Week Seven

Oh Mary mother of God. I haven’t been this sick in a long time. However, as a result, I haven’t been this skinny in a long time, so it’s alright by me. And somewhere between picking me up off the floor and force feeding me dinners NDN (Next Door Neighbour), ceased to be my NDN and became my BBB (Big Brown Boyfriend). All well and good but Eddie is breathing down the back of my neck like nobody’s business!

Monday 16^th Nov

Today was rough out, boy. Woke up with the usual burn in my stomach and took my tablets in the (vain) hope of finding some relief but holy god by 12 o clock I was crippled in agony. I just lay on the bed watching episodes of Dexter but by 3 o clock I swear to god I couldn’t take it any more.

You know when you’re really sick and you’re in so much pain that you actually go a bit mental? Well I was right there. You start having them black and white waking dreams about going on the waltzers in Tramore.

The pain was such that I was like “I think I might just die instead of going through this.” And what’s more I was SWEATING, I must have been a million degrees. So I went over to the window and opened it wide letting the blast of Baltic November air blow in on me. Then I said to myself shur Ill have a little lie down on these lovely cool tiles. I’ll just lie down a have a little die for myself, like.

I don’t know what happened then or how long I was lying there for but the next thing BBB came bustin in the door and picked me up off the floor.

“Jesus Christ look at the state of you!” he goes.

Then he put me on the bed and started ransacking my room. Why? Why, I hear you ask? Lads this is so funny. The poor child thought I was after taking an overdose or something and he was looking around for evidence. Shur God love him like.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I said.

"What did you take? What did you drink?"

White as a sheet he was, reading all my toiletry labels. I was curled up in a ball on the bed, literally in the knots with the laughing. This wasn’t helping my case. In the end anyway I managed to convince him I was only sick, not dying of a body lotion overdose. He made me eat some pasta then and then I went back into my own room to writhe around in peace.

Tuesday 17^th Nov

Woke up in absolutely no pain for the first time in weeks! Yay! Did a spring clean of the room and organized some work stuff before BBB came home from college. Yet again he made me my dinner and then we watched some Dexter.

Into me leaba I hopped that night, happy as Larry just to be well. But as I lay there all snuggled up in the dark, Little Eddie Hobbs crept over the pillow to whisper in my ear “You’re fucked Jen, just give it up, bitch”. God, he’s right. I am fucked. The ad revenue from this blog has somewhat plateau-ed lately, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that noone on God’s green earth is going to come and read a blog about the Eddie Hobbs Diet and then click on an ad that says “Men’s Tartan Boxers”. Although it has been reported that once there was an ad on here for Eddie Hobbs services.

Speaking of Eddie Hobbs, I feel I must share with you all that about a fortnight ago now I emailed Eddie Hobbs through his website and told him all about my Eddie Hobbs Diet and I haven’t heard anything back, not even from one of his minions. And then he had the CHEEK to show his face on the Late Late Show after he didn’t bother acknowledging my adoration. He is clearly playing hard to get. Oh Eddie. Don't make me start a facebook group.

Wednesday 18^th Nov

Today is my friend Laura’s birthday so we head to her house for dinner and drinks. On the way I am solemnly warned by BBB that I am absolutely NOT to drink tonight, that it is contributing to my ongoing sickness. Of course, I say. Shur I’ll just have a sneaky glass or two of prosecco like.

Now lads I don’t know what happened. I just don’t know. I really did only mean to have one or two. But when I look back on the night, the one or two glasses turned into one or two bottles of prosecco. And also, I never do shots, like as in I have never done one shot in my entire life, but shots of JD were involved. Or “Sinor Jack” as he is affectionately known. Then when the prosecco was gone, I was so busy chatting that I didn’t notice that I was drinking a full glass of neat rum as if it were lemonade. When the time came to go to the club, I went outside the front door and bejaysus. No way. No WAY was I going anywhere but home. I’d say BBB would have killed me if he wasn’t as pissed himself. For a beast of a man, he can’t drink for shit, shur God love him. And that’s saying something coming from me, who gets drunk at the sniff of a West Coast Cooler. But then again I suppose his organs aren’t fully formed yet, what with him being a child and that.

Thursday 19^th Nov

Woke up. Groaned. Went back to sleep.

Friday 20^th Nov

Oh this is it, folks. Things have reached a crescendo! Woke up with the old familiar burn in the stomach and was watching a spot of Dexter when Nora asked did I want to have a lurk around town. Of course! I says, but when I stood up, my stomach had other plans. I was struck with the most acute pain I literally couldn’t straighten out. I got down on the floor in a ball. This is it, I was thinking to myself. This is how I am going to die. Because this is definitely NOT normal, I don’t know anyone who lives like this. The worst thing was I couldn’t even start banging on the wall for BBB to come in because he was gone home for a few days. Next thing I crawled in to the bathroom, and shur Jesus there followed what can only be described as an exodus of my innards. This is good though, this is cleansing. My friend Sofia came over then with tea and biscotti and DVDs and minded me. I think I will marry her.

Saturday 21^st Nov

Went into town with Nora, then headed into Sadie and Laura’s. It was pissin out but all the Christmas lights were on so it totally cancelled out all the dreariness. I am SO looking forward to Christmas! Mam and Hazel are coming over on Thursday and then we are all flying home together on Friday. I can only imagine the shenanigans that we are going to get up to once we get a Malibu and pineapple into Mammy!

Once again, can’t wait to get home to Waterford for a while. Of course, once I’m there five minutes I’ll be itchin to get back out! I can’t even begin to tell you how much I am looking forward to some more classic Jacques family moments like the one that came to pass last March on Hazel’s 30^th birthday. (That’s right Hazel, I’m going there).

We were all out in Hazel’s house for her birthday and we were in the living room in front of the fire having a chat.

Daddy was on the recliner in front of the telly, watchin it at full blast cos he is deaf (from listening to us I’d say) and Hazel’s little dog Lola was standing on his chest just licking the face off him, and he was just letting her.

I don’t know what it is about Daddy’s face but all dogs are mad to lick it. And I don’t know why he lets them, especially Lola, of all little dogs, because she always pees when she gets happy or excited, shur God love her. She was going apeshit licking the face off him and we were all laughing our heads of and making jokes about it, while poor deaf daddy continued on watching the telly, oblivious to us takin the piss.

Next thing Hazel’s husband goes

“Jesus if he’s not careful, his face’ll be like the fella from the Falklands war!”

So we were all laughing at this, but naturally because Hazel had literally just had the baby she pissed herself and left a little wet patch on the leather sofa (thank god it’s wipe clean is all I’ll say!) and I said

“Haha you left a wet patch!’

Ivor then

“Where? Where?!”

And we were all laughing our heads off, like really in the knots, I mean I was on all fours on the floor. Daddy must have heard some faint sounds cos he turned around and we were all rolling all over the place.

“What’s going on?” he said.

Ivor said “She pissed herself!”

And Daddy went “Wha?! Jesus Christ!”

and threw the dog off him, literally launched her through the air like, cos he didn’t have a clue what was going on and he thought Ivor meant that Lola pissed herself all over Daddy and that was what we were laughin at! Well needless to day there wasn’t a dry knickers in the house. Oh lads - get me home!

Sunday 22^nd Nov

Feeling better today. Went for a stroll around town to get some air and reintegrate into society slash spread my disease to the unsuspecting masses. Headed home then to rest. Got on to facebook and had a hilarious nostalgic conversation.

Lads, hands up who remembers NAFFco 54 jackets? And I always thought it was Nanny Annie Fuckin Fanny Colm’s Only 54, but I was told it was in fact Nanny Annie Fuckin Fanny Condoms Only 54. These jackets were the shit boy. If you had one you were the biznitch. You were also king of the pikeys but that’s neither here nor there. If you had the original Naf Naf coat you were actually LESS cool than the people who had NAFFco 54 jackets that they got for a fiver down the Apple Market, where the fella threw in a few gone off Mars bars with it.

If you were a female pikey, the Naffco54 jacket HAD to be worn with “skrousers”. For the uninitiated these are a tasteful mélange of a trousers and a skirt.

Now if you wanted to be REALLY cool, you headed into Rockit on Blackfriars and got yourself a pair of Xworx jeans. I think Rockit replaced Mork’s in the Broad Street Centre as THE place to go for t-shirts and jeans.

Except of course now I was no raver, I was something MUCH cooler lads. I was a grunger. Or at the very least I was trying to be! Jaysis now lads I had it all, the flannel shirts, the chain on me wallet, the black and red doc martins. Shame my Harry Potter glasses didn’t quite fit in with the whole look. Same goes for my “curtains” fringe. Sigh.

