She had not told him about her family background but from her reaction, he could see that she had been strongly attached to Baskins. He pondered that perhaps she was raised on a farm, to have such an unusual pet.

He could see it was a sore subject which she wanted to avoid, so he sought to distract her, for now. She’d asked him about his family, which just so happened to be a sore subject for him. He was generally reluctant to discuss that topic but, it pained him to see her so sad, so he resigned to tell her a little.

He sighed deeply and began,

"Well, I was raised by my grandmother but I have a very large family as I live with my cousins, aunts and uncles. As you already know, we are Roma and my kompania are performers by trade, we dance flamenco and are musicians, so thats how we’ve mostly made our living" He paused, thinking about what else to add. "We are from the southern part of Spain called Andalucia, but we travel quite a lot, too”.

“…But, we don't stay too long in one place”, he added. “We have our own customs and ways, that can be, well, lets say, misinterpreted by the outside community. We do keep our culture strongly and keep to ourselves and, I guess some people can be afraid of that and harbour age old prejudices. It has always been better for us to keep moving."

He shrugged, and wondered if she’d be happy with that or if she’d want to know more. He'd purposely skipped over the more painful details about his mother and father.