The Perissinotto family

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Geo: 45.9574, 12.6106

Today was the start of a few days of "family time" – that is, the extended Perissinotto family. Yesterday, Rita and Elio headed down to Pordenone to stay with Zia Isetta – she was married to Elio's brother Tony, who died in about 1980.

It was further to Pordenone (or Roraipiccolo, to be precise) than it should have been – our GPS, like us, assumed that the autostrada that was under construction when we were here in 2001 would be completed by now, but there is still 100m or so that has been left impassable. Apparently there is some political storm there – can't imagine what the Courier Mail would do with a story like that! So we went around in circles for a while, looking for a sign to a town or village that we recognized! But we arrived in time for lunch with Zia and with cousin Renato, his wife Sara and their daughter Silvia (now 26!) and her fiancé Stephano, and Renato and Sara's son Alessio, who is 16 and has some intellectual and physical impairment. It was a lovely time – we have really enjoyed Silvia's company since, as a young teenager, she was our tour guide around Pordenone, and since we visited her on her first school trip to London. She has grown into a lovely lady, teaching English to seniors at the Pordenone high school. We're just disappointed that they are not coming to Australia for their honeymoon in September. It was also wonderful to catch up with Renato and Sara, and with Alessio, who has learnt such a lot of English from his sister.

After lunch, we went for a drive to see the renovations at Renato's house, then to a park to let the kids have a run and a play. When we returned to Zia's for dinner, the rest of the family had arrived – Anna Maria and her husband Daniele, and Franscesca (21) and Paola (14), and Esio and Antoinella and their boys, Paolo (12) and Matteo (6). Matthew was delighted that there is another Matthew Perissinotto! Another noisy, Perissinotto family dinner followed, and we were sad to leave but were trying to outrun a storm (it caught us!), making it a long trip home to Asolo.

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Comments

[Tracey and Mark]

Please say hello from us. I can't believe how grown up the little cousins are now!