Italy - March 2011

The Italian Alps in all their snowy glory.  This is where OH and  I and 9 friends headed last week for a skiing holiday.  I''ve mentioned before that I don't ski but I'd never been to Italy so decided to go with them this time.

My sister (who also doesn't ski) and I spent our time walking, looking around the town, reading and drinking hot chocolate or vin brulee (mulled wine).  We were struck by the ingenuity of this tree trunk made into a stand for heathers outside a gift shop.

We couldn't resist buying a bread roll from this vending machine, put in the doorway of the local bakery when it was closed.  There wasn't much in the way of English translation to help us so, as we were in the middle of working out what to do, a local lady came up and showed us that we had to place the bag under the shoot and told us which button to press. We shared the roll which, although was nice and fresh was, disappointingly, very salty.

On one of our walks we came across this road sign and had to take a picture to show the rest of our party.  Various explanations for its meaning included 'No Trumpet Blowing' and 'Don't Make a Noise to Cause an Avalanche' but we concluded that the most likely meaning was 'No Car Horn Tooting'.

Most days were full of beautiful sunshine which was good for us and the skiers!

This was one of the nicer mulled wines we sampled sitting outside a bar that became our 'local' for the week.  On one occasion my sister and I went separate ways (me to buy gifts and her to find a chair lift that had eluded our map reading skills).  After a few hours I stopped at this bar and ordered a hot chocolate with cream (yum) and was sitting waiting for it when my sister walked in.  I called her but she didn't see me and went straight in to the ladies.  I watched the door for her coming to sit outside but somehow missed her because the next thing I knew she was texting me from a table around the corner saying she was drinking hot wine and asking what I was doing.  Great minds think alike!!!

These are the bits and pieces I picked up that day.  A pack of biscuits for each of the kids.  Some stone-ground dark chocolate for my parents and a few bits for myself (a fridge magnet, a metal hook for my shed and some wide, alpine themed braid).

A couple of the Six Nations Rugby matches were on while we were away so, there we were, watching Italy beat France and Wales beat Ireland (woo hoo!) in an Irish bar in Italy!

I'd like to say things are back to normal now but I'm still playing catch-up at work and at home! 

I had a few comments about the green fabric in my last post making me realise how remiss I'd been not to mention it.  It's the first piece I've used from a lovely pile of fabrics from New Zealand that I won in a giveaway run by Lis of Online Quilting.

Bye for now

Teresa x