25-09-2012
3:52= after a quick fed, something like 50seconds, AOI stretches her tiny body like a bridge between hubby and I.
When i realise she is sleeping, i put my sleepy baby back into her own crib. Once in bed i think about the weather in Italy (Europe) at this time of year.
I miss Italy so much. The smell of late September crawls into my soul. I want to be there but i am in exile - voluntary exile, but still in exile. I miss the morning of school days when children are prompt out off bed, showered and after a quick breakfast of cereal and full fat milk they carry their big school bags on their shoulders, dreaming of great dreams.
The feeling of longing stung the core of my soul. I missed Verona, my mind travelled the valleys of Veneto where i am from. Then in the wee hours a friend from Italy skyped me.
Why am i in exile? Because living in Canada I can't book a rynair flight on a whim and go visit my beloved, once hated but always adored little town in the province of Vicenza like i used to do while living in Great Britain!
Funny how in Canada a state is a province and in Italy a city is a province.
OMG, i miss this! 
so, so, so much!
right now all i can do it’s recall, recall all the memories i have of the place. Write till all is left in my mind is a blank slate ready to be filled with new and bright images!
05-10-2012
Today i woke up at around 3am. After AOI's quick feed and diaper check, i couldn't sleep anymore as it happens some mornings. I sat at the computer and edited some chapter of my novel.
I am inspired because i am watching an Italian TV show which resonate to the same ideology behind the bachelor. Showcase of impossibly too beautiful men. 
physically perfect as if michelangelo is still working behind the tombs, it makes you cringe a little.
Really, they all present themselves as part-time models or DJs, even those who work in a factory. The women are impossibly skinny. This is what our society, especially in Italy, celebrate. In one episode the presenter comments to a former contestant
“Have you lost weight?”
“Well, sí. Ehhh, for love.”
“You look good.”
“Thank you.”
that exchange underlines how people LOVE to celebrate skinniness. The skinnier you are the better people seem to like you even though they don’t know the demons you have to fight to stay that thin. To say one has lost weight equal to to ‘healthy and beautiful’ in that contest but to be skinny, now i know, it's not everything in this world. And as the celebrities come out about the body damages entails to stay that thin the more i am prone to write this novel.
The message i hope to convey in the novel is to love oneself and not strive to be skinny because everyone’s body is different from everyone else’s body, if i make sense. watching this idiosyncrasy of show encourages me to write because i believe in the message and i hope my humble words will inspire my daughter, nieces and nephews to love themselves without striving to achieve a certain popular image because it’s what our society promotes. they have to uphold their personalities and sense of humour without compromise.
wow, sleepless mornings make me away too philosophical.
anyway, both hubby and i miss Europe due to the weather. he misses his parents in Britain and I miss Italy for the season.
at this of year the leaves travel along the roads, chimneys smoke and the smell of baked chestnut permeate the air. with the hint of amber sun in the grey sky everything looks nostalgically-romantically-breathtakingly beautiful!
Prince Albert, end September 2012