Moving home

Dear very small readership

The long and short of this (well, the short of it) is that I'm going to move by blog away from Google's Blogger to WordPress in the near future. This will mean that:

• The URL will remain the same.
• EXCEPT...if you read a feed this will probably be at a new URL (probably http://blog.wintle.me.uk/feed/). As this is a new feed you may initially see posts that you've already seen.
  
• There will be a new look - which may change again in the near future. (I'm working on a Magic Roundabout, road-sign styled theme. But my graphic design skills aren't much good and I don't really have the time! We'll see).
• You may need a new login to submit comments. I'm reviewing how to play this one.
  

Apologies for the inconvenience. A detailed explanation (the long of it) is below.

I actually first started Blogging several years ago - I was an "early adopter" if you like. I made a few posts and then gave up - partly out of embarassment.

Last year my writing took off, partly as a form of therapy during a difficult time of life, partly as a way to track and report what was going on with me health wise, and it's just bumbled on since then. Regular readers will know that it's mostly notes to self that I hope will be informative/interesting to others, and I hope that my writing will continue in that form.

And alongside this I'm a big fan off Google's online services.  I know that some think they're evil, but things like GMail and Google Reader are so feature-rich and easy to use...and growing in features too...that I'm hooked.

The one service that, in my opinion, hasn't kept up and that suffers from being Google's, is Blogger - the software that publishes this blog.  Specific niggles would be:

• Pages are big and take long to download
• Templates are tricky to edit (even for a relative expert like me!)
• Photos from URLs are a nightmare to add and integration with Google's own Picasaweb and the competitor's Flickr is non-existent.

I've recently started hosting my own, private journal over at Wordpress.com and it's REALLY impressed me.  It's fast, it uses good, open standards, it's got a great dashboard (and an even better one with v2.7 which is awesome!) and it's being developed at quite a rate of knots.

So shifting "Magic Roundabouts..." is a no-brainer for me.  There's a little work to do, but Wordpress even imports from Blogger - comments, users and all.

There MAY in fact be two shifts.  I'm contemplating where to host but want to move quick.  In all cases, I'll keep you posted.

Thanks for reading and for bearing with us during non-essential maintenance.

Social Web - the good and the bad

Control Alt Delete

FIRST: A blatant plug for our favourite, not-very-well-known band (yes, we know someone in it) Iko. We don't like them because we know them - we like them because we think they do really good music!

They are on the verge of releasing their second album and have just released a freely downloadable EP. Take a look over at http://www.myspace.com/ikomusic. To get the EP you'll have to email ikoauto@ikomusic.com with your name in the subject line.

The Social Web

Web 2.0, the social web, networking, life streaming...whatever you choose to call it I'm quite interested in how people use web-based tools to interact, and I've occasionally posted about this in the past.

Lots of people remain skeptical. Facebook is popular but anything else seems to raise eyebrows and questions about what the point is and why it's so complicated. My wife is sometimes amongst these.

The Good - Ravelry

But for some there is this thing called the "Killer App". The one little website or program that gets you excited because it has a real use. And some of my female friends (including Sally) have been getting excited about Ravelry. Ravelry is online social-networking for knitters. You can:

• log what bits of wool you've got;
• log what projects you're working on and your progress with them - linking to the bits of wool you're using in that project;
• register who your contacts/friends are;
• see what your friends are making and what their progress is;
• view and download patterns.

And so on. There are lots of cool things you can do with the information on Ravelry too, such as, if you have some wool, you can look up what other people are making with that type/make/colour of wool and use it as inspiration.

I think it's brilliant site. A really good example of how the web can bring like-minded people together to share ideas and inspire and encourage one another. And the best thing is that it's NOT full of techie people and it's drawn in people who probably wouldn't normally use the web for this sort of interaction.

Well done Ravelry!

The Bad - Amazon.com

This is really an excuse for a website rant. I'm making a vague tie-in to the social-web theme by claiming that Amazon's expansion into social-networking-type activities is killing it.

Well, actually, maybe it was already dead.

Let's remind ourselves about Amazon. It was one of the first big online retailers, selling books, music, DVD's and so on to the masses across the world.

It has since expanded to sell all manner of things, not just from its own warehouses but from a large number of other "marketplace" retailers. It has a complex product reviewing system and, wish lists and customized recommendations.

It was brilliant, quick, easy to use, and sold lots of things that you just couldn't find elsewhere. And cheap too!

This is all well and good, but it's starting to go a little far and, as a result, Amazon's website is now complete information overload!!!

I'd love to paste screen shots but they're technically copyrighted to Amazon, so I won't. I will try to describe. There are some long lists here...for which I make no apology.

The homepage tells me about:

• delivery (and restrictions on delivery)
• VAT rates dropped
• link to personalised recommendations
• link to what to do if I'm a new customer
• "Your Amazon.co.uk"
• Deals of the Week
• Gift Certificates
• Gifts and Wish lists
• Search
• MP3 downloads
• Clearance shoes
• Gift certificates (Again)
• What other customers are looking at Right Now
• Festive streals
• New MP3 store
• Gift certificates (in case I didn't get it the first two times)
• Clothing
• Phillips Imageo candles (2 for £35)
• and all that before I scroll down at which point I get to see Amazon exclusives, email settings, selling and buying stuff on Amazon, more to explore (do I need any more?), web services for developers, perfect gifts for him, UnderArmour performance apparel, Acer notebooks, best sellers in knitwear, shop kickers shoes, powerballs, health and beauty deals of the week, what customers are wishing for in DVD, a Sky TV advert, find great gifts for all the family, featured stores, where's my stuff, delivery and returns, help pages, my recent history and a load of inter-site links.

Phew. Oh, and there's a list of different shop areas to browse, like Music, Books, Electronics, etc.

Most of this is not what I want to see at all. I just want to buy a book and then track the order.

First thing then. I want to buy a book I've seen called "Living Africa". A quick search for this is simple (hooray!) and results are shown in a nice clean search results page with little clutter. This is better. So I select the item I'm after.

One thing that bugs me about Amazon's marketplace is that it's not always clear if Amazon are going to ship you the item themselves or if it will come from a smaller retailer that hasn't yet gained my trust. A small note informs me that this will be dispatched by Amazon (and it's £15 than we saw it in the shops for...bargain!). While I'm hear, I think, I may as well check out the customer reviews, to see if it's any good.

And...AAARGRH! I then get information overload again! Customer reviews is now 4 pages down the screen. Here's what else I can see from the product page:

• Information about the Amazon Prime programme
• My shopping basket
• 2 lots of information on delivery
• Wish list, wedding list and tell a friend buttons
• More buying choices (new and used from other retailers)....twice!
• Details of other editions
• Details of which promotions this book is a part of
• Details of another book that is often bought together with this one
• List of other things that people who bought this book also bought
• Product details (a page and a half down) including more links to other editions and links to update product details and give feedback on images
• Sponsored links
• Product Description (now two and a half pages down)
• Other Africa-related products
• Tags (suggested by others and the ability to add tags)
  
• What customers buy after viewing this item
• Customer reviews (yay!)
• Customer discussions
• Listmania
• Look for similar items by category
• Look for similar items by subject
• Feedback on the details of this product
• Links to other Amazon "stores"
• Sky TV advert
• Where's my stuff, delivery and returns and help pages
• Your recent history

Flip! All I want to do is buy a book! Don't get me wrong. Some of this is really useful. But there's just too much on one page. I went back just now to look at the tags section and couldn't find it in the 8-screens full of information. What good is any nugget of information if it's drowned out by a forest of other text, links and graphics?

