DROUGHT, DROWSINESS AND DUNKING

 It is Ferragosto, the Feast of the Assumption and the time of year when all of Italy seems to stop. If you are not at the beach in the daytime you are likely to be surrounded by silence which, even after all these years, seems strange in a country normally so animated and nicely noisy. 

This year there are two other factors, however, and the first word in my title leads to the effect of the second. The relentless heat of this summer has made everybody feel lethargic and every conversation begins with the words, "When will it end?"

We did have about an hour's rain on Saturday and it was bliss but, alas, not enough. Of course, only a Brit would stand out in it!

 

You may have read about the drought (siccità) and water rationing is in place in some areas. By mid-July damage to the agricultural sector was already estimated at 2 billion euros while 60% less wheat than normal was produced in the Catania area and 80% less fodder in Catania and Enna provinces. Farmers, as you can imagine, are in despair.

Here in Modica houses in the Old Town were recently without water for four days but this was due to a broken pipe in difficut terrain in the country rather than the drought. Anyone who has followed this blog from its beginning may remember that in my early days here, we always seemed to have water problems around Ferragosto so if I could type with my fingers crossed right now, I would! It is impossible to realise how much we depend on water until we have had to go without it, even for a few hours and especially in extreme heat.

There are, however, compensations for being in Sicily at this time and below are three culinary ones:

A fourth, traditional in the summer, is eating granita or ice cream with a brioche and it's OK to dunk! In Britain it is not acceptable in polite society, although Queen Victoria might have dunked her biscuits in tea privately, but here no one bats an eyelid and granita con brioche or brioscia is a traditional Sicilian breakfast. 

My granita all'anguria

But how did this tradition begin? Well, first of all the brioche used should be the Sicilian brioscia cu' tuppu (that is, it has a knob on the top) and it is not related to the French brioche. It is thought that a chef working for a rich family in Messina - no one knows exactly when but probably in the 19th century - wanted to create a bread for the ladies of the house to spread jam upon and the brioscia was the result. The tuppu was inspired either by the low chignon of the ladies' hairstyles or by the shape of a woman's breast.  Another story is that this happened in Catania. I suppose that, once the brioscia was invented, the ice cream or granita followed it one hot summer. No matter where or how it happened, it is a very good idea indeed!

So Buon Ferragosto and happy dunking!

SICILY SCENE REVISITED - THE WATERWORKS [OR MAYBE NOT]

I cannot leave the long-running water saga out of my posts from the archives!  If anyone had told me, before I moved to Sicily, what an issue water would be, I would probably never have come.  It is not the problem it used to be, as for the past two years we've had water from underground pipes instead of having to have a cistern filled every week or so but every now and then, particularly in summer, there is a morning when I turn the tap on to find...... nothing.  Believe me, I never waste water now!

Here is an early post from an August when we not only ran out of water in the condominio, but had a cistern leak too, so that when the tank was refilled we lost it all. This was no joke in a temperature of 40°, as you may imagine.

ACQUA LONTANA... 16th August 2006

"Acqua lontana non spegne il fuoco"

[Italian proverb = "Far-away water won't put out the fire".]

This proverb has a figurative meaning but I am taking it literally and personally at the moment.The water saga continues and yesterday I had a veritable army of men here trying to sort out the situation.

I heard the plumber hammering away in the cistern area early yesterday morning but he left after an hour and I didn't get a chance to speak to him. So I didn't know if he had gone off to get something, was coming back or had given up till after today's bank holiday. No one else was in for me to ask.

In desperation, facing a sixth day without running water, I reluctantly called the owner of this flat, then, there being no reply, her husband, who happens to be a plumber. ["Why didn't you call him in the first place?", I hear you ask. Because there is a hierarchy regarding who makes these calls here, because I didn't want to disturb the family at holiday time and because the man upstairs had already called in a plumber.] Eventually, through a friend, I tracked down Luigi the husband at the sea and he very kindly said he would come at 3pm., which he did. Luckily, just as he arrived, the man on the first floor and the one on the fourth floor came back, so they were able to explain to Luigi the technical stuff about what the other plumber had, and had not, been able to do.

