WALKING THE LINE

An elderly lady who lives along the road here is in the habit of flinging her arms around me every time she sees me, as if I am some long-lost relative who has returned with a fortune.  She then remarks upon my pale skin and light eyes and proceeds to ask all sorts of personal questions which I avoid answering by changing the subject.  She doesn't mean to offend;  she is just interested. Today I saw her as I was crossing a busy road and, besides the usual bear-hug and interrogation - right in the middle of the road - I got a lecture because I hadn't walked exactly on the zebra crossing lines.  "You'll get run over!" she kept exclaiming mid-hug, quite oblivious to the fact that we were both likely to flattened by a motorist losing his pazienza while we were holding up the traffic.  Inside every Italianised Brit there's a daring British jaywalker so she did not reform me.

My own pazienza ran out when I saw that, in one of my favourite haunts, the Edicolè bar, they still haven't ordered in any gelati. 

"It seems early in the season to us", said a waiter.  "It might rain or be windy." 

When have wind and rain ever put off a gelato-lover? Sometimes I think this seasonal eating can be taken too far....

I took my custom further along the via Sacro Cuore

and reminded myself that I'm in Sicily, where  I can stand in the sun near a traditional drystone wall and exquisite roses:

FROM MY BEDROOM WINDOW

I wrote this for the What I See Out My Window feature at StumbleUpon, forgot about it and today saw that it was published on February 22nd . I thought I'd share it here as well this evening:

What I See Out My Window - Modica, Sicily

From my sitting room window, I can see the house opposite, the street, the Post Office with people hurrying to it and the same people hurrying even more when they come out at least an hour later, for that is a place which you enter and abandon all hope. Unfortunately, neither the house nor the street are very interesting and I cannot take a photo of people's expressions from my second-floor balcony.

Therefore I have decided to share with you the view from my bedroom window. This is completely different and I think you will agree that it doesn't seem like town at all. Only the modern apartment buildings and the cranes in the distance hint at an urban setting.

The fields belong to neighbours and are divided by typically Sicilian drystone walls. These are everywhere in Sicily and there are various theories as to their original purpose: part of an irrigation system, an attempt to lessen the effect of landslides or simply to fence land off. Who knows? To me they have a beauty all of their own. You never see anyone working on them, yet they are nearly all well maintained. This is one of the joys of living in Sicily: traditions are respected and valued whilst we are very much a part of modern Italy.

To the left, you can just see a clump of what look like cacti: these are the fichi d'India or prickly pear plants, as much a feature of the Sicilian landscape as the drystone walls. The leaves grow into enormous plants from wherever the wind drops them and in October they produce their wonderful fruit. It is sold by the crate and can be eaten raw, used to make ice cream or in liqueurs. You have to be careful not to let your hands have any contact with the thorns and it is best to get a Sicilian to give you a lesson in how to prepare them for eating. I love them!

The sky is not always blue like this: in fact it is dull and raining as I write but only very rarely does it become dark in the daytime. It is never grey as in Britain, even when we have a thunderstorm. So on most days, I can look out of my bedroom window and see exactly what you are seeing now. It is a view which brings me peace.