TROPEA

It was a picture that did it. Just one image in an old library book that Liz had loaned, but it was enough. The sand was golden and stretched out for miles; the sea was like turquoise glass that was so clear you could see the bottom; the sky was endless bright blue and then in the background high upon a jagged rock was an old crumbling church that sat spectating over all over this. I don’t really believe in love at first sight, but that’s what happened the first time I saw Tropea. I had to go, and so I find myself her in this crumbling little town by the sea, in the deep south of Italy and for once I do not feel disappointed, in fact it has surpassed any of my greatest expectations, for a picture alone cannot do justice to somewhere like Tropea, you have to see it to believe it. It has brought on this amazing feeling in me, of utter calmness. My head, which has been filled with worries and thoughts that have kept awake on so many nights, is clear for the first time in months. There is no Internet here, no TV, my phone is switched off most of the time, and all this is good because none of it really matters. Nothing really matters here, apart from the sun on your back, the sound of the ocean and the food. Oh God! The food! I do believe I might come back for the first from a trip, having put on weight! Which I actually want to do, as I feel a bit Ethiopian here compared to the Italian girls curves, with their tits and ass. Curves are celebrated over here, which is very refreshing; instead of the intense pressure to be stick thin which women have in our country.
We are staying in a little apartment, which I found and booked on the Internet. It is always scary being the person that does the booking, you want to please and you don’t want to turn up and go “Oh! Sorry guys I seem to have booked us into a complete shit hole!” So you can imagine as we walked the stairs to the apartment I was feeling a little anxious, but one should never doubt one’s self. The apartment was simple but modern and had its own bathroom, which was a relief after we had started world war three with the Japanese in the hostel in Naples over the use of the shared bathroom. The best thing though was the view. We opened up the shutter doors to our own private roof terrace that over looked the image that I had seen in the book but only more beautiful. The girls and me ran around and jumped like excited children and for the rest of the day you have never seen a smugger face than mine. “Carly” I thought “Your bloody amazing!”
I don’t have much to say on what we have done here because we haven’t really done anything, which is the whole point of this place. We eat fresh fruit on the terrace for breakfast, then we head to the beach for the day, where we soak up the rays, dip in the sea and then like all the Italians do, we people watch and pose (have really got into it!) We then go and eat a full on meal and have a couple of bottles of wine and look out for any totty that walks past (the heat makes us all horny). The other night was Romany Liz’s 30th so we put on our best glad rags, headed out for dinner, got drunk and spotted ourselves a tall Italian stallion. As we kept giving him the eye he and his friend walked past about ten times, I think we counted and then sat down at a table near us, but before they could make there move the waiter and his friend from where we ate walked by and sat with us. The Italian men are very Alpha male and the Stallion and his friend looked pissed off they did not make their move sooner for the waiter and his friend had now marked their terrority. The tall Stallion made his exit but not before coming over to the table to say his goodbyes. Unfortunately it turns out that stallion can’t speak any English, which was very crap. Later on I did think about this and thought it doesn’t really matter that he can’t speak any English, as really I don’t want him for his conversation skills, do I now. In fact he doesn’t have to talk at all!


OBSERVATIONS

• Don’t leave your apartment with a hangover, as you don’t think straight, as we locked ourselves out today! Oophs!

• I now compare Romany Liz to being like a Jack Russell on Acid, as she is small and very hyper!

• If you eat to many black olives it turns your poo black!

• Its funny how when you get older even though your body is going down hill, how much more comfortable you get with it. We have taken to topless sunbathing on the terrace and naked showers under the tap outdoors with out a care in the world. It’s very liberating. Well unless the old couple next-door come out and catch us and we give them a heart attack!


• I think I might have to go and find the Tall stallion again or other one and get them to marry me so I can stay here. Don’t really want to go back to London anymore!

