AMID THE MADNESS

The world appears to have gone mad, so let us pause and gaze upon something that takes time, patience and art - from the Cicara Caffetteria in Modica:

I also marked my birthday at the Cicara last week and was presented with a lovely, miniature cheesecake dessert:

A seventy-fifth birthday is a landmark of sorts and the occasion set me thinking about how different it was from my seventieth, just before the first Covid lockdown in Italy. In my memoir, I began my chapter on that period in this way:

Two days before my seventieth birthday in February I sat in my local bar celebrating with friends. It was to be three long, miserable, terrifying months before I would see friends or sit in a bar again. Within days, all of Italy was in lockdown.

In abnormal times, we long for the "normal", even the mundane, so what can we do? I now feel neither young nor brave enough to weather the social media backlash and pile-ons that publicly expressing all my thoughts on world events would entail, though I am working on my lack of courage. I would, however, call out prejudice and unfairness when I see them in my own environment. Other than that, I can take pleasure in the day to day small things in life, I can thank those who provide them and I can be kind. That, I think, is a beginning.

BEHOLD, THE FERRAGOSTO BUNNIES!

I'm not a "Rise and shine, sing in the morning" type of person. I'm more, "Light, go away!" first thing. Nor do I normally gaze out at the view from my bedroom window at that time of day, as it's all I can do to open the shutters and stumble to the bathroom. But yesterday, perhaps because it was the Ferragosto holday, I did and - still being a bit dopey, you will understand - I thought there were some whacking great bunnies coming to greet me! It was only the shape of the fichi d'India (prickly pear) bush in the field out there, but it cheered me up:

Ferragosto, or the Feast of the Assumption, is when Italy virtually closes down and everybody except grumpy old me heads to the sea. For the past two years, during which we have been in and out of various lockdowns, my local bar closed only for the 15th, not for a week, as before, presumably to try and recuperate some of the takings lost during the Covid emergency but this time they have closed for the full week again. There is a quiet in the streets reminiscent of the lockdowns but happily that backdrop of fear in the air is absent and today I had an aperitivo and a plate of stuzzichini in another local bar with a friend, which helped dispel the memory of those grim times.

In the absence of a celebratory breakfast out yesterday morning, I made myself a granita all'anguria (watermelon granita) and very refreshing it was, too. I had bought a traditional Sicilian brioche for the occasion and Bertie the dog enjoyed a doggie gelato.

I hope you all had a good Ferragosto and look after those August bunnies if they come to visit!

A HAPPY NEW YEAR (I THINK)

In Catania at the end of November

Every now and then, in this seemingly never-ending Covid situation, I get stopped in my tracks with fear and that is what happened in December when Omicron blared out its presence to the world. We were so near, we thought, so very near, to having a "normal" Christmas and to living in a way that resembled pre-Covid times. But it was not to be and, although triple-vaccinated, I'm still scared, especially with positive test results rising exponentially in Sicily and elsewhere in Italy - 947 in my town of 53,000 inhabitants today. Although we are not locked down or restricted as we were a year ago, masks are compulsory outside as well as inside again, we are supposed to be social distancing wherever possible, unnecessary mixing is discouraged and school reopening has been postponed from today until at least Thursday. It is not yet known whether teaching will be via distance learning or on school premises. In addition to these measures, you will have read about the Italian government's decision to bring in what amounts to compulsory vaccinations for the over 50s. We watch, we try to be careful and we hope, like the rest of the world.

At Christmas, I am glad to say, we were not required to fill in the hated self-certification documents in order to go anywhere at all or prevented from seeing friends and family and I spent a lovely Christmas Day with three friends who love books and dogs. Yes, I did consider staying at home but we are all vaccinated and at nearly 72 and with the virus raging, I wondered, and still wonder, if I will see another Christmas and whether we will at some point be barred from even small household mixing again, although the Italian government is doing everything it can to avoid having to take such a measure and Prime Minister Draghi has assured the nation this evening that he is not intending to take the country into lockdowns again. 

