Ok, so it's a few weeks after the fact, but would you like to see some pics from the trip I took to Rome with my Mum? Yes? No?

Well you're going to see them anyway.

To set the scene, here is a picture of me and my Mum, so you know what she looks like:


Almost every time we got someone to take a picture of the two of us she would only remember after the picture had been taken that she hadn't removed her sunglasses. Almost*.

This is a picture of me in a Christopher-has-a-halo thang goin' on, with the occulus of the Pantheon above me:


Directly below the occulus, which is literally a hole in the dome, is a hole in the floor, presumably for the rainwater to drain away through.

Mum: "Hmmm ..."

Christopher: "What?"

Mum: "Why don't they just put in a proper stainless steel plughole?"

Christopher: "What?"

This is a picture of a traditional Italian ice-cream:


We ate a lot of these. Now, if you ever visit a Roman ice-cream parlour you are more than likely to be completely befuddled by the vast selection of every flavour and colour under the Sun and in the rainbow, respectively. I mention colour, because regardless of the fact that the flavour might actually be prawn, the pinky colour can be deeply seductive. Anyhoo, I can reliably inform you that the perennial pistachio flavour is still the best. Despite the fact that the colour looks like mould.

One time, while we were eating something like our twenty ninth ice-cream, my Mum turned and said to me, "Do you think Italians really eat ice-creams? Do you really think they eat pizza and pasta?"

Christopher: "Er, well ... I don't know. I imagine so, because they're Italian, aren't they."

Mum: "Well, do you think they're just for the tourists? I mean the British don't all eat fish and chips, but that's what we're famous** for."

Christopher: " ... "

This is a picture of my Mum and I inside the coliseum:


* Almost every time.

After looking around for about twenty minutes my Mum turned to me and said, "The Romans ... they were a lot like the Greeks really."

Christopher: "Why do you say that?"

Mum: "Well, you know. Because of Hercules."

Christopher: "I don't think you've really thought this through properly."

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a horrible person. I love my Mummy very, very much. Hell, on Friday she put £200 in my bank account! But sometimes, just sometimes, I really question my parental / genetic authenticity.

But I will give her this. As a nurse / hairdresser, she may well have missed her vocation, because it was she who was responsible for taking this awesome picture of me sitting on the base of a column (!) at the front of the Pantheon. Marvel at the long-exposure setting! The composition! How cute I look!!!


** Someone please tell me that us Brits are not only famous for our fish and chips.