Sicilian Diary

Today it rained – typical scirocco weather. Interesting to watch the Sicilians in the unusual weather. I took bambino out for a walk anyway as he was oblivious to the light rain in his sturdy rainproof stroller. My husband’s cugina pulled up in her car – ‘It could only be you, out walking the baby in this weather!’ she says. A light drizzle, nothing to worry about. Warm enough to sit outside under the canopy while I have my cappuccino and bambino sleeps. Four middle-aged men, one shorter than the other, join me but chat among themselves. Some people are well-prepared for the weather – an elderly gentleman in a tweed coat and dapper cap steps carefully. Others hold a magazine over their head and scuttle from A to B (never far as they park as close to their destination as the flexible parking laws allow). Nothing like the bowed-down hunched-shoulders marching against the elements you see on the streets of London or Dublin. There are good things here too. Though an English girl married to...

Yesterday was like summer’s day. Three signorine had granita on the terrace of my local bar and admired bambino while I had my cappuccino. ‘He’s big for his age,’ they nodded wisely, not more than 13 years old. They wanted to know where I was from and what language I spoke to my bambino in and where I had lived. They said their English teacher at school was no good and that they planned to go to stay with their friend’s grandmother in England in the summer to improve their English. I gave them some tips on learning English, feeling the teacher in me respond to this obvious need. Teaching is so old-fashioned here, even these teenagers knew it – we just copy off the blackboard and repeat our teacher’s bad pronunciation, they said! ‘Sei giovanissima, quanti anni hai?’ they asked – ‘You’re so young, how old are you?’ Bold as brass, two of them. The third didn’t say a word, just dipped her brioche into the lemon slush. Like three young ladies out for a chat. The two interviewers remembered ...

I tried a yoga lesson this week, time to get a bit of flexibility back with all the hauling around of big bambino. A nice morning lesson, I had high hopes. But it was very slow, with lots of talking (of course) about the third eye and chakras and the point of strength 5cm below the belly button and 5cm inwards. Some rotation of wrists and ankles and one downward dog. Perhaps your evening class is more dynamic, I suggest. Depends what you mean by dynamic. Oops, she has taken offence, despite the fact that I complimented her on the lovely lesson first. Well, more toning. ‘Ahh, toning,’ she sniffs, ‘if it’s toning you want, go to a gym. The effetto tonificante of yoga is just a result of holding the positions.’ I know, I say patiently, the asanas … do you do any of these in your evning lesson? The triangle, the warrier, fish, bridge etc? ‘I was thinking of introducing them next month,’ she says, reciting their Sanskrit terms piously. Ahhhh, pazienza. The problem here is, when people get a...

Someone has broken the wing mirror on our car. It happened yesterday between 4.30 and 5.30, because I went out at 4.30 with bambino and it was fine and my in-laws were out on the street at that time too as they were heading to the restaurant. Bambino and I came back from our stroll at 5.30 and the mirror was broken. I looked up and down the street: the builders who are working on a dilapidated building just down the street were gone – and wouldn’t admit to seeing anything anyway. I scan the neighbours’ windows, because you can bet your life that someone will have seen what happened, but not a stir behind the craftily angled shutters. I look down the street – the cars parked in front of ours all have their mirrors pointed out, except one car which has turned it inwards for safety. There is plenty of space to get past where we are parked though, and even if another car had been parked opposite ours there would have been space. My sister in law is convinced it was the Pazzo, the madman on...

I ran into difficulty yesterday while out for a stroll with a friend along the marina. Bambino needed fed but each time we stopped at a bench a few fishermen would gather to stare at us, the fair haired foreign girls. They should know me by now! I complained to another foreign friend. Her partner is a fisherman and she knows them all, so she promised to come with me some time and introduce me. Can’t wait.

It’s hard to predict what way a ‘serata’ will go; Friday, the restaurant did very little, but the bar was packed with lots of people dancing to the tunes of DJ Giuppy … Saturday, the restaurant was packed and the bar too, so that the road outside was full of people like a summer weekend. And yet on Sunday night, the popular aperitivo attracted few punters this weekend – perhaps because we didn’t have a DJ last night. The SAIE – the PRS, or music rights people, to whom we have to pay €50 every time we have live music or DJ (As IF that money ever reaches the authors) warned us that they knew we were having DJs on Sundays (we pay up for Friday and Saturday, but it simply didn’t seem fair to have to do it on Sundays too … SAIE friends are exempt of course. We are not their friends, but at least they warn us, rather than coming to fine us directly). We didn’t have th barman either, so his mates didn’t come. We’ll have to decide if it’s worth the expense of barman, DJ and SAIE … Meanwhile, i...

