Week Eight

On Monday I finished reading Ian McKewan's The Innocent.  What an engrossing story, and I could not put it down! Here's a link to the storyline on wikipedia.

We finally bought a cutter for the jungle area!!  Now it will take K only a morning or so to cut the 10,000 square metres of long grass instead of a whole week.  We are looking forward to it being delivered by Bartolini, the courier service in the next week or so.

Temporary image source until I take a photo of ours: http://www.tracmaster.co.uk/images/stories/virtuemart/product/bcs-630ws-commander-%26-scythe.jpg 

I was delighted to receive a lovely certificate of appreciation of helping to moderate from Shelly. It really made my day, and I sent her a little message from me with a link to my Muzy blog which had the following but with music..

The Comune men came to do some repairs to our road on Tuesday and it is just a temporary fix, as the road is still too wet to do much.  The worker said it was just to let us be able to get in and out a little bit more easily, so this is a relief.  In the spring, more work will be carried out to make it much better!

Views of the road after the work was done on Tuesday.  It was still looking a bit messy, but it was much better than before!!  Isabella and Samantha can be seen.  Samantha goes for a walk with the dogs every day!

 

The water pipe is visible in red because the water engineers said the land is still moving, so they can only dig it underground once everything has settled. It really isn't a pretty sight at the moment, but it will be improved in the spring, fingers crossed...

The Comune workers came again on Wednesday to add grit and finish the work they had done on Tuesday.  This is the section of 'finished' road below ........

Izzie taking a little break.

 

Samantha having a nice nap after walking with the dogs..

On Friday we went to Chieti, a town about 25 minutes away. We parked the car in front of the local police station.

We had a little wander around the historical centre and we came across some lovely buildings.

A view of the 14th century Saint Antonio Abate church door in Chieti.

I just love the intricate details on the door.

The reason we went to Chieti is because I had fallen in love with a chest of drawers seen on an advert in the local Internet paper, which matched our wardrobe, and so I simply had to buy it!  Here it is in its new home!

It goes perfectly with the wardrobe we already have below.

Mini Me viewing from the outside

On Saturday I posted up my blog feedback on the EVO Crafting the ePerfect Textbook session and created a new comic.

Tamara de Lempicka
Sunday was a rainy day and so I finished reading my book on Tamara de Lempicka, a fascinating artist who led a very colourful and exciting life in the Art Deco period.  She was born in 1898, just 2 years after my grandmother was born.

I like a lot of her paintings, as they are very bold and striking. 90% of her work in the 1920s consisted of portraits. Three quarters of them were of women in various states of attire, and not attired....  Such portraits must have been quite shocking and avant-garde in their day. The portraits she painted of men were mostly of her lovers.  She was described by some as a 'man-eating' butterfly'.

I had no idea that she had befriended the Abruzzo poet and writer, Gabriele d'Annunzio, so she has a vague connection with this region.  That could be why there is a huge poster of one of her paintings in a local cafe....

I like Tamara de Lempicka's quote on the back cover of the book:

"I live life on the fringes of society and the rules of normal society don't apply to the fringes".

 Roll on Week nine!

Project 52 - Week Seven

Monday was spent pottering around with seedlings and checking of pots.  I sowed some Cut & Come Again lettuce seeds and put them in a tray in the window sill in the empty back room.

I really enjoy looking through my packets of seeds and planning when and where to sow them!

A view of one of our almond trees which is just in blossom now.  It's the first sign of spring approaching!

Spring arriving in the garden

Off to Penne on Thursday, a beautiful day!  Below a vision of the snow-capped mountains nearby.

 A view of the entrance to Penne from the other side.

Then we enjoyed a lovely celebration meal in La Grotta, in the centre of Penne.  We celebrated K's birthday on 15th January, and mine on 23rd of January.

I love the decor and ambience in La Grotta and the food was fantastic!

I want to buy some uplighters like these in the picture above. They come from Castelli, one of my favourite villages in Abruzzo!

Below a bigger image.  I can imagine how lovely these will look on our walls!

I received a nice ecard in the morning!

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Friday being Valentine's Day we decided to go off on a motorbike trip to Palombaro, setting for the new film Lords of London, starring Ray Winstone.  A film review here.

