LUNCH- Rice paper wraps

So on sunday as we were in the middle of cleaning and emptying our stuff in the new flat and didn't have much time for lunch, we decided to make some quick rice paper wraps. These Vietnamese wraps are so quick and easy that I always keep some in the cupboard, and the beauty is that you can fill them with whatever you have at hand.
Usually we stuff them with salad and veggies, as they are much more fun to eat than a salad.

This time I filled them with:
-peppers
-carrots
-beansprouts
-avocado
-mushrooms

I cut all the ingredients into fine stripes, put them at hand's reach and then got a bowl of warm water and the wraps, they are dehydrated so you submerge them in the water for 30 seconds or so, then place them on a cutting board or a clean surface, and fill them with your ingredients, then roll up and you're done! Make sure not to fill them too much and once you're halfway through the rolling fold in the sides.

They tend to be a bit bland on their own so have something to dip them in; we had some Srirarcha sauce as well as some soy sauce to which I added garlic, ginger,honey and sesame oil.

We sat down outside and everything was perfect, sunny, warm day, lovely food and the cat throwing up... yes...she decided to puke in front of us just as we were about to eat, which was just lovely...But other than that it was a nice meal!

DIY Bedside table sky

We have finally moved into our new house, yay!
 It has been hectic (which is why I had abandoned my blog) but we have now managed to find a place for every random little object and even started decorating...Or to be honest I started decorating first as I could not wait to paint and could not be bothered with tidying up...


My bedside table DIY started with a trip to Ikea, where I bought Tarva, which is made of pine wood and it costs 42 euros; it's not the cheapest bedside table but the other ones looked really flimsy and didn't have much storage space, so Tarva it was.

I painted it with a white coating, sanded it a little to get a smoother finish, then painted two layers of a water based light blue/turquoise varnish.

I then drew a cloud shape on a piece of paper and then copied it on plastic, I didn't have any proper material so for the stencil I used a plastic folder that I had lying around, it was a bit flimsy but it did its job, my boyfriend suggested using cardboard, which is stiffer but I was worried it would go soggy when painted and lose its definition, so the plastic  folder it was...

I then cut out some rough pieces of paper and taped them where I wanted the stencils to go, in order to get a clear idea of how many clouds to have and how to arrange them.

In this stage I decided I wanted to make another, smaller, cloud stencil, to have a bit more variation, so I repeated the process for the smaller cloud shape.

And finally the fun part! I got a cheap kitchen sponge and poured very little paint in the white paint lid which i used to dip my sponge, then with my boyfriend holding the stencil I started sponging the paint on. I could have used tape to hold the stencil (or a firmer material) but it was faster to get him to hold it...

We repeated the process for all the sides and let it dry.

Aaaand this was the final result! I'm really pleased with it and I think it came out quite well considering the use of very "creative" tools due to the lack of materials in the house...

So to summarize the materials I used were:

-wooden (paintable) bedside table

-white base coat varnish

- light blue water based varnish

-white water based varnish

-brush

-paper

-plastic folder

-sponge

-tape

The thing I like about the table is that it's a simple design which would look good in a child's bedroom as well as in a grown up's like me :)

TEA

When it comes to tea I am quite conservative: nothing beats a good cup of English Breakfast.

Thankfully in Italy it's quite easy to find, while when we went to france the only thing they seemed to have was Lipton. That's like asking for a good glass of wine and being told they only have some vomit juice.

Even though you can find tea here Italians do not know how to drink tea; if I see one more person take a nice cuppa and abuse it with a slice of lemon I will not be responsible of my actions.

I don't have anything against lemon in tea, don't get me wrong, please take all the Earl Grey in the world and smother it in lemon, in fact don't even add water, just lemon juice, but please leave English Breakfast in peace and I promise never to order a Cappuccino with savory food (not that I ever planned to...).

This topic gets me really frustrated...I think I need a tea...

ITALIAN DRIVING RANT

Another thing that I can't stand here in Italy is driving.

I have a 30 minute journey to work and back every day and IT. IS. HELL.

While in the UK there is a very useful thing known as RULES, here in Italy they are latent, probably been written and then put somewhere to be forgotten and ignored and below I have compiled a list of the street signs and their meaning as it appears by the behaviour of italian drivers.


Zebra crossings:

-parking spot
-crossings for scooters and small cars

Traffic lights:

-pretty decorations; probably put there for Christmas and never taken down.

Roundabouts:

-parking spaces, no need to be too near the curb either

No parking areas:

-parking areas

Stop signs:

-weirdly shaped decorations

One way signs:

-one way signs apply to cars but not to scooters or cyclists who may go the wrong way as they please


Italians also have a different culture for some car parts:

Horn:

-speech aid to be used freely whenever one fancies


Indicators:

-embellishments to the car, possibly to be used during the holidays? Or maybe to indicate the belonging to a political party? No other use comes to mind.

