REMO BRINGS GREETINGS

This is our builder, Remo Brogi, and this is by way of a stealth shot. He didn't know I was at the window while he wished Himself "auguri."

Remo has a good eye for the rustic. He and his masons can build stone walls that look as if they have been around for centuries. He doesn't bother much with measurements and wings it. As a result our house, while solidly built, is just a bit squint. No job is too small or too big for Remo. I could never write a book about life in Tuscany because the first requirement of these books is trouble with the quaint/crooked/impossible builder. Remo denied me all of that kind of material. He and his crew are fast and efficient. What good is that to a writer?

I remember some of his former crew with great affection. There was jolly Ugo who used to build fires on site and grill steaks over them for lunch. He was the only heavy drinker I've ever met in Italy. He is dead of cirrhosis of the liver.

Then there was gentle Roberto, the romantic. He became enamoured of a ballerina (for which read night club dancer) from Romania who took him for all he had. It wasn't much. He is now working in town and is married to a Russian.

Today is our wedding anniversary. I wrote about the wedding on 11 October

This is the funniest picture I could find. The reason I look daft is because of the racket coming from my left. The ghostly man in the rear and looking pained at the noise was my editor. He gave me away. He has since been murdered. The piper went to Australia and never came back. The way we were.

I have thrown it into sepia, my first and probably last, monochrome. I believe photographs of photographs are no longer acceptable as blips.

Himself has booked our favourite corner table at Buca di San Antonio. I asked him if he realized we'd been married for a big part of our lives. "Big part?" he asked, "More like ALL of them." I'll get him for that later when he least expects it. Happy Anniversary, Marco.