January 24th 2012

Treviso on the Twenty Fourth had a distinctly horsey flavour. No, not literally - even though we're in Italy. In the morning, we went to the market, passing the goats on the island. (Here's Non surveying them. So engrossed that she refused point blank to look away even for a second at the camera.)

 

The ostensible reason for the visit to the market was to get some flowers for the Mino - which we did. The Non chose a bunch of yellow tulips. In the meantime I'd spotted several stalls of interest, so the Whale chivalrously took the Non to the playground, with the purchased flowers, and let me stay behind and poke my nose into here, there and everywhere at a pace of leisure unknown to parent kind. My, I had fun. By the time I came to the playground they'd long gone. I got home to find them snuggled up in front of the computer, having been to the Mino's already.

Later, we made another excursion to purchase a ball - duly found. It was at a toyshop, and we spent rather longer ogling various items than was strictly necessary but luckily came out mostly unscathed. Next door was a shop that also happened to sell Proseco, so ... well. Not only that, but just outside it was a horsey ride, for which (for once) I actually forked out 50 cents. She was ecstatic. Apparently the horse in question is called Gallops, and "they went on an adventure, and they were in the US and there was postman Whale Shark, and they were going to catch the other postman, after they found three pieces of krill, and they caught the other postman in the end. Then they lived happily ever after, and came back to the carousel. The end." All these 'adventures' are fuelled by her Magic Pony Carousel books, of course. They lend carousel rides another whole dimension.

 

Still later, I took Lara out to the square - actually they dropped us there on the way back and we just walked back. The object was... the carousel! Oh yeah. As per last time, she rode on 'Flowers'. Ok, here's the adventure they had. "We had pizza, and after that we had apple crumble, and after crumble, we had FIVE hours of telly, and then we had a crocodile shark's favourite book which was 'The Travelling Crocodile Shark". Then we said bye see you again on the last day in Italy. And then Flowers took us back to the carousel." (I shall have to tell you about the other adventure she had with the crocodile shark on another occasion.)

We had a lovely walk back home, not only because it was a beautiful evening and we were both in a good mood, BUT we had the amazing luck to find... (wait for it) SHARK JELLIES. A stall selling coconut mushrooms and shark jellies. After a carousel ride. Lara was in heaven.

Just to cap off the horse-theme, here's the Cavalino sign. (For those not in the know, it's a rather nice eatery.)

In the evening, Iole and Alessandra came over for dinner. We put Lara to bed and had a great curry the Woof cooked. It must have been a good evening because I can barely remember what happened, just a pleasant haze of spices, chicken and conviviality. Oh, and Alessandra had gone mad and (literally) bought all the fritelle in the baker's shop, something like a kilo of them. In case you don't know (I didn't until now) fritelle are special for Carnival time, and are tiny eggy donuts with no holes in them but added raisins. I ate more than could conceivably have been acceptable from a health standpoint. Than there was whisky. No wonder it's all hazy.