Anzio

This is the first A-Z Challenge post for this year's challenge. My series is about Italy, it's lifestyle, the country and other miscellaneous things in regard to it.

Anzio 1944

We will be starting with the town I know most about where a lot of my family live and where I have lived while young myself. If any non Italians have heard of the town it is usually the generation who lived through the war, the second world one, and know of the Anzio beach landings. Many men died there in 1944, Germans, British but mostly Americans. Not so many Italians themselves as they had been evacuated out of the town before the landings. They lived where they could during this time, most in caves nearby, some of my family even slept in a large wine barrel for a while. There is a  lot of recorded history regarding the military aspects of this place but not of the inhabitants themselves, less well known is how the residents, along with most of the other Italians of the country were starving, literally down to skin and bone yet took in soldiers and cared for them if they were injured - soldiers of all nationalities. Their allegiances were meant to be for the Fascists yet so many Italians never wanted to follow the Germans into the war, so many were not Fascists but the opposite, Communists. Families were often torn between the two, mine included with my grandmother following one side my grandfather the other, but the main thing on their minds was not winning the war, it was "where will the next meal come in, how do we protect our children, where do we sleep tonight".

Anzio now is very different, almost completely rebuilt as so much had been bombed and destroyed, it's back to being a holiday town for the people of Rome in the hot Summer months, just as it has been for the last 2,000 years. Nero had his Summer palace there, the place where he allegedly played the violin while Rome burned. The legends go that there are tunnels leading from Rome to his ruins some of it under the sea, something that many of the youth of Anzio over the years have tried and failed to find. Beaches, lots of fish restaurants, weekly mercato full fresh and inexpensive fruit and vegetables, bustling Piazza next to the busy harbour, not a huge amount to do other than walk around meet your friends and acquaintances and pass the time with them and a caffe or glass of water.

It's not a 'pretty' town, not like a hilltop one or a medieval one set in the deep countryside of rolling hills like in Tuscany, but the people are happy, kind, expressive and welcoming. It's my favourite of all Italian towns, I know I'm prejudiced but why not, it really is the best.

Anzio harbour

Vintage Hats

Some shop front displays are so lovely or quirky I've decided to set up an occasional post about them.

This one is in my city shopping centre, it's new and I hadn't noticed before this display. The shop sells hats, obviously, with other items such as bags and scarves. All very vintage looking. There are clutch bags, travelling bags as well as hats galore as you can see. It caught my eye as I went past and I couldn't resist photographing it giving me the idea for this new occasional series of posts.

It looks like the type of shop Miss Marple might have gone in, have a little gossip with the shop keeper and any other customers in there about village life and it's occupants, sitting on little chairs while they viewed and tried on a few hats before choosing one to maybe be used for more shopping trips, or perhaps going to an invitation to tea at a friends.

A very sweet looking shop and I do hope it does well. It's in a corridor arcade which had until recently been dying off as shops were closing and not being replaced due to extortionate council charges. This corridor is on the up again with several new shops opening up again like this one so maybe the council have come to their senses and dropped the rental a little. No point over charging if there's no-one to pay. I haven't been in and bought anything yet but maybe next time I'm passing. Unfortunately the photo isn't very clear as the glass front at the bottom is slightly fogged which comes out more in the photo than when actually standing in front of it, still - hope you can see it well enough.

What is Daughter#1 Wearing Today?

This is what I snapped Daughter#1 wearing today after a day at college. Leggings with turned up cuffs and see through top from Select, with a little vest top for modesty. Brogues for her feet. Long necklace with birds from Primark. 

Crumbs, It's Gone

I wanted to show you the lovely cake I made a couple of days ago. An old fashioned Caraway Seed Cake, most recipes for seed cake these days are for poppy seed, often with lemon drizzle added, but I wanted to make the type I much prefer. Daughter#1 made one of these Poppy Seed with Lemon Drizzle cakes recently but to my mind the stronger flavour of this one with caraway is much nicer.