Having decided to accept the kind invitation, however, things did not exactly go to plan in the run-up and on Christmas Eve I nearly went into full hysterical mode as I was in the middle of making a cake to take to my friends' house when a domestic disaster struck. The recipe was for the wonderful Dame Mary Berry's Chocolate Cappuccino Tart, a cake I have made many times before and which has always been a success here. (I don't use instant coffee granules, though, because I don't buy them; I make myself an espresso and use a teaspoon of it in the cake and I use mascarpone in the filling.) If you look at the recipe, you will see that you have to make the base first, then refrigerate it while you make the filling. Well, I had just popped the base in the fridge and had the chocolate and coffee in a bowl ready to put over the saucepan of simmering water when I happened to look at the floor and beheld disaster in the form of a flood. The water, I ascertained, was coming from under the sink and at 1pm on Christmas Eve I estimated my chances of finding a plumber willing to come out as nil. While controlling my breathing, I did summon enough common sense to switch the hob off and then I went downstairs to warn the neighbour in the flat below. Luckily - phew! - her son was there and informed me that he was a plumber and would come. (I'd had no idea, either that he was home from the North or that he was a plumber.)  He fixed it but it took a while, not least because we had to wait a few hours for the shops to reopen for parts. Thank you, thank you, whoever is up there and to the kind man who happened to be down there!

I finished making the cake at midnight but didn't think the filling looked as smooth or as inviting as it had before (probably because I'd had to put that in the fridge too - I didn't have enough chocolate left to start again) but decided there was nothing I could do till it was set and I could inspect it in daylight. In the morning I came to the same conclusion though, and wondered whether to give up on it and just take some shortbread biscuits I had bought a couple of weeks before in Catania for Burns Night (the first time I had been there or anywhere outside Modica since my birthday in February 2020 - no need to tell you why!) I discussed it on the phone with a friend and his opinion was "cake, cake, every time" but I decided I had to check the taste. If it was OK, I would take the cake and just explain why a small slice was missing and that is what I did, but not before decorating it with some grated chocolate. Then later, at my friends' house, I added some candied orange peel to the top. Now, chef Carlo Cracco of Masterchef Italia fame says you should never garnish a dish with an ingredient it doesn't contain and I'm sorry, chef, but what else could I do? My friends thought it was all rather comical, by the way - which they wouldn't have if they'd seen the kitchen floor - and they enjoyed the cake.

On New Year's Eve I did stay at home, as I have for many years, because I like being at home with Bertie and because I would not risk leaving her on a night when there will almost certainly be fireworks outside. There were not many but when Italians decide they are going to have them they do not hold back! It didn't go on for long after midnight, to be fair, and there was only one episode that I heard of fireworks being let off in the street earlier. On New Year's Eve in Italy you are supposed to eat lentils, which it is believed will bring you money and my philosophy is why take chances and not do it? For years, to honour the Italian tradition while in Britain, I made a lamb dish with lentils, then lentil loaf, and here I have made Mary Berry's Cottage Pie with Lentils  (minus the swede, which I dislike and can't get here anyway and I only ever mash potatoes with butter) and lately Nigella's Bulgur Wheat and Lentil Salad, all of which I can recommend. But this time I wanted to make something different, so I prepared Claudia Roden's Rice, Lentil and Date Salad from her new book Med and I will certainly be making it again. To go with it, I made chicken escalopes with Parma ham and sage (from a very old Sunday Times cookbook I have) and for dessert a mini-semifreddo with candied orange peel. Well, to be honest I made the full quantity - I just put it in mini-tins! I don't believe in not spoiling yourself on special days just because you are on your own.

Then came Twelfth Night last week and Italy's good witch the befana brought treats to good children (that's all of them on that night!) On Thursday I carried out the sad task of taking the decorations down. Sad, for me at least, because I love that period of sitting at home with a book and reading it by the flickering lights of a Christmas tree and because we do not know what will happen in another year. (And it's just as well we didn't on New Year's Eve 2019-20!)  

Speriamo bene - "Let's hope all will be well", as Italians say and Bertie and I wish you all a belated but very Happy New Year. 

Buon anno a tutti!

ONLY IN ITALY

The European Green Pass, available to EU citizens or legal residents who have completed their Covid vaccination cycle, tested negative to a molecular or antigen test or been cured of Covid, seems to me an excellent idea and I am very grateful to have mine. It can be carried in a paper version or simply downloaded to our phones, with a QR code which has to be scanned for entry into bars and restaurants (except for having a quick coffee at the bar counter) and public venues such as museums and theatres.

However, like all good ideas, it is only good insofar as it works and many bar owners and restaurateurs have been pointing out possible problems, the first being, who is going to do the scanning? Some small bars or restaurants might have to employ an extra person to do it. Secondly, it was initially thought that the person scanning the code would also have to ask the client for proof of identity, which the  restaurateurs objected to vehemently because, they understandably claimed, they are not police. The government quickly clarified that this measure would not be necessary but would remain an option.

