Our Tuscan villa in the country

Off the plane in Pisa, and straight up into the hills of a little town to Convento do Montenero, to visit the first of a long line of my Uncle Gino's Italian family. In this case, his nephew Luca.



My Uncle Gino Dino Lino Giustarini in the gardens of our Tuscan villa in the countrside of Marema; our home for the next week.



Our private swimming pool that we spent many an hour chilling by in the heat.



One of the little pets that inhabited the garden...



'we're all friends here' thought one of the four little kittens



Eating in the garden: this was the family group for the week (bare with me, there'll be a lot of meaningless faces for you all, but they are all for the interest of someone) - from left - Guila, my second-step-cousin (age 10); her father Alex (Gino's son from his first marriage before he married my dad's sister Ruth); his wife Elizabeta; me; my auntie Ruth; my cousin Dario's girlfriend Eugenia; and Dario - Ruth and Gino's son - my cousin who is 7 hours younger than me. Capito?



The family who owned the villa gave us a traditional Italian Sunday lunch. Unfortnately the whole occasion will be remembered by the mother's fatal mistake of accidently seasoning everything - from the pasta to the steak - with sugar rather than salt... until she realised we just sat back and ate it politely thinking it was strange but original regional Italian cuisine.



the way to end any Italian summer meal. everyone got a quarter of a watermelon each (nothing modest about the portions of Italian meals, I was to learn quite quickly).