Parma

Happy Madrid days!

Seven years ago I lived in Madrid, and was so blessed with a group of good girlfriends. Lise was one of them, but as she's South African we've not seen each other since. Her husband is a rugby player and now plays for the Zebre, one of Italy's top teams, based in Parma. She's lived here for two years now, and so going to Parma was something I was keen to do as soon as possible. We had such a special time together, it was as though we had never been apart.

Lise and I in 2007

Parma is a sweet city. It's lovely and compact so easy to walk around, and very pretty with lots of cobbled streets and pastel buildings with the iron balconies which are so ubiquitous in Italy. It has so many churches.....possibly more than ice cream parlours!

Dries, Lise's husband, being a big, blonde, rugby player in a small Italian city stands out! So it was to my complete delight that on Friday night quite a few Italian rugby players (his team mates) came over and chatted to us. Star struck is not the word... I love how greetings in Italy are not just a smile like in the UK, I was loving the double kisses! I think that for me, meeting rugby players is for others like meeting film stars. Dries kept laughing and reminding me that they really are just normal people. True, of course.....but it didn't stop the blushes and smiles!

After dinner ice creams...and photo bombs!