Toward the late 1990’s then my style developed into a more skater-y look. With my Quiksilver t shirts and peace sign pendant I was the shit. No joke.

All I can say is thank god I got it all out of my system back then. I can honestly say I was positively rotten until I was about 20. I think I have somewhat copped on since then though.

Thank God.

Bit of a depressing week here in Pavia due to being sick and losing sleep due to the financial nightmare that is my life, but thinking of the good times ahead with the family Jacques keeps me going when I’m sitting on the toilet puking into the bidet.

PS Heard there's a lot of rain at home at the moment. People must be bustin' out their arks left right and centre. I can only imagine them up in the Apple Market now "Ten euro the ark! Free box of mars bars with every ark!"

PPS I can't find any pics on the interweb of Naffco54. The first person to find me one will get a present in the post! If you remember any other mortifying trends from back in the day, leave them as a comment below and give us all a good laugh!

Week Six

A somewhat interesting week in Pavia culminating in being threatened by an axe murderer, facing my fear of squatting, skinning both my knees and discovering the joys of chip pizza. Good times.

Monday 10^th Nov

This morning I opened the shutters and looked out the window and there on the street below was a billboard with a picture of a nudie white woman and a nudie black man. And the caption was “They call me Dirty Black. They call me Filthy Lesbian”. And that’s it like. Nice to meet ye lads, they call me Jennie!

This afternoon then I heard voices in the hall, one of them being next door neighbour’s. I went out to join the banter and we ended up in another girl’s room chatting away. Next thing “Do you have a boyfriend?” he said to me. Heart skips a beat. I must have just been sitting there like a gombeen because the girl next to me answered for me. He expressed an interest in going to rowing so later when I was getting ready for rowing I asked him does he want to come with me, but he was already on his way to the gym. “But I’m going to a party tonight, do you want to come with me?” Me then “Eh, yeah” And I grabbed my phone to take his number and as I was typing it in my hand was shaking and I lost all strength in my fingers. I was typin in all types of Xs and Os like a ham-fisted buffoon. I’m not used to this kind of carry-on at all, at all. Once I had his number I had to close the door and sit down for a minute. Me nerves!

That night anyway I had to come home sick from rowing. I hopped into the shower when I got home and by the time I had gotten out he had rung me four times and texted me once. Hmm. I text him anyway saying I was sick and couldn’t go. He text back “Pity, etc, next time etc, if you need a doctor let me know…” Oh my God. Oh my God. Three dots! He is flirting with me.

Ok right, all systems go. Must construct a text message that is flirty and nonchalant in equal measure. Then we can keep the flirting going for a while to help me to acclimatize to the idea of going out with someone new. Excellent. This is good. This is healthy. So I typed in “Shur come and examine me tomorrow, my lips are hurtin me…smiley face” See that’s the trick, hedge your bets with a smiley face. Usually I hate smileys, but in this case, they are my ally. I read the message ten times before sending it. Ah here, fuck it, I’ll send it, I’m mad, I am! So there then followed the ten minutes between my message and his reply in which I was having the obligatory panic attack “Oh my God, what was I thinking! He’s not going to reply now, he thinks I’m a mad aul wan!” Until the phone beeped and my blood pressure rocketed. “Shur jaysus I could call in tonight if that’s the case…smiley face”. Ah good. The presence of smiley faces keeps it all innocent. This suits me grand, what with being a divorcee stumbling blindly back out into the market like. A few more weeks of this and I’ll be ready for the first awkward kiss. Great. By then it was past midnight so I relaxed a bit, shur we can continue the harmless flirting tomorrow.

Next thing, a knock at the door.

Oh Jesus! JESUS! It’s not, is it? It couldn’t be. I opened the door a tiny crack. His giant bod was taking up the whole door frame. I didn’t know whether to puke or faint! He must have run home as fast as his teenage legs could carry him! I was just standing there in shock, in my jimjam ends and my horrible t shirt that I usually only wear for training, hair all over the gaff. Next thing he goes “Did somebody call for a doctor?” Oh God. Oh Mary mother of Jesus. I’m not ready for this! I just stood there, jaw on the floor. Then he just said “You propositioned me” and pushed me in the door, scooped me up with one hand and closed the door behind him with the other. Oh God! My first thought was “How the fuck am I going to get out of this one?” but then I was like, go with it, give him a little kiss like. No sooner were my lips braced for contact than his hand wanted to go on a holiday to Boob Town. Ha! I don’t fuckin think so, butty. He was swiftly “trun” out back into his own room. Boob town, as if! You’ll have to put in a fair bit of wooing first, m’dear. Now I’m no prude but please now, I mean honestly. I really don’t think so. I meant the lips on my face were hurting me, like. Talk about gettin the wrong end of the stick. I mean Italian women might give out free passes to Boob Town like they’re going out of style but not me, no siree. No hands please, I’m Irish.

I got into bed anyway hoping for a good night sleep. But I just lay there staring at the ceiling all night thinking “what just happened?” Most terrifying/hilarious thirty seconds of my life, like.

Tuesday 11^th Nov

Yesterday just kind of ran into today because of lack of sleep last night. He knocked on my door in the morning to say goodbye before he went to college. Like a nice polite boy. Good, he’s learning. Let the wooing commence.

Wednesday 12^th Nov

Today my friends from college Anna and Eamonn came over to visit me. I was delighted to see them. The two of them were foaming at the mouth to do something mental to get into my blog, and they didn’t disappoint. We checked into their hotel room first. Now this hotel, like all hotels in Italy, as stipulated by law, is run by a complete mentaller. You just know by his soft spoken voice and the mayonnaise on his cheek that he has some bodies buried in the back yard. We were in the room having a catch up in the middle of the day like, and the next thing a knock at the door. It’s the axe murderer. “You’ll have to keep it down lads” he said, quite nicely, “Oh yeah grand boy, no bodder” says us. Even though we were only conversing as mature adults, as illustrated in the picture below.

But he kept going on “If you keep talking, I’ll give you back your money and you can go find somewhere else to stay”. “Yeah, yeah no problem” we said. “If the talking continues I’m going to call the police and have you dragged out of here” Ok, now this is getting weird. “Eh…ok, yep, understood”. “If I hear one more sound I’m going to come up here and chop you into little pieces, wrap you in quality street wrappers and give you out as sweets on Halloween”. Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. He went off anyway and we were all just staring at each other like WTF? The next thing a drill started up upstairs, and continued for all of Anna and Eamonn’s stay. Welcome to Italy lads.

That night we went out to the Irish pub. Now I hadn’t ever used their bathroom before so I was shocked and upset to find that they had those hole in the ground toilets. Now people, anyone who knows me knows that I just do not do anything that involves squatting. I have never peed in a field in my life and I’m not about to assume the position now. I mean, how does one even approach these things? I’m very upset like. But as the proseccos kept coming I had to face the truth: it was time to pee. Oh god, oh god. Had to get detailed instructions from Sofia before I could go downstairs. Emerged equally victorious and disgusted. I mean how unladylike. These things really bother me, I wish I could be more like my sister, who’d piss in yer eye. I’m not saying which sister. (It’s Hazel.)

Thursday 13^th Nov

Today Anna and Eamonn went on a jaunt to Milan while I had to go to work in Pavia. When they got home we went out for a several drinks. Of course, we all know that the part of the night when you are in the bar drinking the actual drinks is never the funniest part of the night, oh no. The funniest part of the night is when the drinks have been drunk and you’re on your way home and one of ye has a “brilliant idea”. In this case, the ‘brilliant idea’ was had by us when we were going through the underground passage in town. “Oh my god like, let’s recreate the Twilight New Moon poster.” “That is the most ingenious thing I have ever heard of in my life!” This is clearly a completely normal and appropriate thing to be doing at 2 o’ clock of a Friday morning in an underground passageway. See result below.

Anyway then we headed to the taxi rank to get me a taxi home. Not a taxi in sight, and when we rang the taxi company there were no taxis available. In fact, there wasn’t even any traffic. Anna and Eamonn said they’d walk me home the ten minutes up the road. Grand. So we were walkin up the road like the three drunken gowlers we are and no harm came to us, until we were literally outside my front door and I slapped off the ground. Like, literally lying on the ground I was. I have always hated walking down slight declines and this is why. First one foot slipped, but then the other foot saved me, but then that foot slipped and the other one came back to save me; and this must have went on for about ten seconds, all the while I was getting closer and closer to the ground until I eventually admitted defeat and sprawled out face down. You know that feeling, where there is the initial panic when you slip, but then the relief when you realize you have saved yourself, only to slip again and save yourself again and you keep thinking you are going to be ok until slowly, slowly, the realization dawns on you that you and the ground are going to meet face to face. Needless to say we all were creased up laughing. Eamonn tried to help me up “No no!” I said “lets laugh first”! And then when we got enough laughing out, Eamonn was helping me up and he was like “Anna take her other hand” but Anna said “I can’t, I’m peeing”. Ah lads. As Eamonn would say - it’s all fun and games until you’re crawling home.

