28th January 2012 - Sharks and Confetti

Yesterday, there was MORE hot chocolate and spritz in the square. This edition of the chocolate was quite the custardy-est to date, and it was entirely appropriate to eat it with a spoon. Neither was the degree of chocolate-encrusted-ness at all surprising afterwards. A table napkin simply wouldn't do the trick. She had to be taken to the bathroom and hosed down afterwards. 

There was MORE riding on horses.  This was was an adventure with goblin shark (of course) where goblin shark had lost his ball in a magical storm and Lara and the horse had to go and find it. They did so on the top of the castle that goblin shark lived in, and along with it they found a nice troll, who played ball with them. Then they all went back to the carousel. The end.

Carnival is ever-closer (unfortunately we'll just miss it, I've wanted to see the Venice carnival for decades) and confetti littered Piazza del Signori. Lara streamed her 'kite' all the way home.

Apologies for the colour setting on this day's pics, by the way. I'd set the exposure right down to minimum for the glaring snow of the mountains, and hadn't changed it. It was actually a beautiful bright day, not overcast as it seems
 

Kite races along the walls

Campari does terrible things to knees. We stopped off at the playground on the way back, and somehow I found myself chasing the Littles round and up and through the equipment, to hysterical shrieks. Crawling through wooden apparatus designed for 10 year olds, in dress and tights at the age of 40 means you come away with dusty knees and a slight hint of bruising.

After a stupendous lunch, with more cheeses than I can remember to count, salami so delicate and tender it was almost like carpacio, and copious salad, Lara had a shark party. As usual, she invented lots of shark games. At one point we had to close our eyes while she hid stuff in a pile of toys, and the Whale took it rather too seriously. Getting very close to his afternoon snooze time.

At the end of the party we had to throw the toys in the air and shout 'Hurrah!'. So we did.

After the shark party, the Whale went to bed and the rest of us went to the playground and to buy more shark jellies respectively. Did I tell you about the shark jellies? I think I did. What a coup. We've not got more than enough to last us until customs in Australia. I wonder if we'll end up declaring them again - last time it was jelly babies.

 Ah, now here we have something quite extrodinary. We stopped by at the Mino's after the park. One of the things she happened to talk about was her porcelain collection. This is a cup dating from about the late 1800's, which belonged to her grandmother, I think she said. See the thing across the top of the cup? Guess what it's there for. Go on, guess.

It's for MOUSTACHES. To keep them out of the tea.

Told you, Late 1800s. Fantastic.

In the evening, it was the Markets restaurant. MMM. Gosh, it was good. Lara had swordfish. Here she is, being a swordfish.

I had snails - fantastic. (Lara did try them but didn't like it. Still, kudos for trying.) How I'm managing to stuff so much in is a mystery. In the words of Scooby Doo, 'stop, stop, when the buttons pop.' They also served the best Zucotto I can remember tasting. Another nice touch was that they had a huge array of cooked vegetables laid out in one corner, and you just helped yourself to what you wanted. Things like roasted peppers and aubergines and baked leeks and radiccio.... Did I mention we enjoyed ourselves?

Jaws was getting up to all sorts of naughtiness at table....

eating the last castagnolo... typical shark..

swimming in the deep

W&W with the owner - they're regulars here, of course.

Absolutely marvellous. Lara went to bed at 10:30, which has to be a record. Have you noticed her front tooth is finally coming out? Hope it fills up that gap relatively soon, she could really use some more gnashers.