And why would I want to tag a product in a shop anyway? It's great that Amazon remember things that I've looked at recently so that I can find them again, but why would I want to assign keywords to something in a shop?

There's lots of duplicated information (mostly related products presented in a myriad of ways) and the basic information isn't prominent enough.

OK, so I placed an order (which I'm sure happened without a confirmation screen), and I later want to check the status of it. I've since logged out and navigated back to the front page.

Now, where's the login button. Go on - check my list of what's on the front page and see if you can see a log in link! There isn't one! I either have to scroll to the bottom of the page and click "where's my stuff" or, randomly, click on the text "personal recommendations". Admittedly, this text is part of the sentence "Sign in to get personal recommendations", but it's confused by the fact that the linked text is "personal recommendations", not "sign in". Where do I sign in if I don't want to see personal recommendations? It's like writing:

Sign in to get charged by an elephant.

Well, OK, it's only slightly like that. You get my point.

Having managed to log in, I find that Amazon have some old credit card details (for cards that have expired) and a load of old addresses that need cleaning out. Oh, and I can now add a user profile so that I can "Share information about myself" and "Connect with friends and other Amazon customers". Quite why I'd want to do this I don't know.

What I'm saying is that Amazon's site is now plagued by chaotic design, seemingly pointless features and information overload to the extent that I'm reluctant to use it.

Phew. That was a long rant. Sorry.

Christmas is coming. And for once I think I might be jumping in my car to head to the shops rather than doing everything online. Maybe a few hours browsing Borders would be nice. Grab a coffee and get lost in the aisles of books and CD's. Yes, that's a plan.

Now if Amazon could deliver me a mellow, fairly-traded milky coffee in the next ten minutes without me having to leave the comfort of my sofa. THAT would be good!

A Busy Time

It's been a busy time for the Wintles!

We've had numerous busy weekends, in Devon with my in-laws, on a Tour of the North (Leeds, Durham, and then back home via Cambridge and London), and we'll be in London this coming weekend too. So we've not been at home much. Weekday evenings have been busy as well.

Here's what's been going on:

Getting rid of the rats

We finally think we've tackled the rat problem. A while ago the man from the council came out again with his boss - the head of Pest Control - for a second opinion. He worked out that the rats were probably getting in from the old "Stink Pipe". The vent connected to the sewer. This isn't used as a vent any more, as a new pipe had been put on the side of the house, but the it hasn't been blocked up. This gives the rats a free run from the sewer up the wall cavity to our loft.

So, we hacked a hole in the side of the old back wall (which has been knocked through into the extension) and shoved a load of chicken wire into the cavity. I'm sure that we have heard the odd scratching since, but there's very little sign of rat activity anywhere and this has been the case for a while now.

Problem is that rats have now started to take refuge in our compost bin.

AARRGRGHHH!!!!

In the mean time the last one to die has stopped smelling and we now have a plague of flies again. Hopefully out last!

Ikea

We've also been having furniture fun. Try to follow this.

We're borrowing some furniture from my sister, who is waiting to sell a house so that she can buy a house. When she moves in to the new, bigger house we can give her "loaned" furniture back. At that point we'll need basically a whole bedroom suite, including a bed and wardrobes. We'd also promised a sofa to a friend of ours in Bristol. So whenever we were going to go to Ikea (in Bristol) to buy the bedroom furniture, we were going to hire a van and take the sofa on the same trip.

However, we found the ideal piece of furniture to replace the sofa in a sale. So we bought that and had to expedite the sofa-taking trip. As we had the van we figured we may as well pop to Ikea as well.

Now, our last experience of Ikea was not good. I mean NOT good. It was horrible and we got only about half of what we went for. So we were psyching ourselves up for this trip.

It turned out not so bad and we got about a 90% hit rate. Unfortunately this meant that the two main bits of furniture (bed and wardrobe) were incomplete. We had a head- and foot-board for the bed but no sides, and the wardrobe lacks some drawer fronts.

So on our trip round the country we stopped off at Ikea Leeds to pick up some bed sides (which were crammed into the car next to a gracious Sally for several hundred miles), but the drawer fronts aren't due in the country at all for about 6 weeks.

What we have learned along the way is that Ikea's phone service is pretty good. You can do automated stock checks and, if something's out of stock, you can get the store to text you when it comes back in stock! Rather clever really.

The Wii

I'm sure a million people have reviewed the Nintendo Wii, so my comments on the latest addition to our household will be late and fairly insignificant. Still, having had the Wii for a while, I want to note what I think.

Gaming History and Philosophy in the Wintle Household

Sally and I aren't big gamers. We have PCs and we play silly online games like Stick Cricket (a personal favourite) and The Helicopter Game but in terms of gaming devices, until early June, the most advanced thing we owned was a cheap, 2nd-hand, Nintendo 64, and three games (only two of which were worth playing (GoldenEye and MarioKart).

The reason we own the N64 is for Multiplayer games. We use video games as a fun way to spend time with others.

So when I'd heard much good stuff said about the Wii from my colleagues and had had a go on one round at a friend's house, I...well...I know I shouldn't covet, but, let's say, I put buying one of the consoles on my to do list.

All I had to do was convince Sally. Which is a long story of it's own.

So, shortly before our birthdays in June, we treated ourselves and, after some hunting, found a Wii to buy and bought it.

Initial Thoughts

First reaction? It's a heavy little thing. A small, elegant white box, but solid-feeling and with quite some weight to it! But it seems well built, well packaged and it was simple enough to set up.

The basic package included a single wireless remote, and the "Wii Sports" game. It doesn't have co-axial output so you need a telly with SCART or RGB inputs (we still have a big CRT TV rather than a modern LCD or Plasma screen, but we had enough SCART sockets for this not to be a problem). The only thing that felt a bit flimsy was the remote sensor bar, which you sit on top of or below your telly.

The remote seems pretty robust and after the initial throwing-across-the-room accidents now comes with both a handy wrist strap (that the Wii constantly tells you to use!) and a silicon "jacket" which gives fairly thick padding to further prevent danger.

In fact, the whole health-and-safety thing is a bit overdone with pages and pages of the manual given over to RSI, the dangers of waving remotes around, and how to use your Wii without damaging anyone or anything. All done, presumably, so that Nintendo can say "we told you so" when common-sense-less people try to sue them for damages. What a sad world we live in. Still, I appreciate the wrist strap, which is a highly sensible addition.

Channels

On startup the Wii does a few uninteresting things, like asking you to give it a name, and then presents you with a selection of "channels". These are the different things that the Wii can do, and all the channels are stored in the small amount of flash memory that the Wii has (I think this is 512MB).

Channels are like little applications, and include a photo viewer (the Wii has an SD memory card slot for your camera or phone's memory card to go in), settings pages, news, weather and "Mii" channel where you design your own little character with which to appear onscreen.

You can add channels from some games and they are also downloadable if you set up a wireless internet connection.

The only channel not stored in the Wii's memory is the disc channel, which is where you access the games that come on DVD-like discs.

The only fiddly thing is that the Wii needs to be left on standby to keep the weather and news up to date, which, of course, doesn't appeal to our green sensibilities - yet they are very useful channels.

