On Monday, my normally very reliable, elderly German motorbike refused to start. Probably the cold had got to the battery, I thought, while rushing to catch a passing bus – mask and Green Pass both now obligatory. I got to my hospital appointment on time, but the bus had been heated and I was overdressed […]

Buondì. I write a hundred and fifty-six articles for OnlineItalianClub.com each year, and apart from the quarterly sales and the ‘free trial lesson offers in November and February, when I resuse copy to save time, they’re almost all original – at least a hundred articles a year, anyway. Obviously, there’s repetition – approaches to language […]

Buondì. I don’t know about you, but I’ve realised that I don’t handle stress at all well (I’m having problems with banks…) I wake up at four a.m. worrying, then can’t get to sleep again. During the day, I get physical symptoms – tingling, trembling, ‘fight or flight’ responses, that sort of thing. It’s not […]

Buondì. I’m desperately busy today, as it’s the first of the month (which is always heavy), as well as being an important day in a big reorganisation project (the various things that we do are moving to their own legal entities from today, rather than being all together in one company). Plus I have to […]

Buondì. It rained all day yesterday, so I’m counting myself lucky to have survived. Why is that, you wonder? Because when it rains here in Bologna (it doesn’t happen that often), people take their cars, rather than walking, cycling or standing in line for a bus. Which means there’s more traffic to contest with, as […]

Buondì. Short and sweet today as, like a lot of people in the northern hemisphere in November, I’m fed up with the dark, the weather, the daily grind, and with the fact that it’s still more than four weeks until Christmas! Which might not happen anyway because… well, let’s not think about that. So just […]

Buondì. I have a pain in my left shoulder, guess why. You got it – the famous third dose! Which I booked through a link in a text message I got on Tuesday, and received yesterday (Thursday) morning, in a purpose-built vaccine ‘hub’ created from a disused engineering factory on an industrial estate not far […]

Buondì. I’ve been hanging onto a text that our regular ebook writer (and Italian teacher) Francesca sent me a while back. For a rainy day, so to speak. Or a day when I had little ‘voglia’, like today. I’ve got to go pay the car insurance, and deposit money at the school’s bank. And it’s […]