PETRALIA PETRIFIED - ABANDONED DOGS.

To view ENLARGED click on IMAGE - please do NOT throw any old SHOES - thank YOU!
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A subject I will return to again in due course -namely ABANDONED DOGS. A dog like the above would thoroughly deserve to be abandoned. When you leg it around the SICILIAN MADONIE and NEBRODI you certainly come across abandoned dogs - at times in relatively remote countryside locations and at other times in townships. Responses from local folk vary from positive to negative - the latter, at times, almost verges on the superstitious "DON'T TOUCH THE DOG"! - hence this PETRALIA fantasy image which, in the case DUBYA BUSH extreme negativism would be very understandable. At other times it can be extremely demoralising.
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For a full indexed Madonie Region map click >here<.
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PETRALIA SOTTANA - BUSH, BLAIR AND BERLUSCONI ARRIVO!

ABOUT THREE YEARS AGO. EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION INDEED - BUSH BLAIR AND BERLUSCONI ARRIVE IN PIAZZA UMBERTO UNO, PETRALIA SOTTANA. TIME FOR A CELEBRATION.

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CHILLIN' OUT

--------------CLICK on IMAGES to ENLARGE and ENJOY!

These are two of my favourite foto's but like so very many others featuring animals in varieties of settings they're now tinged with sadness because for reasons there is no need to fully enter into here they do not enjoy the longevity that we humans generally do. The topmost foto was taken at Lago Biviere d' Cesaro (during my first ever visit 1989) - Parco d' Nebrodi.

For an indexed NEBRODI region locations map click >here<.

Lago Biviere is at map location 17.

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For Madonie Region map locations information click >here<

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CAPRI LEONE - ALCARA LI FUSI "FLY BY NIGHT" BUS SERVICE.

-----CLICK on IMAGE - to ENLARGE - this is a BUS WORLD EXCLUSIVE.

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On current trends this service will only operate about once in 30 years - the driver has to get permission and may not yet know the way. He's working on it. It is believed that a number of London "Bus Stops" have also made their FLY BY NIGHT journey to bella Sicilia. What a fate!

"LASCARI CHAMPAGNE"

LASCARI CHAMPAGNE

I lay in the sea at Lascari
the rushing tide foaming into
my cupped hands
bubbling like Champagne
my last evening here
so I’m saddened
never mind, next year
I will come back again!
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(Lascari. 21 July 2001).

For indexed and mapped Madonie locations including Lascari click >here<.

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GIOVANNI NAPOLI's SMALL WOOD.

Ah GIOVANNI NAPOLI's small wood (top photo) located along the GANGI > BIVIO COMUNELLO > MISTRETTA road (for an indexed locations map click >here<) lies at about 3 hours walk beyond Gangi - with a rest at BIVIO COMUNELLO (>here<).

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It is a very peaceful beautiful spot as the photographs attest to. In one foto 2 of Giovanni's dogs are shown taking their ease. One very strange doggy habit - they had the habit of hunting down and devouring human faecies and so desperate measures were resorted to to bury them securely.

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I spent a number of beautifully peaceful summer days and nights holed up here en route to further afield destinations. Future posts to this blog story will further spotlight this location. Giovanni Napoli had a home in GANGI and was reasonably at ease and hospitable about my stop-overs at this location.

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For indexed Madonie Region map locations information click >here<.

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For the FULL chronological list of all SICILY ABLAZE pages click >> here <<.

ALL DAY I'D BEEN WALKING - a poem.

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ALL DAY I’D BEEN WALKING

A busy city intersection.
It could have been
Hyde Park Corner,
Marble Arch,
Place De La Bastille,
or Piazza Barberini,
but wasn’t.

I was on foot
or at least
I think I was!
Suddenly there was this terrible screaming,
traffic came by
it passed before me
very close, from the left,
then just turned after slowing
just a little
the way traffic often does
as it converges en masse
into a bend.

The sceaming
was from a young woman
totally flung out
from an open backed lorry
flung out of the Driving Cab
from the nearside -
she was hanging on
her grey coat
trailing and flailing.
She was screaming.

Nobody was at the wheel!
Somehow the lorry jostled
and negociated the bend
of its own will –
or wheel – choose for yourself
how you’d like to express it.
And then the traffic, the lorry
with the woman,
gathered speed
and sped on very fast.

The screaming went on and on.
Shocked and exasperated
I said to someone:
“Why didn’t one of the
other cars or several
of them slow down
and stop, then the lorry
would have been boxed in,
and brought to a halt”.
A woman said: “Yes,
there would have been
a bump, but it could have worked”.
I could still hear the woman’s terrible screams
trailing on and on and on...

And then I woke up
in long luxurient grasses
under an Almond tree.
Dawn was breaking.
It was 5 a.m.
Through the leaves
there was just the rustle
of a gentle breeze,
no traffic, no woman screaming.
All day, a Sunday,

I’d been walking, marvelling
at the incredibly peaceful, traffic free
Sicilian country roads.
And now this!

(Towards Cerda. 7 July 1997. Notebook page 129).

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For Madonie Region map locations information click >here<.

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For the FULL chronological list of all SICILY ABLAZE pages click >> here <<.