Been a bad blogger

It's 6 January, and this is only my second post of the year. And frankly the first one wasn't all that anyway.

The truth is, I've found myself lost in Guitar Hero III, and it's taken over my life. In fact, it's taken over mine and Red's lives. Of course, we make time for work, too, but almost all leisure pursuits have been abandoned in favour of standing in front of the TV with a pretend guitar strapped across us and pressing little coloured buttons for all we're worth. It's almost absurd!

Until 20 December, we lived a Guitar Hero-less life. Until 20 December. On that fateful day, we visited our friend Ivan at his flat in Italy. Ivan loves his games consoles, and he was keen to show us -- and let us have a go on -- his Guitar Hero II and III. Oops.

We played for not much more than an hour probably -- at the end of this post, you can see video of my first-ever go -- but by the time we returned to the UK on the 26th, we had decided to buy the game. Which actually meant having to buy a console, too. We opted for Playstation3 rather than Xbox 360 because I don't have any faith in Microsoft and don't wish to give them any money either. Whether it was the best choice is a moot point among gamers apparently, but so be it.

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Italy was great. I love being there. In fact, I love being anywhere that takes me away from my work, but Christmas in Italy is great. Well, Italy is great. Hmm, I'm not sure where this is going. I just love eating and drinking good food and wine/beer. And while I can do that here, it's so much easier to do so in Italy. There are so many good places to eat.

Food is so important to Italians that it must be nigh on impossible for a bad restaurant to stay in business. While here in the UK, so many cheap restaurants are shite. It's a fact, and it's a shame. As great as the strides are that have been made by the UK dining industry in recent years, they mostly are only in the expensive sector. Cheap 'n' cheerful is still desperately subpar.

The aforementioned Ivan and his brothers have a restaurant about 20 minutes' drive away from Red's family home, so we always make time to eat there. If we are in the area for more than a week, we make at least two visits. We have even been known to visit for one night only, and even then a beeline was made for Ivan's rezzy.

But another thing that's great about visiting Red's mum is that we get to see how the cats are doing. Over the years that I've been part of the family, I've seen a few pets come (and go, sadly), and there has been a new addition since our last visit.

The fun-lovin', ball-chasin', unconstrictable-eyed Rudy has been joined by a tiny black ball of fluff called Zaccaria. Zac has only one eye and was found on a roadside. (Rudy was a found cat, too, in fact.) The two of these loons together is something to behold, and although they obviously get on well and play together, Rudy was jealous of having to share us with his new lil' brother.

I used to be allergic to cats, but that has all but gone since being a cat owner myself. However, the allergy still rears its ugly head with kittens. Their fine fluffy coats just slay me. The first night I was wheezing like a motherfucker, and so I had to get some tablets (like antihistamines or something) for when I felt it coming on. They helped a lot. Which is good, cos I hate not being able to have the kitties on my lap.

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So, a family tradition is, on Christmas Day, everyone goes to Red's sister's mother-in-law's house. (Got that?) This woman is great. She's really nice and eccentric, but the most incredible thing is, she makes all her pasta for the lunch herself. Her tortellini, filled with pork meat, were great. And she goes to the trouble of making vegetarian ravioli for Red, too. So she made all this pasta for 13 people, aside from the other cooking she did too. Among the food I ate that day was capon. Since the castrating of chickens is illegal in the UK, I've never tried this meat before. It was nice, but not so much so that you'd think it was better than any good-quality chicken.

Hold on, how many lunch guests???!?!!! Yep, 13. Well, the Italians are a superstitious bunch, and 13 at the table just can't be.

For a few minutes heads were scratched about how to get around this. Set another place? Serve an extra plate? But this all seemed silly. Why lose space for no one? Why waste food on no one?

The wise old mother-in-law had the answer: Petronilla can sit with us. Um, who dat? Off she shot, only to return a few minutes later with quite the spookiest doll you've ever seen, and she sat her on a small stool next to herself at the table. She had her own plate and glass and cutlery. And I have a sneaking suspicion they did indeed give her some food too. Ah, I love Christmas in Italy...