Design

The Wii is pretty family-centric, and the look and feel could be said to be childish. Yet it manages to accomplish this with some element of style. Yes, the Mii's are little cartoon characters, and everything has round edges and things float and bounce around. But things are smooth and clean, things scroll and zoom nicely, and there are certain whizzy little things that probably shouldn't be there but are - clever touches that grown ups appreciate.

Your first Game: Wii Sports

Wii Sports comes with the Wii and is one of the big lures.  It's simple but makes astoundingly good use of the Wii's remote.  Tennis is a perennial favourite.  Easy to pick up, but as you learn that you can use the remote with twist and flick to achieve subtly different shots, the pace picks up.

Bowling is a great game if you've got people round but only have a limited number of remotes.  Golf is great, but tricky and could do with more depth (only 9 holes which quickly go from being simple to outrageous).  Baseball divides the Wintle household, I love it, but Sally's not a fan.  The little nuances like waggling the bat while you're waiting at the plate are great.  Shame you don't have control over the outfielders though - the game is probably too much left to chance.

And then there's boxing.  I put of doing boxing for as long as I could because I thought I'd look really stupid doing it, but it's hugely energetic, and highly addictive.  Definitely a good way to get rid of some stress at the end of a difficult day.

Summary

We love our Wii and it's a big part of entertainment in our home now.  We've added Lego Star Wars, Mario Kart and a Wii Fit (and the barely-worth-mentioning Wii Play) to the collection and, at the moment, that's all that we need.  The download of a web-browser channel has made it useful as well as playful.  I'll maybe write about some of these (especially Wii Fit) in the near future.

I love the way that video games have moved on to be more interactive, and especially they way Nintendo are playing with how we interact with the small-screen.

Overall a clever, simple, addicitve, and highly entertaining toy that hasn't failed to disappoint.

Campaigning Success!

There are a number of situations in the world that I take very much to heart and try to do something about. Changing the world isn't easy, but organisations like Tearfund, Christian Aid, and Oxfam provide plenty of good resources to help us badger big businesses, and make our views known to our MPs.

Sometimes this feels futile. If lucky you get a standard letter or email back to your campaigning message and, though we see some token gestures to some of the issues that we raise, it's rare that the things that we ask for are actually implemented in full.

There's been a lot of campaigning going on lately regarding a piece of legislation called the climate change bill. This is going to commit our country to major reductions in carbon emissions. I've written to several members of parliament and sent postcards and emails about this issue because I really believe that it's something we need to do - and sooner rather than later.

So I was heartened today to read this Guardian article about how, not only has the government included the full emissions reductions in the bill, but it's decided to incorporate shipping and aviation emissions as well. This is exactly what I and many other people have been campaigning for.

I particularly like Thom Yorke's encouragement that "it came about simply because hundreds of thousands of people on the ground hassled their MP, who in turn hassled the government. Amazing."

So, if you care about something, find an organisation that can help you campaign about it, and get writing. Sometimes it really does work!

Magic Roundabout!!!

Sorry. I can't help it. This is simply a gratuitous link to a piece of 1972 news footage that I've discovered about my beloved Magic Roundabout. Great stuff!

New Game....New Dangers

I need to write about this incredibly important subject to warn you of the dangers of a sport that I've recently taken up.

This sport requires:

• excellent balance;
• pin point precision;
• dedication and repeated practice of repetitive actions;
• a good head for numbers.

Yes, I'm not kidding. I've taken up darts!!!

We have a cultural change program going on at work and we have a glorified sports and social club in our office. One of the things this little committee (that I'm a part of) have done is install a darts board.

And I must confess, I've really rather taken to the game, but it's also caused me some problems. I should add the the squeamish can read on, there are no descriptions of gory holes in the head or feet coming up.

Darts Players and Culture

I'm slightly baffed by darts players and culture. Given the list of attributes above, you'd maybe expect the stereotypical darts player to be a geeky, thin, glasses-wearing mathematician type.

So it's slightly confusing that it's mostly played by hairy, overweight man who've spent too long in the pub.

And what's with all the women that are forced to follow it. IF you ever watch it on the telly there's always bikini-clad models walking around. At work, we ordered the board, surround, scoring machine and a few sets of darts from a company called Red Dragon Darts. When it arrived it came with a catalogue which was more soft-porn than precision sport. I don't link to their website for similar reasons - I almost couldn't condone them as supplier!

Bizarre.

The Game

The game is quite addictive you know. Having invested £12 (not much really) in my own darts (it's much better if you get used to a set that you always use) I not only play the odd game, but I'm practicing by playing solitaire "round-the-clock" - hit all the numbers from 1 to 20 in order.

You have to get worse before you get better too. When you start you could hit pretty much anything, but, aiming for twenty, as you do, you usually end up hitting anything from 12 through to 18. 12 and 18 give you pretty good scores. As you improve that range narrows, and you start hitting more 1's and 5's. These are NOT good scores. This is the stage I'm at.

As for hitting doubles...that's a different matter altogether.

Dangers!

I said it was dangerous. Shortly after I started playing my shoulder started to ache. I thought this was a general wearing-out type pain, but then Sally said "Maybe it's the darts?", and I think she's right. It puts a lot of tension on very specific parts of the arm, and the repetitive action can certainly take it's toll.

Also...you may remember my stomach pain from my long bike ride a couple of months back (see the bottom half of this post), well, I reckon this has actually turned out to be darts-related too. When I throw my arrows I tend to lean forward and put all my weight on my front (right) leg. I think my hip flexor was getting quite a lot of strain put on it by this with the result that cycling made it flare up and become painful.

Not kidding...you can really do yourself an injury playing darts. And not necessarily one that involves being hit with a pointy stick.

You have been warned!

Clapped Out

I'm a cyclist - you can probably tell that - and I love all sports of different kinds. But there's one that I've never got on with...running! It knackers my kness and every time I try to take it up I have to give up quite quickly because I'm in pain.

So instead, I tend to run by proxy. I know so many people who are really into running, and I engage with other runners by talking about...err...other runners. I'm a middle man in the running circles of Swindon.

So, with today being the Swindon Half Marathon, my duty was not as a runner, but as a supporter.

It was a beautiful day for it - if anything too hot - and Sally and I pedalled out on our bikes to a fine spot on the course where we would see people running out (at about 3 miles) and back in (at about 9 miles) from the same place.

But I'm not really sure what to do as a running-race supporter, or how to cheer people on. We clapped a lot. In fact, we clapped almost non-stop for about 3 hours! And we called people's names and shouted things like "Well done" and "Keep Going", but it all feels a bit lame.

The hard core runners seem to view this as a distraction, and they keep focussed on the road ahead, barely acknowledging your presence. The ones at the back seem to appreciate it more, and occasionally engage in some banter. When I told one friend "Keep going! You're doing well!" he shouted back "No I'm not!".

So, I hope we helped some people along.

It was quite inspiring too. This was a small race of only around 1500 people, but it seemed to be a LOT from where we were standing. My sister and her boyfriend are pretty quick but there were a surprisingly large number of people running at a similar pace. It all made me think that surely running 13 miles is something that I could do.

One friend of mine called back "Your turn next year Wintle!" as he ran past. Perhaps he's right. Perhaps I should try again, take it easy, build up slowly and have a go at running with the aim of running next year's Swindon Half.

Hmmm...

To finish, I pay my respect to those I know who ran. I'm hugley impressed by their commitment and effort. Sarah, Guy, Dave, Carol, James, Mike, Stevo, Ray...well done!