Luigi then explained to me that he could probably get the system working again, but not before yet another water lorry arrived [as the supply had already leaked out]. I knew that one of the neighbours had requested another tank from the Comune, but, it being nearly 4pm by then, Luigi said that he "knew a man who knew a man" who could get a private water carrier to come straightaway, probably. The first floor man and I agreed that this would be best [the other tenant having had to rush back to work] so Luigi phoned "the man who knew.." and, sure enough, within ten minutes we heard a chug-chug-chug up the street and the private water carrier appeared, followed by Luigi and the "man who knew a man". The lorry driver put loads of water into the cistern, shook hands with us and wished us all a buon Ferragosto [Happy 15th August holiday] and, no sooner had he reversed out and chug-chug-chugged down the road, than we heard the chug-chug-chug up the road of the Comune lorry! Well, we weren't going to refuse another fill-up, given the circumstances, and, although the Comune lorry driver did not seem happy at first, having seen the other lorry go, when we explained everything to him he fairly happily siphoned another tankful in. By this time, of course, we were providing great entertainment to all the people hereabouts who had not gone away for the season; they were all out on their balconies watching, wondering, no doubt, why we were receiving our fifth lorry-load of water in six days, and making the pazienza gesture [throwing your hands up in the air] whenever any of us looked up.

Simi dog and I were worn out by the end of it as the water did not come back on immediately after the fill-ups, oh, no! Something was still wrong down there and we had to go up and down god knows how many times and shout, "C'è acqua!" ["There's water!"] or "Non c'è acqua!" ["There's no water!"] from the balconies as the men tested the thingamajigs in the cistern cupboard.

Eventually, there was water and I'd never realised before what a lovely sound water gushing from a tap can be! Do you think my problems were over at that moment, though? Not on your nonna's nelly! At this stage, we learned that someone had left a tap on in the block. [I can quite understand how this had happened, as when you are always testing to see if water comes out, you reach a point where you can't remember whether the tap is on or off.] So the man downstairs said he'd have to turn the water off again to avoid a flood if the other tenant didn't come back soon. Then my friend Linda and her family whisked me off to their house for supper, as they had surmised, correctly, that I needed to get away from the situation. I was so relieved, on returning, to see all the tenants' cars in the parking space and to find the water still on when I came upstairs!

Tomorrow the first plumber is coming again - I think to replace the original pump that broke - and soon we are to have a meeting regarding exactly who will do what when "non c' è acqua"!

Update - 2016:  We never did have that meeting.  That would have been planning ahead, which is too much like tempting fate.  Although there are less problems now, I still keep a supply of filled bidoni - just in case.

A WATER DRAMA

It's a while since we had a water drama but of course, there had to be one on the day before the most strictly observed holiday of the year - ferragosto:

At about 3.30 this afternoon the water lorry arrived to refill the condominio's cistern.  The driver rang my bell as someone has to go down and sign for the load, though his arrival just as I'd put my weekly application of fake tan on my legs caused much cursing in every language I know.  I hastily donned a beach cover-up and went downstairs, only to find that some selfish person had parked their car right across our courtyard entrance so the lorry couldn't get in.  Despite frantic beeps from the driver and my neighbour's knocking on doors, no one appeared to claim the vehicle.

The lady from the fourth floor appeared on her balcony just as the driver was saying he would have to come back on Monday, so I shouted what he had said to her and she shouted it to the man opposite, who had interrupted his siesta to come out onto his own balcony.  He, in turn,  made that hands-in-the-air, hopeless gesture to my fourth floor neighbour, who then made it to her son, who was just returning from  his fruitless knocking on doors errand, he made it to me, I made it back to his mother and we all made it to the driver, who flung his own hands in the air and drove off.

Personally, I think he should have driven in and crushed the car.  Could it be that I am still suffering from a little Anglo-Saxon impatience? 

If the water runs out tonight, we face all day tomorrow without any - in 40 C.

Buon ferragosto!