Friday 14^th Nov

Woke up this morning with no skin on my knees, and my palm shredded. Not bad for a night’s work. Eamonn and Anna came in to my place and then we headed out for lunch and a stroll. Headed back to my place then for them to collect their bags and they headed off into the sunset. What a great few days. Went to work and then came home and curled up and watched Up.

Saturday 15^th Nov

Right this weekend I am taking it easy after the hectic week. Head into Laura and Sadie’s house for some pizza and prosecco action. However after a miniscule amount of wine, it seemed to have reawakened the alcohol that was lying dormant in my system and I was instantly in the goolies. This is not good. Must stumble home immediately and fall into bed.

Sunday 16^th Nov

Worked all day (with a sprinkling of America’s Next Top Model) then in the evening went into town with the fella next door for an aul stroll. On the way home we got pizza and I, only out of morbid curiosity, you understand, got a Chip Pizza. That’s right, a pizza with chips on it. For 5 euro. I mean come on. I imagined how much money I could make off the drunken louts on John Street in Waterford at 4 o clock on a Sunday morning with chip pizzas. But then I thought of the trauma of having to see all the fat wans with their “bet” on clothes stumbling in and stuffing it down their hideous gobs and I thought nah - me mental health is me wealth.

Anyway I said to the fella next door, "this is mad now, the two of us hanging out and you’re only nineteen." “Oh, I’m not nineteen.” He says. Oh thank God, I think to myself, and breathe a sigh of relief.

“I’m eighteen”.

God forgive me.

Week Five

Now lads everyone calm down right – but this week I found out what it says on the sign! I know, like. I know.

Monday 2^nd Nov

I went to training tonight determined to find out who Lorenzo was. Had me eyes cocked for him all night. There weren’t many people there so I was scanning the machines for a big fella. And lo – about 6 machines down there he was – a BEAST of a man rowing away. That must be him I say to myself. He gets up and goes out to get some water and he looks at me on the way out but I looked up too late to catch his eye. Shit! Must make up for it on the way back. On his way back in then I was STARING him down like willing him to look at me, lasers shooting out of my eyeballs like. He looked at me anyway and I got that lightning bolt in my belly and I smiled and was like “well boy” And he smiled back at me like he knew me. That must be him Im thinking to myself. But how can I be sure?

I finished up on the machines and went out into the hall and the trainer was there. Come upstairs with me I said so we were going upstairs and halfway up he stopped me and said in an urgent (sexy) whisper “Quick – which one is Ella?” This is it! This is my moment! “Never mind about that, who the fuck is Lorenzo?” And then he was like “Lor..” and someone started coming down the stairs so we were like “yeah lets do some ab work yeah, yeah” ! And we continued on up the stairs. Goddammit!

Tuesday 3^rd Nov

Went down the supermarket today, and all the way down there I was psyching myself up to no end to find out what it says on the sign. I have to keep my public happy like. Lads I was hyped up to the last. SAS in full swing like. I was here like “I’m just going to say, ‘give us a look at that sign’”.

Well lads he must be reading this blog or something, because when I rounded the corner of the footbridge there he was with a NEW sign. A bigger one, written out in stenciled letters and laminated. “Jaysus”, I said to myself , “he means business.” So I went up to him, “Ciao” I says, “give us a look at that sign” (all going according to plan so far), and it says

I am looking for work.

I am a deaf mute.

I have had to leave my country.

My father is dead.

Please help me.

“Jesus Christ” I thought to myself, what a shitty hand to be dealt.

Then I was thinking to myself – deaf and dumb? I could be full sure he said well to me a few times. Funny, that. Must just be me. “Would you fancy an oul pizza boy?” I says, “Ah yeah, missus” he nods. So I did my shoppin and grabbed him pizza and a drink. On the way out anyway I handed it to him. He puts his hand on his heart. “Tell me a bit about yourself” I goes. He looked at me as if I had two tits (new readers see week two). I said “where are you from?”, cos he was a bit too mocha-choca-latta-ya-ya to be Italian like. And he is like lookin all flustered like he cant communicate with me and I say “come on like, lets at least try and talk to each other.” Ok he nods and takes out his phone. Alarm bells are going off. What is he doing with a phone? Then I think shur I am only marginally better off than him and I have one hahah! So we carry out a conversation via typin stuff into our phones. He is from Romania and his name is Valentin. So I went home anyway thinking of places I could find him a nice cushy job. The poor fella like, it’s a hard oul life.

I get home anyway and I’m chatting away to Jac. I tell her I found out what it says on the sign. “Let me guess” she says “Im a deaf mute with a son on another country. Theres a fella with that sign in Waterford.” And I actually thought for a split second- lads I ACTUALLY thought “Jesus that’s some coincidence”.

Now bear in mind I am the most gullible person on the face of the earth. Like one time at home Stewy says to me in the living room “Jen I was just reading there, did you know statistically that 6 out of 7 dwarves aren’t Happy?” And me then “Oh my God, really? That’s terrible!” And he lookin at me then as if to say “oh my god you thick bitch.” Couple that now with me big dopey soft heart and shur I’d fall for any sob story.

So anyway needless to say I am rightly pissed off that Valentin is after playin me for a fool. I mean like I couldn’t buy me cashews cos I bought him lunch instead. And I need them to keep me calories up when I’m training. Well I swear to god, he better HOPE he is actually deaf and dumb. Of course he’s not feckin looking for work. Shur how could he be and he standing there every hour of the day? He knows he will make more money standing there than he would in a proper job. The fucker. He’s prob at home now with the rest of his begging crew and his father, who is very much alive, going “yeah this thick blonde bitch bought me lunch today – boo-ya!”.

This is remindin me of some beggars in particular in Dublin. Like the fella on Westmoreland Street with the gammy leg. And he rolls up his trouser leg to his thigh and waves his leg in your face as you walk past. And the practiced pitiful look on his face like, he gets up in the morning and puts in his puppy dog eyes. “Oh poor me, look at me poor leg it’s upside down and inside out”. And a full head of gold teeth on him. He doesn’t need money like, he needs a Cash4Gold freepost envelope.

Stop lads - I shouldn’t have read the sign. I knew even as I was reading it, that it was a bad idea. Sigh.

Wednesday 4^th Nov

Didn’t go to training tonight as there was a big dinner on in our palazzo. Actually it was more of a banquet – we each dragged our tables out into the corridor so it was one huge long table. It was a good laugh. So before dinner I was chattin to some new people and the fella next door comes over and here the next thing he starts leaning on my shoulder and I was thinking to myself “If he puts his elbow on my head he definitely fancies me” Two seconds later, he put his elbow on my head. Ha! I knew it. Pity he is only 12.

But he surprised me. We were sittin down eatin dinner and he was sittin at the top of the table (of 30 people) holding court there like a fully grown man. I was impressed. And I’m ashamed to say it, but….he was makin me feel a bit giddy. Stop lads. Remember when you were a teenager and every time you saw someone you fancied you get that shock in your stomach? All I needed were the glasses and the braces and I’d be 15 again!

After dinner we all had to stand on the table and walk down it like a catwalk and stand on the end of it and talk about ourselves. Everyone was going up and then the next thing everyone started chanting “Lady Gaga! Lady Gaga!” and here I was , what the fuck are them eejits on about, and here they were on about me. Sorry. Sorry now - Lady Gaga? Since when do I look like Lady Gaga? I can’t help but feel insulted. I must have dropped a pair of balls when I wasn’t lookin like.

Anyway then the next door fella gets up. Now I’d by lying if I said I wasn’t lookin. I was just having a look like, just browsin. He was wearing a nice pair of jeans, a pair of boots and a skin tight polo neck. All of which were having an effect on me. Lads you could tell the time off his pecs. It was ride o clock like. Later on then we were having drinks and he went to walk past me and put his giant hands around my waist and brushed his whole body against me to walk past. And I wouldn’t mind but there were at least three metres between me and the wall. Interesting. Then at some point I felt a twinge in my back. The twinge that tells me someone is standing very close behind me. Infact, their belly is touching my whole back. He was breathing in and out against me. And the next thing he starts off talking in his ridiculous accent, and his voice is trickling down the back of my neck like HONEY. Just be cool, Jen. Act normal like. The girl I was talking to was talking away but I could literally only see her lips move. The room was spinning.