A week in Sicily - Pantalica and Home

Part...umm...well...the last part!

I'm probably on about part 74 of my holiday write up now.  You'll be glad to hear that it's (probably) the last one.

After climbing Etna on the Friday, Saturday was supposed to be a bit of a day off.  But the thought of just doing nothing somehow didn't appeal.  We had plenty of crosswords to try and get through, but we wanted to explire Sicily's interior a bit too.  Plus it was a little cool and cloudy and not necessarily day-by-the-pool weather.

Necropoli de Pantalica

So we embarked on a trip to Pantalica.

An hour or so's drive on some very steep and windy roads through the Sicilian countryside brought us to this beautiful place, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  A necropolis - a 'city of the dead'.  An unspoilt nature reserve full of cliff-side tombs dating back to around 1300BC.  A wild and eerie place.  All the tombs are empty now but you are left with a feeling of awe and reverence for the place, and the people that build it.  Who would be climbing sheer cliffs, risking life and limb cutting holes in the rock with primitive tools?  It leaves our puny burial ceremonies looking fairly shabby in comparison.

We spent a while exploring Pantalica.  There is a clear path marked all through the valley and "exploring" basically involves following the path in one direction, and then re-tracing your steps back to the car. We stopped off next to a shallow pool on the way, for some lunch.  This really could have been a film set or something, it was almost unreal in its purity and beauty.

On returning to the car we set out to find some other, less spectacular Necropoli nearby, which were also quite spectacular.  Tombs, dwellings and even churches carved out of the rock amongst breathtaking scenery.

This place is mentioned in the Rough Guide, and is even one of the listed top 30 things to see/do while there, but you could so easily pass it by.  "Who want's to go and see a load of tombs?", but this place is a true gem!

Palazzolo Acreide

Leaving the Pantalica area we checked the Rough Guide to see what else was nearby, and decided to call in at a place called Palazzolo Acreide.  This small town has a great Archaelogical park.  It's at the top of a fairly big hill, so we recommend taking the car up to the top if you can.

This place is mostly well-preserved Greek tombs, dwellings and temples.  But it brings things slightly more to life because it's all layed out as a small village.  You are almost transported back in time and you can imagine ancient people wandering around, meeting together and heading to worship.  It feels like a place with community, rather than just a random collection of ancient buildings and artifacts.

And the highlight of this place was the greek theatre.  Marvellously intact, with an entrace hallway, tunnels to walk through to your seats, and bits of the staging and set still on show.

Dinner back in Noto rounded off our day.  We found a reasonably good restaurant but the service was a bit brusque.  Never mind.

Sunday and Home

Sunday was a real day of rest as we packed and prepared to head home.  Mostly spent around the hotel it was a good chance to chill out.  We blew a load of money on a last meal in the hotel which was GREAT!  I mean, it was one of the best meals I've EVER had.  If you're in the area and not staying at the Masseria degli Ulivi, then at least go and eat there!

Monday was heading home day.  The SatNav took us on a VERY weird route to the airport and failed completely to find us a petrol station.  The small scratches to the car went unnoticed.  And we were amused by the presence of a large number of older English people on our plane, who'd obviously all booked with the same tour operator.  Hearing one of them ordering "Four cappucino americanos" made me feel that I'd done quite well with my Italian, and my order of "Due cappucini e una panina" felt quite authentic in comparison.

The English baggage collection was surprisingly swift and collecting the car from the car park was a doddle.  Re-learning driving on the left was interesting and my brain was well confused for a while, especially at junctions and when we hit the motorway.  But I quickly got back into it.

A great holiday, with a little stressful day surrounded by some amazing places and food.  Summing up the holiday was mostly done in my first post.  Check out the highlights there.

I leave you with one thing that confused and amused us.  Now, my Italian isn't great, by any means, but I can mostly get by with at least reading signs and notices.  This bottle baffled though, as the best translation I could do of "Con il suo gusto morbido e delicato..." was "With the delicate taste of death..."

Perhaps someone else knows better?

Note: Google claims that "morbido" means "delicate".  Hey - easy mistake to make!

A Week in Sicily: Mount Etna

We awoke on Friday feeling refreshed and healthy, had an big, early breakfast, and headed up the coast to Mt Etna.

Actually there was some packing in there too...we had lots of decisions to make about packing our day sacks and what to wear. In the end I think we both ended up with full-on walking gear, including hiking boots, several layers, hats, gloves and waterproofs. The Rough Guide said it could get pretty chilly up at 2500 metres, so we prepared for the worst.

The drive to Nicolosi, a large town in the southern foothills of the volcano, took about 2 hours. The Rough Guide had made this out to be a small town but it seemed pretty big. We'd punched the address of the Tourist Office into the SatNav but it lead us to a random back street with no shops or offices in sight.

Nicolosi is at 700m and already the temperature had dropped to about 14 degrees - but it was a fine day with great views up to the top of Etna.

Encouraged by the size of Nicolosi and the big road signs to "Etna Sud" we decided to skip the information office and head up the mountain.

The impression in my head, gleaded from both the Rough Guide and the Lonely Planet we'd borrowed, was of a narrow dirt track leading from Nicolosi to a tiny out post, "Refugia Sapienza". But the road, though steep and windy, was great and had fantastic views back over the Sicilian scenery. And Refugia Sapienza was a thriving toursit spot with lots of little gift shops, huge car parks, and several large hotels and restaurants. Oh, and quite importantly, a cable car station and lots of large 4x4 buses to take you higher up.

We parked up, and wrapped up. The temperature had dropped further to about 12 degrees and a chill wind was blowing. We were beginning to appreciate having brought fleeces with us.

We considered our options - a 4-hour-each-way hike, an "Excursion" with a load of old people on a bus, or the swift cable-car ascent. The cable car was expensive, but worth it. As the tracks and paths opened up beneath us we realised that it was actually a LONG way to the top, and not a hike that we had time for.

The whole place is set up for excursions and getting you to pay to have an easy ride. There are no maps, or directions or guides for walkers. The guide books are mostly photographic.

Having said that, we appreciated the facilites at the top of the cable car, with a good cafe and toilets.

We headed out into the now-very-cold air with the aim of following whoever else was walking. We got a little way and the wind picked up and blew some snow in! Yes, Sicily in September and it's snowing. Well, we were at quite an altitude at this point and very much in the clouds.

We retreat to the cafe to discuss our options over a cappucino. I was accosted at the bar by some hilarious Russian guys who'd obviously had a vodka too many and were buying more alcohol to warm them up. After escaping them, the weather had cleared slightly, so we decided to head back out and brave the elements with the aim of reaching a crater higher up.

We nervously started following the bus tracks. It would be easy to get lost in such a stark and barren landscape, but the bus tracks and the posts that marked their route up made it easy really.


It's a weird place. Quite lunar with just a vast expanse of black lava heading up into the distance for miles. It's bleak and barren. Disappointingly unspectacular and yet, intriguing and captivating.

The cold, mist and wind prevailed on our walk up. It occasionally cleared with views to the coast but not to the summit. We had no idea how far up we had to go and the scenery was, frankly, quite dull.

As the weather closed in again, we were getting cold and weary and decided to give up. It could have been several kilometres to the crater. It could have been 100yards, but we couldn't see, and we were cold and bored. Don't get me wrong - it was a great experience, but we were worn out and had a cable car to get back before closing time.

