Jul 2, 2025 | Life Is Short Interviews
It’s been nearly a month since my mam passed, and in a moment of what can only be described as emotional insanity (or maybe divine guidance?), I found myself opening an old Italian language course I bought twenty years ago.
One of those audio-visual binder sets that came in a folder the size of a phonebook with actual CDs, back when learning a language meant flipping through plastic sleeves and inhaling the scent of false hope. Don’t laugh, I’ve been trying to learn a second language since Lingaphone was a box set of cassettes and cost several months of your salary.
And yet, two decades later and thousands spent on Italian courses…
I still struggle to speak an Italian sentence confidently.
But this week, I started again.
I’ve lived in Italy for years now—long enough to know my Prosecco from my Spumante, and to shout at my dogs ‘Die’ with the Italian meaning, not the English. But full sentences? Grammar? Telling the pharmacist that I need something for a sore throat and not an over-the-counter colonoscopy prep kit? Still a work in progress.
But now, I want to do it properly.
After losing my Dad and brother in the last three years, Mam was the last member of my childhood family still living in Ireland. And now that she’s gone, I’ve finally admitted: I won’t be going back to live there.
I live here. In Italy. I need this place—hot and beautiful—to be home. And not being able to speak the language is my major road block to having that feeling.
It’s a beautiful relic of the late ’90s, divided into cheerful, practical categories like:
Il Contadino nel Campo
Some phrases have stayed with me from when I first did the course.
“Il contadino nel campo,” I announced proudly to a friend the other day.
“The peasant is in the field.”
“When are you ever going to use that?”
Fair question.
However I have now learnt a few new sentences.
Actual example sentences from the course:
“The fat girl’s radiator is broken.”
Followed by:
“I see the spark plugs.”
Radiators, spark plugs, and 1990s body-shaming.
Honestly, if I ever find myself in a field beside a voluptuous woman with a steaming Fiat Panda, I’m ready.
As much as I adore Italy, they’re not exactly pioneers when it comes to body positivity. In 2020, the Association of Substitute Gondoliers (yes, it’s a real thing) reduced the number of people allowed in a gondola from six to five—for weight reasons.
The president of the association explained:
“Advancing with over half a tonne of meat on board is dangerous.”
Half. A. Tonne. Of. Meat.
And I thought “la ragazza grassa” in my audio course was bad.
Italians may have mastered art, fashion, and pasta, but when it comes to body image, let’s just say they’re still rowing upstream.
They say lutto, which feels too formal. Too obituary column.
Tristezza is closer, but it sounds like someone forgot to order dessert.
In English, we say “I’m heartbroken.”
In Italian, there’s spezzato il cuore—a broken heart.
Still, none of them feel big enough to hold the absence that sit in my chest when I pick up my phone to call my Mam, Dad or my brother, hold it for a moment and put it back down, ten times a day. I’ve been through this before; it took me eight and a half years to stop thinking of calling my sister every day, so I know it’s not going to stop any day soon, so I distract myself; I’m writing again, reading a lot. And every time I pick up the phone to call them, instead of putting it down, I switch on to Duolingo and do a lesson — Retraining my brain as to why I picked up the phone.
Perhaps finding the joy in the small things of learning Italian—like remembering a word, forming a sentence, or getting through a conversation with the pharmacist without panic-texting Lucia, will help me learn how to be in this world without speaking to my Mam everyday for the last 53 years. A new way of speaking to replace the old way.
And maybe one day, I’ll be able to tell someone, perfectly, in Italian:
“My mother used to live with me in Italy, but she went back to Ireland because she liked pineapple on her pizza.”
Until next week,
From your favourite Contadina Carina,
Rosie xxx
Mar 4, 2025 | A House In Italy, A Rosie Moment, Book Updates, RE# Your Life
If you have read my book ‘A Rosie Life In Italy’ you may remember that back in 2013, I was living in the cheapest house in Ireland with a colander for a roof, rats scrabbling above my bedroom ceiling, and not enough money to pay for my kids’ school bus fare. Life was, to put it bluntly, a bit of a shit show.
I was 40 years old, and the previous ten years had felt like a relentless game of emotional Whac-A-Mole; Miscarriages. Losing my big sister. My partner battling and then rehabbing from chronic alcoholism. The collapse of my business and income. Our dream of moving to Spain—gone. Every time I thought things might turn a corner, life threw another curveball, and I was exhausted. The chaos in my life was attracting more chaos.
