Lorna at Vicenza

Thanks Patty. Still bruised and a little painful, but he should have an easy day today as they're all going off to visit some of the high schools. It won't be long before he has to make his choice of where to go.

My Irish Granny had her left hand tied to the school chair in Ireland. She ended up being able to do most things with both her right and left hand except writing. She carried on using her right hand, but her handwriting always looked spidery and not very smooth or natural.

Lorna at Vicenza

Not sure, but it's probably something to do with Satan.

jonwel

Because the left is evil, it's the devil's hand. One sitteth on the right hand of God, not the left hand. And think of the connection between sinistra and sinister!
The only reason for thinking there's anything wrong with the left hand is that we left-handers are in the minority and they can't stand things that don't fit the rules.
Actually I'm happy to be left-handed. Being forced to do a lot of things with our right hands, we become almost ambidextrous. I can do loads of things with my right hand that right-handers can't do with the left. And when I first used a computer I was sharing with a right-hander, who had the mouse connected on the right side of the keyboard, so I learnt to use it from the beginning with the right hand and now I wouldn't be able to change.
But it's also true that my sister-in-law, who is right-handed, uses the mouse with her left for some reason.

But as for making children write with their right hand! Back in the 1920s my aunt, who started off in a private school for some reason (my mother and uncle didn't) was forced to use her right hand and suffered some psychological problems because of it.

Lorna at Vicenza

I bought Alex left handed scissors for school. He seems to have worked everything else out for himself even though I have no idea how he ties his shoelaces and his little wrist sometimes looks like it might snap when he's twisting bottle tops off. When he sets the table we all swap our knife and fork around but I'm used to that as my sister is left handed too.

37100

Mathew 25, 31-46. Taken literally, includes left handed people.

Patty

I remember when I moved back to Italy in 2003, I went to the bank here to open new accounts. Their faces when I showed them my left-handed cheque book (free) from my UK bank. It was really quite funny. I asked them with a deadpan face if they could supply me with the same

mikelincs

It's the left handed screwdrivers that really amaze them,,

Lorna at Vicenza

I'm amazed too. Just last week I asked Alex for help getting a cabinet down and shouted at him when he was screwing the screws the wrong way.

He's thinking of going to mechanical school. Will being left handed be a hinderance or will he just learn anyway?

jonwel

I think we need a sense of proportion here! A lot of children get the direction wrong when turning screws or bottle-tops, whether they're right- or left-handed. Clockwise for tightening is only a convention, it could easily have been the other way round. And I don't see the sense in changing hands for two-handed activities, like playing the guitar or using a knife and fork.
I use scissors with my right hand because with the left hand the pressure tends to push the blades apart instead of together, so that they don't cut properly. The trouble comes when I have to cut the nails of my right hand! But you just have to apply a different pressure.
Lorna, rest assured that Alex will have no problems at mechanical school - there are other left-handers in Italy too and it's not a handicap!

BTW I know a family in Tuscany where both children are left-handed. One of them is now a concert pianist and she certainly doesn't play a left-handed piano!

Lorna at Vicenza

My kids are driving me up the bloody wall. They both seem so stressed out when I'm the one trying to organise presents and flights and food for all and sundry, check-ins and suitcases, hotels and Venice transport. God knows what gift for the MIL? I'm painting doors and frames for new glass. I'm going to lawyer's and Dr's and doing all the "normal daily stuff".

"Mamma! Get off the phone to Grandma and out of the kitchen. Have you forgotten that Denis is coming to do Physics?"
- Of course I haven't forgotten. I pay the ******* nerd. I clean the sodding kitchen before he gets here. You don't.
"Mamma! MUM! I've got a maths test next week. Phone Maria please. I need some help.
- Talk to her yourself and work out your own schedules.

"Mummy. Did you forget that tomorrow is Open Day for all the high schools and you have to take me to the ones I want to see?
- No. I didn't forget Alex. Why do you think I've had six leaflets blu-tacked to the kitchen cabinets for a fortnight?
"So are we going then?"
- Yes Alex. I will take you and Daddy WILL get Chloe from her Baskin.

"Ciao Lorna. You haven't forgotten that it's our Schio gang Christmas dinner tonight have you?"
- No Anna I haven't. I'm still sorry about forgetting last year's when you rang me up and I was on my way to Venice airport.

