FRAMED!

Sometimes your Blip Mojo just goes out of the window and today was that day for me.  

Whilst Mr. HCB was out for his usual Tuesday morning walk with his friend, I was clearing up in the kitchen and wondering what I would do as today’s Blip, when I picked up this beautiful wine bottle, which was given to me just after my operation last August by some friends - full of wine of course - and decided I had to do something with it.  I either had to throw it into the bin to get it off my worktop or find something to put in it and take a photograph - so I went out into the hall and found this lovely red carnation, given to me for my birthday by a friend.  I put it in the bottle and took several shots, but actually, it looked really boring!

So I then looked around for something to put with the bottle and wandered into the lounge - all thoughts of clearing up in the kitchen forgotten!  I came across this photograph on the left, which is one of my real father, who I only found out about a couple of years ago after Mr. HCB and I had done our DNA.  

He was an Italian-American and had been stationed near where we live during the Second World War - my Mother obviously had a liaison with him - but she never ever mentioned this to me or to anyone else in the family as far as I am aware and died with that secret.  I cannot find out more at the moment because I believe the American Embassy is still closed after Covid, so I have to be patient and wait.  Sadly he died in 1986 but I have found two new half-sisters, who live in America, but they knew nothing of me either.  

The other photograph is a collage I put together of Mr. HCB’s family - his father, in his Army uniform at the top left - and I was very close to him - with Mr. HCB on his left, and our older son, M. underneath him.  Under M. is his son, J and next to him is our younger son, also a J and next to him our other grandson, H.  So a lovely collage of our grandsons with their fathers, grandfather and great-grandfather.

I hadn’t intended writing all this and perhaps it’s not such a boring Blip after all - it is part of my life journey and I am extremely grateful to my other half-sister’s son-in-law for all the work he did to help me after my DNA came back with almost 48% Italian!  Quite a shock, as you can imagine.  Meanwhile, Mr. HCB’s DNA was quite ordinary compared to mine - but I have to say, as I have often in the past, that his parents were wonderful to me from when we first met and I know always looked on me as a daughter.

Having said that my mother died without ever mentioning any of this but it does answer quite a lot of questions for me - I’m just sad that I never met my real father but it’s been good to be in touch with one of my half-sisters in America.  Unfortunately, she is not too well, so I’m not sure whether I will ever get to meet her, but our contact via the internet has been lovely with both her and her husband.  It's also been interesting, during our email exchanges, to realise how alike we are in many ways.  Her husband is an organ scholar, so we often send each other links to concerts on YouTube and keep in touch quite regularly.  At times like these, I have been so grateful for technology!

P.S.  I should tell you I used one of my apps, PhotoRoom, for which a lovely Blip friend has allowed me to use the Pro version, and I have decided to keep the wine bottle!

P.P.S.  Very little work got done in the kitchen - but I did tidy the worktops and Mr. HCB noticed!