We headed back down and reached the cable-car station. It had turned from thriving to almost deserted in the couple of hours that we'd been gone so we chose not to hang around and went straight back down to the car.

It was an awesome place. I'd recommend going. I'd recommend starting earlier than we did and heading up the mountain in the morning to give you plenty of time. I'd recommend taking FAR MORE warm, outdoor clothes than you'd expect, and if you're up for a hike then go for it!


We fought our way past some CRAZY motorway driving and called in at Syracuse on the way back for an excellent pizza in an Ortigian restaurant, only ruined by the fact that we over-ordered and had to send half of it back because we were so full.

Anyone know how to say "The eyes are bigger than the stomach" in Italian?

A week in Sicily: Not a trip to Etna, no honking and definitely no Kangaroos!

[Note - a few photos have been added to other holiday entries, should anyone care]

After a my stressy day, and the lessons learned from it, and our prayers being answered, the Thursday was much easier.

The plan was to go to Etna, but this demanded all our energy for a long drive and some serious walking, so when we woke up feeling pretty exhausted and slightly unwell (nothing serious - just too much strong coffee we think!) we decided that we'd have a restful day, and head up Etna on the Friday.

So, with food and relaxation foremost in our mind we decided to go shopping and to the beach. We found a little grocers shop in Noto - amazingly OPEN - and bought sandwich-making stuff an a good old English newspaper.

With rations to hand we then made our way to the Vendicari Nature Reserve and the beach.

We made this journey via Eloro - an archaeological site. But this was sadly closed. In fact, it looked very closed, completely deserted and quite scruffy and litter-strewn. A shame really as their may otherwise have been some good history on show.

Vendicari was excellent. 3 Euros of parking got us a good quiet beach, and safe swimming.

Now, we sensed that Italians weren't very good with following rules, so the important rules for the nature reserve were made quite explicit on a number of large signs. One rule in particular caught our eye; we were warned that "E' vietato introdurre specie animali o vegetali estranee alla fauna e alla flora tipiche della zona." (Something along the lines of "It's forbidden to introduce foreign animal or plant species to the flora and fauna of the reserve")...complete with an amusing graphic showing us what might constitute breach of this rule:



We had a nice few hours on the beach, complete with home-made sandwiches. A bit of cloud and wind came and went and we left in the early afternoon. We headed to the nearby town of Lido di Noto (an uninteresting little place on the seafront) for a drink. We parked up, grabbed a couple of bottles of Coke (no cafe's sadly) and then...it absolutely chucked it down with rain.

Coke...in the car...on sea front. It could have been Bognor, or Scarborough, but it was Lido di Noto in Sicily. Just our luck! There was plenty more evidence of the previously-mentioned lack of road drainage, and we drove our poor little Micra through the floods back to the hotel.

Boy were we glad not to be up Etna!

We chilled at hotel a little before heading to a supermarket we'd spotted for a bit more shopping and then dinner in Noto.

A much better day!

More signs

As a slight side note on driving. We mostly understood the road signs but had a couple of favourites, for which I hope the following links still work.

First this one - or one very similar to it. Anyone have any idea what this means? If my car was on fire I'd probably get out, not carry on driving it.


We saw some of these too, which we came to refer to as "No Trumpets":



All seems to be explained at this site here - oh, and it's "No Honking" apparently!

Fortunately we weren't in China where you can get both of these at once?


Another blogger has some fun Sicilian road signs too.

A week in Sicily Part 5: Bored yet? I am.

Why am I even writing this? Ho hum.

Actually, that was pretty much what I thought of the Wednesday of the holiday..."why am I here?".

I'm not very good at holidays and day 2 or three is usually pretty stressful. This was no exception.

The day started well with sunshine, the usual fantastic breakfast, and chilling out by the pool. My crisis began when we headed to Avola (the lively town we passed through the day before) for lunch. Turns out that not only does everything in Sicily close from about 12 noon until about 4pm, but most of Avola is being rebuilt. We found somewhere to park, and had we wanted the usual combination of an espresso, cigarette, and some cake, we'd have been fine, but no sandwiches for sale in this thriving town at lunchtime!

We gave up and headed back to a signposted Trattoria near a beautiful gorge called Cava Grande. The gorge was closed due to bad weather making it unsafe, and we weren't sure if the trattoria was serving food and we didn't know how to ask.

So it was back to Noto where we picked up Pizza and ice cream and satisfied our appetites.

In the meantime we've scraped the hire car's hubcaps & scratched bumper.

Back at the hotel I'm fuming, angry and frustrated. All my reasons for not liking to holiday abroad have materialised.

Sally is hugely patient - bless her. It takes me a long time to chill out but after a light dinner at the hotel I'm mostly OK.

What did we learn? That Sicily shuts down between 12 and 4 and that Avola is a rubbish place for tourists.

We pray before we sleep that tomorrow - a planned trip up Mt Etna - will be easier.

A week in Sicily Part 4: Yummy, Historic, Crazy, Stressful, Amazing, Wet, Complicated and Incorrect

Tuesday - Historic Cities

We woke feeling great and well rested to some glorious Mediterranean sun.

Breakfast in the bright and welcoming breakfast room was a delight. A proper Italian cappuccino, pastries and cakes galore, fresh fruit and a selection of cereals. My perfect morning meal. Yummy!

After filling up we started exploring, starting with a drive to the nearby town of Noto. Again, the SatNav helped us out but didn't really get us to the centre of the city and we struggled to find somewhere to park. We eventually parked up in a place that turned out to be on the outskirts of the small city, and we walked down the hill towards the centre.

Part-way down the hill we came across a very provincial town square in front of a big church. This was a classic Italian sight: old Italian men gathering in the square in rough suits and flat caps, smoking their cigarettes in whatever shade they could find, whilst talking loudly and gesticulating wildly. Perfect!

Noto, despite being very small, has some fantastic buildings and there's plenty to see. The Baroque architecture is everywhere and captivates the imagination. Well worth a visit if you're in the area.

We spent some time wondering and taking photos before ambling back to the car and heading off to the bigger city of Syracuse (aka Siracusa).

Struggling with Sandwiches in Syracuse

The journey to Syracuse not only confused the Sat Nav (some bits of road were closed or being rebuilt), but gave us our first taste of proper Sicilian driving. Turns out they are a bit crazy after all. We saw some mad overtaking manoeuvres - even from big trucks! - and they drive right up close behind you. This all not helped by the fact that visibility in the Micra was awful.

After arriving at Syracuse and fighting our way through the equally-crazy city-centre mele of cars and scooters (are there any rules of the road?), we again had problems parking - not least because we didn't have any Euro coins to put in the parking ticket machines - we only had notes!

Eventually we found a free space in a fairly dodgy looking part of town, and walked back towards the historic centre of Ortigia.

By now it was definitely lunchtime, and we wanted to grab a sandwich. This was the start of several lunchtime stresses for us. It turns out that buying cakes, cigarettes and coffee is pretty easy at any time of day, but buying a sandwich is a bit hit and miss.

We eventually found a cafe selling the sort of thing we were after. It had seats outside for an al fresco dining experience. But what did we do? The food was on display in counters inside, so did we go in, see what we wanted, then sit outside and wait for someone to take an order? Or did we buy the food inside and then take it out to eat?

Most people sitting outside seemed quite happy that there were no menus, but we were a bit baffled.

