September in Milan

September 7, 2005 · Filed Under Italy, Milan · Comment

September here is a wonderful month here in Milan, even if it signifies the end of the holiday season. You get hot days with cool nights, which makes surviving the days much easier. There is a higher chance of rain, but it still does not rain as much as it does back in the UK. I'm still wandering around in shorts and linen clothes and my dear overused PC still needs the fan blown at it to help it keep its cool.

Things seem to be more relaxed here in September, too. I suppose this is the post holiday effect. Everyone is still feeling good about wherever they went or whatever they got up to on holiday. Most people are good and relaxed, although a little post holiday depression also contributes to the slightly slower than normal pace of life during this month.

It would be a great time to come and visit Italy too. The hotels will have special offers and finding a room should be much less of a problem than it was in August, too. Some Italians are also wise to the fact that September is a much better time of the year to holiday in and the widespread installation of air conditioning is starting to make the prospect of working through the heat of August just a little bit more palatable. However, as long as there are school holidays in August, this month will remain the holiday month of choice for all those with offspring. The August heat will also continue to be a major factor, at least until the global warming effect or whatever comes into play. Some may say that the climate is already changing and many have been commenting on the lack of sun in August here.

On the whole though, I like September a lot.

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Tags: Italian, Italy

Anyone know anyone who wants to teach Italian kids English?

September 7, 2005 · Filed Under Language teaching · 14 Comments

Let’s see if the power of the web can help me out.

A person where I work has asked me if I could suggest anyone who would be able to help her child and some other children learn English. Alas, I don’t know anyone, or rather I have not been able to find any one.

If you, dear reader, happen to know anyone in Milan who has some experience teaching children English and is good at what they do, then maybe you can let me know.

You can email me at webteacherit at yahoo dot co dot uk.

Thanks.

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Tags: children, English, Italian, teach, teaching

A blow with a silver lining, maybe

September 7, 2005 · Filed Under My son · Comment

Our two year old has passed quite a bit of time in a private and expensive creche (asilo nido). This is because we could not get him into the council run creche in time. Now, we have managed to get him into the council run and much cheaper creche. Good. Well, no, not exactly.

You see our little one is coming into the council owned creche from a private unit and this means that he is used to different systems, apparently. OK, I can accept this. However, the period of getting him used to his new creche starts, wait for it, on the 3rd of October and will last up to two weeks. There was I hoping the new creche would start up in September. No such luck. We tried to remonstrate with them over this, well, my other half did, she is better at dealing with these things - I just get angry over the petty rules, but all her pleadings were to no avail.

Now, what I cannot understand is that these places are designed for working parents, but they don't make any allowance for the fact that most working parents do not have summer hols lasting until the beginning of October. No such luck. I wish.

This means that we now have to engage the services of a babysitter, which will cost a small fortune and not allow me to get much work done at home. It is very frustrating.

On the plus side, I think (!?), it appears as though our little one will be treated like a little god in this new creche, which seems to be very professionally run. Almost too professionally. This may sound a daft thing to say, but I'm not sure about giving kids too much leeway - they do need to get used to the fact that at times they just cannot have/do what they want. At least it appears that he will be treated well, I suppose. Potentially, the service is much better quality than that of the private creche which he was sent to before. Marty, the two year old in question, was very happy with his previous creche, so I just hope he will be happy with this one.

As an aside, I have to say that, from our experience, sending very young children to creches for long periods does them absolutely no harm whatsoever. Quite the contrary. Of course, the character of the child comes into play in these situations, but I don't really see too many disadvantages. Marty seems to be exceptionally well advanced for his age. My father drew this to my attention when he noticed that Marty was doing things which two year olds don't normally do. He was comparing Marty to his other grand child, Maddie, who is slightly older than Marty, but who has passed 90 per cent of her time with her mother. Marty may also find going to school much less traumatic than other children, possibly. Time will tell.

If you are thinking of sending your little treasure to a creche, don't worry about it too much. You might actually end up doing him or her an enormous amount of good.

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