Blogalalia, Babel, Linguaglossa and my Irish Granny ..........

Today as we walked into Town for our morning coffee we passed crowds of tourists heading towards the Greek Ampitheatre.

As we settled down to order our coffees we entered into conversation with a lady sitting next to us. It turns out that the tourists were on a World Cruise which lasts until April 19th.

The cruise ship was the Queen Mary II and after Taormina their next port of call was Haifa with trips to Jerusalem, Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee.

We couldn’t help reflecting how their four hours in Taormina compared with our four weeks?

It reminded me of the old gag, ‘If it’s Tuesday it must be Belgium.

I must say that I rather prefer walking through town each day and being recognised, occasionally greeted and welcomed to our coffee stop by a waiter who recites our order, as regulars, old friends even before we can offer our attempt at ordering in Italian.

Ordering coffee is one thing however but I would have some serious work to do before I could preach in Italian, although I must admit that, from the puzzled looks that I have seen on some congregation’s  faces over the years, I suspect that some people must think that all my sermons are in a foreign language.

Close by here is a village called Linguaglossa and certainly as you walk along Corso Umberto you can hear a wide spread of languages from Sicilian to Italian to many of the languages of Europe and inevitably American.

As a blogger and a poet of course I recognise the truth that there is sometimes much reflection and thought required after writing the first word before the second finally comes to mind ( often the spellcheck seeks to assist but the word it assumes comes next is almost never the right word ) this week of course the word is to be about the word as we move from the prologue in the Gospel of St John to St John the Baptist handing the baton to Jesus and Jesus accepting it and beginning to gather disciples around him.

I like to collect signs, I love the sign at the head of the escalator at stations on the Newcastle Metro, ‘Dogs must be carried’ or the sign for ‘Baby Change’.

What, I think do you do if you have no dog or want to keep the baby you’ve got?

So I was delighted to see that there is in Taormina a language school called Babel.

A confusion of voices, you arrive confused by language, speaking only your own and leave speaking more than one language however imperfectly.

Today I was asked if I spoke English, sometimes I admitted and usually imperfectly, ‘no problemo’, came the confident reply, ‘I will help’!

So we get by and occasionally it is not only the coffee that is corrected.

How sad it is that we have allowed ourselves to think that leaving the community of nations that is Europe is in some way progress for our small beleaguered Island.

How can that be?

Assuming that our flight leaves on time and flies on schedule the evening of the 28th January 2020 will be the last time that I depart from a European airport and arrive back at a UK airport as a European.

My sister recently undertook a DNA test which apparently is usually a shared DNA experience for siblings.

Her test revealed that amongst our shared ancestors there were traces of North and Eastern England, Continental Europe including Belgium and the Channel Islands, Norwegian and Icelandic and the biggest slice of the pizza that makes up our history and personality was Irish (39%).

Maybe I should apply for an Irish Passport?

My Irish Granny Cecilia might just be delighted?















































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