We proceeded to the counter and asked for some panini (sandwiches), and as we were being served some other people came in and started paying. We decided that the system must be to pay first, then get the food. But we still weren't sure about sitting outside.

AAAARRRGGHH!!!! This is why I hate being abroad. Doing the simplest things becomes incredibly difficult when you don't know how things work and don't have a good enough grasp of the language to be able to ask.

Eventually, I think the cafe staff worked out what we were trying to do. Gave us our sandwiches, ushered us outside and took our money once we were finished.

Wandering the Back Streets of Ortigia

Full of good wholesome Italian lunch, we then picked up our Rough Guide and went for a walk around Ortigia. Wandering backstreets is something that Sally and I always seem to end up doing. We try to follow signs and directions but almost always end on off the beaten track in foreign cities. Why doesn't everyone else end up doing this? We always seem to be alone.

It's slightly fun, but becomes a drag after a while, especially when you're trying to see the sights and you can't find them.

The Cathedral - Reverence, but at what cost?

We eventually found the Duomo (Cathedral). An AMAZING building. It's a place that has been built and re-built over the centuries, but unlike most places, you can see how it's been built over. There columns of the old greek temple on which it was built are still there to see, and you can see how the new bits of building have been overlaid, and set within these. The fairly modern facade was added after an earthquake brought down an older entrance to the building. Inside, the building was dark and quiet, huge and expansive, allowing your mind to awe and wonder.

As a Christian I have conflicting views on the nature of big churches. A place like Ortigia's Duomo brings me to a place of great reverence. These places make God big. They cost lots and took lots of effort to build. These were probably the finest buildings of their times, and they were built for the purpose of worshipping God. I find it amazing, and it makes me wish that WE could do such amazing things for God.

But I also question what God would have us do? Giving our lives, out work, our money, as offerings to God is exactly what our faith requires. But is using that wealth and effort to build a place of worship, where Christians can lock themselves away and revere the Lord the right thing? The Bible makes it clear that our God would rather have us help the poor and needy, share all we have with those in need, and bring righteousness and justice to all, than hoard our wealth within the church.

I love the huge reverence that these people had for the LORD. But wouldn't their sacrifices have been better used for God's purposes?

Spooky Catacombs

A quick ice cream (I LOVE Italian ice cream!) and we headed back to the car and out of town. It had started raining again, and large puddles has started accumulating on the roads which, oddly, don't seem to have drains. This puzzled us because when it rains in Sicily, it really buckets down!

Our next destination was the catacombs. We found this easily using the Sat NAv, and we found some parking too. We even had Euro coins to put in the machine. But...where do we pay? There were no machines!

After some deliberation, we spotted a free space by the road and parked there.

Catacombs are fascinating places. When we went to Rome we made a long trip outside the city to visit some. They are underground networks of tunnels that form a burial site for Christians. Thousands of people were buried in tombs underground in these places and they are spooky, but intriguing places that again show the great lengths that people went to in reverence of God.

One thing tha I found in both Rome and Syracuse was that the guides that took you round the catacombs were incredibly knowledgable, multi-lingual, and very helpful. Catacombs are always well worth a visit if you're near them.

Dinner in Noto - Don't Trust your Rough Guide!

We headed back to Noto for dinner via the town of Avola, which looked like a cool and thriving place. Back in Noto we still couldn't find a place to park. We drove in circles for a bit with the SAt Nav bleating out "Recalculating....recalculating..." (seems they're not so good at finding parking) then eventually we found a free space.

Wondering round Noto earlier we'd seen plenty of places to eat, but on our return they all seemed to have disappeared. Where had all the restaurants gone?

The Rough Guide we had recommended a couple of places. The first was a restaurant just off the main square. It has a load of seats outside but no one was eating there, there were no menus on show and, frankly, the place smelled of wee. So we avoided that one. Next up was a restaurant described by the Rough Guide as "the best restaurant in Noto". This was not to be the case. They weren't serving Pizza, and the food we did get was cheap and pretty poor quality.

Perhaps Noto's not such a good place to eat after all? And we'd certainly recommend using your head rather then the guide to find a good place to eat. It's not hard to work out the good places, but it is made difficult when there's no menus or prices on display - which was often the case in Sicily.

Language Complications

Over dinner we were trying to learn a bit more Italian to get us through the week. We had some phrases in the Rough Guide and an Italian-English dictionary. I somehow got distracted looking at English pronunciation. How complicated is that? How is anyone supposed to learn a language where the following groups of letters sound the same:

• t, tt, ed and bt (tea, butter, walked, doubt)
• k, c, cc, ck, ch, que (key, cool, soccer, lock, school, cheque)
• ch, tch, tu, ti (cheer, match, nature, question)
• j, ge, dge, di, du (jump, age, edge, soldier, gradual)
• f, ff, gh, ph, lf (fat, coffee, cough, physics, half)
• s, c, ps, ss, sc, st (soon, city, psychology, mess, scene, listen)
• f, s, ti, si (fishing, sure, station, tension)
• m, mm, lm, mb (sum, hammer, calm, bomb)
• r, rr, wr, rh (red, marry, wriggle, rhubard)

And that's just the consonants! Note that some letter combinations have more than one sound (e.g. ti = question, station - subtly different!)

Vowels are even worse - check out these groups:

• augh, a, oa, aw, ou, oo (caught, ball, board, draw, four, floor)
• oo, o, oe, ou, ew, ue, u (boot, move, shoe, group, flew, blue, rude)
• i, ur, er, or, ear, our (bird, burn, fern, worm, earn, journal)
• oar, e, our, or, io, er (cupboard, the, colour, actor, nation, danger)

Even the letters y, i and u can all sound the same just on their own (yet, onion, use).

Our language is BONKERS, and I have a renewed respect for anyone that tries to learn it!

Less hungry, but not hugely satisfied, we headed back to hotel for some well earned rest. We certainly had a busy first day.

A Week in Sicily Part 3: Up, up and away!

Flying Out

Part 3 and we haven't even left yet. I do waffle!!!

An alarm at 5am, a quick rise and off to AirParks Gatwick (booked as part of the package with Expedia). I'm not a connoisseur of airport parking but this seemed fine, other than their new computer system not working at first. But we dropped the car off, checked in, and got the bus to the terminal. Easy peasey.

Having checked in online the day before, we did a quick and easy bag drop. We heard others checking in and not getting seats together so it seems lots of people check in online, and it's worth doing to get the good seats.

We headed through security with it's baffling no-liquids rules and dedicated shoe X-ray system (this always seems ridiculous but who are we to argue with the security experts). Breakfast was at "eat". A quick sausage sandwich...pittifully small, far too expensive, and lacking ketchup, but just what we needed...and then off to the gate.

A very British flight

The flight was quite entertaining. British Airways crew are typically British. With a vague aloofness, slight lack of dedication to the job, dry humour and no apparent foreign language capability. It was fine.

The pilot was the funniest. Before we took off he informed us that "The engineers have now fixed the intercom but, in the airline industry we have a saying that the flight can't take off until the weight of the paperwork matches the weight of the plane". And upon landing we were welcomed to Catania Airport and blessed with the catchphrase "If you're here on business, may it be a pleasure, and if you're here for pleasure, may it be the business".

The flight was good, and the little "Deli" snack pack that we got with a salmon roll and some other goodies, was surprisingly good quality.

We arrived at Catania in sunny and warmth and sat on the plane watching our baggage being grossly mishandled by Italian airport staff before heading to arrivals.

