What didn’t fit in this month’s letter from Sicily

I sat down to write this month’s letter of everyday life in Sicily, as I always do. I was thinking I would tell my subscribers about a birthday lunch in the Sicilian hills near Corleone. I did tell them that story. But it led me back to a village we visited years ago in South Africa, which in turn reminded me of Borgo Parrini, not far from Palermo.

I told them how Parrini had come back to life after years of abandonment, and how we went into its bakery looking forward to buying bread but left empty-handed after spotting flies beneath the glass counter. I reported on the eleven new chicks in our chicken coop, too, and explained why we admired our cat Luna’s latest catch through a firmly closed window.

By then the letter was four pages long. There was no room for the fires.

We have fought eight fires on or near our property in eight weeks. During one, two helicopters flew to the sea about a kilometre away, scooped up water and returned to drop it on the flames.

The latest fire started last night, at about ten o’clock. We were still up when the intercom rang at the gate. My heart sank. At that hour, I had a feeling I knew why someone was there.

It was the manager of the hotel resort across the road. We had met him only the week before, during another fire that threatened the hotel grounds.

“Kate, Kate, there is a fire very close to your fence,” he said. “I am worrying about your tractor and the solar panels. I have phoned the fire brigade. They are on their way.”

We grabbed torches and hosepipes and hurried out into the dark to try to contain the fire until help arrived. Our tractor was close by, along with the 45 solar panels and four batteries we had installed to escape the enormous electricity bills we once paid here. Our 21 kW system was a considerable investment, and after weeks without rain, the grass around us was tinder dry. I don’t know what started the fire. At ten o’clock at night, the immediate concern was stopping it from spreading.

There are other things that didn’t fit into the letter. A burst agricultural water pipe turned my garden into a lake overnight. At Selinunte, the port remains clogged with seagrass, and the local fishermen have spent months dealing with the consequences. I’ve written about the flooded garden and Selinunte’s port separately here in the journal.

This is Sicily. Beautiful, generous, sometimes funny, and sometimes difficult to live in.

That is usually how my letters go. Life here doesn’t arrange itself into tidy travel articles, and I don’t try to make it. I write about what happened, what caught my eye and what I’m still thinking about when I sit down at my desk.

If you would like to see whether my letters are for you, read a complete letter sent to paid subscribers in August 2026. It is free, and you can decide after reading it whether you would like the next one to arrive in your postbox.