David Gilmour, The Pursuit of Italy: A History of a Land, its Regions and its Peoples, Arturo Perez-Reverte, Captain Alatriste VI, Pirates of the Levant, and Hywel Williams, Emperor of the West: Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire

My holiday reading from the ile de Re. I did my usual trick of reading about one country while holidaying in another, leading my poor brain confused as to where I was and which particular language I should abjectly fail to speak. This time I was reading about Italy and the Levant in France rather than Hungary in Malta, Malta in Venice, Venice in Croatia or Croatia in Cornwall. What a good book the Pursuit of Italy was though, another reminder that our current seemingly immutable national identities in Europe are nothing but, and largely an invention of the 19th century, however strongly held they may be by some. How interesting to follow it up with one of the first exponents of a strong national identity in Europe after the collapse of Romanitas. The book makes the point that Charlemagne can be claimed as an inspiration by both the pan-Europeans because of his uniting of Western Europe under one ruler, and by French and German nationalists as a true [Germanic] Frank. Gilmour wrote about a similar situation in the Spanish Civil War, when the troops of Mussolini, who co-opted Garibaldi as a precursor to his Italian nationalism, were fighting against the Garibaldi Legion of Italian volunteers fighting Franco; on whose side Garibaldi would certainly have been.

Loved Alatriste, seemed very slow paced until the cracking naval battle with the Turks that the whole book built towards. Nice to see the Knights of Malta getting a look in too. The ile de Re was fabulous, we hired a triporteur to get the kids around, and it was just so cool cycling along sea walls from little town to beach to little town. I want to get one and paint it in camouflage and add RAF roundels so it looks like a Spitfire. Don’t think I'll be able to get that past Helen. . .

In the meantime, we've had an offer for our house and are looking at some properties tomorrow; we could actually be moving! Fred started school this week and seems to be really enjoying it, although he rarely offers any information. We're having a park reunion tonight with his nursery friends. . . .