Piedmont part 2

As I write this it's 2 weeks until we get on a plane home to the UK, home, normality, friends and family.

Claire with Virginia, Davide and Corrado at the opening of a wine pub

Since my last post we've spent our time immersed into life here in northern Italy whilst looking after the kids throughout the week. We haven't just been sat around either, we've visited quaint towns, festivals, museums, planetariums, exhibitions, waterparks, opening of a wine pub, birthday parties to name but just a few. We've spent a lot of time at the pool, a lot of time replacing the words to songs with "bum" (Corrado's favourite pastime) and we've spent a lot of time eating amazing homecooked Italian meals. All the while we've both been sorting jobs for our return as well as doing what we can to stay fit -  although having pasta every day makes that harder!

The pool at grandma's (nonna's) house

We've learnt about local history, local customs, local languages (yes they speak their own language here in piedmont alongside Italian, but it's dying out) to which I can say "I'm full", "you're crazy" and "shut up" in Piedmontese - all the basics!

I love some of the quirky things here; like the casualness, like the attitudes between the north and the south, like when it threatens to rain you can hear cannons thundering in many directions, that shoot gas balls into the air to attempt to break up any hail in the clouds as hail can be damaging to the very precious grape vines that are abundant here. The friendliness from people in the town and neighbouring city has also been a great experience as it's made it feel like a delightful world you hear of but never actually see with your own eyes.

I've also fallen in love with the sweet wines here, having not previously been a fan of white wine, I can now say that moscato d'asti is a new firm favourite of mine. Plus there have been so many speciality liquors that I've tried that I couldn't begin to remember them all!

We've had some great times here and have also met some great people other than the family that have been present throughout - such as Evanne, the American au pair that's staying with Virginia's sister in Canale. We've had some great chats with her at the pool and over beers. Her mum came to visit for over a week at one point too and we also met the au pair Virginia has had twice before as she visited with her boyfriend, so there's been lots of new faces and stories shared.

Claire playing war with Corrado

We've learnt some great tricks along the way to keep the kids entertained and also to keep them from bouncing off the walls - especially Corrado! - which I feel is all great stuff to have in the bank for when we one day have kids (which I can say with certainty won't be yet!).

The pizza party

Davide hard at work with Gianpieri "supervising"

Last Saturday in particular was quite special because Davide (the father who is due to open his own pizzeria at some point over the next year) put on a pizza party for us and a whole host of guests. Everything was made from scratch and made in a wood fired oven they had out in the courtyard. The pizza party lasted all evening and in total he made nearly 50 pizzas with more than half being consumed by only just over 20 people - of which the neighbours came out in force for it.

Funnier still was when the neighbour Gianpieri (a lovely old man) was supervising Davide and giving advice - which was funny giving that Davide was an absolute maestro at pizza making and certainly didn't need help!

One he made in particular blew me away - salsicce e gorgonzola (sausage and gorgonzola) and I was able to say that once again, the best pizza I've ever had has once again been surpassed!!
Also amazing was Davide's knowledge of what I said was my previous favourite, I simply mentioned the pizzeria in Naples that's been operating since 1870 and appeared in a film and he said "ah pizzeria Di Michele" - a true master of pizza indeed!

The wine really flowed throughout the night, with Gianpieri gracing us with bottles of Barolo from 1970 & 1965, to which we felt truly honoured! (I think the '65 was on the turn though personally....) and eventually we ate so much pizza that I told Virginia I didn't want to see another pizza for months. Lo and behold though, for breakfast we were offered a portion of sweet pizza with nutella and pear and it was too irresistible to ignore so I was straight back on the wagon again before heading out for a really long run.... before coming home to lunch and more pizza! Ah well, only a few more weeks so as Corrado taught me "cesina frega!" (who cares).

Nearing the end of our great adventure

So with just a couple of weeks left, our thoughts are shifting more and more towards home and what lays in store for us and our future, but it's also seen me take the chance to reminisce about the last 5 or so months of travelling; all the amazing things we've done and places we've been and it's really put things in perspective and shown me how much this has been everything I wanted it to be.

Of course I've had conflicting feelings too - sometimes feeling guilty about being homesick and feeling like I'm just going back to live the same life as before - but upon contemplation and "figuring it out for myself" I see that I have changed throughout these crazy, non stop 5 months and that even if I may not change too much about the way I live my life I will have a new perspective on things, new motivation and more appreciation for what I've got.  And these things are priceless to a persons soul.