During the week we went out for lunch for my mother-in-law’s birthday. We had the small agriturismo to ourselves. There were ten of us in total, including two children, but the noise levels would have woken the dead. When Sicilians get together over a meal they tend to shout at each other across the table. Plus, there was music on too, which I discreetly turned down once I had spotted the remote. But bambino didn’t like it! His nonno said, ‘It’s because you don’t take him out!’ what? I said, he’s out every day of the week. ‘Yes, in the outdoors, but not in noisy restaurants.’ Well, we’re in a different caffè every day of the week, where bambino is greeted by all (shouting ‘che bello’ into his little face) but apparently they are not noisy enough. Noise training is what my bambino needs. I see. … This is the third day in a row we have had lunch all together and the noise levels are getting to me too. At one point I ask the 5 year old does he not have a book to read. He and the three yea...

One of my favourite institutions in this town, which is backward in so many ways, is the poetry-writing postman. Always in good humour, a tall handsome man, tanned from his mornings on the scooter bringing the mail – apologising when it is obviously a bill – he whistles and sings as he goes about his work. He passed me this morning as I was having coffee with bambino, and raised a finger as he remembered something, after flashing his winning smile and wishing me a buongiorno. ‘Signora, I have a parcel for you! But I will deliver it to your house!’ It seems I am the only person who gets parcels so regularly in Milazzo. He never leaves it at my house, as it is slightly off the road, preferring to ring my in-laws’ bells, since their house is right on the street, so he doesn’t have to get off his moto. And he once brought the nonna a book of his poetry. Fantastic. Where else would you get such a personalised postal service? It almost makes up for the stinking, overflowing skips. On my way ...

Lovely aperitivo at Pachamama last night. Cosy lighting with candles everywhere and good chilled out music. Thankfully no DJ in fact many of the regulars commented there is no need. After the live music on Friday and DJ on Saturday, it is nice to be able to come and chat over a few drinks. Plus the music on the iPod is way better than either ;) Our regular DJ tells us that the bar across the road from has started an aperitivo exactly based on ours. They sent their DJ over to spy one night and he started it off last night. Will they have the same food? Same sequence of snacks? The couscous and the faro, the Greek salada and the tortilla, the chicken nuggets and the fried savoury our Neapolitan chef cooks up? Our aperitivo has been such a success – apart from the great deal – because it offered something new hear in Sicily. A common social event in northern Italy, the aperitivo doesn’t really exist in Sicily with real food, just nuts and olives.

Mid-week we get a request for a booking for a party of twenty, for a girl's birthday. She wants to spend a maximum of €60 - four bottles of prosecco. A bottle costs €16, so she wants a little discount, plus she will bring a cake which our waiter will slice and serve ... and of course, service is included - the plates and flute glasses and the dishwashing, and the laying out of tables for the twenty or so people. Although they will occupy most of the upstairs room, she there is no rental fee for the space. Never mind that a table for two would generate €60 with much less effort. On the night itself, she saunters downstairs every so often, 25 years old with the ways of an 18 year old. She apologises that many of her friends haven't turned up and so she would like one less bottle ... this happens several times throughout the night, despite the fact that the waiter notes all twenty places are occupied at the table, with more standing. When she tries to renegue on bottle number two,...

Mia suocera launches into a tale about a woman who used to work with her in the creche down the road. Her daughter works in a bar I go to often with the bambino, and finally after two years she greeted us with a smile. Since we are always given a great welcome in this bar her stony-faced service always seemed strange to me. So this is how my mother-in-law got stuck into her story. Every now and again she likes to regale me with some local lore. Her eyes light up, the voice lowers and she takes up her story-telling position. This time it is about Domenica, her ex-colleague. Domenica was very strict with the daughter when she was little, giving her hardly any freedom. The creche was opposite the child's school, so she was themost punctual of mothers and the daughter never got to roam around town with her friends. So she rebelled and ran off with a married man and had a baby with him bringing shame on the family at the time, 50 odd years ago. The married man divorced his then-wife and...