To find oneself virtually stateless and 'on the wrong side' during a world war is no picnic. Internment in Malta and Palestine taught Gastone Caruana the art of survival, and introduced him to nubile womanhood. A marriage that started well enough ended up as no bed of roses and marked one of many experiences along the way that shaped the author's life. However, working as a bacteriologist in London, he was fortunate enough to find a 'replacement' wife, eighteen years his junior.

Were his career in the Health Service (specialism: bacteriology and parasitology) and his second marriage plain sailing? Not as regards his career! And his final move to the banks of the Moselle brought him an unforgettable intimacy with river water. Now, in the company of his loving wife and a cohort of cats, he invites you, the reader, to share his wry and witty memoirs of a - to say the least - varied life.

Gastone Caruana was born in Berlin. He left Germany with his parents at age six due to the advent of the Nazis. His early years were spent in Italy and Malta. He spent the war years interned as an enemy alien in Palestine. In England he studied pathology and worked in London till redundancy came with the rationalisation of the health service. For the next fourteen years he earned his living as a taxi driver. He now lives in Germany with one wife and six cats.