Life in Piedmont

The welcome wagon

View from Santo Stefano Roero

We arrived into Asti on the train to be picked up by Virginia - who's family we were to be staying with for the summer - and we were both nervous as this was a whole new experience entirely, even if we had got to know Virginia from email and Skype conversations.

All of the nerves were melted away as soon as we met her though and before we knew it we were at the grandparents house meeting more of the family: grandparents, aunties, cousins, nephews etc! The grandparents is a real open house where people come and go at any time, food offered constantly, pool available for everyone and we instantly got the vibe how close the family were. It was a surreal introduction as Claire and I looked at each other with a look as if to say 'this is amazing!'.

At the same time we got our first introductions to the two kids we would be looking after: Adelaide who is 10 and Corrado who's about to turn 6. Corrado gave us a glimpse of what was to come with his introduction as he was running around chasing his cousins by the pool completely naked! As I was to find out, that was typical Corrado.

Adelaide and I at the local folk festival

Adelaide speaks fantastic English and is great to get on with, she also has the touch of theatrics about her which can make things very entertaining.

A good way to keep me quiet... and Corrado!

As for Corrado, he understands quite a bit of what you say but he barely speaks English. He's obsessed by all things army and he's such a bundle of energy. I know I was a bit of a terror as a kid and as such I see I have a few similarities with him - which Claire said she could also see when we were pulling faces at each other and running around the house playing war.

The first few days were a bit of a whirlwind as Virginia was off work to show us around the area, in which time we visited local towns, old castles, art exhibitions and more. We loved every minute of it, but the few seconds we had to sit down each day were welcome as we were so tired from it all!

They really like to keep busy here, which is great as although the towns are quite small, there always seems to be something going on at one of them nearby. The place has a plethora of interesting sights to see and historical facts that seem to be overlooked by all but these proud Piedmontese. We've both learnt so much about Italy's history since being here and there's still so much more to learn such as details of the Savoy dynasty, to the world famous local Barolo wines.

As for looking after the kids, we started off mainly looking after Adelaide as Corrado still had a couple of weeks of school left. During the days we would visit places, do some sketches, play outside etc and have a great time before often (weather permitting) heading to the grandparents "Nonna Chia's" for the afternoon to lark about in the pool where there'd often be cousins around too.

Soon afterwards, Corrado became a more permanent fixture in our full days, which did up the ante - considering there's two of us, we were still challenged! But we've improved over time and things are a lot easier when the sun's out as your entertainment options increase dramatically.

On one of our first weekends we took the chance to visit nearby Turin, which I will talk about in a later blog post as it'll be the first of a few trips...

Getting back to "fitness base zero"

We both felt that our diet hadn't been the best on our travels as sometimes a combination of options and budget mean you don't eat as well as you should, however this was being put back in place here as every meal we were eating felt like a culinary delight that was also a lot healthier than we'd had before! Even though Virginia didn't feel she is a master chef by any means, we loved her recipes nonetheless - from the pasta's to the mozzarella in carriages to the homemade pizzas.

My own "preseason" training!

This was all really good as I felt eating better was one part of my plan to get fit again - these months on the road have left me feeling lethargic and sloth-like, so having time to run regularly on quiet country roads was just the incentive I needed to put my training plan into action. A few weeks in and I'm already more energetic and feeling better about myself, but I've got a long way to go before I feel I'm anywhere near my old race standard.

The last 5 weeks of our adventure

So in all, it's been a fantastic few weeks in northern Italy, with plenty of great memories, meals and drinks that I'll never forget, my favourite of all so far being strawberries from the next door neighbour soaked in moscato d'asti - I nearly slipped into a pleasure coma.

As I write this we have about 5 weeks left until we return to the UK and on the one hand we are making sure that we are making the most of our remaining time here and on the other hand we are also preparing ourselves for our return home, to a whole new chapter with no defined path.

It's a weird and contradictive feeling to both look forward to going home and realising I should be savouring every last moment until then, but then again that's a big lesson I've already learnt - realising how much I like the UK after all: yes, the old "grass isn't always greener on the other side" saying, but sometimes you have to experience how that grass feels on your bare feet to fully learn that lesson.

Even stranger that talking to Virginia and Davide - who both lived in London for a while - they experienced exactly the same emotions on their travels and by the time they returned to Italy, they really felt like they appreciated once again their way of life - something that for some people, people who have that urge to travel, cannot get unless they see what else is out there in this big wide world of ours with their own eyes first.

In the meantime, we've 5 more weeks of shenanigans with the kids, amazing Italian foods and stunning scenery to enjoy, so ciao for now!