Dark and Brooding Mountain.

There could have been a number of titles to this post and it is one I have been thinking of all week. Scary Clifftop Roads, Coach Chicken, Drunk Northern Twats, Olives, Lemons, Oranges and Grapes, Beauty and the Beast. So many. Yet I settled on the main feature that dominated our holiday, the mighty Vesuvius.

For all the sites we saw it was the shadow cast by that extraordinary force of nature that will forever lie with me. It could have been Tolkien's inspiration for the Misty Mountain in The Hobbit and Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings. Dark and brooding enveloped much of the time in cloud of its own weather systems. Going to Pompeii I now have an understanding of the scale of the catastrophe that happened on an August day in 79 AD.

We are back from our trip and glad to be home. It was great but exhausting. I saw the best of the Italians and the worst of the drunken Brits. I was terrified on the mountain and cliff top roads. I marvelled at the skill of the coach drivers on said roads as they hurtled towards each other passing with just inches to spare.

As ever dad and I had our share of getting lost, losing things and generally being ourselves. But we made it in the end and had a pint in The Hedgehog straight from the plane.

He rang just now to say he has arrived home. He moves house on Friday.

Despite some notable exceptions the food did very little to change my at best indifference to Italian cuisine. It's just not my thing. That said I had a glorious dish of linguine with prawns and fennel on the beach, a beautifully grilled squid simply dressed in olive oil and lemon on a bed of rocket. I loved driving through the olive groves, the vineyards and the orange and lemon trees. Coffee was exquisite as was the ice cream.

Italy made a refreshing change for me, my first visit since 1989. It is good to be home although Monday looming is not great. In the meantime England just beat Australia in the rugby, we are on top at Lord's and there is a football match later.

I have food, shoulder of lamb tomorrow, chuck steak for today and some Gloucester Old Spot sausages for the week. Now maybe a glass of Pimm's.

Hope you enjoyed my break from here, take care and have fun.

I Heard a Voice.