A certain group of people
This certain group of people is apparently protected under Italian law. They used to be famous for moving around in caravans. The women from this group are required to sit outside hospitals, supermarkets, or on street corners and beg for a living, while their male counterparts spend the day travelling around serenading Milan's population with well known classical favourites on the city's underground system. These certain people seem to have a monopoly on begging and 'busking'. The offspring of these people pass the time of day targeting potential victims for their nice, and very well prepared, little pick pocketing/mugging street acts.
Seeing these scruffily dressed individuals wandering around and asking for your hard earned dosh may make you believe that they are poor. Maybe you should know that some of this certain group of people have managed to get away with constructing full blown and rather attractive houses in the midst of one of Milan's natural parks (planning permission! building consent! pah. Who needs that rubbish anyway!).
The TV report on this even stated that one of these 'retreats' had a swimming pool! And of course, when you are so poor that you need to spend your life begging/busking/mugging, you cannot possibly afford a car, let alone a nice new Mercedes. No, surely not….
Poverty must be oh so expensive for some.
Tough day for a two year old
After a traumatic day which kicked off with a surgeon lasering his tonsils and part of his adenoids away, Marty, our little son, seems to be recovering well, I'm very relieved to be able to report.
It was easy to see that he was upset and he became even more mother dependent than usual - which is not great surprise when you understand that his throat was burning and his poor little nose must have been feeling pretty sore too. Still, the ice cream did seem to work.
The poor little mite was not allowed to eat anything after midnight last night and could not even have a drink of water until four whole hours after the operation, which must have added to his feeling pretty damn down. His mother is bearing up to the experience well too and managed to give the impression that she was calm cool and collected all day, with her true feelings only being in the form of a minor panic over documentation.
My other half's mother who came down to give some much needed moral support and I stayed with both patient and patient's doting mother until the hospital staff indicated that we had outstayed visiting time by a fair few hours -which was true.
I did try to supply mother and mother's mother with pizzas, but could only find one pizzeria open in the vicinity of the hospital, but for some not exactly clear reason (some odd by-law?!), this place, although open at six, was unable to supply take-away pizzas until seven. I did not hang around waiting, but went on a hunt for another place, but was only able to find one other pizza producer open, which I did not like the look of. It was not a true pizzeria (pizza snob that I am). Long and short, no pizzas for anyone. If this sounds odd, the fact that you are not swimming for pizza choice in the very land that invented these wonderful things, you should know that Milan is still very much in holiday mode, which means that finding a good pizza place can be a real, if not impossible, chore.
Finally, many thanks for the kind comments re my sons op left by some of the good people who read my rantings.
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Photos from Flickr
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