Florence luxuries.

Florence! What a luxury.

Its a luxury and a privilege for anyone to have an opportunity to go to Firenze for the weekend, obviously. As an Australian, who has spent most of one's life assuming that any trip to Italy will take a years worth of savings and probably two years' worth of accrued leave from work, I am acutely aware of just how great the privilege is.

In fact, when P first suggested I come and meet her there for the weekend, my instinctive response was 'no'. It's justs not the sort of thing one does, is it? It took J, a European and well-travelled one at that, to point out that I both could and should. So I did.

It took about the same time to get there as it used to do to drive to visit Mum and Dad in Gippsland. Andthe plane ticket cost didn't cost any more than the petrol would have, either.

And yes, the art was magnificent and the architecture grand (more of all that later). Yes, the view from the hotel window (domes and roofs and flying sparrows framed by foothills) was lovely. Yes, the food and the wine were great, and the people running the trattoria friendly, professional and often chic.

More glorious than that, though, was to have the opportunity to sit eating and drinking with family and friends. The main bit is the company itself, obviously. Lovely people who you like, who are family, whose friends and family are by extension and connection and varying degrees of separation also yours.

There is something else, as well. Its time spent with people with shared experience, shared acquaintences, shared context. Suddenly remembering what its like to skip all those laborious parts of polite conversation where you explain the backstory: where you come from, what you mean, who on earth the other characters in the story are.

The real luxury is to be able to speak in short-hand. To be able to say something like 'it was at that place in Alma Road', and have everyone there, know exactly what house you are talking about, in what suburb, who lived there, and exactly the kind of parties that were held there in the summer of 1988. All you need is one little phrase like that and the scene is suddenly peopled with the whole tapestry and characters and sub-plots that we share.

So thank you Penny, David & Romani and the Oxforshire Aussies. Thanks for the whole weekend, but especially for that lovely night at Gustavino on the Via della Condotta, where the conversation, like the wine, was full and rich and warm.