The low-hanging fruit, at least

Buondì.

I’m super late today, sorry! But I have a good excuse, as we were off releasing Roomie into the wild. We opened the cage door, out she confidently bounded, and with a few powerful leaps she was gone, disappearing into the treeline.

Which means my old life is over, finished, done! No more hours on the road each day (listening to the news in Swedish, at least), no more getting up at the crack of dawn SEVEN DAYS A WEEK for long walks, no more blaring kiddie TV filling our home with noise and glare.

But out with the old, in with the new. I expect to have perhaps four-to six hours a day extra (to myself!), in which I can work, learn, and do fun things, if I can remember how.

Plus there will be one fewer special diet to negotiate at meal times, and I’ll be able to siesta in my bed again, instead of in an armchair.

Over the decades, though, I’ve learnt that the best-laid plans are rarely realised. For instance, last summer, when I retired from teaching, with all sorts of hopes and dreams, only to find myself shovelling dung and carrying buckets of fresh fruit around.

So this time, my only plan is to see how things go. No big work projects, no diet (though I could use one), and no bucket list. For the moment, at least.

That said, the last few years I’ve made decent progress with my foreign languages, notwithstanding events. It’s only been the harsh, wearing winter months that have pared my ‘study’ routine down to a historic minimum.

Ever had a really good pay hike from a job?

It happened to me once, once only, when I was in my early twenties, finished the post-college training I was doing at the time (this was before I was a teacher), and so began to be paid the ‘qualified’ rate, at the very same time that my former employer settled a pay dispute with the labour unions by agreeing to an across-the-board upwards adjustment of everyone’s salaries, and to backdate the increase!

At the end of the month, I stared with disbelief at the numbers on the payslip. The amount was double what I’d been getting before. I was rich! Beyone my wildest dreams!

That wonderful feeling lasted maybe a week or two, the time needed to pay off the remainder of my student-era credit card debt, move into a slightly larger but independent apartment, buy a second-hand car from a colleague for £300, insure it, pay the road tax, and fill the tank with gasoline. At which point I was wealthy no longer.

So anyway, today’s thinking is yes, no big plans for my new life, but at least let’s use some of this extra time to recover a few of the easy-to-do, productive learning activities that were discarded by the Roomie wayside, like pieces of an exhausted soldier’s kit.

I’m going to focus on the low-hanging fruit, here – nothing dangerous with ladders, nothing so challenging that I’ll soon regret taking it on, and likely fail at.

First off, I’m going to need to replace the useful things I’ve been doing, that I’ll no longer do, which is mostly listening to the radio on the way back from taxiing Roomie to her petting zoo each morning.

It would be a shame to lose the thirty minutes of Swedish listening each weekday, but that’s easy to fix. In future, when I’m out doing the minimum daily exercise, I’ll have the Bluetooth earbuds in and be listening to something, rather than singing songs and throwing sticks, as previously.

E poi, all those hours in front of Bing, Curious George, and so on… That was helpful for my Italian, at least, but now I’ll try to remember how to connect my smartphone with the flat screen TV in the sala, so watch TV in the languages I want to practice. Ciao ciao, Flop.

Then there’s reading. I wrote a few months back about how I’d managed to get access to thousands of online newspapers, FREE, via my local library. For a few months, I browsed Swedish, French and Spanish giornali most days, which was great! While it lasted, which was until a long run of interrupted nights and early mornings killed the newspaper habit. I started taking daily siestas instead, so stayed sane, but at a cost to my learning.

That’s it, for now – substitute what I’ll no longer do, replace things with other similar but more useful activities, and sleep at conventional times, so as to free up an hour or so for something other than catching up on the zees.

For the future? Well there’s a trip to Spain on the horizon, some time in the next six-to-twelve months, probably. So I’m going to need to do some Spanish conversation. But that’s a decision for another day.

A lunedì!

P.S. 3 Half-Price eBook Easy Readers, offer ends Sunday!

And here’s a final reminder about this week’s half-price ebook offer, which ends on Sunday 19th March 2023. From Monday morning, the three titles below will be priced at the usual £7.99 each, rather than £3.99 as now.

Il ciclista (A2)

A big-city journalist takes a much-needed break in a picturesque Umbrian village. On her first morning there she heads to the only bar for breakfast, and is suprised to find an older man asleep in his wheelchair…

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 8 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at any level
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Buy Il ciclista just £3.99 | FREE sample chapter (.pdf) | Read reviews! | Catalog

Ti racconto la mia giornata (A2)

‘Tell us about your typical day’ is a classic classroom activity for practising the present, describing routines, likes and dislikes, and so on. So here, nine people do!

Read/listen to a nurse, a DJ, a tour guide, a carer, and five more, relating a day from their lives, from the vital issue of what they have for breakfast, to their jobs, their families and friends, and how they relax.

Once you’ve done all nine, test how much you’ve understood (and hopefully learnt!) using the exercises in the final section.

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 9 chapters to read and listen to
• 9 exercises at the end of the ebook, to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossaries of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at elementary level and above
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Buy Ti racconto la mia giornata just £3.99 | FREE sample chapter (.pdf) | Read reviews! | Catalog

Un giorno da ricordare (B2)

Learn Italian by reading and listening to easy readers (simplified stories).

This ebook contains nine tales of unforgettable days, recounted by memorable characters, with the aim of stimulating you to listen to and read Italian, while offering plenty of exposure to the main Italian past tense!

Topics include a new grandson, getting laid off, a shipwreck, a child’s first ski race, a dream home, a surprise party, a pet dog, graduation day, and losing a cellphone!

• .pdf e-book (+ audio available free online)
• .mobi (Kindle-compatible) and .epub (other ebook readers) available on request at no extra charge – just add a note to the order form or email us
• 9 chapters to read and listen to
• Comprehension questions to check your understanding
• Italian/English glossary of ‘difficult’ terms for the level
• Suitable for students at intermediate level and above
• Download your Free Sample Chapter (.pdf)

Buy Un giorno da ricordare just £3.99 | FREE sample chapter (.pdf) | Read reviews! | Catalog

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When your order is ‘completed’ (normally immediately after your payment), a download link will be automatically emailed to you. It’s valid for 7 days and 3 download attempts so please save a copy of the .pdf ebook in a safe place. Other versions of the ebook, where available, cannot be downloaded but will be emailed to people who request them. There’s a space to do that on the order form – where it says Additional information, Order notes (optional). If you forget, or if you have problems downloading the .pdf, don’t worry! Email us at the address on the website and we’ll help. Also, why not check out our FAQ?

P.P.S.

Did you read/listen to Thursday’s bulletin of ‘easy’ Italian news?

No reason not to – it’s free, as is subscribing. Go here and follow the simple instructions to get three free bulletins each week, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

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