Being delusional!

The weathermen were right: a lot of rain has come sweeping up towards our end of the country. The sound of the rain on the roof and against the windows did rather but me off running this morning. So I switched off the alarm, planning to get up shortly and walk into the village instead. I woke up almost an hour later. Obviously, as my mother would have told me had she still been around, I needed the extra sleep.

By the time I got myself organised, the torrential rain had turned to drizzle. I suppose I could still have run but by then my plans had changed. The rain did not prevent me from taking pictures of the flowers around here en route to the coop for the newspaper.

I went out again later to catch the bus to the nearest supermarket and found a wall fallen down near the corner where the bus stops. It was fine the last time I walked past. It clearly was not the result of a car mounting the pavement as that would have caused the stones to fall into the river. Maybe the wall just gave way under the weight of water falling from the sky.

Talking to several of my nodding acquaintances on the bus, I discovered that they were on their way to school fêtes that their children were involved in today. So this is the season of school fêtes. Which explains the rain! In addition to that, next Friday is Whit Friday, Band Contest Day in Saddleworth, when brass bands from around the country, indeed from around the world, go from village to village and march in playing their music, hoping to win a prize. It’s the closest thing we have to a fiesta and on a fine day it is quote spectacular. On a wet day it is still pretty impressive but sunshine is best. Unfortunately I cannot remember the last time we had a really warm and sunny Whit Friday.

Are we all delusional, thinking that we can organise outdoor events in June?

Also delusional seems to be Donald Trump. First of all he said he was very popular in England and had seen no demonstrations against his visit. He must have looked in the wrong places. He has also boasted about having “automatic chemistry” with the Queen during his state visit here. He apparently told Fox News that people had noticed how well he and the Queen had connected. He said: “The meeting with the Queen was incredible. I think I can say I really got to know her because I sat with her many times and we had automatic chemistry, you will understand that feeling. It’s a good feeling. But she’s a spectacular woman.”

He seemed to think the queen enjoyed herself too. “There are those that say they have never seen the Queen have a better time, a more animated time. We had a period we were talking solid straight, I didn’t even know who the other people at the table were, never spoke to them. We just had a great time together.” Trump, when asked if he would keep the conversation going, added: “Yes I am, she is a spectacular woman, an incredible woman.”

He must not have seen the cartoons of the queen peering from behind the curtains and asking Prince Philip to tell POTUS she is not at home!

Meanwhile the struggle to find a new leader for the Conservative party continues. Today brings a fresh bit of scandal. Michael Gove says he regrets taking cocaine. A more unlikely person to be in involved in drug taking I cannot imagine. I can, however, think of decisions he should regret having taken in his political career! We might never forgive him for those "fronted adverbials" - and that's the least of it.

Maybe he too is delusional!

Some bad stuff!

Our Sicily adventure is in the past and I am once again noting the bad things going on. Here are a few:-

The Washington Post reported the other day that the Trump administration is canceling English classes, recreational programs and legal aid for unaccompanied minors staying in federal migrant shelters nationwide, saying the immigration influx at the southern border has created critical budget pressures.
“The Office of Refugee Resettlement has begun discontinuing the funding stream for activities — including soccer — that have been deemed “not directly necessary for the protection of life and safety, including education services, legal services, and recreation,” said U.S. Health and Human Services spokesman Mark Weber.
Federal officials have warned Congress that they are facing “a dramatic spike” in unaccompanied minors at the southern border and have asked Congress for $2.9 billion in emergency funding to expand shelters and care. The program could run out of money in late June, and the agency is legally obligated to direct funding to essential services, Weber said.”

It must be frightening enough being a child whose parents have gone missing during your flight from whatever threat you left behind and finding yourself locked up in a detention centre. If they then take away the activities that might give your life some semblance of normality, imagine how that must feel. What are these youngsters supposed to do? Sit still and twiddle their thumbs all day?

Then today I read about refugees in Ireland, young women pregnant because of rape, too frightened to tell anyone until they are more than 12 weeks pregnant, the time limit for legal abortions in Ireland. An organisation called the Abortion Support Network has long experience of helping Irish women to travel to England for terminations but fond that they cannot help refugees because of the difficulty of getting visas. They are guiding people to the Netherlands instead.

Now, that is not really a consequence of Brexit but after Brexit the Abortion Support Network will have the same problem with EU resident in Ireland.

And here is something from the NSPCC. They say that racial abuse and bullying of children has risen by 20% since 2015 -16. More than 10,000 incidents were reported to the police last year. Even babies under one year old have been targeted. As a consequence of this children are trying to whiten their skin to avoid the hate crimes. And many of the children spoken to said that they did nit talk about it at home because they did not want to make their parents suffer. Children are whitening their skin to try to avoid a rising tide of racial hate crimes, in which even babies under one year old have been targeted, a charity has said.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) said racial abuse and bullying of children had risen by one-fifth since 2015-16 to more than 10,000 incidents recorded by police last year. The charity said some callers to Childline, its telephone help service, had tried to change their appearance by using makeup to whiten their skin. Some children told counsellors they kept their pain a secret from their parents because they did not want to upset them.