And for a split second, for a split second I actually thought “hmmm I might have a steamy fling with this fella”.

But then I considered the fact that it would entail holding in my farts in front of him, and I said fuck it, its not worth it.

After dinner then we all headed outside and then the fuckin horror began. The “initiations”. All the new residents were made to stand in the grass and sing some song. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on – was the song in some quare dialect or was I just pissed? I may as well have had a teat on the end of the bottle of prosecco I was drinkin it so fast. Me nerves were at me like. Then we had to do the chicken dance around the place. I was laughing along but inside I was like please someone drop an atomic bomb so this can end. Eventually the terror ended and myself and the lads headed to our beds.

Thursday 5^th Nov

God, what was I thinking last night? Me and another fella. As if, like. Imagine someone other than Stewy touchin me. Ewwwwwwwwwwww. I could puke. No, I’d much rather continue on my merry way without some fella draggin out of me annoying me when I’m trying to watch Dexter. Anyway he is only a child. Plus like if I was going to have a bella storia over here I’d go for something a bit more my style. Well I mean I do enjoy a larger gentleman with beauteous carrying-me-around abilities but I’ve always been really into glasses on fellas, more so recently actually.

Head out the door to go to the shopping centre at the exact moment he comes out his door. I’m turning to say well but I only got as far as “w..”.

He was standing there in a trench coat and glasses.

Ah, for fuck sake.

Friday 6^th Nov

Right – this is a serious business. Ray D’Arcy WILL read out an email about this blog thus propelling me to international superstardom. I started up a group on facebook called Ray D’Arcy – You Will Bow To My Whims! to unite my fives and tens of fans in an email onslaught in a bid to get him to read it out. It’s for the good of the nation. God, look at what I have become - a facebook whore. If I wasn’t such a laugh I might consider hating myself.

Saturday 7^th Nov & Sunday 8^th Nov

This weekend was like the number one wasted weekend in the history of the universe. I literally just facebooked all weekend – that’s right, it’s a verb now. It was all rainy and pissy outside and I was longing for home. You know when it’s a really shitty day outside but you’re all snuggly at home with the fire blazing and the cupboard stocked, you can’t bayte it boy.

I’m really looking forward to going home. Every year about this time I start getting really worked up about returning to the motherland. If there was an award for best family Christmas we would totally get it. Like it’s not a Jacques family Christmas, nay, a Jacques family gathering unless someone pisses themselves.

Take last Christmas, for example. It’s my uncle Paddy’s birthday on Christmas day so he was in our house having dinner with us. After dinner then he went in to the sitting room to sit down and we were around the corner in the dining room getting his cake ready. I had a packet of candles where each candle was a letter that spelled out “happy birthday” but in the end there weren’t enough letters so mammy had the bright idea of just putting “B” for birthday. So then my sister’s husband pipes up “What’s the B for?” and Daddy said “B for Bollix”.

B for Bollix like. My father said that. Looking back, that was the indicator of the hilarity to come – Daddy was clearly giddy like.

When we were finished laughing Mammy goes “No, it’s B for Birthday” and the brother-in-law says “Bertie? I thought his name was Paddy!” So that started us all off again.

And then someone was like “Put P for Paddy” so were like yeah that’s nice. And we had the cake all set up and we were in formation ready to march into the sitting room when Daddy pipes “P, lovely – now he’s a prick.”

Well lads.

On the ground I was. The reason why it was so funny is it didn’t have anything to do with Uncle Paddy, who is lovely, but it had everything to do with the fact that Daddy was giddy and wanted to say dirty words.

Anyway then we all got it together and got back into position and we were taking in the breath to sing Happy Birthday when all of a sudden Daddy was like “Take the cake! Take the cake! I cant hold it!" And then he started crying with the laughing and had to get down on his hands and knees, and shur jaysus then that set us all off again.

Needless to say I pissed myself. Don’t judge me now – if you were in our house when we are together you would piss as well. Literally every time, at least one of us pisses themselves. My sister Hazel uses the fact that she just had a baby as an excuse. Yeah yeah.

Anyway we were all rolling around in the dining room with the cake on the dining table with the candle burning down to nothing and here is poor Uncle Paddy sittin in the sitting room, completely oblivious. I don’t know what happens; I think we all get in a giddy mood around Christmas. So anyway then we all had to pick ourselves up and go in “Happy Birthday to you etc..” and the tears rolling down our cheeks and the soggy jeans on me. Good times!

I’d say if my sister Hazel is reading this at her desk she is probably after pissin herself. I’d say there’s not a dry seat in the house like. But it’s not her fault lads! Come on like – she just had a baby!

Week Four

Lads I feel terrible for rantin on about the poor fella with the sign outside the supermarket in last week’s post. I mean I walked past him today and I said hello to him and I’m not sure right, but I think he might be a bit simple! God forgive me!

Monday 26^th Oct

Yer man in the first room’s family are STILL here. God I wish they’d piss off home for themselves. I think they are actually sleeping in there with him. Every time I go to the kitchen one of them is in there, gawkin up into my face. It’s not fair that they are stayin here because only one person will fit in the kitchen at a time and I have to wait for them to finish spit roasting their pig or whatever they’re doing in there before I can make my crispy pancakes. SO annoying.

Went out to training tonight anyway, but I was feeling seriously dodgy so I left early. As I was walking through the car park one of the lads left at the same time as me and he was loadin up the boot of his car. “See ya” I says as I walk past. I was walking down the road then and he passed me. He pulled up beside me. “Hop in” he goes. Well I didn’t have to be asked twice. So I walked towards the car and shur you know what I did next. Like you just KNOW I went to open the drivers door, out of pure habit like, since the cars are the other way around over here. Thankfully though, I copped on and saved myself at the last minute and walked around the front of the car and hopped into the passenger seat.

Now bear in mind it was pitch black so I couldn’t really see much, but I could FEEL how massive he was in the car. He was a GIANT like. Big rippling muscly arms and legs everywhere. So we were chattin away anyway and then there was a moment of silence. I can’t help myself in moments like these and I just burst out laughing, and literally a nanosecond later, he burst out laughing, as if he was going to do it anyway even if I hadn’t. So then we were both doing that “aaaah’ thing you say after you’ve just been laughing your head off, and he reached over and took my hand in his GIANT shovel hand. My little hand was LOST in his. “Lorenzo” he goes. I got butterflies in me ovaries, like when you go over a hill in the car. So he dropped me off outside my house anyway and I was like, “Thanks boy you’re a gent”, and he goes “we’ll see each other Wednesday.” “Yeah” I says, “talk to you then.” And as I was walking in the gate, it hit me. I never even saw his face. It literally could be any one of the lads. Sure odds are there’s about 47 Lorenzos among them! Shit. Now most people would be thinking “shur you’ll know him when you se him” but I actually won’t. If he had given me a lift in the blazing sunlight I still wouldn’t be able to identify him in a line-up. You know the way some people can’t tell the difference between "oriental" people ie all people from Japan/Korea/Mongolia etc fall under the umbrella term “Chinese”? Well that is literally how I am about Italians. They are all the image of each other, especially the fellas. I guess I’ll just have to play this one by ear.

Tuesday 27^th Oct

Run down to the supermarket to grab me few bits. Yer man with the sign was there but just as I was passing someone stopped to give out to him. Yessssss! Off the hook! Went down the homewares section because I broke the handle off my butter knife. While actually cutting through some butter. I know, I don’t believe it either. So I look up at all the cutlery hanging up and look for the butter knives. Then I see them, no wait, that must be wrong – EIGHT euro? Eight euro for a butter knife with a plastic handle. And a cat MUSTARD coloured plastic handle at that! Eddie says NO! I tell you now I’d rather fashion one from flint than pay eight euro for a feckin butter knife. Shocking.

Went home anyway and started this weeks’ blog post. I have to say now, I gets an oul buzz off writing the blog. I’d love to do something like this for a living. What can I do to make this happen, I am thinking. I must do something to catalyse this change I say to myself. I know! I’ll email an extract from the blog to Ray D’Arcy! Perfect! Sure he’s bound to read it out and start the ball rolling on the international superstardom front. Grand. Fire off the email, delighted outta me head. Set the alarm for early the next morning.