Palombaro is a beautiful hill-top village in the middle of the Abruzzo mountains, within the national park of La Maiella.


First, though, we had to get down our road, so K kindly drove me to the top of it. The top end isn't too bad at the moment, and it is drying out as you can see below...

 

Whilst waiting for K to go back home then grab the motorbike, I had a bit of fun taking a selfie of my shadow!

 

The end of the road on the other side....

An unbelievable blue sky today!!

 

My carriage arriving!!

It's too risky to carry a pillion going from the house to the end of the road, so that is why we had to do 2 separate journies along the 1.2 kilometre long road.

Once on the motorbike we set off and travelled for about an hour, stopping off for a coffee on the way. 

As we got closer to Palombaro the day got more and more sombre-looking and misty.

Approaching Palombaro in the Abruzzo mountains

The scenery surrounding us was beautiful and I loved seeing it pass by.  K was video recording everything on his GoPro camera attached to his helmet.

Palombaro in the distance...

We walked around the streets reliving the scenes from the film.  Then we had a lovely lunch at the Dal Pagano Trattoria up in the mountains, where the view was truly spectacular.  We were served by the owner and chef, Leonardo, who was very nice and friendly.  He told us the star of the film, Glen Murphy, had fallen in love with the area and had bought a house near Palombaro.  This is why Lords of London was filmed in Palombaro, because he wanted to promote the Abruzzo region!

Walking around the village we came across this sculpture of hands holding a heart, with 'To the Giver' inscribed as a caption. ...

I feel a little bit sad that the EVO eBook session is finishing today, but I am sure there will be posts to view over the next few days, so it won't really be the final ending. It will be nice to keep in touch with the community....   I enjoyed checking in on a daily basis to see the amazing ebooks created.  All the participants have put their heart and soul into their beautiful ebook chapters and they should all feel very proud of their achievement!!


Here is a link to the Padlet set up as a feedback to the session.

Here is a Bookr I have created as a little personal feedback.


 



Week 7 has been a very enjoyable and lovely one! 

Project 52 - Week Six

Monday was a very busy day going to the doctor's with my mum to see about her new medication, then an appointment with the OT in the afternoon.  All was well and my mum has recovered very well from the setback she suffered in January, thank goodness.  Then shopping, lunch together and back home to pack my bags and then early to bed at 9pm.  I set 3 alarms to ensure I would get up on time.

I was up at 3am on Tuesday morning and caught the Stansted coach at the unearthly hour of 3.55am.  An uneventful journey to the airport and the flight arrived into Pescara at 1pm.  K was there to pick me up and off we went home, where I was greeted with this lovely welcome message in the kitchen.

Since then it has been hectic dealing with Telecom Italia engineers who have been here to fix the phone line, which hadn't been working for the past two weeks.  They couldn't believe how terrible the road was and they refused to go down it with their van, so K ended up having to ferry them up and down from the end of the road to our house several times. 

Luckily the water pipe was fixed earlier as well, and it is now above the road looking quite ugly.  They can't bury the piping until the road has been fixed!!  Then off to the local 'Comune' to pay a Rubbish Tax bill and I bumped into the lord Mayor.  I collared him and asked him about when our road was going to be  fixed, but he explained the land was still wet (true) so no point in starting the work until the weather is a bit more stable.  I asked him not to forget us, and that we have great difficulty in getting down the road now, and that it is a very urgent matter...

Checking up in the garden and all my pots was a very important duty for me and it was lovely to see the various furkids POTtering about, pun intended, lol ...

 Despite adding the netting as a deterrent, the kitties still insist on using my pots as a resting area!!

I couldn't resist taking these photos of Fluffy and Olivia chilling on the balcony.

Fluffy enjoying a catnap

Olivia deep in thought

Shopping for bits and pieces on the Wednesday, I spied a lovely carpet, which would be nice for the kitchen or living room area.

The colours are quite vivid, but they are the right ones which would go with the rest of the decor. It measures 160 x 230 cms and may be a bit on the short side, so will have to think about it for a bit longer before buying it....

