Going on holiday

The semester is over, the last interior design students are graduating, our Italian classes are finished - as are all our holiday celebrations, except for, that is, friends coming in for drinks tonight; lunch at Bergdorf's on Saturday and dinner with old friends in New Jersey later that evening; afternoon tea next Monday with a neighbor and her children at A Grand Hotel in London and dinner the same day with an old friend at A Trendy Restaurant; dinner in Rome on the 25th with neighbors from down the street and, on our return from Naples, a visit with the Celt's family in London. My goddaughter, the Celt's ten-year-old niece, has decided that the best possible treat for her uncles is for her to take them to the Victoria and Albert Museum, go ice-skating, view the city from the London Eye and eat Italian food in Soho.

You'd think, reading the first paragraph, that the Celt and I plan nothing that doesn't involve eating - and to a degree you'd be right. Food outside and frequently in the house often means friends are involved and seemingly being on vacation (going on holiday as we used to say it) isn't any different. Everything is planned and booked - flights, a train journey, hotels, restaurants, tickets to Villas Kerylos and Ephrussi-Rothschild, even a car to pick us up from the airport. I don't mind driving around Nice, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat or Monaco but I refuse to deal with Rome's traffic from behind the wheel of my own automobile.

Finally, we are going away - to places we love and to places we have never been.