Quickie

Just a little quickie post today, as I'm doing this in my tea break.
uuurgh! The Powers that be (just misspelt that "posers that be" - there's a Fruedian for you) have decided to chlorinate our water so we don't all get tummy bugs, owing to the ammount of free-flowing sewage that might be in the water. Such a pity - one of our great treasures was our wonderful drinking water, all artesian and one of the cleanest supplies in the world. We're going to have to buy bottled water now for tea and cooking (coffee hides the taste better) or just drink a lot of wine and beer.
Also been told not to have baths or do lots of washing, as the infrastructure is poorly. So we'll all be drunk, stinky and wearing dirty clothes from now on.
I've stayed home in my suburb mainly since the quake. I don't want to see what has happened to the city centre or Lyttelton or Sumner. I'll just put my head in the sand and pretend it hasn't happened as much as I can. Every day there is some new bad news so I'm avoiding newspapers, TV. internet sites as well.
Still going to Italy, although Singapore Airlines have cancelled my flights in and out of ChCH. Now I have to go via Auckland, which is a bit of a pain, as the more changes one has to make, the more can go wrong. Posso non cambio? Ma, no. I don't care if I can't get back on time, but going there needs to be smooth and as stress-free as possible.
Made some strawberry jam the other day. It didn't set, so now I have lots of strawberry syrup, which I can still use, but it's just not jam. I asked the Madonna if she would miraculously turn my syrup into jam, but I guess she has more important prayers to attend to at the moment. She told me I was frivolous and to stop being silly, and that she wil get around to it sometime when she's not so busy.
One of the churches in Venice is called Santa Maria Formosa. Formosa means curvy, womanly, and it results from a vision a man had of the Virgin on that spot - she was a sexy, curvy real woman. And why shouldn't she be?
Ave Maria, piena di gratia, santa formosa.