Hey. You want to help me research my family near Palermo? It’s a casual request from my American friend Maryann via Facebook, and I say yes without thinking twice. It sounds like it should be fun, but it’s not going … Continue reading
Peggy was a formidable woman. Brought up atheist by Jewish parents, and married to a practising Christian, her faith was, in many ways, cooking – something which she passed on to her daughter, who in turn passed it on to … Continue reading
With International Women’s Day just around the corner, here’s a look back at what happened last year. Mimosa, party horns and drag queens: long may they thrive. ******** Middle-aged drunk woman has a party horn. It’s got silver tassles on … Continue reading
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
I should have known things weren’t going to go smoothly when I arrived at Heathrow on 23 December and it took two hours for our luggage to be unloaded from the plane. I’d had qualms about checking bags in with … Continue reading
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
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
(This post was written a while ago, but I forgot to publish it at the time. Sorry about that. I’m catching up slowly.) All I’m aware of is a look of gape-mouthed horror on Liv’s face. However, apparently she just … Continue reading
Where did it go?! Emma is on her feet, clutching her bottle of Nastro and looking up at the air conditioning unit. Carly looks about. I think it went – AARRRRGGGGHHH! It seems that she has just discovered where the cockroach disappeared … Continue reading
Dry grass rustles as lizards scuttle away from the heavy-footed human padding along the road. Most of the time you don’t see them, but every so often they break cover and skitter up a wall or across the road. I … Continue reading
