Here we are, a fortnight ago, about to leave Reggio Calabria for Catania, on Sicily:

16^th October:

Now we have a long wait for our taxi to Villa S. Giovanni. Better than wandering about that place, however. At least we’re sitting down peacefully.

Excitement since I last wrote. I tripped on some anfractuosity of the pavement on our way to supper last night, and fell headlong. {A bystander sprang forward out of the shadows and helped Archie haul me to my feet. I would have preferred a moment or two to lie there and take stock.} Some bruises and scrapes, but no structural damage to self. I felt shaken, and still do. However the left lens flew out of my spectacles on impact — that WAS serious.

{How I missed Radio Four/World Service that night!  In Edinburgh, I sleep with the radio on. I sleep well. I don’t hear much. But that night I would so have welcomed calm British voices talking about Brazilian politics or Brexit or Mohammad bin Salman.}

But this morning, after checking out, we proceeded along the Corso Garibaldi towards an oculist recommended by the hotel and passed another one long before we got there. Two mafiosi were standing about inside, quite unoccupied, so we went in and they reinstated the lens (it’s plastic, and scratched — I’ll have to see my man in Edinburgh) and tightened things up and took no payment. Then we went on and got your nduja, C. I was glad to have purchased some at Valvona and Crolla recently and thereby to have learned how to pronounce it. The “j” comes out “y”.

And here we are in Catania. It has been a long, hard day.  After the long morning’s wait, we got on the train at Villa S. Giovanni and sat on it for an hour, right there. Finally it started off for the ferry boat. “Eppure! Si muove!”  cried the nice man sitting opposite. This may be a joke that Italians make all the time, but it delighted me. 

No food at all, on that one. Archie has chosen a near-by restaurant and we will set off soon. The train kept announcing that it was going to Palermo and caused much anxiety thereby.

{Neither Greek Helen nor her husband David, both expensively educated, understood the reference above, so I will risk explaining it. When Galileo spread the news among his friends that the earth went around the sun, he got into trouble with the church authorities. He was called in, and recanted, and was heard to mutter as he left the room – “But it does move” – “Eppure si muove”}