NAPLES

I watched an Italian film not so long ago called Gomorrah about the modern day mafia. Its good, watch it! All that said though, it doesn't really come across as an advertisement for"come to Naples." In fact it makes the place look like a complete hell hole! So when Romany Liz said she really wanted to go, my response was "are you sure the place is a complete Shit pit!" Of course Liz was sure she wanted to go and so we found ourselves turning up trying to find our hostel which was in the Naples Ghetto! The look on her and Anna's faces of sheer horror at the place was no surprise to me and didn't want to say, "I told you so!", but of course I did! Liz's response was to get on the train and go somewhere else, but I told her we had paid and that this is what she wanted so we were staying! After wandering around some of the dodgiest streets you have ever seen for ages and being told by locals that we should be careful as we would get our bags nicked any minute we found our hostel smack bag in the middle of the nastiest street. The owner Stefano who is slightly grumpy but underneath is a big softy quickly showed us the do's and don't's of the city, of which I broke straight away much to his dismay by going out with a handbag! In fact Stefano has become a bit of a father figure and I think he has a bit of a soft spot for us crazy english girls even though he rolls his eyes a lot at us. I think I would like to adopt him! He's much nicer than the other guy that works here. We only know him as NHS spec's, but he keeps trying it on with Lizzy. In fact lots of men try on with her, as she is under 5'5. For once, I'm quite glad I'm tall and they won't touch me as the calibre has not been great. Quite disappointed in the overall standard of the men over here. Where are all the Italian bloody stallions? Well the one's over 5'10!
After the first sleepless night here, as there is a huge bloody market outside are window everyday that starts setting up at 5.00am in the morning, we decided to head out to Pompeii. For some strange reason I can never get the image of Up Pompeii with Frankie Howard out of my mind when I think of the place. It couldn't be further from reality. There are no crap mock up Temples or nymphs walking around in mini toga's, just ruins and then more ruins, and a few more ruins after that. Everyone who knows me, knows I'm a sucker for my history, but after the first half hour of excitement all the ruins started to look the same. Add the blazing heat and running out of silly ideas for photos the place soon lost its appeal! The final straw was when we realised the brothels with all the hardcore Roman porn paintings were out of bounds to the public! So we went and had an ice cream and I brought a book with the paintings in instead to fulfill by Porn cravings! We later walked up to mount Vesuvius's crater which was more incredible due to my £4 Primark sandals breaking on the way up. See kids that's what happens when you buy products made from sweat shop labour!
Yesterday we went to Uschia Island in the bay of Naples which is the less popular brother of Capri. We did try to go to Capri, but couldn't be arsed after seeing the queue for the ferry and thought we could lie anyway and tell everyone the photos were of Capri as they wouldn't be able to tell the difference anyway! Besides Uschia was beautiful.
Today we went to the Amafli coast which we were meant to go all the way round but only got to the first town, Positano due to me having to run off the bus as not to be sick on the guy next to me as I had bad travel sickness! It was not a huge shame as Positano is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in my life! We just chilled on the beach all day and drank and ate and of course in the good old Italian way, people watched.
We are off further down south tomorrow to a little town called Tropea by the sea, which will be good as we won't have to worry about being mugged, murdered or raped anymore when we go outside. well I hope not!


OBSERVATIONS

* I'm in love with the Italian people, especially the old one's. They are such characters and so sweet. I've already found a dozen that I would like to make my new gran parents!

* Italians don't have conversations like us! They shout and wave their hands around even if they are just asking you what you want for your tea or something like that! It always seems as if they are having an argument, which makes them very entertaining to watch.

* I think I'm bad at languages, but I think Anna tops me! She has some sort of Del Boy Italian going on. She says thank you in Spanish and when she asks for the toilet she says Giamatti instead of gabinetto. I informed her that Giamatti is actually an American actor!

P.S Can't upload any photos at the moment as the internet is so crap here. I uploaded all the time in Asia! God! This place is so third world! I'll keep trying though!