Hazards:

- a useful tool that allows to park in the middle of the road blocking traffic while one pops to the shop to buy things, without having to go and find appropriate parking space, such as roundabouts and zebra crossings.



This my friends, is why I love driving Italian style.


NOT.

MOSQUITOES ARE THE DEVIL

One thing that really makes me miss England is mosquitoes, or rather the lack of them.

I have just spent a sleepless night because of those horrible creatures, buzzing and stinging all night; while they are present in the UK, here in Italy there are an extortionate amount and they don't disappear until mid winter. I HATE THEM.

The only products that seem to be on the market are extremely toxic candles and diffusers that don't seem to stop them anyway... I also don't want to wrap my bed and myself in a fish net and feel like a freshly made sausage.

 The only options left to get rid of those devils are to move to the north pole or  try to combat nature with nature; for now I have opted for option two and as soon as we move in our new flat I will fill every corner with Citronella, Lemongrass, and Lavander plants, these allegedly keep bugs away when placed near windows and doors...if this doesn't work the worst thing that can happen is that our house will smell nice!

I will post the results as soon as possible and if anyone out there in the cyberspace has tried and tested any of these plants please do let me know!

WHY I LOVE AUDIOBOOKS

I love to read, however as most people with a job would find it is hard to find a decent amount of time for reading.

I had never listened to audiobooks and always assumed they were only for the visually impaired  (as it seems a more easily obtainable thing than books in Morse) and maybe for children with busy parents who don't have time for bedtime stories.

I could not have been more wrong...

(clay model for our animation)

Two years ago I was working on a hand drawn animation as my final project for uni.
There were four of us making a seven minute animation, each second had 12 drawings so that meant we had roughly 1200 extremely similar and repetitive drawings each to draw in about three months, and it was TEDIOUS! One of my friends introduced us to audiobooks and I have to say they were a life saver; we listened twice to Stephen Fry reading the whole Harry Potter series (i love Harry Potter) and from then on it has been a great love story between me and audiobooks.

They are brilliant and allow you to listen to books while doing any sort of job, like cleaning, cooking, knitting, drawing.. you name it.
You essentially have someone reading you a book while you get on with your life!


Don't get me wrong, I still love to read, but it's just such a great thing to make tedious tasks go faster and learn as well! Some audiobooks is worth buying, especially if you're into modern fiction, however you can listen to classics for free thanks to www.librivox.org

At the moment I am listening to Mansfield Park, read by Karen Savage, who is one of my favourite readers as she has a wonderful British accent and is a really good reader.

One of the downsides of Librivox for me is that it's an American website so most of the readers are American, and while that's great when listening to "the Great Gatzby" or  "Catcher in the Rye" I will NEVER EVER be able to listen to Jane Austen in an American accent...Sorry, I just can't.

KITTY AND WASHI TAPES

Hello everyone! this is Iani, my kitty... she looks a little disgruntled in this photo, probably because she has eaten the last of her favourite treats and now she will have to go a while without them; they are little heart shaped bits of duck breast and they are really posh, that's why we only buy them occasionally.

My boyfriend and I have recently moved to Florence (Italy) from London in order to work for my father's company here (I'm Italian and my boyfriend is English).

I already miss London loads and I find it really hard to adapt to the Italian lifestyle, even more than Sam  (bf) does.
However we are trying to make the most of it and I am trying to keep my "Britain cravings" under control thanks to the wonderful planet that is the Interwebs! 

In fact when I am in Italy I always feel really isolated from the rest of the world so that's why I've decided to start a blog.

One of the most exciting things in the near future is that we are about to move from my parents' house
to a one bedroom flat for the three of us (Iani, Sam, and I) !!!

I LOOOOVE DIY so I can't wait to have a place to decorate! even if it's rented there will be so much that can be done to transform this flat into our cosy little home :)

In my excitement for the new house prospect I have bought loads of Washi tapes, from Etsy and I can't wait for the thousands of uses I can find for it.

I am still waiting for some to come in the post but these ones I got from ChambyandCor and the are sooooooooooo cute! 

The first three are a bit simpler and I think will be great for decorating shelves and making patterns, while the other two are a bit more peculiar, especially the green ones with little white buildings, which is quite Christmas-y but I just could not leave it because it's too pretty...Oh well, the upside of washi tape is that you can apply it and remove it super easily.

I plan to take lots of pictures of the new house and record all of the DIY things we are going to do. We have never lived on our own and always house shared as we were at uni in London, that was really fun and I would not change it for the world but now I am very excited to get on with life and be able to actually live in a nice place ( London is great for everything but housing).