Thinking of cities

Last night I was supposed to be doing one thing and I was looking for apartment rentals in Paris. We always do this. Go somewhere for a few days. Then decide we want to live there. But really, we don’t really want to live there – we just had a nice time. Right?

Now the girls are older we can travel again. Somebody recently said all we seem to do is be on holiday all the time. Recently? Yes. Before that? Probably also, but not as much – we were just busy moving countries. So you see, this time, travel, not move places. Which is why it looks like we’re travelling more, because we’re not spending thousands of pounds moving lock, stock, cats, kids, furniture, stuff.

Instead we just pack a bag, remember the passports and a bit of money – just enough for some food, wine and coffee, and we’re away. The kids loved being away this weekend. Although the train trip was less exciting than flying and therefore more boring and therefore more crabby children. They did, however, have iPads in the room – one each. Plus mine and Kevin’s which I conveniently installed up with Yellow Submarine and Harry Potter.

Although, be warned, before travelling, check the iPad movies haven’t been deleted by nosey little fingers that like to press buttons and make things shake and press buttons again.

But we’ve been a bit stuck in our ways. We don’t even really speak much French, much to my huge shame – I so ought to be able to speak French. Perhaps it’s time to go somewhere where we really don’t speak the language and then not feel quite so silly that we really ought to speak, say, Italian, when we really haven’t actually been there that often. At all in fact.

So of course that means a whole new several hours of research into some fun and gorgeous places to stay. How about Milan? The apartments here look good. Milan has good fashion. My brother and I went there just after Grandma died – and it was our little holiday. We stayed in Milan, then Lucca, then the Cinque Terra. Where I sunbathed a lot. In Lucca I bought Camper shoes. In Milan I bought an Armani bikini – the elastic melted when it went through the dryer one sad day. It has the most amazing factory shops. My brother spent months researching it all. He had a complicated spreadsheet with each day planned out, the shops we’d visit, where we’d eat, even the right walk for him to go on (while I lazed about on the beach-side sunloungers).

Ah, Italy, perhaps indeed, you are worth another visit.