Mamma I've got 5 VERIFICHE before we finish for Christmas. Mummy I've got a test. Mummy I have loads of homework before the holidays. Mummy help. Mummy you can't help because you're shit at this kind of chemistry. Mummy where are you?
I blame school of course. Any excuse of a holiday and it isn't. It's just another opportunity to send the kids mad. Give them a proper holiday? No ******* chance.

Patty

Oh Lorna you're spot on Its all left up to us isn't it !!
Anyway have a wonderful Christmas - it'll all be worth it in the end. Lucky you having an English Xmas - I haven't had a Xmas in the UK since 2002

Lorna at Vicenza

Most of the organising Patty is for other people because we're not going back to the UK this year.
OH changed jobs recently and doesn't really have any holidays and what with Christmas Day being on a Sunday as well .......

On the plus side, Dad said he'd come out and have Christmas here with us and then his friend wanted to come too so it won't be a totally Italian Christmas. I've ordered a turkey and dad is bringing some stuff with him.....if the baggage handlers don't go on strike. He mentioned something about a strike yesterday.

MarkRD

Had to go through the rigmarole (good word) of cashing in a M*neygram this morning....at the Poste Italiane, of course.
As a useful guide I've written down how it all works.

PROCEDURE:
1. go to local post office (get there early otherwise you'll be queuing - providing that it's open, unlike my usual one which has suddenly closed for three days for 'lavori di restauro')

2. join queue

3. when it's your turn (they won't call you, you have to guess) ask them for the form to fill out in order to 'incassare un moh-nai-gramm', rolling your 'r' otherwise they won't understand.

4. wait while they find the form

5. take form, wait while they fin a pen

6. move to one side and fill out form

7. give ref. no. of the transaction (given to you previously by sender), full name, address, CAP, country, phone no., codice fiscale, identity card number, place of issue, date and place (GB) of birth, also add inside leg measurement, favourite colour and what you had for breakfast. Sign and date form.

8. wait patiently next to the sportello you got the form from, hoing that the person now being served hurries up and that the other people waiting will let you go back in without having to queue up

9. wait to be called upon and listen to 'tutting' from other queuers because you have evidently 'jumped the queue'

10. hand over form, plus codice fiscale and identity card bearing all the data you just copied onto the form

11. clerk finds right computer thing to type in ref number.

12. clerk types in ref. number plus your name, address and favourite colour.

13. clerk won't find either 'GRAN BRETAGNA' or even 'REGNO UNITO' in the drop down list for your place of birth. Will eventually find it under 'INGHILTERRA- GRAN BRETAGNA' (sorry non Englander Brits)

14. clerk types in all the date you just filled out in the form, but using the original documents you gave over, and not the form itself.

15. Wait, hope, pray.

16. Computer gives confirmation of amount. Clerk scribbles something on the form which you then sign three more times.

17. Hand back form. They then give you the cash and a piece of plain grey-ish colour paper with the sender's name and message, your name and details and the amount paid over.

18. You thank them and say 'buongiorno'.

19. Maybe the clerk will do the same.

(Note to self: ask aunty to send you 20 quid in the post next time, it's easier)


Merry Christmas one and all.

Lorna at Vicenza

At least you got what you wanted.
This was me on Friday in my Post Office ............


I queued for 20 minutes in the PO just to buy some frigging stamps. The Tabacchi was 'chiuso per malattia'.
"Don't have any." Said the always smiling, always friendly lady there.
- What do you mean you don't have any?
"What I said. Don't have a single stamp for Europe. You need €2.70 to send that. I don't have any.
- I am in the Post Office right?
"Can't help you."
- But this is a Post Office. Are we in a 3rd world country here? Oh yes, silly me. We are.
"Non è colpa mia. Non sgridare a me sai. Fai un reclamo."
- It might not be your personal fault, but yours is the face in front of me and the person who is being so very helpful. Put a bloody sign up on the door saying 'no stamps' so that people aren't queueing for nothing. Or is that too much to think of? It obviously is.
So I went to the teeny weeny Post Office in the next village that's even smaller than mine. Nobody there must ever send anything to Europe because the stamps I was given are football ones from 2012!

Lorna at Vicenza