Here are a few photos of our Easter in France I had to start with the wedding cake (each of the cream puffs are held together with spun sugar--yum!  This is my brother-in-law and his bride at their surprise reception (we were all expecting a simple Easter dinner). 
her father changed the Easter theme into a large family reunion so all her relatives could meet her new husband and a few of his family too.
The kids had a blast with face paint!  One of the cousins did the catering.  There was even a dance party on the last day--yes, this lasted the whole weekend.  And they had to rent a hall for us all.
Here are some random photos It is traditional in the bride's family for each of them to sing a song.  The bride's family also sang to the couple.  Luckily we were spared.  I was so proud of my BIL he jumped right up there and launched into a Beatles tune.  The town of La Buel was darling.  And they even had yarn! I did not imbibe.

The color of France is bleu

I thought of this post a month ago as we stoled through various french towns and villages.  I fell in love with shutters and doors everywhere!
(the town of Moissac) (the blue sea in Bandol) (Provence)

Debby's (another) husband is again biking to raise money and awareness for Colitis/Chrohn's disease.  Head on over to make a donation!  There is a drawing for yarn....better hurry!

Alive and well

Yes, I am still among the living.  We arrived home yesterday.  Where have I been since the last post you ask?  In the lovely countryside of Northern Italy.  Alas, the friends we stayed with do not have an internet connection.  And I have really been missing it (I have 323 emails to go through right now)!
We are mostly well (at least able to stay on our feet and keep food down now).  It really is the pits to be sick while traveling.  I don't think I've ever been that sick in my life anyway.  Our Peidmonte friends all took very good care of us, but missing out on all the food and wine while you are in the area sucks!  I did work myself up to some good meals the last couple of days.  And on the bright side--I did not gain a ton of weight on this trip.
So to recap (although there will be lots of photos later)--Barcelona for 3 days/nights, the new french relatives for Easter, meeting up with one of our wine salesmen from Portland for 15 wineries in 6 days along the French countryside, Vinitaly for 5 days (the big Italian wine conference), sick in Tuscany for 5 days then on to the Ligurian coast for 3 days of the same, Peidmonte for 7 days/night with lots of friends and my inlaws for a few of those days.  It was 5 wonderful (and painful) weeks.  We learned so much about our French producers and saw more of that country than we have before!  And it was so wonderful to visit with italian friends as always.  A few of them are coming our way in June.  (For Gina--Gianni asked about you immediately!)
We will not be returning for the summer, however.  With the dollar where it is we just can't afford it.  We really want to take an immersion language course, but this just isn't the right year to do it.  And I have to say once we were home and settled in our rainy mountain cabin I was pretty darn content.  The grass is always greener...sometimes you just have to go put your toes in it for a while so you can come home and enjoy your own grass.
You will notice a lack of photos here.  I am planning on a few posts with specific themes of the trip.  Today I just wanted to assure you all that I'm back with a connection.  Amazing how we get attached to our electronics! 
But let's do talk a little knitting--being trip busy I didn't get nearly as much knit as I would have liked but I did finish one of my RCS socks and part of my first Spin sock.  On the way over I also knit up a couple of hats for the daughters of our Piedmonte hosts.  This yarn was dyed with their Barbera wine last summer.  Well, I know I took a photo but it seems to be lost in the multitudes.  I'll plug it in when I find it.
So I leave you with this single sock from the Rockin Sock club celebrating Chinese New Year--um okay, who stole my knitting photos!?!  I'll have to finish transferring from my camera and then try this again.

Listening to the sea

and on the mend in Sestri Levante.  I showed you photos of our beautiful see view yesterday.  We have been enjoying that view a lot as the doctor (they still make house calls here) has suggested we stay out of the wind.  A beautiful view, a good book (The Red Queen) and maybe just a little compari and soda.  This is vacation after all. 

And now at the coast

Since last I wrote we all have been deathly ill.  There we are in beautiful Tuscany with fabulous food to eat pecorino cheese, olives and bead sticks mmm panforte and grappa.  At this point there is a little coughing.  By the next day everyone is in bed with fevers and hacking coughs.  Three days later we decided to give the house up early and head to the coast for some hotel pampering.  How is this to raise the spirits?

on the road again

We are heading to siena today. Vinitaly kicked our butt (last day was 13 hours of great wines, people and some olive oils). We stayed last night in parma. One of our favorite small cities. Great artichoke flan with parmesan sauce. We'll be visiting some more wineries over the next two weeks, but on a more casual basis. The dollar is just painful here so I haven't been doing much shopping. But window shopping with photos hasbeen great. I will be inundating you with photos sometime-hopefully soon.

a moment

In san marco square. Birds flying, sitting at a cafe, listening to an orchestra, taking photos, watching people...wish you were all here.