"HABEMUS AQUAM" BY SIMI

Hi, folks.  Simi here!

I bet you didn't know I knew Latin, did you?

My mummy's been grumpy today because the water ran out this morning and the water man didn't come till 8pm!  After I barked at his lorry I decided to check the situation out:

Then I let my mummy get in the bath and she calmed down.

See you soon, fans.  Happy Sunday!

Love,

Simi

DAILY DOINGS - 26

A day off today for the Immacolata and it's been nice just to be at home and relax. Now it's beginning to seem like Christmas, though I don't think there's much seasonal cheer at the Water Office, as the service is "sospeso" yet again. So once again we pay for a private delivery and are thus charged twice for our water.

The Post Office, meanwhile, chose last week to change its "ticket" system: regular readers may remember that, as you enter [with the phrase "Abandon all hope" in mind] you take a numbered ticket for the service you want to use - bill-paying, other financial services,postal, business and so on - and then wait till your number comes up on a screen. Only now someone has had the brainwave of lumping all the financial services together, so that if you just want to pay a bill - which doesn't usually take long once you actually get to the counter - your ticket has the same letter on it as that of someone who is there to draw their pension, a process for which every document in Christendom appears to be required, plus laborious signing of slowly printed papers and the noisy stamping thereof. I suppose this system might work but for one problem - the fact that there is only ever one "financial" counter open. Pazienza.

Never mind: it is certainly Christmas over at Bar Edicolè [the one with the bookshop behind it] and the staff have worked hard at this tempting display:

Meanwhile, this is how to buy citrus fruit, I've decided. It is so deliciously fresh that no half measures will be permitted in this house!

Oh, before I go, Simi wants to show you "how to make a bed":




Quite right, Simi!

AND I THOUGHT I HAD WATER PROBLEMS!

This is another of my articles published in Italy Magazine this week:

GOT A FEW BILLS TO PAY? YOU’RE NOT ALONE

Italian utility companies are not usually super-efficient at disconnecting the services of late payers but this week a water company acted quickly and cut off an important client – the legendary US Sixth Fleet, which operates in the Mediterranean Sea out of the port of Gaeta [Latina]. By doing so the company nearly caused a diplomatic incident.

The Sixth Fleet once had its headquarters at Gaeta but in 2004 it was combined with United States Naval Forces Europe and the staff as a whole now works from Naples. The USS Mount Whitney is the Sixth Fleet flagship and its only permanently assigned ship. Other US vessels are assigned to Sixth Fleet as they enter the Mediterranean.

Under a confusing and bureaucratic distribution system in the Gaeta area, Aqualatina s.p.a. supplies the water, whilst another private, local company delivers it. The delivery company charges high rates for out-of-hours work and passes these on to Acqualatina. It seems that the Americans got fed up with what they regarded as excessive charges and refused to pay any more bills. Acqualatina then promptly interrupted their service.

Following an emergency meeting yesterday involving Gaeta’s Mayor and Prefect, the harbour master and representatives of both water companies, the matter has now been smoothed over. In future Acqualatina itself will deliver to NATO vessels in the port.

COSE BLU - 2

Rowena had the idea of taking the "blue" meme a stage further by photographing blue objects outdoors. Here's what I came up with on my way to work today:

Blue October sky.


Blue water tank on top of house. [I wonder how often they have to call for the water lorry?]


Blue roadsigns.


Blue bus stop.


Blue wellies in shop window. [I so want these!]


Blue shutters at siesta time.


Shiny blue bags in shop window plus lunatic woman photographing them.

Zucchero - Blu

SOAP, NO WATER AND PAINS IN THE NECK

Autumn has come very suddenly to Sicily and as I write there is sheet lightning in the Scicli direction. We have now had two days of nasty storms and late last night there were some quite terrifying thunderclaps.

Everybody seems to be feeling low and all attribute their mood to the changeable weather, in particular the fact that nobody knows what to wear. Not a few are also suffering from the cervicale, a seasonal ailment if ever there was one.

