You may remember my dear wife, Electra, from her guest posts, The Art of Forgetting: Are all Authors Forgetful? and The life of an author as lived by his wife. She has finally decided to write an update with another behind-the-scenes peek at our life. As always, please read the following in a sweet female voice, with a hint of a French accent.
Life With An Author (Part II)
People of Nicholas’s blog, I’m back! After almost two years of doing other things (i.e., getting pregnant, having a baby and nowadays running behind the wee one 24/7), I have just a little bit of time to share with you a glimpse of what life in the Rossis household really is like.
Life with an author AND a baby is fun, if anything because said author is having great fun with the wee one. One of the many perks is that we constantly find new children’s stories he would like to write, if only he had enough time between working, and working, and some more working, a little bit of writing, a tiny bit of editing, not enough reading, a lot of taking care of Natalie, definitely not enough sleeping, and grabbing a quick bite to avoid starvation.
In other words, life is very busy. Natalie is full of joy but also a bouncy and overactive toddler who requires attention and play. Daily. Hourly. Every single moment of our day!
Fun at the beach
Anyway, today we were returning from the beach (it’s great to live in Athens as the beach is 25 minutes from our house), and we started talking, with Natalie babbling in the back seat. Nicholas thought of a new children’s book based on the idea of a prickly bear eating a prickly pear. After chuckling at how silly and unfortunate that fruit’s name is (poor prickly pear!), I added that the prickly bear should also consider eating other fruits that suffer from mismatching names, such as the grapefruit (no resemblance to grapes) and the pineapple (nothing to do with either pines or apples), and so the story developed. Of course, it will only take years for such a book to get published in between work and other stuff, but hey, we laughed. It’s probably book number 23 down the line, and the more we go to the beach, the more brilliant ideas we will come up with.
We were also discussing other things. Years ago, we considered building a B&B in Corfu, where Nicholas has a plot of land by the sea. Even though our finances didn’t allow it and our lives took a different turn, we came up today with some fantastic names about the rooms we would build.
You see, it’s become fashionable to name rooms according to antiquities or ancient heroes, so Greece is teeming with rooms named Aphrodite, Amaryllis, Danae… you get the picture. We, being original people, thought that our rooms should have names that make people smile. I suggested that the general theme should be flowers (as you know by now, since you read this blog with great attention and application, I’m crazy about our garden), but with some unusual adjectives defining them.
We came up with the Tipsy Poppy room, the Sober Bougainvillea (next door, obviously, to keep good company to the aforementioned Poppy), the Proud Olive room, the Reserved Ivy room (I particularly laughed at this one as ivy is so expansive in our garden), the Silky Thistle room (an homage to our lovely years in Scotland) and some others I have forgotten by now.
As we were returning, I was thinking that Natalie must be picking up some very weird ideas from her parents. I know she understands what we say and I dread the moment she starts talking and repeating what we just said, especially if she mentions to her teacher anything about a sober bougainvillea keeping company to a tipsy poppy which suffers from depression (yes, the author in the house initially wanted to name the room the Depressed Poppy but I reminded him that people would be coming for holidays, not for therapy).
Come to think of it, this would make for a great children’s book. Book number 24.
I’m so happy to meet Elektra and your daughter, Nicholas. Both are magical!! Keep talking about your B&B….someday for sure, it will be more than a dream. 🙂
Thank you so much, Gwen! To be honest, I’d rather be a successful author instead of a hotelier 😀
Lovely to hear from Elektra again. There’s no shortage of creativity in your family Nicholas. Perhaps the wee one herself will one day write about the Prickly Bear 🙂
What a lovely thought!!! 😀
Just sayin’! 🙂
Her vocabulary is going to be interesting … and massive. 😀
Lol – I’m as scared as you are 😀
Not watching the news is great advice. Lovely post, Electra.
Thank you, John 🙂
Such a delight that was! Thank you Electra, especially as I can imagine your free time is also very little. I hope there will be more in future, and maybe your own blog too one day. You could share your housekeeping and gardening experiences and I’d be the first to sign up for that 🙂 I loooove the sound of the stories. It’s crazy how the sea air clears my mind too bringing me fresh ideas. I always carry a notepad with me when I visit Corfu for that same reason 🙂 I wonder if your land is in Messonghi, Nicholas! Wouldn’t it be great if you retired there someday as Andy and I plan to be ‘next door’ in Moraitika 🙂
It sure is in Messonghi. Sounds like a dream-come-true 🙂
Yay! 🙂
Thanks, Electra, great to see you back. I am already planning a week in the ‘Proud Olive’ room. I hope to find excellent oil to dip my bread into, as well as copious amounts of ‘Othello’ Red Wine for sale in the room! Let me know when it is up and running! (I will buy extra mosquito spray…)
Best wishes, Pete,
Yay, our first customer 😀
Make it quick though. I’m not getting any younger! 🙂
Delightful. It’s clear your family is enjoying each other and life in general. 😀
We try. Sometimes it’s easier than others. As long as we don’t watch any news, we’re good 🙂
Yes. I can surely relate to that.
Your little baby is growing up to become a lovely little girl.
Leslie
Thank you so much, Leslie 😀
🙂
Your little girl is gorgeous and so blonde! Can’t believe how grown up she is already, seems like only 5 minutes! You are so lucky living beside the sea… enjoy! We didn’t make it to Greece this year and really missed it… planning next summer’s trip already! ?
Thank you, Ali! I hope to see you over here some day 🙂
That would be great. After missing you in Dublin that time, I really need to make the effort.?
Great post. Glad to see the ideas are piling up for the future. 🙂 Can so relate to that sudden worry that your kid will copy you. It’s rather comical when it happens around the house. Not so much at school or in public.
Lol – quite so 😀
Lovely post! You have a blessed life! Keep the stories coming…
Thank you so much, Luna! I’ll keep pestering her for another post 🙂