These are all young people and children suffering.

And I feel guilty about moaning about it raining again!

Everyone is growing older!

Just in case anyone gets the impression that Manchester is all doom and gloom and misery, here are some photos taken out and about in Saddleworth in the last couple of days.

The poppies are perhaps very appropriate to today. The newspapers are understandably full of the D-Day commemoration stuff.

Martin Kettle, writing in the Guardian, expresses the view that this may be the last such international celebration. The veterans are not getting any younger, but still turning up at 90+ years old, and in five years time there may be none left at all. And then there is Brexit, which should not affect matters but could well do so. A celebration at Portsmouth is perhaps a sign, not to mention Trump’s “America First”. All rather isolationist. Maybe we won’t be welcome on the beaches of Normandy in years to come.

Some reports have noted the absence of the Duke of Edinburgh from both Trump’s visit and from the D-Day celebrations. He must have been judged too old and infirm now. Rather a pity! He could have simply come out with one of his sarcastic faux pas and put Mr Trump in his place.

Another old royal gent not participating in celebrations is King Juan Carlos of Spain. He abdicated in favour his son Felipe five years ago but was planning to accompany his son to their national annual Armed Forces Day last Saturday. The younger king decided this was not a good idea and eventually Juan Carlos agreed, sending a letter to Felipe telling him it was time to “start a new chapter in my life and complete my retirement from public life”.

It’s rather a shame. He began so well, steering Spain into democracy rather than following Franco’s style, and appealing personally to the armed forces not to escalate matters when there was an attempted coup in 1981. It all ended in scandal and abdication though. Having taught my A-Level Spanish students about him so often in the past, I felt almost personally let down.

Old age comes to us all, I suppose. Even Madonna has hit 60. What is more, she has been criticised for continuing to be Madonna. Her critics seem to think she should slow down. They make a great fuss about “dignity”, “appropriate behaviour” and “growing old gracefully”.

It’s funny how male musical artists don’t face the same criticism. Mick Jagger can still strut his stuff and Bruce Springsteen can still slide on his knees across the stage.

Even ageing is sexist!

And we’re back - until the next adventure!

Two days back in the UK: that’s how long it’s taken me to get around to writing this. We arrived home eventually at about 2.00am on Tuesday morning. So, what do you do on such a day when you finally get up? You wash a million things out of your suitcase! And then I went into Manchester for my Italian class. If our teacher was going to make it after getting home at 2.00 in the morning and then going to teach a bunch of high school students before coming to our adult class, then so could we. Besides, those of us who had been to Sicily wanted to tell those who had stayed at home what a treat they had missed!

Our final day in Sicily, Monday, was not to be wasted. Suitcases loaded into the minibus, we set off for the final surprise of our trip. The extras on this trip have been quite magnificent.

This one turned out to be a farm visit, specifically Masseria Posto di Blocco 452. The farm is just next to a crossroads where checkpoint 452 was situated in the Second World War. On July 10th 1943 some twenty Italian soldiers fought there against American paratroopers and, greatly outnumbered, inevitably all perished. The son of one of the soldiers, Soldato Giuseppe Rinaldi, found out where his father had died and had a monument erected there on July 10th 2014. And the farm keeps the name of the checkpoint.

The farm is all organic and has around 25 milking cows to make cheese - ricotta and the like - and a variety of other animals just for show. They used to have more cattle and sold milk as well but for various reasons it was not economical and now they make cheese, which they sell largely to restaurants, and run a bit of tourism with farm visits and fine food-tasting sessions. And so we got to see how their cheese is produced and sat down to eat yet more Sicilian food.

Their canneloni were splendid, and I am not a great canneloni fan as a rule.

It’s a wonder any of us fit in our clothes now.

After lunch we went to Caltagirone, but first we visited a quite baroque cemetery on the outskirts on the city.

In Caltagirone itself we admired the pottery and discovered the legend of the “Teste de Moro”, the pairs of ceramic planters made in the shape of a blackamoor’s head and a white woman’s head.

The story goes that in 1100 or thereabouts, during the time when the Arabs dominated Sicily, a beautiful young woman who rarely left her home was spotted watering the plants on her balcony by an Arab who fell in love with her. He managed to get to know her and declared his love to her, a passion which she returned. The inevitable seduction happened. Eventually the Arabs decided to leave Sicily and when the young lady discovered that this was on the cards, and that he had a wife and children back home, she chopped off his head and made it into a plant pot which she placed on her balcony! Just a little gruesome!

We also saw fine buildings, masses of shops selling a vast range of ceramic produce, including huge tables costing over 1000 euros.

Almost accidentally we visited a church which contained examples of nativity scenes - Caltagirone is famous for its thirty or so nativity scenes displayed around the city at Christmas time - and curiously a electric train set running round a model of the city!

The church was next to an amazing set of steps, each with a different ceramic design on the step. We opted not to go up the steps but went for a refreshment break instead.

This was in a covered square at each end of which was a huge ceramic picture. Astounding!

