Relatives

Felt a little under the weather last night.  Slept well apart from being woken by a bed-scrabbling hound.  So tired returned to sleep straightaway. 

Felt a little better in the morning.  I didn't want to miss my morning walk by the sea.  After breakfast headed to the high street for a few supplies.

In the afternoon while Mr was at the Quaker art group i made a chocolate and banana loaf cake and leek and potato eggah/frittata.

Had a rest on the sofa.  Energy flagging by thus time.

My Italian cousin emailed this photo of my Italian grandparents, aunts and the little girl is my mother.  My grandparents died shortly after my birth in England.  My grandfather left church early as he felt ill.  My grandmother returned home to find he'd died and by the account I've heard seemed to have entered a catatonic state and lost the will to live.  My aunt, the tall lady on the left, Angelina I believe died of puerperal fever.  My uncle Andrea is not in the photo he was enlisted in a branch of the navy.

I did meet the my aunt on the right,  Michelina.  There was a rift in the family initiated by some of Angelina's children.  She had 4, Matilda, Carmella, Lucia and Giulio.  I met them when I was about 10.  

The rift's focus was that Angelina's children's father Salvatore after his wife died married Michelina.  They were very happy and had a son Mauro.  Both are no longer alive. 

The little girl is my mother, Lucia.  She was in many ways the pluckiest.   I recall her telling me when I was a child that she wanted to break out of marrying a village boy.  She came to Kent with hardly a word of English to do nurse training.  She stayed with a distant aunt who was very unkind so my mother found alternative digs.
  

I think she was the most adventurous of her siblings.  Once she'd left Italy she never saw her parents alive again.  It must have been a highly emotional time giving birth to me and discovering your parents have died.  

I see her in this photo, a frightened, waif of a child.  Did she think then she had a different destiny.  For me the photograph is evocative.  My closest cousin named after our grandmother Carmen is the same age but younger by 3 months. I keep in touch with Carmen and Lucia through WhatsApp.

Early night for me soon.

Pleasant evening everyone.