However, now another problem has emerged, for the green pass is required only to eat or drink inside the bar or restaurant, not outside, but where, in the height of summer, do most clients, especially tourists wishing to experience the Italian lifestyle, wish to eat? Exactly - outside. Fearing that all the outside tables at their establishments would quickly be taken, thus driving away business from clients not wishing to eat inside, some proprietors are asking clients who have the green pass to eat inside, whether this is their wish or not. I can understand the restaurateurs' position, because their sector has been very heavily hit since March 2020, but the green pass holders are saying, with some justification, that they are now being penalised for being vaccinated.

A few weeks ago, before the advent of the green pass and when Sicily was in a yellow zone with light Covid restrictions, all clients wishing to sit down had to do so outside. Now this is a problem for me because I am asthmatic and cannot tolerate smoking, so I feared that, after so long, I would not be able to visit my local bar. However, they have a veranda ( which we would call a conservatory) area, which is classed as outside but smoking is not allowed, so that solved the problem for me and I still sit there now that we are in a white zone (very few restrictions). 

Cases, however, are increasing, which was probably inevitable with tourism, general opening up and a reluctance among elderly people to have the vaccine, but nobody wants to cancel the white zone in the tourist season. Instead, a system has been created whereby not only the number of cases and the number of intensive care beds occupied in a given location are looked at weekly by both regional and national government, but also the number of people vaccinated in that location. Modica has thereby escaped further restrictions this week, but 55 Sicilian comuni have been placed under these, many in nearby Siracusa Province and five here in Ragusa Province. We are already holding our breath for next week. Meanwhile, there are a lot of very frustrated bar and restaurant clients and proprietors of those establishments who are at their wits' end. They are only, after all, trying to save their businesses, even if upsetting vaccinated clients may not be the wisest way of doing so!

Typical Sicilian summer bar breakfast
of granita and brioche

WE WERE HERE!

Buona Festa della Repubblica, Italy!

June 2nd is also important for me because it marks the anniversary of my arrival, with my dog Simone, in Italy to live - sixteen years ago today.

They have not been sixteen years without trouble, darkness and even despair and of course the Covid situation has brought sadness and despair to us all, wherever we are. Those of us who have our hearts in two countries also worry twice, despair twice and grieve twice, just as we rejoice with both our countries when things go well. So please do not think that, because I have left the UK, I do not care about it, because I very much do.

This day brings many memories back to me and it is perhaps particularly poignant this year, as it was in 2020. I imagined many scenarios, both good and bad, that could happen when I settled here, but never did I imagine a tragedy like Covid - how could I, when the best scientists and virologists in the world did not? Nor can I inagine what the situation would have been like for me if I had lived through it in my country of birth; I can only try to deal with the situation here and now, and be happy that this is one bank holiday - only the second since the pandemic began, I think - which we in Italy are not spending in lockdown. 

And of course, today I think a lot of my little Simi, who "went on", as my mother used to say, six years ago now, though I believe she is still with me. Sometimes when I am out with my precious Bertie I see her there, beside us, and I say, "Walk with us part of the way, sweetheart", and I believe she does. Then she is gone again.

So on this day of many memories, I offer you an extract, recalling June 2nd 2005, from my book. (Yes, I have written a book! )

Three days later, I boarded the bus from Cardiff Bus Station to Gatwick Airport. I would stay three nights in a hotel there, walk around London and bid it farewell – for I didn't know if or when I would be in the UK again - and then, on the morning of 2 June 2005, Simi and I would board our flight to Italy. And that is what I did. I didn't go out to Pinner - Mum and Dad were in my heart, wherever I was or would be. Instead, I lit two candles for them in Westminster Abbey. Then I walked slowly around Poet's Corner to thank all those who are commemorated there, lingering the longest for Tennyson, Browning and his Elizabeth, Shakespeare and of course, Dylan Thomas.

I had, of course, kept in touch with the pet transporter company and they had reassured me that Simi was fine. At the airport, she had to undergo a final health check at which I could not be present. When I arrived there, I asked about her at check-in and was told I should ask at the departure gate. I knew she had been sent there but nothing more. The gate staff told me to sit near them and they would make enquiries. I had to wait until all the other passengers had been checked in and then a kindly ground crew officer approached me and said he had just seen Simi and had given her water. He took me to the window so that I could see her little crate being loaded. (She wasn't allowed to be in the cabin with me and I knew this. I also knew that pets are flown in a special area in the hold. I had been worried but my Cardiff vet had told me it is actually better for them because it's cool and dark and they usually sleep.) Oh, my little baby! As I was watching, the co-pilot came along and said that he, too, had just seen her and that she was a little anxious but otherwise fine. A nice Scottish lady also came over to tell me she had overheard our conversation and knew how I felt as she had previously flown her Westie dog from Scotland to London. Not so far, but it was empathy and I appreciated it. Once I boarded, I spoke to the captain too and he told me Simi was just underneath the spot where we were standing. I felt better then, knowing exactly where she was. By the time I sat down, I was so tired that I slept most of the way.