Anyway, as I said, I wanted to show it to you but by the time I got my camera out all that was left were - well - crumbs, but it was sooo nice. Oh, and take no notice of the recipe shown in the book next to it, Daughter#1 likes to change the page to show something else pretty and yummy looking every now and again, this was just the latest page for some coconut cup cakes.

Floods, Floods and Yet More Floods

We've all been hearing about the awful time so many people have been experiencing recently with all this rain pouring out of the sky recently. Where has it all been coming from? Are we getting the fair share of those countries dry with parched grounds? It certainly feels like it. The rain doesn't affect us in any way, luckily but now the wind which has been battering the UK may do in a small way. The Chauffeur has been staying with his parents in France is due back tomorrow, apparently flights are not affected but trains are. He is returning from the airport via coach so we may be lucky if roads are still clear, a lot of people might turn to the road blocking them up more than usual if they eschew the railway but he should get back in time to celebrate the end of Valentine's Day with me, at least.

All news is flood news, it's been the main headline and the main topic discussed all day every day for weeks. Some spectacular pictures, storm chasers taking risks to watch and experience amazing waves. Understandable but dangerous, no consolation to downed home owners but look at this:

10's of 1,000's of homes still with no electricity, homes flooded and some ruined, roofs blown off, so much devastation. Spare a thought for those who have these times to go pass through before all is restored to normality. Much money will have been lost in the meantime, farmers selling up their livestock to protect them from being drowned, kitchens and furniture to replace, businesses losing custom. Not good. And more to come.The brief sunshine shining through must help but we need more, lots more, and no more rain to let the already well sodden ground soak up the water.

It will come, but not quick enough for so many. It's dry on the ground here now, we had snow but that's gone, threats of my city's river breaking and flowing up to a few streets away from here for the first time since the 1700's didn't happen as anticipated, how is where you are?

Shadowscapes Tarot Deck

Every week it seems, Postie delivers a parcel or two to us. Every time it is for The Chauffeur, Daughter#1 or Daughter#2. Never for me. Of course, most of those parcels have been paid for by themselves, but as the one who is at home most of the time it's me who answers the door to Postie and takes the parcel and each time I feel a pang of Oh it's not for me. Irrational, I know, and more than a touch of the green eyed monster. But the truth is there is never anything I want enough to order offline, until the other day when I came across a beautiful looking Tarot deck while flicking through other blogs. I have several decks already, though I don't really read them, more read up how to read them. I looked at several reviews of this deck and having liked what I read got Daughter#2 to order me some online. Today Postie delivered me a parcel, along with one for The Chauffeur, of course. How exciting.

Opening them up the images are lovely, soft colours with a slight iridescence to them. Pictures which look like dreams. Featuring lots of animals, woodland types such as foxes and badgers. Fairies and Mermaids also feature. They're beautiful, flowing pictures. The LWB, little white book, which gives the explanations is an actual book giving little stories for each card, making it clear what it represents. A little different from the usual tarot decks, I don't know yet how it'll be for readings, and am still looking through them getting used to the feel as well as look. There was some negative feedback regarding the size of the cards as the pictures are small making it slightly difficult to see all the detail in the cards, and some said the cards are bit flimsy, but this doesn't really bother me, I can see the detail well enough and the LWB shows a larger version of each card where details are more easily seen, though black and white. They aren't as flimsy as expected, maybe due to expecting worse after reading the reviews. I like them a lot and it was nice to finally get my own parcel, for a change.

World Nutella Day

World Nutella Day, I almost missed it, but not quite.

I don't have a recipe - but I do have a spoon.

World Nutella Day was a brilliant inspiration of Michelle Fabio of Bleeding Espresso and Sara Rosso of Ms Adventures in Italy 8 years ago and has gone from strength to strength in that time. Have a look at the website for some real recipes as devised by bloggers all round the world http://www.nutelladay.com/participate/