I had been watching the women for signs of the cambio di stagione [seasonal wardrobe change]which is really indicated by what length of sleeve they are wearing but this year the change seems to have been forced upon us during the past few days. [Usually a kind of telepathic decision is taken by the women in unison so that they all appear nonchantly sporting their autumn finery on exactly the same day.]

Ironically, although there has been lots of water outside, there had been none inside for the 48 hours from 7 pm Tuesday to this evening: Yes, the water supply ran out again and this time I couldn't even call the Water Office to order a cistern refill as their phone is rotto [ = broken, which is, at least, a variation on their usual theme of "cut off for non-payment of bills"]. When I pleaded with our water lorry driver this morning, he agreed to deliver a tankful provided I go to the office to sign for the order tomorrow. You can imagine my relief when the lorry turned up at 11 am, but this, alas, was short-lived, as when I tried to turn the tap on, still nothing came out! Then my neighbour informed me that there was something wrong with the motor which should pump the cistern water around the building and as I left for work she was looking for an electrician. I arrived home at 8pm with stiff limbs and not much hope of a bath tonight but oh, joy of joys, the motor was pumping its little old heart out! Never was a wallow in bath foam more appreciated, reader.

This gloomy day has been brightened by two lovely and completely unexpected gifts: Cotognata [quince paste] from Lucia, who informed me in all seriousness that she "only" made 10 kilos of this delightful autumn preserve yesterday

and a jar of pretty, beautifully perfumed soaps from Rosa's daughter.





I think I'll have another bath!

MOUNTAINGIRL'S PHOTO CHALLENGE - "EIGHT"

It's Friday and time for my friend mountaingirl's Photo Challenge. This week's theme is "eight".

Here are 7 bidoni of water lined up ready for the next Sicilian water crisis:

And here is another one on the balcony. It lives behind Gilbert Grenouille the plantholder:

That makes eight!

AFA

I took this photo of the via Sacro Cuore thermometer at 16.30 today, so you can see we really are in an afa [heatwave] emergency. Whilst we swelter, grumble and have countryside fires in Sicily, the situation is even worse in Sardinia, where temperatures have reached 46 C and the island is beset by forest fires. A maestrale [Mistral] wind is expected to return later, rendering conditions more dangerous still. Here we are all advised not to go out between 11.00 and 16.00 and to keep drinking soft drinks, even when we don't feel thirsty. This is just the moment to have a water crisis, don't you think?

SHE WHO SPEAKETH TOO SOON...

The other day I reported that the water service was functioning again and many of my kind commenters were happy and relieved for me. However, last night the supply in the condominio ran out yet again. I wasn't too worried, for as soon as I heard that the lorries were delivering again I rang the Water Office to book our next truckload of 10 cubic meters. This was on Monday.

When I phoned our lorry driver this morning to ask if he could deliver today, he said that, as a delivery had been requested, he thought so. Then a neighbour saw him delivering further up the street and he informed her that the Office had said we wouldn't get any water for another 7 - 10 days! [The temperature has reached over 40 C today.] So there was nothing for it but to ask the lorry driver for a delivery a pagamento and, as of half an hour ago, we have water but I am 35 € poorer. I am going to insist that the other tenants chip in this time!

The driver told me that when he went to the Office to find our bolleta, the note that authorises him to make the delivery, he couldn't locate it because there was a montagna of them, such is the demand on the service in the heat. I understand that and of course, none of this is his fault, but heat in Sicily in July is hardly a new phenomenon, is it?! Ah, well, pazienza.

I loved Tommy Steele as a child and this was the "B" side of "A Handful of Songs" - on 78 rpm vinyl!

Tommy Steele - Water, Water
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DAILY DOINGS - 23

The water service, I am pleased to relate, appears to be functioning after weeks of being sospeso and the delivery lorries have been darting up and down narrow streets and in and out of queues of cars like vespa scooters in their hurry to get around to some very long-suffering customers. Yesterday I witnessed a fine altercation as a water lorry driver was trying to reverse into this street and found himself blocked by a car whose occupants were waiting to use a nearby ATM. The car driver refused to budge and finally the lorry driver beeped at all the other traffic, turned back into the main road and tore along it at at breakneck speed. I thought, "Oh, no, now someone won't get their water because of the selfish car driver" but the lorry driver did a three-point turn in a very narrow space, sped back, entered our street from the other direction and drove like Enzo Ferrari himself to his delivery address. This time the car driver got out of the way!

