Cheese, bread, cheese and more cheese.

Capri, Capri, with your eyes so blue

Capri, Capri, I've got a crush on you

Capri, Capri, I'm so in love with you-ou-oooou **repeat to tuneless fade**

I've been singing that for nigh-on a month. If you change 'eyes' to 'sea' it's 100% accurate. 

So we're back from Capri (well, Anacapri - the cheaper, non-Guccified side of the island) and it was goodly - glorious - nay, sublime! Look at it man. LOOK AT IT. It's like joke scenery. 

My dad, who has an unwittingly beautiful turn of phrase, would probably call it 'the finest holiday in all the world that I have ever been on in my life' if indeed he had been on said holiday (he wasn't. It was just me and Bedders and forty-seven books between us). I'm just guessing, but I imagine he would say something like that.  

So yes, Anacapri, decidedly less showy little sister of Capri, but no less stunning. We stayed in a little B&B with only three rooms run by the delightful Carla ('It is nothing!'  and a little dismissive hand wave was her response to our effusive thank yous for the lifts she provided everywhere/the surprise birthday cake she produced for mon anniversaire/the general bending-over-backwards she did all day every day) and her wonderfully true-to-stereotype Italian family (by that I mean supremely generous, kind, friendliest people in all the world who grow all their own tomatoes and basil. Of course they do). 

And LOOK AT THE VIEW FROM OUR BALCONY.

And here it is looking RIDIC in the evening:

And here it is looking UTTERLY RIDIC later on:

Worrrrr. 

Basically, every day followed this delicious pattern:

9:15am: Wake up

9:30am: Sumptuous and decadent breakfast which looked a little bit like THIS:

10:30am-6:30pm: Lounge in hammock/by pool/do a bit of yoga/play with aperture on the camera/read the paper/read a book/listen to the gentle thrumming of cicadas and distant scooters as they combine in melodious harmony. 

On a couple of occasions we really pushed ourselves and went for a WALK:

Although to be honest the walks were usually a penance for eating something like this:

Gooey ricotta and spinach and soft baked bread JOYFULNESS. 

6:30pm: Shower, out for tea and more cheesey-bread-goodness. 

We had a wonderful time, with only minimal time and effort expended worrying over my lack of a stylish maternity capsule wardrobe (I mainly looked like an All Saints reject in my sister's Premaman cut-off combat pants and sunbleached gingery top-knot) which is pretty good going for me. And then this happened and I was reminded that we are all, indeed, the same and no matter how effortlessly sun-kissed you may appear or how many Rolexes you own you will still occasionally get caught out by the rain and be forced to wear a placca bag on your head like the rest of the serfs:

And I had a birthday! 31. No longer the age at which Sylvia Plath killed herself (30) but catching up with Jesus (33). And to celebrate we decided to take a spontaneous trip to Rome on the basis that 1) I've never been and the Catholicness would probably blow my mind and 2) come November spontaneity is going to be a bit of an issue. 

So we went to Rome (only an hour from Naples on the train) and did the Vatican museums of which my lingering memory will be CEILINGS:

The sheer enormity of St Peter's:

A brilliant night out courtesy of Katy:

 And the amazing mummified body of Blessed John XXIII:

Like a tiny waxy Santa Claus. 

One more picture of Sculpturemania:

And a comment overheard from an American tourist:

"Jeez, if they sold just one of these things they could air-condition the whole place!"

BEST HOLIDAY EVER I.D.E.M.T.

!!!

Don't go anywhere, Italy, we're coming back for ya.