Tuesday, February 20, 2007

BITS AND PIECES





Just a few bits and bobs to tell you about this evening:

First, a post of Ellee's yesterday made me think about the location of supermarkets here: many are on the outskirts of the town and have large, flat, free carparks as in Britain, but my local one is underneath a block of flats and down the slope pictured. It is well signposted but you'd need to know that Conad is a chain of supermarkets to realise that that's what it is. You could miss quite a few businesses and offices here if you didn't keep looking up [and down] actually: Raffaele's is up the stairs in the second photo and you wouldn't know there was a hairdresser's there unless you happened to glance up and see the poster. [I once asked him why he calls his salon "yellow", by the way: apparently there was another hairdresser called Raffaele here years ago and when "my" Raffaele opened, he had his salon decorated in yellow and so he used that as part of the name to distinguish himself from his namesake. I think he also rather likes the word!]

Today is a sort of holiday for Carnevale: some businesses have been closed all day whilst others have not reopened this evening. There isn't much of a Carnival tradition in Modica: it seems, here, to be mainly a festival for the children. There will be some processions in Modica Bassa tonight but I'm not going down there as I don't feel like having water and that gooey stuff thrown at me, though I don't begrudge others their fun. Having just been out with Simi, I saw that we have a beautiful new moon, so in a moment I am going to fling the shutters open and gaze at it awhile , for, dear readers, if you have not seen a Sicilian moon, you have not seen a moon....
A less welcome visitor than the moon was a locust which decided to fly into my bathroom last night. I'm afraid I was much too intent on getting rid of the thing to photograph it! Perhaps I won't open the shutters right now, after all...
Now to a complete change of subject: there is to be a health initiative in Sicily so the already reasonable prices for fruit and vegetables are to be lowered. Portion sizes in bars are also to be reduced but no one seems to know yet how and to what. I'll let you know when I see evidence of this.
Going back to the supermarket, there were three power cuts in there while I was at the checkout yesterday [not, I think, their fault]. Even the door is electronically controlled now, so no one could get in or out during this time. As you can imagine, there was much shrugging of shoulders and uttering of "pazienza"!
And finally, for this post, "they made me do it" - blogger, that is; late last night they made me change to beta . This is my first beta post and I'm not quite sure what I'm doing - pazienza.

10 comments:

sally in norfolk said...

Would love to have seen that moon.....

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Hi, Sally. I just wish my camera was good enough to capture it!

Liz Hinds said...

I've tried photographing the moon with little success!

The government is still running its 5 a day campaign here but I haven't noticed them putting the prices down on the fruit and veg. Maybe that would be an incentive but somehow I doubt it. (I already eat more than my fair share!)

I don't think I would have liked to have been locked in a store. Just knowing I was locked in would be enough to make me panic. Did no-one fuss or get panicky? Sicilians must be a very relaxed people!

Blogger made me convert a while ago. I haven't had any problems; in fact it's certainly easier posting photos.

Janejill said...

W.L. Welcome to the beta world - I think I am on or in it, but I am struggling - I cannot do a blog-roll (when I tried I got Ellee's name at the top of my blog!) Any tips would be most welcome - do you have a shortened name Welshcakes limoncello? (Its a very vivid name but a bit wearing for my poor typing..) I used to live in Spain and it was a delight to go to a little town with no apparent shops and then , gradually, they would be revealed; I miss that.

Lee said...

Your description of a Sicilian moon reminded me of one of my favourite movies (I have it on video amongst my collection), "Moonstruck".

I enjoyed your post, Welsh...thanks for sharing your thoughts. :)

Anonymous said...

I would loved to have seen that moon too, lucky you and Simi.

James Higham said...

...and when "my" Raffaele opened, he had his salon decorated in yellow and so he used that as part of the name to distinguish himself from his namesake...

Always a delight, your posts.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Hi, Liz. No, no one complained or panicked: it would have had to have lasted about 3 hours for Sicilians to do that! Beta seems OK so far!
Janejill, you can call me WL or Pat. I registered with blogrolling some time ago but after I'd listed my links on their site I just couldn't work out what to do next. Then a fellow-blogger told me how to enter the links on my blog manually. If you would like to email me at lasiciliana629@hotmail.com I'll send you the instructions I have. [The Blogpower roll on the site sort of works by itself. Click the defending the blog link if you're interested.]
Lee, I love that film too!
Ellee, you'll have to come over and see a Sicilian moon!
James, you are always so kind.

Ballpoint Wren said...

Welshcakes, a friend of mine wrote to say they forced her to change over to Blogger and she lost everything in her sidebar.

I took a look at my rarely-used Blogger page, and they forced me to change, too. So far, it looks okay, not that I ever use that page!

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Hi, Bonnie. It all seems OK so far but I have everything crossed as I write that!

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