Wednesday 28^th Oct

Me feckin nerves! Couldn’t sleep at all last night because a) I am praying Ray reads out my email and b) my friend Meghan is due her baby today and I was so up in a heap about that I’m waiting to go into labour myself! Got up at the crack of dawn. Showered and dressed, full face of make up now, in case Ray rings me. I wouldn’t want him to hear me without makeup like haha! I turned on the laptop and went to start streaming Today FM. It wouldn’t work. Tried literally everything, links websites, live radio websites, links from boards etc. Nothing worked. I could listen to 2fm, WLRfm, Beatfm and every other station on Earth as much as my heart desired, but the Today fm stream was broken. I could have screamed!

In desperation I started begging people to listen to it for me and ended up with a small but powerful army of friends listenin in for me (thanks again lads). In the end he didn’t read it out. How dare he like, I mean honestly, how rude. Of course now I was already after imagining him reading it out, then the whole of Ireland logs onto my blog, leaves millions of comments, all become my followers. Word spreads quickly to Ireland’s top newspapers/magazines/agents and by four o’ clock that day I have a column in U magazine and a three book deal with Poolbeg. I struggle to adjust to the new reality that this won’t be happening. I plunge into the bottomless depths of misery. Sigh.

So I went up to make my lunch anyway. Just as I left my room, the fella that just moved into the room beside me came out of his, wrestling a packet. “Well!” I said, “How are you boy?” “Oonga boonga polski sklep” he said back to me. “What?” I goes, “Oonga boonga polski sklep” he said. Now lads, I’m fairly confident in the aul Italian and I can understand basically everything I hear, but holy God, this fella’s accent, I didn’t have notion of what he was saying. And the fact he was saying it at a squillion miles an hour didn’t help.

“Look boy", I said, "I seriously don’t understand you, you will have to speak more clearly if you don’t mind” “Would you have a pair of scissors til I open this packet”, he says. Well that’s what I presume he said anyway, since he was making a scissors sign with his fingers. I gave him a pair of scissors anyway and he came down to the kitchen with me and we were chatting. When I said my name was Jennie he said “you’re not from Italy anyway with a name like that” (“Or a head like that” which is what is he really wanted to say.) “Nah, I’m Irish” I said. “Oh lovely” he said. So he was talking on and on, and I was like “yeah, boy, ah yeah haha etc”. Didn’t have a CLUE what he was talking about. I literally couldn’t understand a word he was saying in his quare accent.

Next thing “how old are you?” he asked me. International code for “are yeh ridin?” I was like, eh, there’s a question like. And I looked up from my crispy pancakes and he went on the worlds giantest reddener. 25 I said, how old are YOU? And he was morto, “em, a little bit younger.” “How much younger I said?” “Nineteen” he said under his breath. “Ah nineteen!” I said, “you’re only a baby.” Shoulder slap. Haaaates tha’ boy ha ha!

Anyway I served up me dinner and went down to the room and was chomping away on it when I heard his door open and he knocked on my door to give me back the scissors. I opened the door, still chewing and he was standing there with the scissors in his hand…..and a pair of sunglasses on him. “Thank you” he said in English. “You’re welcome” I said. “Buon appetito, Bella”, he said, over the rim of his sunglasses. Oh jaysus! Jaysus! Is he…. is he wooing me? I cant cope! I just gave him a big smile and went to put the scissors back in the drawer and here I looks in the mirror and there’s a half a head of iceberg lettuce stuck in me teeth. Well he’s not wooing me anymore anyway.

Still in the depths of despair I study for a few hours and then turn on my laptop to check my emails. Here’s one from Jac Flavin with a pdf attachment. What’s this all about like? I clicked on it anyway, and lo! There on the screen came up a scan of a section of the Waterford Today with a little piece about my blog. Well lads. I had to sit down. And then I had to stand up. And then I had to sit down again. I was buzzin! In your face Ray D’Arcy! I don’t need you! (But if you could mention my blog that would be nice, please and thanks.) Here it is for those of you who don't have the pleasure of having the Waterford Today "trun" in your letterbox of a Wednesday morning.

On the world's biggest high I went to training and Iwas like, right, I don’t know what Lorenzo looks like, but if he says well to me I’ll know its him. So I walked in the door and this HUGE fella was standing there lookin at me. “Well girl!” he goes, “Well boy how are you?” I go, thinking this must obviously be him, until another identical fella came over and was like “well girl!” and then another four identical fellas. Ah jaysus. This is gone beyond a joke.

Thursday 29^th Oct

Right the fella in the first room is really takin the piss. Every time I turn around his father is standing there with a bowl of grapes. I have literally never seen him without a grape in his hand. Every time I go to the kitchen his mother is in there “you’re not cooking?” she says. No I’m not now anyway, not with you up in me ockster, and your husband chewing a grape in me ear. Fuck sake like.

Friday 30^th Oct

Went down to the supermarket to get my bit of shoppin after studying all day yesterday. Passed the fella with the sign (sharp pang of guilt) and into the supermarket – I couldn’t believe how packed it was in there. What harm I says to myself, I don’t mind queuing.

Well I went and joined the queue and since it was an Italian style queue, the people behind me were actually standing next to me, a woman and her two little sons, about three and four they were. One of them was done up like Batman and the other one was done up like a giraffe. Batman poked his mother and pointed up at me “Mammy, Mammy, she’s beautiful!” “That’s right boy,” the mother said and we were both laughing. So the mother said “hang on I’m after forgetting something, stay there now boys and don’t move!” so she ran off to get whatever it was she forgot and the giraffe started crying and Batman started doing something ten times worse than crying; he started whining. Crying I could listen to all day, but whining - don’t get me started.

So I said “Boys I have to tell you a secret” And the two of them looked up at me dumbstruck. “You can’t tell anyone now ok?” Imperceptible nods. “I’m a princess from the land of Tir na nOg.” Two tiny jaws drop to the floor. “And when I hear children crying it makes me cry too, so don’t cry ok?” More open-mouthed nodding. Their mother was coming back so I said “Don’t tell anyone ok?” And the fella in the queue in front of me had his back to me but his shoulders were heaving and he pissin himself with the laughing. The mother came back anyway and the giraffe was like “Mamma, Mamma!” about to tell her, but Batman gave him the elbow and he shut up. Ah, lying to small children – one of life’s simpler pleasures!

Saturday 31^st Oct

Me and my band of merry bitches head out to Decathlon, this giant sports superstore to get some new gear for running. We were supposed to go running that night, but we were so overexcited we ended up spending hours in there and instead went home tired and weary (but delighted outta our heads) and chillaxed instead.

Sunday 1^st Nov

God, I really have to find a job. I’ve already tried all the English schools here but one of them doesn’t need any more staff and the rest seem to have come down with a bout of Ray D’Arcy syndrome and haven’t got back to me yet.

At the moment my only source of income is the ads on this blog page which make me a whopping squillionth of a cent per click. Still though, Eddie says it all adds up! Sure if I save it all up I might be able to buy myself a sally lun for Christmas. Maybe even a sliced bun. Dream big like. Anyway now I’m thinking more about looking for some work in transcription. We’ll see how that pans out.

It was another lovely week in Pavia, thanks in no small part to Jac Flavin and her legendary journalistic skills – thanks again Jac! The thesis is coming along nicely, as are my rippling shoulder muscles. The mystery of Lorenzo continues, but don’t worry lads – I’m on it!

P.S. A lot of people have been asking me how to become followers of the blog. All you have to do is scroll down to the part at the side where it says "Come follow me, children!" and click on "Follow", a new window will open up and you fill in the blanks. Then you turn around three times and say the Hail Mary backwards. Done!

Week Three

This week I learned that you can take the girl out of Ireland, but you can’t take the Ireland out of the girl. That feckin Catholic guilt will catch up on you, no matter where you go. There is just no escaping it. It is rooted deep in your psyche, and comes up to give you the dirty eyeball just as you are about to reach for that glass of wine/slice of cake/tube of lubricant. It's a fecker alright.

Monday 21^st Oct

Let me just explain one of my daily Catholic Guilt related trials here in Italy regarding my food shopping. But firstly I must furnish you with a little background info on my supermarket situation. Usually I go about 3 or 4 times a week, because it’s too far a walk to carry my big shop home, so instead I go a few times and pick up things as I go through the week. Anyway your food is fresher that way. I usually go to Esselunga, a huge AMAZING supermarket that literally has everything my heart desires.

