Now And At The Hour Of Our Death

The following was scribbled yesterday morning, reverently, into a lachrymose notebook whilst waiting for a train to Palermo....

There is a tiny chapel in the train station of Agrigento and, I must say, very little else. Which is why I find myself sitting here at the back of this wholly deserted room, surrounded by the usual, enormously tasteful Catholic gewgaws and a sweetly patronising message from the Good Pope (the one before the Nazi). Also, because today is a national holiday in Italy, the train station is empty but for a few elderly American tourists, and here in this chapel, it's just me and this old bird...



Anything could happen.

Sadly, my time in Sicily has not been all good. It started out wonderfully, however, and everything was going great, until halfway through my second night, a couple of people with whom I had been getting on really enormously well turned on me, swore at me viciously, pushed me away and left me drunk and weeping in the middle of the night, in the middle of a strange town, without even the name of the hotel where we were staying. I’m still not sure why it happened, but I do know that it ruined the whole trip for me. Or at least this leg of the trip.

Actually, I do know why it happened – it happened because I made jokes about the relationship between our two nations, and because I was talking to a girl that one of the other men fancied. Imagine that. Me. Making someone jealous.

I don’t want to say anything else about it here as I’m going to write to the two people involved and see what they have to say about it in the cold light of day. I'm still reeling from it all actually, and it's left a very sour, and very sad, taste in my mouth.

But life goes on, and I suppose, on the bright side, one day it’ll give me something interesting to write about. But not now. For now at least, we forget, and we move on, back up North to Faenza and hopefully, everything crossed, to the adorable Pea.

Now, come on, Mary, you old bugger! Give me your goddamn blessing!



Thanks, love.

Aaaah, Sicily...

I've just discovered, I am going to be without internet probably until Wednesday. This is something of a blow. But I have my laptop with me and will be writing stuff all the while, so I'll be back with a vengeance just as soon as I can.

In the meantime, I don't know, tell me something about yourself. Sometimes it feels like we don't talk anymore. What are you up to? What's going on?

Dimmi tutto.

Feedback Friday :: Hecticity

bulk :: I reckon I've put on a stone since I arrived in Italy
cigarettes :: some, and I'm really pissed off about it - it really stinks up the breath
postcards bought :: 10
postcards sent :: 0
Italian women I have fallen in love with :: all of them

So I had planned to spend the 12 hours or so it was going to take to get to Palermo on the train writing up all that has happened in Rome, but because I left everything till the last minute, I have only just discovered that the train to Palermo is, for various reasons, no good. So I just booked a flight, leaving at noon tomorrow, which will mean leaving here around 8 to be absolutely sure of getting to the airport on time. It's all very hectic.

I'm going to a wedding by the way. An old friend is marrying a Sicilian lady. I haven't seen him for years and was very surprised to get an invite. Probably not as surprised as he was that I accepted. The invite came about a week before Morag moved out, so I thought, fuck it. Let's go somewhere I've never been.

There's an awful lot that can go wrong tomorrow though, and I'm slightly nervous. Especially as I've been told that no one in Sicily speaks English. In fact, I've been told that they barely speak Italian.

Rome is spectacular though, and I will get round to writing about it soon. I hope. But the next few days are going to be incredibly hectic.

In the meantime, here are some more pictures from Publication Day. I am very silly.















That last one's my favourite. They barely understood a word of what I was saying but they entered into the task with alacrity and aplomb. Bless them.

Now I should sleep, as at best I'll have six hours, but you know what I'm going to do instead? I'm going to watch the last episode of season four of The Wire. Get myself in a gangster frame of mind in preparation for Sicily.