Because Mum’s cousin Toni used to live in Perth with her family when she was younger she speaks perfect Australian (She still sounds exactly the same as I remember) so she was able to be our translator for when we would go and visit other members of the family.

We went to my Nonno’s (Granddad) Brother’s house in Ridotti which is in the L’Aqila area and is where my mum was born and my grandparents were married in the local church over 50 years ago. We met Zio Domenico’s wife, their kids and grand kids and had dinner with them which was quite the event. Toni left us with them after a little while and we had to try and communicate with them without us knowing Italian and them not speaking english.

It was a lot of fun and it gave us the opportunity to learn some Italian and them some English but there was definitely a lot of pointing and even the Italian to English Dictionary came out.

It was really nice to meet my mums family and see where she came from.