Running out of time, we took a flying visit to Catania, made even shorter by the traffic jam in the way. Yet another cathedral to admire, and an elephant, symbol of the city I think, in the main square. Pictures of these another day.

And then off to the airport - no traffic jams on the way out of Catania. Rather tired, but still laughing and singing silly songs, we arrived back in Manchester, where the skies are grey and it has rained on us.

We know we’re back!

Almost the end of the Sicilian adventure!

Yesterday evening we all caught the “navetta” shuttle bus from Ragusa to Ragusa Ibla to join in the celebrations for the least of San Giorgio. I asked why it was that Saint George has his day on April 23rd in England but on June 1st in Sicily. They said it was because it is a different Saint George. If that is the case then both of them went around killing dragons!
After waiting with a happy crowd of mostly Sicilians we got on the bus and made our way down to the old part of town where Ragusa was before the 1693 earthquake knocked a lot of stuff down. We admired the lights, although some of our party suggested that maybe the Sicilians should take a look at Blackpool for ideas. We had some more nice food, but were unable to talk much as a concert was taking place in the square.

Actually it was more of a talent show to begin with. Local heroes got up on stage and performed. Three young girls reminded me of the girls who act as backing singers in the film “The Commitments”. A very young boy band - aged 12 to 15 - called Blackout performed enthusiastically and with some talent. We applauded them and wished them well for the future. After them a professional pianist-cum-crooner entertained us all. Perhaps a little too much entertainment! 

Eventually San Giorgio made his entrance. It was the statue from the church. He had been in the rounds of the town and was returning to the church. Every so often the men carrying the statue, a great heavy thing, stopped and joggled him up and down to give the impression of cantering. A great green dragon, dead of course, was beneath the feet of his horse.

Not far behind came a huge silver chest, containing the bones of Saint George apparently. I was reminded of the description in the later chapters of “Il Gattopardo”, where the holy relics collected over years by the “principessa” and then preserved by her unmarried daughters, are examined by a specialist from the Catholic church and mostly dismissed as worthless. Such a shame!

Then came the fireworks and the whole shebang was worth while! You have to hand it to these Southern Europeans - they really know how to do fireworks or how to send a lot of money up in smoke, depending on your point of view.

We got back to our hotel late because the queue for the shuttlebus back to Ragusa was about ten miles long. Consequently we were all a little tired this morning.

This did not prevent us from meeting at 10.00 am to go off the Piazza Armerina to visit the Villa Romana del Casale.

I had seen this place on television, an extensive Roman villa, covered by a mudslide in the twelfth century and rediscovered in the 1950s.





Our guide told us that most of the good stuff was pinched by the locals before they told the archeologists that there was the possibility of a Roman villa there at all. The wonderfully preserved mosaic floors are still being uncovered. They are quite spectacular, especially the ladies in bikinis at the gym.

And finally we ate far too much at an “agroturismo” restaurant.

Amazing!

Sicilian Adventures at the Seaside!

Today we went to the seaside. Our Italian friend and teacher taught us a song for the seaside, all about showing off your white buttocks:-

 Tutti a mare, tutti a mare
A mostrar le chiappe chiare...

So we taught her “I do like to be beside the seaside” in return.

More specifically we went to Punta Secca, where there is a house which they use as the home of Salvo Montalbano in the TV series. Had we gone there yesterday we might have seen them filming the series. Had we gone to Scicli two or three days ago instead of yesterday we could have seen them filming there as well. Mind you, we might not have got onto the set in either case. So we could have felt quite frustrated and probably would not have seen as many interesting things.

And besides, yesterday the weather was not so good as today for going to the seaside. So we all took pictures of each other standing near Montalbano’s house. Since the last time we visited, five years back, the place has tarted itself up a little for the tourists. There is a plaque on the wall of Montalbano”s house. It may be possible to go and stay there, no doubt at an extortionate price.

Some of our party stripped off, well down their swimsuits and swimming trunks, and went in the sea. The disrobing in the cafe quite shocked some others in our group, who felt that pale British skin really should bot be displayed on cafe terrace. The act of going in the sea shocked and worried the Italian in our group as they thought it was too early in the year to be in the sea. There were, however, quite few other brave (or foolhardy, depending on your point of view) folk in the water.

As for me, I just went and bought me a summer dress for the grand total of 12 Euros from a stall in the square.

Punta Secca is a nice spot to wander about in and the beaches are fine.

When the swimmers had dried off and made themselves decent we walked along the promenade to a restaurant used in the TV series. Trading in on the popularity of the series, they have a dish called “Commissario” something or other - the most expensive item on the list! We did not choose that but were all quite sensible.

I had something with sardines and Phil opted for linguine with shellfish.

Dessert we put off until we had moved to Marina de Ragusa - a more economical move. Phil, however, made up for this by having the biggest ice cream possible while I had a more sensibly-sized “granata di mandorla” - a sort of almond flavoured slush. 

There was some nice street art to admire!

 

 And finally I got my feet in the sea!

Tonight we head for Ragusa Ibla, where we will hear a piano concert, probably while we eat. Certain people, though, want to find a bar where they can watch football. Some people are never satisfied!