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"I like it under here, I do!" |
Monday, January 09, 2023
HAPPY NEW YEAR, A LITTLE LATE
Saturday, November 19, 2022
THE HAPPIEST COLOUR
I received this beautiful gift of oranges and mandarins from a friend's garden, presented in a traditional, hand-made Sicilian basket, yesterday.
To quote a certain Mr Sinatra whose father was from Lercara Friddi in Palermo Province, or maybe, as the singer himself once claimed, Catania,
"ORANGE IS THE HAPPIEST COLOR."
Yes, siree!
Sunday, November 06, 2022
DONA NOBIS PACEM 2022
BLOG4PEACE - NO FREEDOM, NO PEACE
On New Year's Eve 1999 I was having dinner with friends back in Cardiff, Wales. When the clocks struck midnight, we took our glasses of champagne outside, clinked them, watched the spectacular fireworks our hosts had provided, then hugged and kissed and went indoors to drink a toast, proposed by my friend's husband:
"Here's to the new century and we drink this toast in the hope that you young people who are with us tonight will enjoy good things to come, without the kind of horrible events that your grandparents' and, to some extent, your parents' generations had to live through. It seems that you might be lucky."
There is always conflict somewhere and there were conflicts going on even as he spoke, but we all knew that he meant those words sincerely. Then 9/11 happened, less than a year later and the threat of terrorism was everywhere in our daily lives.
As if that were not enough, in 2020, all over the world, we found our peacetime freedoms limited in ways we could never have imagined because of the pandemic and here in Italy we suddenly found ourselves living under a curfew. Every one of us lived in fear of our lives and those of our families and, apart from following the rules, there seemed to be nothing we could do about it. Has this made us better placed to imagine how it feels to have your freedom restricted by war? Perhaps.
On 8th September this year Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II died and on the day of her funeral the world witnessed the passing of an era. As a British person, I watched in sadness but also in awe at the splendour of the uniforms and the precision of my country's military. Yet a part of me was in despair for how, I asked myself, could there ever be a mentality of peace when we carry our revered dead monarchs on gun carriages to the sound of gun salutes and have woven the iconography of war into that of the nation?
I am very aware that I am writing this one week before Remembrance Sunday in the UK, when the fallen and injured of all wars are commemorated, and I mean no disrespect. My own grandfather was blinded in World War I and I am profoundly grateful to him and to all who have fought for my freedom. I just wish there was another way of obtaining it, as, I am sure, do many soldiers. "No one abhors war more than someone who has been in one", my grandfather used to say. And it was that old warrior Sir Winston Churchill who said,
The one image of the war in Ukraine that I cannot get out of my mind is from the beginning of the conflict, when a young Russian soldier - a child, in fact, for he couldn't have been older than 19 - was captured in a village. The Ukrainian villagers were feeding him and being kind and even helped him to call his mother, at which point he began to cry. Is this what we want? Is this fair, that the old send the young into battle to try and resolve the messes that the former have made? Of course we do not want it and of course it is not fair. Where is the freedom for this young man and others like him to finish his education if he wishes, to have the joy of family, to live? No Freedom, No Peace.
My thanks, as always, to the indefatigable Mimi Lenox, who inspires us all to blog for peace.
Thursday, September 22, 2022
THERE HAD TO BE CAKE
Like so many all over the world, I devoted Monday to watching, on television, the ritual that accompanied the end of an era in London. I am glad I bought an extra box of tissues! A friend and I lunched, between processions, church services, standing for the national anthem and tears, on Italian stuzzichini (finger food) and a Turkish lahmacun (because it tastes good cold and I had therefore been able to make it the day before, using a pizza base not pitta bread, as it traditional). After that there had to be cake and my local bar made the one you see below for me - a thank you to the late Queen but also looking to the future with King Charles:
Thus a Welshwoman and a Scottish woman in Sicily bade farewell to this most international of queens and we do not think she would have minded at all.
Saturday, September 10, 2022
"SOME MORNING, UNAWARE"
O, to be in England
Now that April 's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Wednesday, August 24, 2022
TWILIGHT TONES
You are lucky to be able to capture a twilight image in Italy, as it does not fall slowly, as in Britain. Here, one moment it is there but go and get your phone or camera and it is gone. Our Modican Nobel poet Salvatore Quasimodo's words Ed è subito sera - And suddenly it's evening are true - metaphorically too, of course, as anyone who is ageing (like me) will tell you.
On Monday evening, however, I managed to reach for my phone in time and here is a view from my bedroom window but this time with the Ferragosto bunnies out of focus!
Thinking of this view, and its fast transition into darkness, I was reminded of some words from Colette:
Tuesday, August 16, 2022
BEHOLD, THE FERRAGOSTO BUNNIES!
