Market pressures

Clare arrives today, and I was awake at first light, thinking about getting everything in order to welcome her. I cooked a minestrone soup ready last night, as we'll be late in from the airport. Outside, it's another day of thunder, rain and wind. It's also market day, so I walked early to the other end of town, to see if could buy some more of the exquisite green olives I enjoyed last week. Due to the weather, many stall holders were ate setting up, but the veggie stall I visited last week was well up and running. 

I stopped by the tubs of olives set out on the ground, three kinds, plus a tub of pickled peppers, a plastic sack of hazel nuts in their shells, another of chick peas, and another sack probably walnuts, but so big they looked like new potatoes through the translucent material. The little old man with crooked teeth and an impenetrable accent who served me last week was serving an old lady, gallantly helping her to distinguish her centestimi. When he saw me, he looked down at the green olives. "Si - ancora. Ci senti buonissimo" I said, and he nodded agreement. I was touched he'd remembered me from all the people passing through last Wednesday morning. I bought 1,150 grammes of olives, half green, half black for ten euros.

He then started eulogising about the wine and olive oil in his rich Sicilian tones, urging me to take some of  the wine. I picked up the red. "Cinque euros" he said, then insisted the white was very good and must be tried. 'E basta' said I. But he ignored me and put a bottle of white in the bag. I guess what he said was: "Try this, and you'll want to pay me for it next week." In my protestant way, I paid another ten euros for 2 litre plastic bottles of red and white wine. 'Confezionato da Musumeci Salvatore, ACI S. Antonio Italia', it said on the label. I wonder if that's him or his family? I crossed my fingers it would be OK, and managed to be firm and say that I didn't need two litres of freshly pressed unfiltered olive oil as well before Christmas but possibly after. In retrospect, maybe I did really, and should have bought some. Oil straight from the farm. What if there's no market on Boxing Day?  Anyway, the wine is young, it tastes good for a vino di tavola and I have no regrets about the unforeseen outlay.

By the time I had lugged my purchases home, the heavens were delivering hail as well as rain and thunder. It's not really cold, and conditions change often. In fact, it's like early Spring weather - quite entertaining.   Starting early for the airport and stopping over en route in Catania, risking a soaking to look around town for a couple of hours doesn't seem worth it. Better to relax and leave tourism to another finer day? 

At last, the weekly market!

When I looked out at seven fifteen this morning, the hillside opposite was bathed in golden orange light from the rising sun. I ran on to the terrace in my pyjamas to take a photo. It was milder than expected so I didn't get chilled. The photo looks as if it's been artificially re-touched - one of nature's surprises. I made porridge for breakfast and added a persimmon/cechi for sweetness. It was a delightfully sensuous taste to start the day with.

After writing my meditation for the day and saying the Office, I headed across town for the open air market. The second phase of overhead Christmas decorative lights installation was well under way on the Corso. Piazza Sant Agostino was a hive of horticultural activity. A Christmas tree was erected, around its base, a bank of black volcanic earth, foundation for a fringe of potted poinsettias, holly bushes and topiary creatures, kept in place by grass turf. It'll look enchanting when finished. 

The car park above the old town with a view of Mount Etna was full of market stalls and farm trucks, around thirty. Clothes and shoes predominated. Four stalls sold electrical and household goods, half a dozen, fruit and veg. I bought a 1 litre pan with a handle for €10. That'll make cooking easier when there's two of us to cater for. Pistaccio, almond, chestnuts, hazelnuts and walnuts are all on sale,   brought straight from the farms, but I didn't buy any this week. I went for end of season purple plums and green olives, which are in season this month, along with oranges (memories for me of Palestine). I was offered one to taste. Its rich flavour stayed fresh on my palate most of the way home.

Product promotion here isn't necessary. Shoppers know what they're looking for in a market so ruled by the seasons. The only certain packaging with purchases in Italy is a plastic bag, hard to refuse except in supermarkets. They don't litter the landscape now like they did thirty five years ago when we first travelled south camping with the kids. Black bin bags are used in public trash cans but not that much elsewhere. Retail plastic bags get re-cycled for household waste and taken to communal bins emptied daily. Most streets have them. Bottle recycling stations are fewer and far between.

This afternoon I descended the steps to the SS114 main road, and went northwards along the coastal 'lido' strip through Spisone to Letojanni. Of hundreds of hotels and restaurants on this 5km stretch just one small bar was open for business. I walked on the beach for a while. The only sign of life was a few swifts hunting for insects in front of a white marble sea scoured limestone outcrop with a hotel perched precariously on top of it. It looked a bit abandoned and neglected. Few signs here of a tidy up in preparation for Christmas holidaymakers.

Letojanni is exclusively a holiday village, apart from a couple of dozen in-shore fishing boats parked on the beach, a hamlet transformed by a train station. The town, about 400 metres wide, is hemmed into the shore by the railway line and the via Nazionale. Behind them, the autostrada runs along the coast through tunnels over 50 metre high viaducts. 150 metres above the town, stands a huge holiday complex built into the mountainside. I can see its lights from where I'm sitting writing, but I doubt if it's open now. I wonder if its occupants go down and overwhelm the beach in summer months?

Returning to Mazzaro just as darkness fell, I rejected a quick ride home on the cable car in favour of the walk up the steps to Taormina . The ascent took me half an hour, an eleven kilometre walk had taken its toll, but I recovered sufficiently to join the nuns for Vespers and adoration, recharging spirit and body in one go.