There is, however, something that has me up in a heap every time I get closer to the place. It literally gives me what I like to refer to as SAS, or “Sweaty Arse Syndrome”. Sweaty Arse Syndrome is a common ailment which can afflict anyone, regardless of age, race or social class. It is usually caused by anxiety, stress and/or extreme nervousness and usually occurs at inappropriate times, such as, for example, during job interviews, leaving the interviewee, i.e. the SAS sufferer, thinking “please oh please oh please let me not leave a sweaty arse mark on this chair after me”. In the case of this affliction, prevention is better than cure. The sufferer should apply talc liberally to their arse crack and to the surrounding arse area if they think they may be entering into a stressful situation. Applying talc is also effective in the prevention of SAS’ close relative, Sweaty Knee Syndrome (SKS), but less effective in the treatment of its more distant cousins “The Reddner” and “The Whitener”.

Anyway this whole supermarket situation has me going through two bottles of Johnson’s Baby Powder a week. Basically, there are two ways to get to the entrance. The first (and nearest) way is to walk across a footbridge, at the other side of which you can turn right to go into the supermarket or you can turn left and go down some steps into a green area. Hail, rain or shine, without fail, this fella stands at the top of these steps holding an illegible sign. All the letters are squooshed up on top of each other, so it is literally impossible to decipher. This guy is ALWAYS there. Every day. From dawn ‘til dusk, no joke, there has never been a time that I went to the supermarket and he wasn’t standing there.

The second way in is to walk an extra 1-2 mins to the faraway ramp past some really aggressive fella who harasses me to buy knock off handbags EVERY SINGLE TIME I pass him.

Now anyone would say to me, “Jennie girl - are you on crack? Go in the first way which is the nearest, and where the fella wont be all up in yo’ grill trying to make you buy a handbag.” But no, NO! I would rather walk across hot coals than walk past the fella holding the sign. I presume the sign is asking for money or things of that nature. I hate passing him. I feel so guilty. But if I walk past the footbridge to the next ramp, he can SEE ME avoiding him. Oh God, I just don’t know what to do. When I turn the corner onto the street where the entrance is, the SAS hits me full force. We’re talking rivulets here, people. Sometimes he sees me, and then I HAVE to walk past him, because now we are on speaking terms. All the Italians just walk past him as if he wasn’t there, but he IS there like, the least you can do is acknowledge his existence as a fellow human being. Honestly, how rude. So now we say hello to each other every time I pass, but recently I have noticed he is trying to draw me in. He raises his hand and says hello, and then turns the wave into a point at his sign as in “If you’re saying hello to me you may as well read the sign, Missus”. God I really wish I just kept ignoring him like the Italians do, but it’s easy for them, they don’t stand out like a sore thumb! I might as well be wearing a sombrero and a moustache going past him.

I know we women are always being told not to give money to homeless people/beggars because it puts us in danger but that doesn’t stop me feeling guilty. If I grab him something in the supermarket, then he might think I actually have money when I don’t, which also puts me in danger. All people see of me here is my blonde hair, and then they immediately presume I am a rich American and hassle me in the street non stop. So this fella probably thinks I have money because I’m obviously a foreigner. He probably thinks I’m loaded walking past him with my bag of shopping, but little does he know all that’s in it is me K.V.I. bread and yellow pack spuds.

Also I’m scared that if I stand there and actually read the sign , it will say “if you read this your left boob will explode”.

Today anyway I headed down and was battling the usual inner turmoil of how to get to the entrance and I looked – and lo! Yer man wasn’t there, so I decided to go over the footbridge. I couldn’t believe my luck! And I was right not to, because when I was halfway across the bridge his head started bobbing up the steps from the green exactly parallel to me! “Oh fuck!” I thought and I started speeding up – and then HE started speeding up the steps. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuck!” and he got to the top of the steps JUST as I was passing them “Ciao!” he says victoriously up into my face, and points to the sign. “Ciao” I says as I walk past. Part of me was being “ett” alive by the guilt, while the other part of me was thinking that if he wanted people to read the fuckin sign, he shouldn’t have wrote it in fuckin hieroglyphics.

Me nerves are at me over this. I might sit down for a little minute.

Tuesday 22^nd Oct

Ah today was a great day. I went to introduce myself to the professor that is looking after me over here and he is just a little puddin’ head. He was delighted to see me; he couldn’t cope when I walked in the door, shur God love him. We made a standing date to see each other for a chat every Tuesday for me to tell him all about what I get up to every week.

After meeting him I was so delighted I decided to buy a silk scarf that I had my eye on for ages. I was just up to the door of the shop when POOF! – little Eddie Hobbs appeared on my shoulder “don’t do it Jennie, you can’t afford it”. Ah piss off Eddie I said and went for the door handle. At that moment Eddie, in alliance with Catholic Guilt tried to wrestle me to the ground, but I would not be defeated! I bought the scarf and emerged from the shop triumphant. But Eddie won out in the end. Cos every time I look at it I gets a dose of the guilts.

Wednesday 21^st Oct

It was BUCKETING down rain today. Went to training anyway. I grabbed the last available rowing machine. The seat was a bit bockety but I said shur what harm I’ll soldier bravely on. I looked up at the clock on the wall – 8.20/8.25 ish (it’s one of those ones without any numbers on them) I said I’ll give it about ten minutes and then I’ll take a rest. So I was rowing away anyway, thinking of the week and things I still have to do etc and I looked up and the ten minutes weren’t up yet so I kept rowing. And rowing and rowing. The sweat was drippin off my fringe. My clothes were stuck to me. The ten minutes were STILL not up. And then I copped on – the feckin clock was broken.

What time is it anyone? I said. Ten past nine someone said, why? Lads, I had been rowing for nearly an hour and here was I thinking it had only been ten minutes! At that I burst out laughing and started to point at the clock on the wall…thus leaving go of the handle. Mistake. Immediately I lost my balance and instead of just falling gracefully sideways onto the floor I tried to steady myself…on the bockety seat. Well there were arms and legs everywhere, I’m pretty sure some of them weren’t mine. It was a feckin visual symphony of limbs which ended up with me kickin the screen off the machine.

Now this is the SECOND time I’ve done something stupid in here. Thankfully though in times like these, I can always play the “goofy Irish girl” card and everyone will just laugh it off, and I can pretend to laugh it off too, while in reality I am HAUNTED by it every time the sun goes down.

Thursday 22^nd Oct

After two weeks of being absolutely FREEZIN in the room, i.e. your breath is on full show, they finally decided to turn on the heating. In the middle of the night like. Except there aren’t radiators, there is a kind of vent thing in the ceiling that blows out hot air. Now I am not a fan of loud and terrifying noises in the night time, who is, I ask you? So when a loud chainsaw-like noise stared emanating from the ceiling you can imagine the terror. Still asleep, I leapt up out of the bed and opened my bedroom door, only to discover that the sound was coming from inside my room, and that it was accompanied by a tiny, almost unnoticeable puff of warmth from the ceiling. After about 5 mins I copped on, not before a little bit of wee came out though.

This is not the first time I’ve had one of these night terrors. One night last year in our house in Dublin, not too long after we all moved in there, I woke up in the middle of the night to a beeping sound. I was still in the thick fog of sleep so I thought it was someone’s phone beeping after it got a message, but it kept beeping. So I deduced in my semi-conscious state that it must be some alarm going off.

A smoke alarm going off in the night is the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone I think. I have thought so since I was ten and I watched an episode of Rescue 999 where someone’s house burnt down and the little girl was playing with her dolly in her room and the next minute it cut to the dolly melting while the bed was licked by flames. 15 years later, it still plays on my mind.

Filled with terror, I leapt from the bed at top speed (still asleep, you understand) in me vest and knickers and ran out to the house alarm and started beeping in the code. Cos you know the way keying in the house alarm code will make the smoke alarm stop beeping, like. Halfway through my frantic pawing at the keypad, Mark ran into the room like Linford Christie, in only his boxers, as asleep as I was, saying it wasn’t the house alarm it was the fire alarm, but by then I was after setting the house alarm off as well.

At this point Fran came out of her room in her jim jams and eye mask on the top of her head and we were all frantically trying to make the alarm stop beeping. My first thought was to wave the smoke away from it and Mark’s first thought was to press the button on it, but because the ceiling is so high, both were impossible without some sort of implement. We looked at each other as we both thought the same thing – we can reach it with our trusty JML wonderbroom! So we both grabbed the one broom and I was trying to wave the smoke away from the alarm with the brush end and he was trying to press the button with the handle end. Bear in mind now we were both trying to do it at the same time.