ROME

When most kids my age were out drinking white lightning on the corner and popping their cherries in a back alley, I would be sat in my bedroom alone trying to copy drawings and learn the techniques of Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and all the other grand masters. So I was never the norm! I’m not now and never probably will be, but I like it that way. I can’t explain or know why art came into my life. I don’t remember anyone being into art in my family when I was growing up or anyone introducing me to it: It was just there. I use to get books from the library on the history art and I would always go back to the pages with the Renaissance. It became an addiction. I got it into my head at the age of ten that I wanted to be the next Da Vinci. I started drawing and painting everywhere. I even started to recreate a Raphael on my bedroom wall when my mum stripped the walls to redecorate only for her to cover it up again with some white rainbow patterned wallpaper from BBQ. I won’t tell you what her reaction was when I said I’d like to recreate the Sistine Chapel ceiling in my bedroom!
So because of this passion of mine I have always wanted to come to Italy as, after all it is the home of the Renaissance, and Rome is the most amazing place to start with the Vatican containing some of the best of these work of arts! We arrived in the afternoon and with not much of the day left after we had sweated our way round half of Rome in the blazing heat trying to find our hostel, we decided to go just to do the Trevi fountain. Me being the movie geek that I am, I have always had this secret desire to wade through the fountain like the seductive Anita Ekberg in La Dolce vita. In reality this is quite hard due to the one billion bloody tourists all crowded around trying to take a photo every two seconds and also there is a policeman that blows a whistle at you even if attempt to put your finger in the water. So all you are left with is throwing a coin in the water and making a wish. Mine was for all the bloody people to piss off and for me to jump into the water. Yes! That's right people! Dreams do not come true!
The Saturday was what I was most excited about: Vatican city! After reaching St Peters square after running the gauntlet of people trying to sell you a crap tour, we queued for ages to get into the Basilica only for Romany Liz to be told that her skirt was too short and me screaming at the guard as he had just let in some Russian tart with a dress that didn’t cover her arse! It went on for 5 minutes this argument! Luckily Liz had some trousers with her and I’m glad as I would never want to miss what we saw. The grandest church I have ever seen, painting after painting that I had spent so many years looking at in books and then finally, I saw it after all these years. It was as I had seen it in all those copies but only better, but at the same time it didn’t seem quite real that I was there seeing it with my own eyes. I sat there and looked up and smiled at all the those familiar faces that I sketched for all those years and knew so well and they smiled back at me like old friends and I can say for that moment in time I was truly happy.
Today we went to the old Roman ruins of which the showcase is the Colosseum. It doesn’t look half as good as it does in Gladiator! I guess that was 1,500 years ago though! We then took a tour of the Roman Forum but didn’t really pay to much attention as we were all to busy staring at our American guide, Stan’s great arse and good set of pecks, which were much more interesting!
Tomorrow we are off to Naples which I’m not to sure about, as I have heard it’s a hell hole! Well I guess you should give everything a chance!


OBSERVATIONS

• I hate tour groups! They should all be shot! Especially the Japanese as they go round like Storm troopers and all wear silly matching caps to show they are all in the same group! Why?

• Romany Liz has taken to putting olive oil on her legs to moisturise them! One word: Pikey!

• I not feeling very attractive here as Italian men do not like a woman to be taller than them and they tell you so! “You pretty but too tall. Can not marry you!” I reply I don’t like short men and they shouldn’t worry themselves! It does mean that most of the male population is out for me!

• Italian women have the most amazing talent of riding a vespa with the biggest heels and shortest mini skirts you have ever seen in your life! You go girls!

WHERE AM I GOING?