Now here's an interesting snippet of information from Rosa, who hears the world's news from her companions on the no. 3 bus. [Forget twitter, the internet and Reuter's - word gets round quicker on Modica's no 3!] There is plenty of work in Italy for donne di servizio or colf [an acronym of collaboratrice familiare - cleaner or domestic helper] and badanti [carers] but it seems that very few of them are willing to work for the elderly, particularly the elderly with dementia-related illnesses. Rosa has heard that people in their forties and fifties are now taking on colf, in the hope that the person will become loyal to their employer and stay on during his or her old age.

There were thought to be about 1 million colf in Italy in June of this year and it is estimated that 500,000-600,000 of these have entered the country illegally. However, under new legislation, from September each family will be able to register 1 non-EU colf and 2 non-EU badanti [provided these are already in Italy and provided the employer meets the income requirement in the case of the former] thus regularising their presence in the country. This will solve the problems of many working women but it isn't going to help the ailing elderly.

On we go: this morning Lucia visited, bearing a jar of asparagi which her husband had picked from their garden and preserved. I'm dreaming of all the nice risotti I am going to make with these and trying not to think of possible after effects!





I would like to be able to show you a photo of Leapy, but he's too fast for me! Leapy is a baby lizard [well, he was a baby when I first encountered him but he's grown some] who lives on the balcony. He darts out from behind my plants when I water them. But at the weekend, when I opened the gas meter cupboard [on another balcony] something moved very fast and I just caught a glimpse of Leapy. I worried myself silly in case he had got trapped in there and it was ages before it occurred to me that he knew the way in [through a grille, presumably] and therefore must know a way out. He didn't appear yesterday and I thought he'd gone back behind the plants but this morning there he was, leaping round the cupboard again. I don't know the first thing about lizards, except that I prefer them to spiders [but then, I prefer King Kong to spiders] so if you do, please could you tell me: is he intelligent enough to get out when he wants to? Is he sleeping in there? Should I put some water in the cupboard for him and, most importantly, should I try to get him out of there?

Raffaele the hairdresser has been working on his publicity again and has come up with a little booklet telling you about your star sign and how you can improve your life [by visiting the salon!] I think it's a neat idea:



As for me, I have at last [thanks to Lancôme] achieved tanned legs! Four years in Sicily and I have not managed this feat previously. I do find it hellishly difficult, if not impossible, to tan, and I really have the sort of skin that you should keep out of the sun. However, dear reader, if you had such pale skin and lived among the bronzed lovelies of Italy, you would want to go out dressed in a bin bag in summer! So this year I braved the tanning booth for 10 x 15-minute sessions [I know it gives you wrinkles and worse!] and the result? A slight tan [a tan on me would be a normal colour on everyone else] everywhere except on my legs and my face [the latter intentionally protected by total sun block and a ton of make-up]. Finally I decided that "the only safe tan is a fake tan" and did the deed this morning, after bathing, exfoliating, moisturising and all the other preparation. I'm quite pleased with the result and can face the world! By the way, in the July edition of Good Housekeeping [to which I have a subscription] a woman has written to the beauty editor to say that her husband hates the smell of fake tan. The editor replies that this "must be a male thing" so do tell me, gentlemen readers, is this true? My theory is that they put something chocolatey in it because I like the smell!



Some of you will know that, after water and the Sicilian post office, the bane of my life is the VBS [visible bra strap] and after that, any kind of inelegant garment strap. So why, oh why, are clothes designers putting straps on every top or sleeveless dress I see, sometimes up to 4 of the things? I could understand it if there was some semblance of a bra within the garment, as the straps would be needed to hold it up, but of course, there isn't and the straps are too flimsy to hold the garment itself up. Most of us will need to wear a strapless bra under these tops or dresses so what is the point of adding any straps at all to them?

