Today I am in a particularly good mood, although I don't know how long it will last however. I popped around to my Mum and Dads last night, and they've just come back from a grand tour of Austria and Italy ; we missed them by a few days when we were over in Liguria, but they had a great time - and brought us back lots of goodies from my family (and some they bought themselves). My Auntie did us a wonderful painting of San Terenzo al Mare (the place in my previous 'real' blog entry), it's an artistic impression of what the place looked like a few years ago. My Uncle made the frame, so I'm well made up with that ; I'll get a piccy of it at lunchtime at post it up here.

Other wondrous goodies included a two foot long salami and it's a corker, say up eating hunks of that with some fresh bread last night, and drizzled some of the bread with some pumpkin seed oil that my cousin in Austria sent back to me, along with an Austrian cook-book (don't laugh) with some interesting looking recipes in it. Plenty of veal dishes, to my shame I love veal. So not PC though!

And then the booze. two bottles of Schnapps, one Vermouth , one red, one pink and one white. The red I'm looking forward to, it's an older vintage from my Great Uncle's estate.

A one other interesting thing came back ; a photo of my Granddad, Grandmother, Mamma, Uncle and my Mamma’s auntie standing in a town called Arcola. It must have been from the late sixties. It was the only time that my Grandad, Grandmother and mother were ever in the same place at the same time (I'm obviously not counting the moment of her conception). The expressions on their faces go some way to explain the amazing story behind my mother's birth, my Grandmother looked in shock, my Mother in awe, and my Grandfather seemed proud and happy.

My mother was born in a field outside of Vernoa (my God that's sounds like Peevis' Dr Evil signature!) in January of 1945, her birth being expedited by a train derailment as my Grandmother, recently released from a concentration camp in Austria, was being transported back to her native Italy. Her husband, it had been reported, had been killed and when the camp was liberated, she got sent home. My Grandparents had moved out of Italy during the German withdrawl from that country back to Graz in Austria (where my Grandfather was from, although his father was born in Italy). My Grandfather had been posted at a port in Northern Italy, where he met my Grandmother who was from a local village (the one in the picture). As the Germans were pulling out, my Grandsdad heard that the German troops had planned to kill every male in the town of Arcola, and although he was a sailor for the Germans he wasn't a Nazi and was revolted by the actions of the Infantry to the extent he and the local padre in Arcola spent the entire night rounding up the males in the town and hiding them all in the catacombes. He could have been killed for that, so when he completed that task he got the hell out of there with my Grandmother to go back to Austria. Unfortunately he was brought to book upon his return to Austria, and they were seperated, my Grandmother put in a concentration camp.

When she was released, she was told he had died, so she went back home, had my mother en route so to speak and then moved to Scotland, leaving my mother with her Grandparents.

She returned from Scotland in the sixties, having re-married and then widowed (again). Then her original husband turned up, an investigative reporter having got wind of the story of his heroics in Arcola, and brought him back - apparently he wasn't dead at all and had escaped from the prison he was dumped in because of his treachery. That's where the picture was taken. It was all over the papers in Austria and Italy, I've got the clippings at home. He was awarded some Italian medal for bravery. He had been told his wife was dead, so he had remarried.

This caused some problems, as it meant that all her half-brothers and half-sisters were born out of wedlock, and the subsequent marriages were in fact null and void. He wanted to leave his new wife and family and start up with her again, but she never forgave him for what she saw as him dumping her pregnant in a concentration camp. He left and they never spoke again ; although he did tell my mother one time that he had only ever loved one woman.

As I said, there was quite a lot of emotion in that picture. I had a little cry there.

I think there is a book in there, but I don’t think anyone would ever pick it up, it’s far too improbable.

Oh, here's a picture of the castle where they hid all the blokes.