Where am I going? Well Italy it seems, backpacking around for a month, with a my mad Romany friend Liz, who I've been traveling with before. God! If its anything like last time she will have us living off fennel and Mangoes! Actually I don't think they have Mangoes in Italy, do they? I hope not! I love mangoes but when she started going out picking them for free in the Cook Islands it was Mango for breakfast, mango for lunch, mango for dinner, mango for supper, mango juice to drink, even frigging mango with vodka! You can have to many mangoes you know. Apart from that Liz is a great laugh and is completely mad so we get on well. Anna, Liz's friend is with us for the first ten days and we have actually never met before. I'm meeting her for the first time at the airport tomorrow, so I hope we get on otherwise that could be a bit shit. Then when we get up to Florence Deb's and Becky B are meeting us. So we will be broke after that as debs doesn't understand the term backpacking or on the cheap. If we left it to her we would be staying in the bloody Hilton and eating at every 5 star restaurant in town. I'm not saying I wouldn't love it but I would be bankrupt which can be a problem! We start in Rome, go to Naples, down south to a little town called Tropea, up to Rome again, then Florence, a week in a villa (actually more like a cottage!) in Tuscany and then finally onto Venice. Bring it on.
Where am I going in life? Haven't got a clue! I've never been so lost in life as I am right now. Maybe I'm having one of those freak outs that people have before they reach 30! I don't know. There are some things I do know. I'm not sad, I'm not bitter, or angry. What I am is disappointed! Constantly! I'm disappointed by work, men and lifestyle, to the point that I don't get excited or expect anything, anymore. Maybe this is the worst thing to feel out of them all. With all the excesses of my life recently I have been trying to find some sort of excitement again but as the great poets Maximo park once said " the path of excess only led to boredom!" I'm not saying I'm going going away to find myself as I hate all that bollocks. No I'm going away to get out of my London routine that has become unhealthy and to be around the girls like old times and have a bloody good adventure. Well I'm taking my laptop with me so, I can keep you up to date with my Italian adventures.

THE MAD HATTER

I love hats. I wear them all the time even if people think I look like some idiot fashion victim in them. I don't really care! I'm a great believer that people should wear hats all the time like they did in the old days. I would do anything to go back in time to the 1920's and 30's just so I could wear those hats.
So at the moment I feel like I have lost my right arm after my favourite hat (My straw Trilby!) got stolen off my head at Standon calling. It wasn't my best hat, as it had a huge hole in it(Some old guy sat on in on a bus in Indian), but, me and and that hat have been on some travels together. It was my lucky travel hat. In fact there have been three of them. That one, one that I gave away to my Volcano guide in Indonesia because I thought he looked like snoop dog in it and another that my friend Peter Frank borrowed for the moustache party to complete his Hercule Poirot outfit, but he got so drunk he can't remember what happened to it!


Anyway I have been looking around desperately for another, but its really hard to find a good hat, you just can't pick any. I have found a few potentials. The first is a Panama from Lock & Co. This company have been around since 1676 and is one of the best hat companies in the world. I've been in the shop a few times for work and its like stepping back in time. Unfortunatley the prices aren't. The Mauritius Panama I want is £118. I have expense taste!

On a more affordable note is Mr h hats from Italy. My housemate Oli has two of their hats and they are great. I think I might try and pick one up in Italy even cheaper. Prices start from £40

OBSERVATIONS

* Don't bother with clubbing, bars or the internet anymore, the new place to find hot guys is Tesco's in Hackney Central on a Tuesday night around 7.00pm. They were everywhere, I didn't know where to look! Note to one's self next time I go: don't look like a total dog again, put some make-up on and wear a very short skirt. Also the Fruit and Veg aisle is where most of them hangout.

THE CASE OF THE STOCKINGS!

