Italian seaside holiday!

Beach babe!

Sun, sea, sand an delicious Italian gelati means only one thing, we are on our first seaside holiday as a family in Finale Ligure, Italy!
Finale is a small seaside town an hour outside of Genoa towards the French border. It originated as a fishermen village, but today it is very much about tourism. Your Italian side of the family has a very prominent place in this town's history as the Pertica's (your great-grandmother is Delia Pertica) were a very successful family of merchant sailors in the 1500's.

For the first two weeks it is just the three of us and we quickly fall into a very relaxing routine. In the morning we set up camp on the beach with our umbrella, towels and your little swimming pool, ready for a good few hours of playing. This is then interrupted by lunch and an afternoon nap (meaning your mom or dad pushes you in your pram along the beachfront to make you fall asleep!) before we all head back to the beach in the afternoon. The only bit of stress is when some of the Italians find you so cute that they have to come over and strike up a conversation with your dad, which basically means them talking a lot and your dad just saying "si, si" all the time!

As if by magic, you've also started to sleep very well at night! You still wake up once a night, but it is a vast improvement on the once every two hours that it used to be! Of course your parents are debating furiously as to what the magic formula is, but whatever it is, we hope it stays around for a LONG time!





The fact that you can sit by yourself now means that you can play in your little blow-up pool by yourself. However, you get tired quite quickly which of course means either getting you onto our towels (which means that you will end up in the sand!) or another stroll in the pram for a rest!



Playing in your little swimming pool.

 You also get a visit from your Nonno Gianfranco who organised a day trip to Balzi Rossi, a pre-historic site on the French border with a very nice beach. After a quick visit to the museum with remains from thousands of years before, it is back to the beach. With the exception of a day trip to the ancient town of Albenga, pretty much every day is spent on the beach which is a very nice change from the very unpredictable English summer! 

Balzi Rossi beach with Nonno.

Sadly Heino has to leave after two weeks to return to work. However, there is still plenty of company as your grandmother, great-grandmother and her carer comes to Finale for a visit. Especially now with so many extra hands to help, your mom enjoys a proper holiday!

4 generations of women: Pertica, Genderini, Foderaro and Von Wielligh!

But that is not all. Over a very hectic weekend your uncle Matteo and Benedetta come for a visit, and as you and your mom prepare to leave, Alessandra's Zio Augusto and her cousin Francesco arrives as well. Naturally you are the centre of attention, but all too soon it is time to return home to London.

Six Months.

You celebrate your first half year with a spoon-full of peaches! Just a few days before you turned 6 months in Rome, you started to eat solid foods. It is a very gradual process, started with some ripe, sweet Italian apricot and it looks like you like it a lot. This was followed by loads of other nice summer fruits like peaches, prunes and bananas.

A big improvement is that in your sixth month you started to sit by yourself for long periods without falling over. It was a long process, but it seems as if you like it, as long as you have some of your toys within reach!

As always, the only area that is still proving to be a problem is sleeping at night. However, you did recently manage 7 uninterrupted hours sleeping which is giving us a lot of hope!