It didn’t work though (I wonder why?) and in the end me and Fran had to push the couch over to the fire alarm and Mark had to stand on the back of it and take the battery out. Finally, the ordeal was over. One of Anna’s friends was staying over and had left some candles burning when she went asleep, so it was just the smoke from the candles that set it off.

Crisis averted, the three of us looked around: I was there one tit in, one tit out of me vest, Fran had her eye mask half up onto her head, thus giving herself a beehive, and Mark was standing there with the front of his boxers yawning wide open. And here Anna’s friend was, still fast asleep on the couch. Lads. If I had been awake I would have pissed on myself.

Friday 23^rd Oct

Today the young fella in the first room on my floor had his whole family come up. They were bringin in gallons and gallons of water, tins of this and that, loaves and loaves of bread, jars of homemade sauces and all quare homemade preserved things, eye of newt and pickled dragons farts or whatever. I mean now there must have been about seven of them, and they were bringing in the stuff for about a half an hour. Jesus Christ like, are they preparing him for the nuclear winter or what?

And it’s not just him, either. Everyone’s parents seem to do that here every weekend. Even older students. I mean, they are about the same age as me. I was shocked. I mean come on now, crawl out of the womb lads and go to the fuckin supermarket and don’t have your Mammy be cookin your dinner of a Saturday. It’s shameful so it is.

Cut to me making a countdown calendar to when Mammy is visiting me in November.

Saturday 24^th Oct

Today is a great day. I have found the most delicious thing in the world. Little cakes with custard in them. They were so delicious I could hardly believe they were real, so I had to eat 8 of them to make sure. They even tasted delicious as I was puking them up later. Good times.

Sunday 25^th Oct

Spent most of the day SLAVING over making an EU format CV. Lads, I’m not joking you, slaving is the right word. Toiling could also be used. I don’t know what it is. CVs are like my Kryptonite. They stress me out so much I just can’t cope with them. Every time I have to make a new one I need someone on hand to pass me cool drinks and hot compresses. Afterwards I have to lie down in a darkened room. This one was the worst I’ve ever had to do. I hope no prospective employer ever reads this blog. Unless they are an agent or a publisher, like. If anyone even suspected how hard it was for me to complete this simple task, I’d be MORTO.

Couple that with the fact that today instead of turning off the hob, I turned off the light, and I’m really startin to think I might actually be a bit stoopa.

Week Two

Week Two

Author’s Note: Some dialogue has been translated from the original Italian into Waterfordian by the author.

Monday 12^th Oct

Woke up just before 6 to go for a run on the new route that I felt out (with my face) yesterday. Now at home I usually go at 7 before anyone else is up so I can have the world to myself, but I said I’d go that bit earlier over here seeing as that everyone gets up that bit earlier.

Well I went out the front door and you’d swear it was 3 o’ clock of a Saturday. Everyone was in full swing! Sickener. Anyway I was jogging along minding my own business when the elastic in my hair snapped. Grand I says and I just ran on, hair streaming out behind me in two flaxen curtains, or so I was imagining at least. Well it certainly must have looked inviting because I had to stop at a red man and then an old perv came along and put his hand up to my head and ran his fingers through my hair. What can I say only GAWD! I had no choice but to run on, mostly because the skin on my scalp had crawled off my head and was peggin it up the road ahead of me!

That evening I went to start training for the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me, namely ROWING! I had a look at the map and it’s not too far away. Great I says and I start off.

You know when you move to a different country, it is pretty hard to get everything right all the time. Some things have to be learned and don’t come naturally, like, for example, the whole kissing people on greeting them thing. Well I walked in the door right into the middle of a huge circle of lads. The trainer turned around and says “well girl!” to the girl in front of me, and shakes her hand and kisses her cheeks. Then he turns to me and says “well girl!” so I said to myself, ok just do what the other girl did. So I leaned in for the kiss and…DENIED. I had me lips puckered and all, eyes half closed like when someone takes a picture of you when you’re in the horrors. I almost DIED. The feeling of awkwardness was PALPABLE. Oh GAWD. I have no idea what happened for the rest of the night because I think I blacked out with the mortification.

Tuesday 13^th Oct

A pretty uneventful day, except that I was crossing the road, on a zebra crossing, ie playing chicken with oncoming cars, when two fellas in a mini nearly knocked me down. The car skidded to a halt inches away from me and a fella crossing the road towards me from the opposite side shouted at the fellas in the car “it’s a sin to kill an angel!”. You can’t beat it can you lads.

Last night’s embarrassing kissing incident is playing on my mind. Every few minutes I think of it and it causes me a physical pain. It reminds me of a time in Lush with a customer (all my fellow Lush employees are laughing already because they know what I am going to say) that is almost as embarrassing but the kissing thing is more embarrassing solely because it involved kissing. A woman of about 60 came in to the shop and she had on the same gold converse as I had, except mine were the real deal and hers were knock offs. I touched my toe to hers and I said “you have good taste in shoes” or something. Then we were chatting and I asked “where did you get those shoes?” and she said “Dunnes” and I said “Goway” and she put her hand up in a high five motion and made a face like “give me some skin sistren I got me some badass muthafuckin shoes” so I went to give her a hearty high five just as she said “Five euro”. That’s right folks - she wasn’t putting her hand up to give me a high five, she was merely putting up her five fingers to demonstrate how much she paid for the shoes. But at this point it was too late, my hand was mid-air and travelling at speed so I had to finish the most awkward high five in the history of mankind. Oh God, lets just move on to Wednesday.

Wednesday 14^th Oct

Still haven’t quite gotten over the kissing thing, but have to go to training tonight so I try (and fail) to put it at the back of my mind. Walk in the door, head down, and just shout Ciao! and go to leg it up the stairs, but am met with a chorus of Ciao! and then the trainer pops his head out of the office door and says Ciao, Jenny-fare! as if he is genuinely happy to see me. He remembered my name and everything. Usally “Biondina” (little blonde) is the best I get, but this made me feel good. Clearly the whole thing has blown over. So I go for my run and do my time on the machines and then I hop into the boat and grab the oars. Rowing away anyway and the trainer is like ok stop there lads and then he is walking next to me and he looks down to check my form and the next thing his face cracks into a huge smile and he goes “oh my God what size are your feet?” I’m like 36 and he goes “awwwwww, you’ve got the tiniest little feet, hahahha! Lads look at jenny-fare’s feet, hahaha, they are so small” and then passing lads are like “hahaha you are so tiny look at your feet”. It reminded me of the time Noel Langford measured his hand against my foot. Yes, the hand was bigger. Considerably.

Anyway then I am rowing away and I start to think about the kissing thing and I become mortified and I lose my whole rhythm and then he comes over and says here let me show you. “Show me what?” I am thinking and the next thing he has his hands on mine and is rowing with me, going back and forth with me. Well lads. It would have been a sexy moment out of a Hollywood picture if my top wasn’t stuck to me and there wasn’t sweat dripping off my chin. I can’t even function I’m trying to hold the laughing in so hard. All the while he’s there in my ear “brava, brava, jenny-fare”. I’m laughing even typing this. And this is totally normal everyday behavior over here like. If that happened in Ireland we’d have to get married afterward. Oh lads, stop the lights like. I don’t be able.

Thursday 15^th Oct

I’ve really outdone myself this time. This is a week for embarrassing moments. I ran down to the supermarket at the last minute for a few bottles of water. It’s not the one I usually go to because it’s horrible in there and there is a total sleazebag workin in there. Anyway I had to lean over him to grab a packet of rubber gloves and he turns around, literally inches from me and gives me the sleaziest, filthiest look up and down, Basically he raped me with his eyes. I was in a pretty good mood, but just the way he did it, made me lose it. And here is where the horror began.

Let me just educate you fine people for a second. The Italian word for tit is tetta. The Italian word for head is testa. These two words are very easy to get mixed up. So I said to him “why the fuck does everyone look at me like that – as if I had two tits?” You know the way everyone else only has one like. Well he burst out fuckin laughing and I nearly fainted in horror. I had to go through the checkout then and yer wan on the till was pissin herself. I am NEVER going in there again. I would rather die of thirst.

Friday 16^th Oct

This morning I got up early because I had to go into town to do a few things. When I left the room there was a cleaning trolley on the landing and the cleaning lady was in the kitchen. I walked past and said hello on my way out, and there followed an exchange that really pissed me off.

So the normal text is what we really said, and the italics is what we were thinking.

Cleaning lady: Hey, young wan!

Jen: Yes? (you ignorant bitch)

CL: Are you new here? (I am enthralled by your other-worldly beauty)

J: I am.

CL: Well clean the hob after yourself, you are so dirty it’s disgusting.

