My Fish

Being an early riser has advantages, it's not so hot and the fish market just around the corner is open for business. The nice man helps me choose a fish, not too big, not too small.

"What's this fish called?" "Orata". "How do I cook it?" (ok, my grammar may not be this precise!) "Simply al forno, with olive oil, tomatoes, onion and lemon" (I think he says this)."Grazie".

The swordfish I didn't buy!

My flat in Milazzo

My room in the shared flat is upstairs from the language school on level two and is a little nun like, if nuns had balconies. It's basic and clean, a typical flat filled with leftover shampoo bottles and rubbish bags that we've all forgotten to put in the skip round the corner. There's no air-con so mostly it's pretty hot in the lounge but with the fan on at night it's fine, if not a tad noisy sleeping with the doors open to the balcony.

 The theory is to put the dishes straight into the cupboard after washing them

Our beautiful apartment building on Via Nino Royolo 20, Milazzo, Sicily

From my balcony I catch a glimpse of the sea and the hydrofoils heading to the islands of Lipari, Volcano, Stromboli etc and across the road to other people's lives led on their balconies; their cats, kids and laundry. Downstairs there's a Pizzeria that comes alive after dark and a takeaway that also collects young men on their scooters who sit and smoke and talk until I screw my earplugs deep into my ears at midnight until I can't hear them anymore. 

Passeggiata, that institution of the evening promenade, is not only for walkers; at about 6.30pm, my one way street fills up with mostly little cars whose drivers honk horns at each other because they've all decided to go for a little drive at the same time.

Last night from a village above Milazzo called Santa Lucia Del Mela, there was a sunset where the sun was blood red and sunk into sea in just a few minutes. For 30 seconds the sky was red; red sky at night, shepard's delight and what do you know, across the road went a small herd of hairy sheep, bells ringing and a shepard behind with a big stick and a small dog! 
One of the first books I read  about Sicily was Leonardo Sciascia's "The Wine Dark Sea". The title is a reference to a description in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey of the sky after Etna's eruption turning the sky and sea red. Sciascia's stories are quite bleak, I hope my take on Sicily will be happier than Sciascia's and a lot shorter than Homer's! Either way I have no pretensions to any other literary comparisons apart from the setting-Sicily.