How about a year in Italy?: So far this Winter...

We have been spoilt with a very warm Winter by the sounds of things here. It did snow a couple of times and the boys have gone absolutely CRAAAZZZZYYY with it. If you imagine kids after half a litre of Coke, that kind of craziness is no comparison. The boys' walk into school had gone from 10 minutes of them running to school to about 25 minutes as they stopped to make snowballs, pick up snow, eat snow (not great when you know how many dogs there are in this town), throw snow, slip on snow...etc. It's a beautiful thing to see their joy, another to have them get to school with wet gloves in sub zero temps...yet another trip to our favorite sports clothing store Koodza, has them kitted out right though.

At the top of our street, it's as steep as it looks

View from Charlie's school

Walking to school after the first Biella snow, happy boys!!!

A word on Koodza. Shane and I continue to be amazed by how much cheaper things are over here. Koodza is one example. This store is a full sports clothing and equipment store, better than anything I have ever seen in Australia - think Kathmandu, Rebel Sport, A-Mart all in one and then slash the prices by at least 50%. That's Koodza. I have bought gym gear, hiking gear, Shane has bought riding gear, hiking gear, ski gear, kids have got ski gear, gym shoes, hiking shoes. It has become a bit like Ikea. We go in for 1 item and walk out with 20. DANGEROUS.

Pre Christmas saw a lot of activities with the school. Nice at the start, but by the 1st of December I was a bit over it. The school likes to build a strong sense of community, which is great. I attended a Mamme Laselliane information night (basically it was a lot of mothers and grandmothers with ties to the school, who organize fundraisers, the Christmas market etc. I didn't understand everything that went on that night, but found myself at the end forking out 30 euros to be part of the Mamme Laselliane and offering to help at the Christmas market. These women, generally speaking, are quite well off, this wasn't hard to see the first night - there was a massive over-indexation of Yves Saint Laurent and Gucci handbags. In preparation for the Christmas market at the school, we met every week and looked at what we could all make to sell, who knew someone who could donate something, preparing surprise bags for the children etc. I was envisaging something a bit like the Spensley Street Fete, so was suggesting pirate treasure boxes, and other things, only to discover that the 'mercatino di natale' is a room at the school where Christmas things are sold. It was very nice actually, and I could tell that they took their gift wrapping seriously, but this serious approach to presentation paid off, everything, no matter how small, looked beautiful. Be it a plain candle with cinnamon and cloves tied around it, or a thin slice of birch wood with small pinecones glued on top and bundled with others to make place settings for the Christmas table.

Most of my spare time was spent knitting blankets for Charlie and Sam for their Christmas presents, working out how to keep my much loved coriander healthy with snow and minus zero degrees at night, going to the gym for Zumba with my friend Ale.

Always nice to look up and see the mountains, mind you I took this when I was feeling very homesick, when Shane was back home for a week and I had just heard 'Land Down Under' on the radio!

Happy Heslops with their great friends, Gregorio and Giacomo

Pinecones in sugared honey - prized Calabrian recipe to get rid of coughs

My outdoor fruit and veggie fridge invention

We also got out a bit with our friends Simon and Fede and their 3 kids, had a ball taking the kids tobogganing. Not sure who had more fun, the big or the little kids....