First Impressions

Don't you find that first impressions of a foreign country are always of the loos! After a two or three hour flight you kinda need to go, and it's the first thing that you notice is different. The brand names are different, the flushes work differently, the signs are in different languages. If I was designing an airport I'd make the toilets in arrivals the most amazing place, shiny, gleaming, spotless, automated. Just to make a good first impression. Catania's loos were reasonable, but it alerted me to the fact that I really was no longer in the UK and I'd have to get used to things being a bit different.

Baggage collection was a bit slow. The Italians might throw your luggage around but they take they don't do it because they're in a hurry.

We grabbed some pizza (cheap, yummy, and needs little Italian to order) and then headed to collect our car. And guess what? IT'S BLOODY RAINING!! We've travelled 2000 miles to escape the crappy English "summer" weather. We're about as far south as you can go without leaving Europe. And it's dull, cloudy, and wet. How depressing.

Driving....getting it right!

We picked up our hire car, a little Nissan Micra with aircon, central locking, radio and all the mod cons, without needing to speak much Italian...thankfully.

We reported some un-documented scratches to a very stern Italian lady who didn't seem to care all that much. And then the fun began.

I've never driven on the continent. I'd been told lots of things about it:

• it's fine
• you'll pick it up quickly
• just follow everyone else
• watch out for roundabouts
• the biggest problem is grabbing the door handle instead of the gear stick

And most of them proved true.

Driving on the right wasn't a problem at all. Judging the width of car was hard - I'm so used to having the middle and edge of the road being the other way around, and Sally let out a few muffled "eeeks" as I drifted too far right, but generally it was OK. My biggest problem was non-roundabout junctions; turning left off main roads (must remember to stay on the right) and working out which direction traffic was coming from.

So, psyched up and ready to get it right, we headed off. Now, I'm a pretty organised person. I had a little green plastic folder with our passports, all the printed-out doucumentation for the holiday, pre-paid vouchers, maps of the airport parking and hotel, and so on. So when Sally ask "Where's the directions to the hotel?" I naturally had the answer.

"Errr...I don't have them"

So - praise the LORD (literally!) for our borrowed SatNav. A few screen-touches and we had directions to Masseria degli Ulivi. Phew! What an idiot I am.

The drive was quick and easy. The Sicilian driving didn't seem as crazy as I expected (though this was to change later in the week), and we arrived safely at our hotel. To find....oh.

It looks like it's still being built.

Masseria Degli Ulivi

You hear all these nightmare stories about people turning up to their holiday destination to find that their hotel is still a pile of bricks and a bunch of uninterested builders. So when we turned through some blank, concrete pillars, into a gravel courtyard with several diggers and some big piles of aggregates, we had to do a quick double take. "It's fine...everything's fine" we said to ourselves.

The hotel turned out to be amazing and we think they were just building some new rooms.

Set about 15 km outside the town of Noto, Masseria degli Ulivi is a converted olive farm. Simple, but charming. Not grandiose, and fairly limited in facilities, but with only 18 rooms, an excellent (if a little expensive) restaurant on site, acres of land, a tennis court and swimming pool, and no one or nothing around for miles, it's a perfect place for a quiet retreat, and to use as a base for exploring the historic south-east of Sicily. If you want a 5-star luxury experience, look elsewhere, but if you want to get away from it all and chill out, we'd highly recommend it.

But it was still cloudy and cold. Boooo.

We ignored the dullness and the lack of sunshine and took a very British dip in the cold swimming pool before wandering around the hotel grounds. Foreign places often feel like they're not quite finished and this is no exception. Bits of path were missing, and it felt like they'd not quite completed some of the work they'd planned. But this is the mediterranean way and it in no way detracted from our enjoyment - I offer it as a simple observation.

We grabbed an amazing proper Italian Cappucino and set and planned our week- there's lots to do!

The hotel dog arrived to welcome us and took a liking to my clothing. He was VERY naughty and appeared to be pretty untrained and untrainable. But he was fun to have around. Perhaps Italian phrase books should have a "dog instructions" section. I sense he didn't understand "SIT!" and "DOWN!" but I didn't know the Italian equivalents and my attempts at Italian-style arm waving and gesturing seemed to go unnoticed too.

We ate in the hotel's excellent restaurant. It was expensive for a full meal with wine but really good food. Very earthy Sicilian dishes - I had Gnocci and rabbit - and truly heavenly, but strong, local wine. Worth the money, but we probably couldn't afford to eat here all week.

We enjoyed many hours deep sleep that night!

A Week in Sicily Part 2: Travel

Preparation and Leaving

I mentioned before about our booking problems and needing to go on holiday from Monday to Monday.  Well, I was busy leading the music at church until about 9pm on Sunday, and our flights were leaving Gatwick at 8am.  After some deliberation, we'd booked into the Europa Hotel near Gatwick (cheap, tacky, horrible beds, but only £54 for a night!).

Sunday, then, was a day of preparation and packing.  It was a bit frantic, but we were pretty organised and managed to check in online.  I was, initially, a bit sceptical about doing this, but it's dead easy.  You log on, choose your seats, and print your boarding passes.  Then when you get to the airport you just do a bag drop and go through security.  Easy!

Packing was confusing too.  What to take?  It was going to be averaging 25 degrees, but we were planning climbing Etna, which is 3000m and the Rough Guide recommended taking winter clothes.  Do we pack hiking boots?  Day sacks?  Gloves and hats?  Heck, yeah, we've got big suitcases so chuck it all in!  In the end we were glad we did and we used and greatly needed all the above!

So, after church (my third time leading the music...which went OK, but not brilliant), packing up the guitar and music and throwing everything in the car on Sunday night, we headed for Gatwick.  The holiday had begun!

Satellite Navigation

Some good friends of ours had loaned us their SatNav system (a Garmin nuvi 310 Deluxe).   This was to be a VERY useful bit of kit, depite occasionally having some very funny ideas about how to get places.

We'd taken this on a little test run on an errand in Swindon a few days before.  I'd struggled with having the extra information to hand - where to look?  Signs?  The road markings?  The Garmin?  Aarrgh!  And it didn't seem very good at preparing you for junctions.  Imagine approaching a roundabout with three exits and three lanes.  The Garmin would say "drive...0.2 miles...then...enter roundabout".  But which lane do I get in?  By the time it said "enter roundabout...then...take...third...exit", it's too late.  So I had to do a bit of learning about combining the SatNav's guidance with signs and cues from the road.

And the trip to Gatwick was another trial, including driving some places I didn't know (it took us M4 and A329 through Bracknell and then onto the M3 before hitting the M25).  More about the Garmin later.

This route to Gatwick was pretty quick - about 1 hour 40 minutes!  The Garmin delivering us to our destination perfectly, and the Europa hotel being as awful as we remembered.

5 hours sleep then, and it's off to the airport!

A Week in Sicily: Introduction

I know I only just wrote up our last holiday.  I probably did that just after we'd booked the one that we just got back from.  So I'm determined to write up this one before we book the next.

Booking Problems

I'm not good at booking holidays anyway, but we were, for various reasons, constrained to going Monday to Monday this time, which greatly reduced our options and added to my stress levels.

The search process in brief was:

1. The aim was to go somewhere both sunny and interesting.
2. We were reluctant to use agents, but Thompson were excellent and gave us some pointers.  Thomas Cook weren't so helpful, but tried hard.
3. We considered various places: Malta, Sicily, Bulgaria in particular.  But our date constraints made finding flights at decent times very hard.  Who are these people that check in at 4am for 6am flights?  And who's flying the planes at that time of morning?  Weird.
4. We did lots of looking online too, but trying hard to get an all-in-one package.

