Homecoming: end of an adventure

We awoke at first light, I took photos of the run rising out of the sea from the terrace overlooking the Guardiola for a second morning running, only this time it wasn't raining. Breakfast, clean-up, packing, then returning the keys to the Sisters in time for the 8h45 bus to Catania. Suore Sylvana and Suore Tarcisia walked us to the bus station. It was very moving, there was still so much we wanted to share with them as well as our expressions of deep gratitude for their hospitality and friendship. As the bus pulled out, they stood waving us off from the school gate. I've been so blessed by the time spent with them, not just in the past few days but throughout the past month.

After a twenty minute wait in Catania we were on our way along the autostrada, first to the Airport stop and then West around the southern foothills of Mount Etna towards Palermo. The view was truly spectacular.not just because of the great snow capped peak presiding over the region, but because of the seemingly endless vista of citrous groves, neatly arranged, laden with ripe fruit, orange and yellow. Being winter, and a rainly season, the trees had a carpet of bright green grass laden with pale primrose yellow flowers stretching as far as the horizon, or so it seemed. I was conscious of the change from limestone to sandstone terrain as the road rose into the mountainous central region, with occaisional hill towns precariously perched on very steel escarpments. 

Sicily's mountain valleys being so far south were never excavated by glaciers, and retain their v-shape, so that few have much flat terrain at their bottom. For most of the journey in the uplands, the autostrada runs on stilts thirty metres above the valley floor. A long series of viaducts represents the lowest impact on the environment, as well as the least expensive with no lengthy cuttings, and only a few tunnelled sections. As we climbed, the orange groves gave way to pasture lands, with grazing sheep and cattle, although the further from the coast we went the fewer and further between were trees, settlements and individual farms. This land has lost a great deal of its agrarian population by migration, not only to the cities but to other parts of the world. Here, with such extremes of weather, rural poverty is harsh. Yet, it is hauntingly beautiful as barren looking places go. I'd love to spend more time exploring the Sicilian interior.

We get to Palermo at lunch-time and changed on to our third bus of the day for the three quarter of an hour traipse through quieter suburbs to the airport, named in honour of two murdered anti-mafia judges: Falcone and Borsellino, where we had an hour and a half to wait before checkout opened. There were no problems attached to Clare's temporary travel document, so we were able to deposit our bags at the EasJet desk and relax with our second picnic meal of the day before going through to the departure lounge, just as the sun was setting on a day of travel just half way through.

There were no problems arriving at London Gatwick either. The Borders Agency official was sympathetic when Clare told him how she came to lose her passport. We had time for a drink before boarding out coach at ten past ten, and slept most of the way back to Cardiff, via Heathrow and Bristol. We got a taxi home from the bus station, arriving on the doorstep at twenty past three with do much to unpack, so many different experiences to digest. And a Sicilian recipe book to experiment with in months to come.

We'd both love to explore Sicily properly, but will there ever be another opportunity to return to St George's Taormina? We were asked this. It's so very popular with clergy it may not happen again. But if we do return we'll be sure to stop off and visit the Sisters whose kindness and hospitality confirmed all we've ever known about the Franciscan spirit in the life and mission of God's church throughout the world.

Home from home

After a deliciously long and quiet night's sleep, on side of the house facing away from the road, we woke up just after dawn to find it was raining ever so gently, but mild as before. From the side of the house which faces towards the convent, you can look up beyond the garden fifty metres to the top of the steep escarpment, crowned by a balcony which overlooks the sea up behind the Graeco-Roman theatre.

The fact that the Sisters' extensive orchard covers the site of a late Byzantine / Saracen cemetery, from over a thousand years ago, says much about settlement in this area. People lived on this hillside and prospered for so long the town spread along and up the mountain slopes, and shifted its centre as places of worship were built in new locations.

Taormina's first and oldest church, San Pietro is out of sight from this house. It's a flight of steps or a couple of hairpin curves in the road below us to the right. It still has occasional services, but for centuries prior to the Spanish driving out the Saracens, it was used as a cemetery chapel. It has a large ossuary in a vault under the floor of its oldest section. Steps from San Pietro lead up to and originally led into a cemetery with stone built columbaria. Remnants of these form part of the Convent garden retaining wall, overlooking the road. The domain was established as a Friary in the early sixteenth century when Taormina was governed by Spain. Different traces of the past two thousand years of history are woven into the fabic of everyday life here, as in many other European towns and cities.

Mid-morning we went out to do some food shopping. When we returned one of the Sisters was waiting for us with the awaited package from TNT couriers - four hours early! It was such a relief to be in possession of the vital British temporary travel document that will enable us to travel home together. Valid only for one journey home on one day however - so everything else will need to go right to get us to Palermo in good time on Saturday.

This expensive use-once-only document is a reminder of just how insecure British overlords feel about their crowded island home. The fear of exploitation and abuse of such an entry permit, and it is no more than that, even by a fully accredited British citizen whose identity is in no doubt is a symptom of the evil times in which we live.