Lastly, here is the ice cream of the week - croccantino all'amarena [crunchy stuff with black cherries] at Modica's Gipsy Bar:

DAILY DOINGS - 22

"Patriuccia! Patri-uuuuuu-ccia! Sono io! " [It’s me!] sang a woman’s voice over the intercom earlier this evening. [ Sicilians are fond of the – uccio / a suffix as as term of affection. ] It was, of course, Lucia, who had arrived bearing yet another anguria and a squash. Squashes are symbols of good luck in Italy and I think the reason is that in days gone by, no part of the vegetable was wasted, so if you had grown a particularly large pumpkin, for instance, you were deemed lucky. It is no accident that Cinderella’s coach metamorphosed from a pumpkin. “You can either cook this or keep it for a while for good luck”, she informed me. Decisions, decisions!



Rosa had arrived giggling a couple of hours before that and when I asked her why, she told me that when her bus was on its way up the via Sacro Cuore, the driver, having spotted one of the 50% sconti [discount] notices in a shop window, brought the vehicle to a stop with a tremendous screech of brakes, ran into the shop, bought something , then ran out again and continued to transport his applauding public to their destination.

There are, indeed, many sales and, business being as bad here as elsewhere in the world, they were allowed to start a week early. I picked these beauties up last week for a total cost of 15€ :



Italians are, I read, booking more holidays abroad than they did last year and this is being taken by government as an upturn in the economic situation. I don’t think that business owners would agree.

Meanwhile, down at the market, the traders continue to try to persuade everybody to buy Italian. This I did last Thursday and here I am on Rosa’s balcony dressed in my market finery:



I also rummaged through the piles of remnants on the ground and found this – ideal for covering my pots of preserves.



These two traders were particularly keen to be photographed:



Lunch at Rosa's on Saturday consisted of: pasta with a special, sweet tomato sauce, merluzzo [cod] for the others and chicken for me, salad, potatoes and good bread. I took along the tray of ice creams. You can buy these in most of the pasticcerie and they are coated with a layer of icing so that they don't melt on the tray:





It's not easy making tomato sauce in the heat but Rosa and I managed to process another 10 kg of tomatoes yesterday:




As for the condominio, I’m not sure how much water we’ve got but we have light! After three months of pitch darkness in the lift, the ascensorista finally arrived to change a lamp! [I couldn't have reached it but I don't know why no one else did it.] “That was quite quick, then”, said a private student of mine in all seriousness. The water service is still “sospeso” as I write and the office is not answering its phone.

The pazienza of the Modicani is also being sorely tested by my favourite place, the Post Office, which has decided to close in the afternoons from this week until the end of July. We expect this to happen during August but no one was prepared for it in July!

I’ll close with the “ice cream of the week”. The Altro Posto has done it again!

AND THE WATER SAGA CONTINUES....

It just had to happen in the July heat, didn't it? Yesterday afternoon the condominio's water supply ran out yet again, and when I phoned our water lorry driver [a gruff but kindly man] he said that the earliest time he could deliver would be this morning, provided I [or someone else in the apartment block] had already phoned the water office to order the refill. I had made the call about three weeks ago and had been told that the service was sospeso; this often happens either because the comune hasn't got enough money to pay the drivers or because there is a water shortage, so I prepared myself to shell out another 35 € for a private delivery. [Last time some of my fellow-tenants did contribute but I don't always see them to ask and I hate doing so, anyway.]

Not being an early morning person, I was somewhat grumpy when my doorbell rang at 07.30 but better early then never! I hastily dressed and Simi and I went down to sign the delivery note. "Non ho la bolletta!" ["I haven't got the note!] cried the driver [I think he gets into trouble if he delivers without it] and I again assured him that the call had been made. "I'll bring it later" he said finally. I thanked him effusively for the delivery - he always melts when I do this - and came back upstairs to do all the morning tasks that require water [and that's most of them - have you ever thought about this? I could now tell you exactly how much water each of these uses!]

