A "SMALL" SICILIAN GIFT

Back in October - November I helped the daughter of a neighbour with some post-graduate research. She lives in the north of Italy with her husband and two babies so we communicated by email and phone. It involved me in quite a lot of work but, although she tried to insist on paying me, I didn't feel that it would have been appropriate to charge her as her father belongs to the "army of men" who have promised to rush round here if I am frightened by would-be intruders at night again. I could also sense the pressure the poor young lady was under and wanted to help.

Anyway, she is at home in Sicily for Christmas and called me this afternoon to ask if she could come round at 8pm because she had a pensiero [small gift] for me. At 8 precisely the buzzer rang and she staggered into my kitchen with this hamper, containing a nice novel to read, wine, several jars of antipasto and preserved vegetables, cheeses, dried sausage, salted peanuts, chocolates, 3 types of Modican chocolate and a Baci -flavoured panettone. Simi and I just gaped at it all in astonishment and, as I said to Simi later, I don't think we are going to starve in the near future!

Talking of gifts, Raffaele the hairdresser likes the packaging of mine to him, in this Xmas stocking which I bought in the UK in October. After I explained to him that in Britain Santa only comes to good children and that the gifts are placed in the stocking, he gave it pride of place on his tree and it fascinated his other clients for the rest of the day. Oh, I'm a proper redhead now, by the way!