One never usually knows, what one wants to wear for a wedding, but I knew there was one item of clothing I was going to wear: stockings! They are only a recent addition to my wardrobe, but now I'm slightly addicted to them. They make you feel so good! You could be wearing a bin bag and looking like shit, but if your wearing stockings underneath you still feel like sex on legs, that's how good they are. Also, they drive men wild! As it was my old school friend, Nicky's wedding back in Warrington, I decided to splash out and buy myself a new pair of Agent Provocateur one's, as my Jonathan Astons had a few ladders in them. I decided in the end to go the full works and get really dressed up by wearing my Stop Staring dress, with side split and red heels for maxium effect! As I walked down stairs feeling in high spirits, my mum and Lil (My nan) greeted me with smiles.
"You look lovely" they beamed.
"Thanks" I said "And do you like the stockings!" As I flashed them, my mum's face dropped!
"Well you can't wear them, you can see them!"
"That's the whole point mum!"
"I like them" Lil, chipped in.
"Well I don't think there very appropriate" Mum snapped backed
"I wear them all the time in London." I retorted!
"Well you might do a lot of things in London, but this isn't London. You know what the men are like here. You'll probably get raped if you go out wearing those!" said mum.
"They remind me of when I was a girl. You know in the war they use to draw them on and.." Lil said before she was interrupted.
"Yes thank you mother, but this is not the war! This is a wedding and these are not appropriate! You'll give all the Grandads a bloody heart attack!" Mum went on.
"OK! I'll sodding take them off then!" I screamed as I stormed up stairs. I felt like I had reverted back to my youth. You know when your told you can't go out looking like that and comments like "Is that a skirt or a belt!" The difference is I'm 29! I guess I should know better, but I realised a few things that night. I sat around watching my old friends, all in couples, all with mortgages, some married and the rest will be soon and I realised I have never grown up. Does it worry me? Sometimes, but that's the way I am and it is the path I have chosen and I wouldn't change any of the decisions I have made in this life, even the bad one's, even wearing stockings, which I will still continue to wear, just not to weddings! The wedding itself was great and it was nice to see and catch up with old friends. Even after all these years we are all still the same girls, just with better hair and dress sense.


DRESS: Stop Staring
SHOES: M&S
BAG: Second Hand
FLOWER: From my Florist Mother's stock
STOCKINGS: Agent Provocateur









OBSERVATIONS
Being back in Warrington I have made lots of observations, most of them being on the in fashions of the town. So this observations is dedicated to "SO IN RIGHT NOW!" in Warrington:

* I'm afraid the trackie bottoms tucked into Rockport look is still a major fashion statement.

* Beehives, but not in the trendy Winehouse, Rockabilly way. Its more like Bet Lynch!

* Orange! Not in clothes but on the skin! It looks like they have been Tangoed! Or maybe more like pork scratching's as some look like they have well over done those sun beds.

* The obese look with some crap tatoos!

* The shell suit still seems to keep going after all these years. Yes I still saw some people wearing them!

Actually I do have some other observations to make!

* My Grandmother who is 76 seems to have a better love life than me. What the hell is going on!

* I realized a few things this weekend. Lets just say they left me feeling in a better place than I have done in a while. I feel quite strong now.

MATERIAL GIRL

So I work in costume for TV and film. I often get asked what is it I exactly do? Mmh! I often ask myself the same question! My full title is costume assistant, which basically means I work on set while filming occurs and take all the shit from all the actors and directors! The hours are long and there is a lot of waiting around sometimes, but what I like is the unpredictability of the job and the odd situations you are put in. These include doing checks on the wing of an airplane at south end on sea airport on actresses who were pretending to sunbathe topless on it as the scene was meant to be Spain, but in reality it was a freezing February day in England! Then other day I was dressing an actor who was impersonating Gordon brown dressed in union jack boxers and socks with suspenders in a pool, surrounded by bikini clad beauties and then there is my favourite one is sewing a strap on to an actor as it had broken, while a big horny Alsatian was licking my legs! These are just a few of the weird scenarios that have happened to me while doing this job and believe me: you can't make this stuff up! I could never do an office job, I would go insane! My job suits my personality and you do get to meet incredible people and see some amazing places that I would never have gone to other wise. The most important thing that I do at work though is I know how to have a lot of fun and so do the people I work with and we try and mess around on set as much as possible. Well what do you expect. We are material girls!