J: EX-CUUUUUUUUSE ME? (Why I oughtta...! *Inwardly shakes fist)

CL: Clean up after yourself, I am not a slave.

J: Don’t speak to me like that. I am not a child. And I didn’t make that mess – how could I when there is no pan to use? (Must get a lend of them Deirdre Barlows off ya girl – for Saturday night like)

CL: I don’t care who did it – I’m not cleaning this again. (It’s not my job to clean things –I am a cleaning lady – not a ….oh wait)

J: Well I care if you speak to me like that (yeh bibe, yeh)

CL: Sorry this just annoys me. Please tell your friends to clean the hob after themselves. ( I am so morto right now, clearly I have met my match)

J: Tell them yourself. Bye. (Victorious – to the tune of Notorious)

CL: Goodbye, Miss.

Well I was raging. And her trying to make up for it at the end then. Knobend. I saw her two more times that day too. Each time she flashed me a “winning smile”. I would have smiled back, were I not distracted by her Nora Battys.

Training again tonight. Nice rigorous workout. Come home and catch a glimpse of the bod – transformations are taking place. 2 more weeks and I’ll be RIPPED.

Saturday 17^th Oct

On my out to the vending machine this morning I met the same cleaning lady AGAIN on the path. She put her hand up to her chest and said “nice tits”. I just don’t know lads.

Sunday 18^th Oct

Well I was too lazy to go to the supermarket yesterday so I decided to go today, when it would be nice and quiet like last Sunday. Also, I have no food so it is probably best that I go today. Head down, and the whole place is shuttered up. WTF? It was open last Sunday and the Sunday before! Head back to the room to do a stocktake. A tin of tuna and a pound of grapes. Ok, I can work with this. I better watch True Blood all day though. To conserve energy stores like.

Week One

Monday 5^th October

Today is the twenty fifth anniversary of the glorious day of my birth. Spent most of the day an emotional wreck at the thought of not seeing baby Jack until Christmas. Then to top it all off I went in to say goodbye to Grandad. Well needless to say there was snot flying everywhere. I couldn’t even breathe. And then HE started crying. I nearly called the whole thing off! Headed up to Dublino to spent the night at Mark’s.

Tuesday 6^th October

Wake up at 3.30am to get ready to go to the airport. Didn’t sleep properly all night, kept waking up with those stabbing stomach pains you get all night the night before you go to Oakwood. You know the ones- the excitement of going on all the deadly rollercoasters mixed up with the anxiety of having to take the vomit comet to get there.

Get to the airport about 5 and check in my bags and pay my 228 euro overweight fee because I’m a knob and I paid for two cases, which I thought could be 20kgs each, but no, they have to be a combined weight of 20kg. Sneaky fuckers – I’m disappointed in you, AerLingus. In fairness now the lovely woman was apologizing over and over and she undercharged me. In the end though I didn’t mind paying it, it’s just a once-off thing, plus it would have been a giant pain in my ass to have the couriered over. When I’m coming home I’m going to get someone over for a visit and then we can go home together, with one case each. Problem solved.

So I arrived at Milan and gave my hair a quick brush to meet my gawking public as I came through the arrival doors. Grabbed my cases and walked out the door and every eye in the airport immediately went out on a stalk. Head down I walked out the door and went to wait for the bus, where there was an older businessman also waiting. Facing me. Staring at me. For 20 minutes. I was not happy. Mostly because I had Wedgie of the Year 2009, but that’s another story.

I traverse on to Pavia anyway and lug my cases to a taxi and head to my new abode. We are driving up the street it’s on and I’m thinking “yeah this is nice now, nice houses, nice shops etc…” but the road is looooooooooong and suddenly we are passing muslim ghettos etc and the driver pulls up outside a big tower block of flats. I have a Ballymun moment. I struggle up the path with the cases to the porters office to get my keys. He says he is going to lead me to my room and I am thinking “thank god, someone to help me with these suitcases!”, and kind of stand back a bit so as to better facilitate him grabbing the big one for me. And he just walks past me out of the office, leaving me with my mouth hanging open. He walks off, expecting me to do a hop, skip and a jump after him with 40kgs of luggage. I literally couldn’t believe it. I was shocked. Then I remember that’s one of the reasons I can’t stand Italian men. Because they are useless like. They expect you to cook for them and pick up after them when they are literally too thick to actually cop on to do their gentlemanly duties. If you want to be a feminist, be a feminist, but I think a woman should be a woman and a man should be a man. I mean, he left me walk across GRAVEL with those two cases. Now any Irish man, no matter how much of a knacker he was, wouldn’t let you walk across a sun kissed meadow with a bag of bunnies in your hand, never mind across gravel with a year’s worth of your life in two suitcases. Stop now, don’t talk to me.

Got up the room anyway. In essence it’s grand, or at least it will be after 2-4 litres of bleach. And it’s really DUSTY. I felt like I was raiding the lost ark walkin in through the door. Settled down and went for a quick nap….and woke up at 7am the next morning.

Wednesday 7^th Oct

Spent most of the day warding off a sudden and intense feeling of loneliness I got after I realized I only knew 1 person in the whole of Italy. Agnieszka – I can’t wait for our recombobulation! Start my studying, then watch several thousand episodes of Six Feet Under to numb the pain in my heart. Mam and Dad ring me and I keep it together until I hang up and then I crumble big style. That’s good, though, get it all out now because by next week there’ll be a statue of me erected in the main square. Until then I’ll soldier on. For now I’ll just dust.

Thursday 8^th Oct

Get up early and go down to the accommodation office to get my internet sorted out. Yer wan is just after arriving so she has to switch on the computer to get my username and password. The computer is warming up, and then…BAM! A semi naked picture of George Clooney in a wet pair of boxers comes up on the screen with George written under it. Well if I didn’t piss on myself then I never will! And she an oul wan like. With pink eyeshadow and two black lines drawn in for her eyebrows. Brilliant.

Friday 9^th Oct

Ok this is getting weird. By now I was expecting to have made 40 thousand friends from my floor alone. Every time I hear someone shuffling to the kitchen I go out to introduce myself and they are gone! It’s like someone is playing a tape of footsteps just to fuck with me. It’s all a bit Mary Higgins Clarke for my liking. I’m lonely now, no word of a lie. Me nerves are at me. I head down to the supermarket and buy 2 litres of bleach. Return to the room and scrub like there is no tomorrow. My room now smells like a swimming pool nestled deep in the heart of a pine forest. I like it.

Saturday 10^th Oct

What the frick? Woke up in a blanket of dust. It’s like fuckin Pompeii in here! Where is it all coming from?

“Ok,” I says to myself, “Tonight I’m going to go watch the Ireland match and make loads of friends tra la la etc. So I went down to the common room and there were three fellas there and I said “well boys, are ye watchin the match tonight etc?” and the three of them were lookin at me like I asked them did they fancy a spit roast.

Went down to the telly room to watch the match and there were three other people there, basically all your common or garden variety of Knob. Then a thought struck me. I don’t want these people to be my friends! FUCK them! This year I’m here for myself and I’m just going to do what I want and fuck everyone else. If I just do what I want, then I’ll just pick up friends along the way. Feeling much better, all traces of loneliness vanished, I snuggled up in bed.

P.s. EPIC FAIL by Given in the last minute.

Sunday 11^th Oct

Woke up in the middle of the night so freezing my nipples could have carved my initials into the ceiling. It’s no wonder, all that is on the bed is a sheet and a cover thing the likes of which I had on my bed in 1986. I really have to buy a duvet or something. For the time being I just unfolded two spare towels and lay them out over me. Satisfactory.

Later on I went down to the supermarket to pick up a duvet. Oh here they are, let me just check the price – NINETY EURO. Ninety euro. Now I ask you, is it a hen’s tooth duvet? Cos it better be for ninety euro. Obviously I don’t have ninety euro to be squandering on such frivolties as warmth and safety so I forego the duvet thing for now.

Then I wander around, map in hand, looking for a new running route. I tripped over a tree root and slapped off the ground, like actually ON the ground, lying down, legs akimbo at the back of some apartment block. But noone saw me, so as far as I’m concerned, it didn’t happen.

Well my first week was a week of extremes. At first I really felt miserable. I guess I just wasn’t in the mood to start all over again, but once I copped on to myself I was grand and now I’m feeling good about the year. Anyway I haven’t really given anything away here but I just want to let ye know that I’m up to shit. I will reveal all next week, in what is going to be a pretty interesting entry, if the way the week has already started out is anything to go by. Until then, children!