Later in the morning I was sitting here chatting to Antonio the poet when all of a sudden there was a tremendous commotion in the street - cars beeping [and they don't go in for short beeps in Italy], people shouting and the usual gathering of onlookers adding to the noise with their questions and comments. Of course, we all went out on our balconies to watch the dramatics and Simi decided to join in with a few barks. This is a side street but a busy one because it contains the post office, there are no parking spaces for the poor folk who have to wait for hours in there and tempers get frayed at the best of times. And there, directly below us, in the middle of the street, was the enormous water lorry, but with no sign of the driver, and six or seven cars trying to get past it. As there was nothing Antonio or I could do, we dutifully threw up our hands, said, "Pazienza" and continued eating the Welsh cakes I'd made.

About 20 minutes later, as I reached the square on my way to the shops, the first person I bumped into was the water lorry driver, carrying a whole load of bollette to be signed. "The office hadn't done them so I wrote them out myself", he explained and asked me if I'd sign ours right there, which I did. I couldn't help smiling as I thought of the brouhaha awaiting him up the road but decided it was best not to mention it. "Today's the last day of the service", he informed me: "It's sospeso again from tomorrow."

Local colour aside, our water situation here is very serious indeed and according to this article some parts of Modica are going to have water for only 5 - 6 hours a day during the summer or even on alternate days! There are leaks in the overworked conduit, three of the comune's official plumbers have been transferred to other departments and people wanting to move house or open new businesses cannot do so because their premises are not yet connected to the water supply. Add to all this the extra demand on the system that summer brings and you don't need to be a water engineer to see that we are up the [dry] creek without a paddle. Other comuni in Sicily are likely to be even worse off this summer.

myspace layouts

DAILY DOINGS - 21

Recently I nearly came to blows with a friend over the matter of perfume. I was both surprised and upset by what this person said, which was, basically, that he liked people's "natural" smell and preferred women to wear no perfume at all. I was surprised because it had never occurred to me that any woman would go out - or stay in, for that matter - without putting perfume on, and upset because I drown myself in YSL Paris every day and it's as much a part of me as my make-up and clothes. I've always regarded perfume as essential and have been proud of wearing a scent that has become my "signature" one. My friend pointed out that some people may not like it, to which my response was that they could stay away from me, then, though I did take his point about allergies. But heavens above, as an asthmatic I suffer from enough allergies myself and I don't think a good perfume can be classed with something positively harmful, like the odour of tobacco smoke. Anyway, I'd be grateful, dear readers, if you would take a minute to do the poll in the sidebar, as I'll be interested to learn what you think.

Now to a different sort of odour and not a pleasant one. This is what the area around all the communal rubbish containers in our otherwise lovely, Baroque city looks like at the moment and the smell pervades the whole town:

Yes, the Comune has run out of money again, so the refuse collectors have not been paid! The Comune has also once more had all its phones cut off for non-payment of the bills. I therefore deduce that the next time I try to order water for the condominio I will be told that the service is sospeso. All this always seems to happen in summer; a nice welcome for the tourists, don't you think?

When I'm not avoiding the stink of piled-up rubbish bags I am attempting to restock my summer wardrobe. Regular readers will remember that, since becoming ill in October, I have lost a lot of weight and have had to chuck most of my clothes out. Even the things I had altered don't fit now. Something like a summer wardrobe is beginning to come together: yesterday I went out to buy a pair of jeans but came back with the kaftan you see on the bed and today I was spurred on by the offer of a beach chair if I spent 80 euros in the same shop, a task which I accomplished with no difficulty! [I'll show you the chair when I figure out how to put it together.] Now I need some shoes to go with this lot!

Talking of fashion, I wonder what you all think about jewellery? I am of the opinion that the right piece of costume jewellery can "make" an outfit and have been known to buy a brooch or necklace first and then get an outfit to set it off! But I also believe you can wear too much of the stuff, a view not shared by the majority of Italian women, who pile it on. Chanel famously advised,

"Look in the mirror before you leave the house - and take one thing off!"

That's fine with me as long as that one thing isn't my pefume!