During this week, I was in communication with Dr Nellie Deutsch about my presentation on WIZiQ for Connecting Online 2014.  She is an amazing person, and I admire her for all the work she does for the teaching community.  She has been organizing the free Connecting Online econferences since 2009.  I am proud to have been a part of this event the past few years both as a presenter and attendee.  All the webinars are free and Dr Nellie organizes everything perfectly.  She is able to attract some of the world's leading educators to present for CO14.

I have attended Vicki Davis' webinar on  Reinventing Writing, and Dr Bob Diotalevi's session on Copyrightdot.com: Teaching Old Dogs New Clicks .  I am looking forward to attending Dr Curtis Bonk's webinar this afternoon called Experiences of Publishing of an Open Access and (free) PDF and then Shelly Terrell's webinar on Reimagining Online Learning & Reflective Multimedia Eportfolios this evening. 

I created a ToonDo comic to highlight this fantastic CPD event this weekend, and also wrote a quick blog post to showcase the information about it here. My presentation is on tonight at 11pm and it is the same one I did for RSCON 2013, so am looking forward to it very much.

It will have been an exciting weekend of CPD!!
 
This week, I have tried to pop in to the EVO ePerfect Book session as often as I can to leave comments.  I am amazed at the creativity and originality of the proposed ebooks and the wonderful energy emanating from the participants.  I wasn't able to attend Saturday's Week 4 HoA, but I have already viewed Andre Sprang's fab Prezi presentation.  I have learned so much from him and from all the team of moderators.  I am also learning from all the keen participants. This collaboration is what makes EVO sessions so incredible, as they are a powerhouse of learning and connectivity!!

 

Project 52 - Week Five

Being at home with my parents during these 3 weeks away from Abruzzo is really lovely.  There's a nice and cozy atmosphere in my parents' home, which I have always loved.

Cartoon Oxford

As my camera seems to have got a problem with pictures coming out blurred, I have been experimenting with the cartoon app feature. Itook this on the way home from work on Tuesday evening.  I love the Sheldonian Theatre, one of Oxford's most famous landmarks. 

I experimented with fotor.com, a collage creating site and made this heart-shaped collage with photos I took last week.  Not sure I like the very visible logo, but didn't screenshot it this time.

I popped into the EVO session in the evenings and enjoyed reading comments and viewing an impressive array of ebook chapter designs.  It is so exciting to see how all the projects are developing so brilliantly.

EVO ePerfect Textbook Image created by Shelly Terrell

Image created by Shelly Terrell

I used authentic news materials from Breaking News English on Poverty, and then a nice one-minute listening on the theme of 'Chickens'.  I used a picture of my own chickens as an introduction and we had a really nice conversation on this topic.  Quite a few of the Arabic-speaking students keep chickens on their parents' farms, so we exchanged some interesting insights!

Chickens pottering around

We also discussed some famous people in the news and chatted about hobbies.  One of my students said he loved Formula 1, so I brought in this image of me in a Formula One Benetton racing car, and this engendered quite a good discussion.

I made a worksheet of things to be improved from their homework based on 'chickens', and we got through a bit of meaty grammar, which came specifically from the needs of the class.

It was one of my students' birthdays on Wednesday (Mutsumi's) so I created a handmade card for her, and brought in some cupcakes to celebrate. 

Hamdan had also brought in a huge tray of 'Baklava', so we had a lovely and rather delicious coffee break!!

This is my last week in Oxford, and I am looking forward to going back to seeing K & my motley crew again, and to viewing the lovely Abruzzo countryside. I have had a very nice time here, but it's been extremely busy and quite hectic!!

Abruzzo Unspoilt ..........

I don't think you can beat the spectacular views of Abruzzo!  If you click here you can see the latest post from About Abruzzo blog, which contains a link to an incredible video, shot in Abruzzo by Francesco Pacciocco, called Birthplace.

Each evening via Skype I have asked K to show me one of our furkids, and they have dutifully obliged and said a quick hello... 

I am not sure how my garden pots are faring, however, as the cats love kipping in them, as seen in this pot last year.  Amazingly, the tulips all survived the squashing, and I had a beautiful display from them!!

Next week should be far less hectic for me, and once I am back home on Tuesday, I hope to be able to take a few more pictures on a daily basis.