After lunch and a snooze we went out again, walked the Corso and had a drink in a cafe on the corner of the piazza Victor Emmanuele. Then we went at the usual time for Adoration and Vespers only to find there was a little concert just finishing in the Chapter Room. A dozen young students of the mandolin, with their teachers were performing for relatives and friends, along with a children's singing group. We heard them perform their encore - the theme tune from the film 'Never on Sunday'. Such enthusiasm, such delight. Suore Tarcisia afterwards introduced us to a lively group of five youngsters 8-9 years old with whom she works. The way she interacted with them showed how at ease she is as an educator with children as with adults after a lifetime in mission.

Then, when the guests had departed, we slipped into chapel with the Sisters for a time of silent prayer before Vespers for the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus - an observance which is in the Franciscan Divine Office but not in the Roman Breviary. Yet, I recall it was in the old English Missal, so maybe it was a local observance, part of the Sarum Rite which preceded the Book of Common Prayer.

Just as we were about to serve supper, Suore Maddalena one of the English speakers in the Community was knocking at the kitchen window urging us to open our garden gate to a visitor. We'd not heard the door bell ringing. She wanted to tell us that my successor at St George's, Canon Bruce Duncan, was outside. He'd come to pay us a pastoral visit on learning of Clare's calamity. It was lovely to meet him albeit briefly. We arranged a longer visit with him and his wife for tea tomorrow afternoon.

We had to ring the convent to ask them to open the school compound gate when he set off to return to St. George's. Since well before Christmas it has been open daily to permit use of the compound as a visitor car park. Now the holiday rush is over, business has dwindled next to nothing, so the gate, out of school terms, remains closed. Unfortunately the side gate wouldn't open, though the main gate did. Someone drove in hoping to park and had to be re-directed back on to the street by Suore Sylvana, who'd come out from the Convent to see why the side gate wasn't working properly. It was quite comic really, but it gave an opportunity to invite her to join us for tea tomorrow, duties permitting!

Relocation Day

Time this morning to get the chaplains' apartment cleaned up and re-organised ready to welcome my successor Canon Bruce Duncan. But first we had to go up to Porta Catania to get our new boarding passes printed off at Edicole, not to mention a new info sheet for the church notice board advetising the correct contact details for the British Consular Service in all Italy. Clare waited half an hour to be served in the Post Office, to obtain a top-up for the re-chargeable phone card, having waited even longer on New Year's Eve to be served and be told that the electronic system for effecting this had already closed down.

Then there was all the cleaning to do, three loads of washing to run, then hang out to dry, but today was not good drying weather with lines on a shady terrace, so some clean bed linen had to be left to finish off drying on an internal airing rack. When Kath Anto and Rhiannon came up for a last look around and farewells, we walked our packed luggage down to the Sisters' house of hospitality, on the bend in via Pirandello overlooking the Guardiola, and showed them where we'll be staying for the next three nights.

After we'd waved them off from the Convent, there was some food to transfer and our rucksacks to remove before handing over the key to a spic and span house to Salvatore, making our goodbyes at three thirty. He'd been a little exercised earlier, wanting us to leave at two thirty. He'd been told to send a taxi to meet the incoming flight at that hour, but the flight left Gatwick at two thirty and the error wasn't been picked up until after the taxi had gone. A little more concrete interest in Chaplain's travel plans wouldn't go amiss here, I think.

By four were were enjoying the afternoon sun and birdsong in the Convent garden with a cup of coffee in hand, putting for the moment all anxieties to one side and enjoying time to think and breathe. We then joined the Sisters for Adoration and Vespers and cooked rice pasta with chick peas and stewed veggies for supper. Two days ago Suore Sylvana the community Guardiana handed Clare the keys of the house and said with a warm smile: "Vous êtes libres!" What a great Gospel gift from people who really know what freedom means.

Welcome gift

Clare's EasyJet flight set off half an hour late and arrived only ten minutes late, although it took half an hour to get from plane to the arrival hall. It was an hours and a half until the next and last bus to Taormina, so we had a drink and a bite to eat in the arrival hall, next to the bus departure area just outside, while we waited.

We arrived at St George's at twenty past nine, had supper and then took an introductory passegaiatina the length of the Corso, almost deserted, before bed. We repeated the walk after breakfast to introduce Clare to the shops and show her Mount Etna from piazza St Agostino on one of the best days so far.

After lunch, we walked down the steps to the beach which contains Isola Bella. We walked as far as we could along the pebbles, and then went up and along the SS114 main road to check out the Hotel Isola Bella where Kath Anto and Rhiannon will stay when they arrive on Boxing Day. We noted a couple of bus stops outside, and it may be possible for them to catch the free shuttle bus up the hill from there, once they tire of the half hour walk up to St George's. At the moment they plan to make this part of their substitute for an hour at the gym. It's a challenging climb. This time my kneecaps weren't nearly as painfully distressed by the exercise as they were when I climbed a couple of weeks ago.

While we were out one of the sisters from the Convent called with a basket of the finest oranges and lemons from their wonderful garden as a welcome gift. There was also a Christmas present, a litrgical desk diary with comments on the daily Mass readings, prayer and inspirational quotes for each page per day. What alovely thought! I can work on improving my Italian all year round! We went to Vespers and adoration together at the Convent, so that I could introduce Clare and say thank you for their kindness.

Such lovely and inspiring friends and companions in prayer to have made!