As we came into Catania, I did not see Etna this time, but felt the familiar surge of emotion as we touched down on the soil of this most beloved of lands that I had decided to make my home.

We were here!

I loved you then, Italy and I love you now.

I will tell the kind readers of this blog more about the book next time!

NON SE NE PUÒ PIÙ

 "It's been too long", wrote a kind reader of this blog in a message to me last month and it's true - it has been over a year since I last posted here. The reason? The pandemic, mostly. I did not bake bread every day, though I continued to cook, I did not follow an exciting exercise régime online and, though I kept in touch with friends, I did not spend hours on Zoom or Skype. I spent most of my time scrolling through the news, hoping, day after day, to see a hopeful headline and, as you will all know, it was months before one appeared. Yes, last summer in Italy we felt that we could breathe and life returned, for a while, to something resembling normality but the respite was short-lived.  

Then came the autumn and we found ourselves in lockdown after lockdown, all over again. None of these was as strict, or felt as oppressive, as that first long lockdown that began in March 2020, but the restrictions and the uncertainty from week to week and even from day to day began to get everybody down. Italy was again divided into zones, with red zones having the most restrictions, orange ones some and yellow zones fewer, with the white zone, the one we all long for, seeming impossibly far away. 

Non se ne può più - "We can't stand it any more" was the sentence I heard everywhere from Easter onwards and indeed I do not think we could have. Sicily at last became a yellow zone last week, which means that bars and restaurants can open in their outside space and the hated curfew has been moved to 11pm. It had been so sad, in recent months, to pass my local bar and see no one sitting on its terrace and to witness the accompanying silence of what is, in normal times, a joyful and welcoming place. That is why it has been such a pleasure, this week, to be able to enjoy a gelato and an aperitivo there again.

I don't think it is understood by government that small local bars can be much more than places of refreshment: For many people who live alone, they are a point of social contact and I know that if I did not appear at mine for a coffee in the morning, they would worry about me and there would be a good chance of someone quickly coming to find me if I fell, or worse, at home. It makes me feel generally safer.

My dog, who has kept me going and provided the affection and cuddles I have so missed over the past fifteen months, is happy to be patted and spoken to on our walks again and she, like me, senses that the heaviness in the atmosphere has lifted.  

"I'm under here, mummy!"

I am pleased and grateful to be able to say that I have received my first vaccine. I know that this alone will not guarantee my safety but compared to how I felt a year ago, it has made a tremendous difference. You will all know the story of how, at the beginning of this year, Italy seemed to be doing very well and was even ahead of some other countries in its vaccination plan. Then it all fell apart when the promised quantities of doses from more than one company did not arrive in the EU as expected, for reasons that are not yet clear. I think many of us became very frightened again then and it was a bleak time. But the country has made great progress following this setback, not without difficulty, frustration and tears, and it seems to me that most of us feel very cautiously optimistic.

Anything that disrupts our routines, the things we take for granted, is hugely stressful and it is usually not  until it happens that we realise this. But it is not only routine that punctuates our lives -  collective celebrations or, sadly, mourning, festivals, public anniversaries and other events also play their part and of course they are missed. Almost every year since I have lived in Sicily (sixteen years on June 2nd, Republic Day) I have attended the lovely Infiorata in Noto to see the "carpet of flowers" which is always on show during the third weekend of May. As I've written here before, such events take place in several parts of Italy and in other Catholic countries and the most likely reason for their origin is simply a desire to create something beautiful for God. And I'm sure that God, like the rest of us, could do with gazing upon some beauty in this situation. Last year the carpet was created but only shown online and this solution had to be repeated this year. Its theme in 2021 was a homage to Dante and the famous words,

e quindi uscimmo a riveder le stelle - and thus we came out to see the stars again

were spelled out in flowers.

Non se ne può più has never seemed more true and the words of the father of the Italian language have expressed the hope of everyone, all over the world.

Image from Quotidiano di Ragusa

I'll try not to leave it so long between posts from now on!