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
BUONA NOTTE DI SAN LORENZO 2022
Monday, August 01, 2022
A BASKET OF GOODNESS
This is the hottest summer I can remember in Sicily and it seems to be wearing us all down because the extreme heat started early, in May, and I believe it has only rained for about ten minutes since. There are, of course, compensations, such as granita, anguria (watermelon) and myriad ice cream flavours and I certainly perked up when a friend brought me this traditional Sicilian basket of goodies from his garden on Friday.
There are aubergines, datterini (tiny, date-shaped tomatoes), salad tomatoes, tomatoes for sauce and occhi di bue (bull's-eye) tomatoes, long peppers and a kind of pepper that I had never seen before.These are called friggitelli (from friggere - to fry) and, although they are related to chilli peppers, they are not hot. (I understand they are known in the US.) My friend told me to fry them in olive oil and garlic until browned and to add coarse salt only at the end of cooking. That is exactly what I did and wow, they were good!
Monday, June 13, 2022
JUST A FEW PHOTOS...
Just a few photos of where I live, in Modica, a Unesco World Heritage Site, from its highest point, the Pizzo.
And what Saturday night is complete without a pizza? This delicious Ortolana pizza was consumed with pleasure at the smart new Pizzeria S. Antonio , Modica Alta.
Sunday, June 05, 2022
MARKING AN ERA
On the occasion of Her Majesty The Queen's Platinum Jubilee, I'm going to begin with another extract from my memoir, A Place Called Siracusa:
I think we must have got the TV for the Coronation and we had red, white and blue flags all over the house in the run-up to it. I dressed up as the Queen and paraded around pretending to be her for what seemed like months and when it was all over I kept asking when the next Coronation would be.
“Not until the Queen dies”,
said Auntie Mabel, disappointing me abjectly.
I did not want Her Majesty to die but I couldn't believe I'd have to wait till I was as old as Mum and Dad, or even Auntie Mabel and Grandpa! But meanwhile we had a new, young Queen with a dazzling smile and a year or two later my class at school was taken to watch her drive through Bristol. All we really saw was a flash of the strawberry-coloured suit she was wearing as she passed but we waved our little flags like mad, and afterwards drew excruciating pictures of the occasion for posterity. The Queen was soon to disappoint me again, however and the reason for this was our new, red sofa. I was so happy because it was red, my favourite colour at the time but Dad quickly decided it needed to be covered and covered it was, in heavy, drab material. I cried buckets and asked Grandpa when the covers would come off.
“When the Queen comes”, he replied.
I spent months with my nose pressed against my bedroom window, waiting for the Queen to come, but she never did. I've been disillusioned with the monarchy ever since.
Sixty-nine years on and I still don't want the Queen to die. I'm not even a monarchist but I can't imagine the world without her. In a very strange way, which is hard to explain to non-Brits, the Queen has been a part of our lives, though most of us have never met her, many have never seen her at a live event and a large percentage are indifferent to the monarchy, if not against it. I can only explain this sentiment by saying that she perhaps represents the collective memory of the nation. On this particular Jubilee, I am watching the coverage and celebrating in my little way because I believe it is possible to have doubts about the relevance of the monarchy as an institution, whilst maintaining respect for a woman who has always done what she regards as her duty. I also rejoice because, wherever we are, we have had very little to celebrate together for a very long time. I must say that yesterday (2nd June), as I watched the crowd in London walking peacefully to Buckingham Palace, as the people of Britain have, on important national occasions of both joy and sorrow, for generations, I was able to think, “Yes, that is the Britain I remember and the Britain I continue to love.”
In this spirit, then, I wish Her Majesty and the country that made me a very happy Platinum Jubilee. This little rhyme came into my head the other day:
So here's my Coronation Crown
and I paraded up and down,
a “pretend queen”, when I was three,
yet all things pass – and I, and she.
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
THE RETURN OF A FAVOURITE FESTA
It was a great pleasure, on Saturday, to be able to visit the Infiorata di Noto (carpet of flowers) again in person, as it has not been held as a "live" event for the past two years because of the pandemic. This year's theme was the Val di Noto Baroque cities, marking the twentieth anniversary of these eight towns becoming, collectively and deservedly, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
For the first time, the Infiorata has been held for five days instead of three, from last Friday until today, allowing many more people to enjoy it. Also for the first time, it has been necessary to buy a ticket - not to enter the city but to walk along via Nicolaci where the carpet has been displayed - at the very reasonable price of €2,50 per person. These could be purchased on site or online, though I have to say that the latter system took some time!
Because you are walking on one side or the other of the display you are contending with some strange angles for photos and also with sun and shadow and having to crop out faces, so I did the best I could:
Monday, April 18, 2022
BUONA PASQUETTA - HAPPY EASTER MONDAY
Wednesday, April 06, 2022
BALMY BREEZES
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Blogger in balmy breeze |
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And the memory of a beautiful sunset to take home. |