Too Young to Die
The first time I left home I was about seven years old. I can’t remember now why I felt the need to do so, but the fact remains that I did. I picked up my favourite doll of the time … Continue reading
Tag Archives: sicily
Grey hair and giggling
Ma, maestra! Hai i capelli bianchi! Arianna is sitting on my lap, supposedly looking at a clock and telling me the time in English, but actually pointing out the grey hairs at my temples, which are all too obvious at … Continue reading
Singing in the rain
My students are yelling and leaping up and down with joy. Sadly it’s nothing I’ve done to make them so ecstatic. Well, apart from being rubbish at classroom discipline. It’s Tuesday night and a minute previously we’d been entering the … Continue reading
Saints and sustenance
Catania is under siege. Every half hour or so there are more explosions. The sound booms around the city, always from a slightly different direction as the action moves from street to street. For a change, however, this isn’t anything … Continue reading
In the city
The noise comes from behind me as I walk home, exhausted after a day at school battling sickness, both in the kids and in myself. There’s someone following too close. My hackles rise and I move my bag to my … Continue reading
Fortune’s Fool
All men are equal before fish – Herbert Hoover I spent yesterday afternoon on the rocks. Literally. There’s a small, pebbly, black-sanded beach near me where I like to go on a sunny weekend afternoon. Four harpoon fishermen snorkelled about … Continue reading
The sea in winter
Waves crash and a faint thrumming passes through the soles of my shoes. Black basalt rocks split grey-green water, revealing its bright opaque turquoise heart. A second later, and it is frothy white, erupting over the top of the front … Continue reading
Got tickets …?
The distance from Calabria to Sicily is so small that you can see one from the other. The Messina Straits are, at their narrowest point, less than 2 miles wide. Unfortunately, to cross them you must jump over various fiendish … Continue reading