I needed something to shift the trajectory of my life. I wanted to step away from the chaos. I wanted an instruction manual, a step-by-step guide to get out of the rut, to stop spinning in the same downward cycle. But I couldn’t find one.
So, I decided I would create my own.
I knew I wanted to follow my dreams and live life to the full. More importantly, I wanted other women who were feeling the same—trapped, stuck, waiting—to rise with me and grab life by the goolies. Because let’s be honest, we know by now there is no knight in shining armour coming to rescue us. If we want to shake things up, we have to do it ourselves.
Grab It By the Goolies Academy
I knew how to build a website, so I started Life Is Short Magazine. It was an online magazine filled with interviews of inspirational women who had followed their dreams, despite life’s challenges. I wanted their stories to give me and others hope and inspiration and to be proof that it was possible to change course, no matter what life had thrown at you.
I wanted to develop a community of women so we could encourage and learn from each other so alongside it I launched—Grab It By the Goolies Academy—an online space to encourage people to take tangible steps toward their dreams. And, because I don’t do things in halves and I believe in the power of a good book, I decided to write a non-fiction book to kick off the academy and website, called; How To Have A Fabulous Midlife Crisis: A User’s Guide to Dusting Off Your Dreams and Making Them Happen.
Then something I always wanted to happen happened.
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Aug 16, 2024 | Living In Italy
Here in our small town in Italy, we often see an elderly couple at the local supermarket. We’ve named them Bill and Betty. I doubt their Italian names are anything close to that, but giving nicknames to Italians we see often helps us give a quick reference when chatting about who we saw when out around town. We only ever see Bill and Betty at the fruit and vegetable aisle in the supermarket doing the same ritual. The old gent, Bill, picks up a piece of veg, smells it, inspects it, and if it passes the test, he carefully places it in the basket which Betty stands holding, patiently waiting for each verdict.
“Don’t forget we need to stop at the supermarket and get a bottle of prosecco,” I say to Ronan on our way to our friend’s house for an afternoon swim, which is naturally followed by an early aperitivo.
“I’ll get a watermelon to take with us too,” Ronan says as we enter the shop and see Bill and Betty.
Watermelons are rampant here at the moment. They are enormous. Carrying them to the cash desk is like an Ironman challenge, but they are the most refreshing thing to munch, during the current 37C days we are having.
Bill and Betty must think the same, as Bill is standing at the large crate of huge watermelons tapping each one with his head bent close.
“What do you think he is listening for?” Ronan asks while I choose a bunch of grapes to take with us also.
“A little hello from inside perhaps?” I say. “Do you think a hollow sound is good or a dull sound is bad? Or would hollow be bad and dull would mean good?” Ronan says, watching Bill carry his chosen watermelon to the cash desk.
“I said hello not hallow. I don’t know if a hallow sound would be good or bad, but a hello would be just freaky.”
I head to the Prosecco aisle and leave Ronan to weigh the grapes behind the usual hoard of German and Dutch camping tourists doing their grocery shopping.
But Ronan decides not to queue, instead Ronan being Ronan goes along tapping each watermelon and holding his head close trying to figure out, or given some divine sign, which would be the best watermelon to buy.
I’m at the cash desk at this stage waiting to pay for the Prosecco and in earshot of the fruit aisle. A Dutch tourist approaches Ronan and starts speaking Italian, Ronan, who doesn’t speak any Italian, asks “Can you speak English?” “Oh yes, great, I am sorry for my poor Italian,” the tourist says to Ronan.
“Can you choose one for me?” he says, pointing at the watermelons. Instead of picking one at random and exiting stage left as quickly as possible, I watch as Ronan goes from watermelon to watermelon, tapping each with his ear close to the crate. A small attentive crowd gathers to watch The Watermelon Tapper before Ronan announces confidently in his best Italian speaking English accent. “This one. Choose-o-this-a-one-a.”
I can’t take the embarrassment any longer so I go wait in the car.
Through the supermarket’s large plate-glass window, I can see several tourists tapping watermelons and listening for the magical mystery sound.
Ronan sits into the car all smiles to himself.
“Ronan,” I say. “Where are the grapes?”
“Oh sorry, I left them down. I got distracted choosing a watermelon.”
“And where is the watermelon?”
“Oh crap… I forgot that too.”
