GOT THE FRIDGE MAGNET - 2

This is the side of the fridge, just to show you that I can be organised sometimes: I use the “red chilli” pad to note recipes I want to try and where they are, the “dog clip” for useful information and on the white piece of paper I have my freezer inventory, all in categories [the school marm in me again!] which I regularly update.

Five days to go before I make a quick trip to the UK and here friends are asking, just as they would in Britain, “Have you packed yet?” Packed?! Are they mad? Packing is what I do at about 2 am during the night prior to departure! What I do have ready are my lists, which I have been compiling for over a month [even before I booked the flight!] I set out my clothes list like a school scheme of work, only now my columns are not headed topic / duration / activities / grammar / vocabulary / [or functions / notions if it’s a college scheme] along with the crap “cross – curricular links” [don’t start me on that one!] but something like this: outfit / shoes & bag / underwear / jewellery / make-up. It’s much easier to travel in winter if you’re not one of life’s light travellers as you can stick to one basic colour and avoid the need for lots of different shoes. Then I have another list of who over there gets which presies, and a similar one for the return journey. Usually, once all the clothes and presies are in the case, I stand back and say to myself, “That’s not too bad” but then of course the make-up, which weighs a ton, has to go in last [because it will be needed first] and thus my suitcase gets labelled “heavy” at the airport.

Well, I am trying to contain my excitement because I have the following amazingly adventurous plans: I shall go to Lakeland Plastics and purchase some klippets as I just cannot be doing with the fiddly bag ties that come with Italian freezer bags. I might get another joined up oven mitt as well! I shall browse in a Waterstone’s branch [or several ] and sit down to leaf through the books. To be fair, you can do this here in our small but excellent Libreria Mondadori but there are other bookshops in Modica which are certainly not browseable. I shall also browse through displays of underwear to my heart’s content – sloggies here I come! [Pronounced slodjee, you can buy white, but not black ones here, girls .] And I shall buy some sumac – which should be available in Sicily but is not – and some allspice berries.

But the real reason for my excitement is that at last I am going to meet bloggers Liz and Shirl. What a gossip the three of us will have! Liz and I were saying the other day how much we’d like James to be able to join us – if he could cope!