In the end we booked a Flight/Car/Hotel online with Expedia.  It was a bit above our budget but we really wanted to go to Sicily and had exhausted pretty much all other options.

The package would have been cheaper had we booked with Alitalia, but we found out about their looming bankruptcy and paid over-the-odds to fly British Airways.  This had other advantages, such as being a direct flight, and departing at the more sensible hour of 8am.  Thanks to my dad for pointing out Alitalia's troubles as we were about to head home and click the "Buy this holiday" button!!

What we got

A little more detail...

We flew BA direct to Catania/Fontarossa Airport on the East Coast of Sicily, then hired a small car, and headed south towards the ancient town of Syracuse.

Our hotel - the simple, charming, out-in-the-country retreat of Masseria Degli Ulivi - was located just outside the nearby town of Noto - itself a beautiful and historic place worth exploring (and one of the highlights of the holiday, if I might say so).

We were there for a week, driving round, exploring the Eastern side of the island, sampling the food and wine, and relaxing poolside and on the beach.

It was a great, relaxing break.

The Highlights

There will be more about the holiday posted later, but if you don't want the detail, here's the stuff that you really should know if you want to know what we got up to, or if you fancy a trip to Sicily yourself.

• The Hotel, mentioned above, is a great place to chill out and explore the island - just watch out for the naughty puppy on site!
• Sicily is a very rural and traditional place - at least, the Eastern Coast is.  This means that everything shuts from about noon until about 4pm.  So MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A LUNCH PLAN.  I had a very stressful day driving around trying to find lunch with only a minimal grasp of the language.  It was not fun.
• In fact, the hotel didn't offer lunch, so we were out and about most days.  The best way is to find a grocery or supermarket and get some supplies and make your own lunch.  Milano Salami is fantastic!  Don't go for the sliced bread...yuk!
• We borrowed a Sat Nav system with European mapping from a friend.  This was hugely helpful and saved us hours of time, lots of faff, and probably lots of arguments too.  But, as always, use wisely!  They do get funny ideas about where to go sometimes.  If you think you need to stick to the main road, then sitck to it!
• Sicilians are lunatic drivers with little regard for the road.  Pay attention, drive with confidence, and give them a wide berth and you'll a) be fine b) witness some crazy overtaking and turning first hand!
• Driving on the continent for the first time wasn't so hard, though turning at junctions was often confusing.  Having the car layout the other way around was probably more taxing for my head than the driving.
• Things that must be done:  1) Climb Mt Etna (more detail on this later) 2) Visit Pantalica 3) Explore Syracuse on foot
• Food is generally good to excellent and you get what you pay for.  Coffee is awesome!  Local wine is also pretty incredible, but watch out - it's strong too!
• Don't take any kangaroos with you.   You'll have to read on to find out why! ;-)

On the left...again!

Finally, I get to drive on the left again, where I belong.

We returned yesterday from a week's holiday in Sicily.  This has given me LOTS to write about, from a guide to the things we got up to in Sicily, some advice on using a Satellite Navigation system on the continent, some lessons in Sicilan culture and driving, and some thoughts on how incredibly difficult it must be to learn English.

Whether or not I find time to write all this up is another matter.

Oh, and we've had 2 more rats.  They won't go away, they won't stop coming in, and it's becoming quite a serious problem now.  I wonder how much house-diagnosis I can do before I have to rip up the kitchen floor.

Dancing

Earlier this year we took up Lating and Ballroom classes.  We've just started it again, so I thought I ought to write a bit about it.

Sally told a male colleague of hers at work today that we were going.  "He must be very tolerant", came the response.  It's funny the responses you get about dancing.  And I confess, I usually do go reluctantly because it's something that Sally loves doing.  I also, almost always come away from the class feeling great, happy, and like I've had some real fun.

The image of latin and ballroom has been greatly helped by the BBC's brilliant "Strictly Come Dancing", where celebrities partner up with professional dancers to learn, in a matter of weeks, what most dancers learn in years.  It's great entertainment, and has introduced many people, who would not have otherwise come across dancing as a social activity, to it - myself included.

Our classes are run by a bubbly, excitable, intelligent and patient teacher called Alison in a small village hall near Swindon.  When we started up earlier in the year we did a 10-week beginners course, and we learned the basics of the following dances:

• Waltz
• Social Foxtrot
• Cha Cha Cha
• Rhumba
• Rock and Roll
• Quickstep

It's quite amazing how much we cover in an hours lesson and we often leave with brains full of stuff that we're determined to remember for next week.

Practice at home is hard, and we rarely actually do any social dancing.  But it's great fun, and when we have been to disco's or weddings and we've had the chance to use our "moves", it's been good.  Though there is a bit of me that cringes slightly because, we're not REALLY good, and we probably look like we're mediocre and trying hard...which we are...but something about that feels more embarassing that not dancing at all.  Oh well.

So today we started up the "Improvers" class with mostly a refresher of what we learned earlier in the year.

My legs hurt, my shoulders hurt, and I'll probably be ridiculed by some (but not all) of my colleagues at work about it.  But you know what?  It was GREAT fun!

The Bright Light

The elders used to speak of it.  A strange bright light in the sky.  It brought warmth and joy to the people.  But the light has not been seen for so long now that it's existence has been relegated to myth and heresay.

It was said that the sky turned blue.  That people had to wear dark glass over their eyes to block out the light.  That it even caused people's skin to turn different colours, like they were allergic to it.

But for as long as we can remember the sky has been grey, and we need to turn on lights rather than block them out, and our skin remains ever pale.

Until today.

Today we saw the light!  It's real!  It exists!  It's not a myth.  It was almost blinding.  It almost hurt.

Yes.  Today, we saw this thing they call "sun".

And it brought warmth both to our skin and our hearts.

(For the record...we've had a pretty rubbish, overcast, wet summer.  So a bit of sun today was more than nice)

You alright?

Some will know of my occasional anti-Englishness.  Sometimes our over-politeness causes huge complications.

My classic example being the "Do you want the last ....?" question, which actually means "I want the last .... ?".  Why don't we just say what we mean?

This has been bugging me a bit lately with people who use phrases like "How ya doin'?" and "Alright" as a brief greeting.

Normally this happens in a situation where, by the time you've said "Fine thanks, how are you?", the person you've just passed in the corridor is too far away for a proper conversation to begin.  But if I just say "Fine thanks", I feel that I've not taken an interest in how the other person is doing.  They've asked me, it would be polite to ask them back?

Answering "Alright?" with "Alright?" doesn't seem to make much sense. But if we're treating the initial "Alright?" as a greeting then I guess that's...for want of a better word...alright?

I prefer to use peoples' names.  "Hello" by itself doesn't work for me.  But "Hi James" or "Morning Paul" has a higher value - it implies that you know something about them, even if it's just their name.  It shows that I know who they are!  And it encourages me to learn people's names.

OK, OK, maybe I just think too much.  But I think this is important.  We can take a little piece of communication and use it for something more useful.  What if I don't just know someone's name, but I know that they're little baby girl is in hospital.  Then my "Hi James" can become compassionate: "Hey James, how's your girl?".  Then suddenly we're having a real conversation.

That would be more than alright with me!