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Published: August 20th 2017
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We sleep in and miss breakfast, which might be a good thing. At least now I don't need to worry about trying to sneak things out of the breakfast room for Issy. I'm hungry, and then I remember that I only had a packet of biscuits for lunch in Panarea yesterday because the queue for the sandwiches was too long. I then only ate two of the four energy bars that I bought to have for dinner on the rim of the crater at Stromboli, because I was too mesmerised looking at the view.
Issy says that because we didn't do anything yesterday, today we need to go for a long walk. I'm not entirely sure I agree that I didn't do anything yesterday, or that I need to do more walking, but I'm hungry so we set off. We head towards the neighbouring village of Canneto which looks to be about two kilometres away through a tunnel through the headland.
We stop at a cafe opposite the beach for lunch, and then stretch out on the "sand". The man who rents us the sunlounges tells us that now that we've paid for them, we can swim in the
roped off area in front of the beach for free. I wonder why this area's special; maybe there's a shark net hanging off the rope. The beach is black pebbles, but the water's nice and the ground slopes down quickly so that I'm in over my head only a few metres from the shore. I spot a jellyfish. I'm not sure whether it's a deadly marine stinger like we get back home, but I give it a wide berth just in case. I wonder if I should raise the alarm, but no one else seems too concerned. If there's a net hanging off the rope it doesn't seem to keep out jellyfish. I swim out to it. There is no net. Hmmmm. Perhaps someone could remind me again why this area's so special....
We head back to the hotel and go for a dip in the pool. We're running out of clothes to wear. There's no bath in the room, and the handbasin's tiny, so we decide to make us of the bidet. We haven't used it for anything else. We've got a bidet in our ensuite at home, which was put in by the Italian family who owned
our house before we did. We've never used that for anything either.
We head down into Lipari for dinner. There are lights up in the main street that weren't there last here, and it seems that there's a festival in progress. There's live music playing at some of the outdoor restaurants, and it's even busier than usual. We find a restaurant we like, but as we're about to sit down everyone suddenly starts screaming. We panic. We hope that someone hasn't just pulled a gun. But it seems not; there's soccer showing on the TV in the corner, and someone's just scored a goal. We decide to look for somewhere a bit more peaceful. We walk through to a restaurant in the smaller port where it looks like they're setting up for a big concert. Issy's whiskey comes out in a glass with a pointed base so that it never stands up straight. This might also apply to my beloved if she has too many more of these.
I've always admired Issy's ability to see positives in most situations. She asks me to describe the trek up Stromboli again in graphic detail. When I finish, she tells me
that it's a very good thing that she fell down on Vulcano and hurt her arm, because on the basis of the description I've just provided, she says that she would have divorced me if I'd tried to make her do the Stromboli climb. She says that falling down and nearly breaking her arm has saved our marriage.
We walk back down the main street, to look for a bar to get some limoncellos. I go inside to order, but in the meantime Issy's cornered a waiter. She seems to be struggling to get him to understand "limoncello", and I begin to wonder what sort of bar this might be. I think she might just have the accents wrong and not waving her arms quite enough. She tries again, and the limoncello magically appears.....
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Teresa Stevens
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Loving the blog - always good for a laugh!
Hi Issy and Dave I love the blog, it makes me laugh and Daves' writing reminds me of Danny Katz. I have to agree with Issy - it is amazing what can save your marriage. Dave sounds like Peter keen to experience everything. It's lovely you guys are having such a beautiful trip. x