4 posts tagged “uk”

In many countries, May Day is synonymous with International Workers' Day, or Labour Day, which celebrates the social and economic achievements of the labor movement. Not in the UK...
Here it works different...bank holidays are not fixed days...it is bank holiday It is bank holiday Good Friday, Easter Monday, the first and the last Monday on May, the last Monday of August, plus boxing day (26th of December) and the new year's day (1st of January). Bank Holidays get their name because they are days when banks are shut and therefore, traditionally, no other businesses could operate.
So that, today was a day as all the other of the year...! We are not so unlucky though...we will have bank holiday next Monday...Looking forward to it...!

Few minutes before saying goodbye to my dad (we where already at Pisa Airport) he asked me "How do you feel (by now), going back to England? What are you sensations every time you have to leave Italy?". That was a good question...and it was something I asked myself sometimes...Florence is my city, and it will always be where I will eventually go back; at the moment though most of my life is in Bristol. My job's here, many of my friends are here, all my stuff is here...I feel here to be my place...3 years are not a lot...but enough for me to say that.
In the beginning, every time I had to come back to UK, it was like I was going somewhere where "I had to go", where I was doing a great experience but still a place that in the very end I was not familiar with. It was a sort of burden...even though it vanished as soon I was boarding the plane...Today I am no longer crossed by this sort of perception, but I rather feel I am going back home...
The flight was OK apart from a the most noisy school trip ever...straight to work from the airport...and then back to Hughenden Road late in the afternoon...to get some rest after a tiring weekend...

Monday the blog celebrated its first 100 days.... It was quite a long time I wanted to make one...but picky as I am with this kind of things, I was never happy with it, until I found vox...which still has something that I would change, but is the one that better suits my expectations.
It is quite funny the way I got to know it. I was watching skiing on TV, when someone mentioned Kalle Palander's blog. I had a look at it...and I liked it straight away...it looked nice...I started to build up mine, and less than a month after it was online...!
I do not take it too serious, even if I enjoy a lot writing and keeping it updated and in a good shape. I was wondering if I had been constant in writing,
or if I had got bored after a while...it was like a blind adventure, which, so far I consider successful...
10397 page views, 3716 unique visitors...The highest number of access was on February the 14th, with 1425 visits and 428 unique visitors.
Highest number of visitors are from Italy, followed by UK, USA, Canada, France, Norway, Netherlands and Germany. But I had couple of accesses from Argentina and Brazil, and also Australia, Korea, India, Virgin Islands and Cote d'Ivoire....just to mention some of them...
46 posts written, including 1 poll, 70 comments, lots of pictures and videos...2 calendars...
As I said...a good start...but just a start...

I was seated on my armchair, writing the blog, my legs stretched out on the footstool.
Wednesday morning...few minutes before 1 am...I felt what at first I thought was a heavy gust of wind
but what then very quickly I realized it was an earthquake. I heard a dull thud...as if something was rumbling somewhere...and at the same time I realized that the armchair was shaking. The metallic sound of the door lock was a sign that the door was shaking as well and I clearly saw the coat hanged down to the door, swinging. Just the time to understand that it was probably an earthquake and the armchair oscillated again, in a lighter way than the previous one...then only silence...I think everything lasted 3, 4 seconds at the most.
 I was puzzled, I though it was an earthquake, but at the same time I would have never thought and believed experiencing one in the UK. I tried to find some info on Internet, but it was too early...I had to wait the morning to confirm my suspects...
I witnessed the greatest earthquake in the UK in the last 25 years. It was nothing big (fortunately), the epicentre was in the north-east of the English Midlands, quite far away from here,magnitude 4.7 Richter. Something that maybe in Japan they will not even notice.
It is always a strange sensation to feel an earthquake (that's the second time for me)...it comes as a surprise...something that you don't expect, and by the time it passed away you haven't realized (most of the time) what was it...then you think back, and you don't understand how it is possible that the floor was going up and down...or left and right...and yet it has happened...