David M. Addison
Blundering about Sorrento and its environs in search of culture, the author unwittingly resists his wife’s never ending attempts to civilise him. From the heights of Vesuvius, to the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, along the beautiful Amalfi coast and, of course, not forgetting Sorrento itself, the author’s propensity to get himself into cringe-making embarrassing situations reaches new heights and plunges even deeper depths as he embarks on the second week of his holiday to Italy, and takes up from where the first book, An Italian Journey, stopped.
Ubiquitous Dutchmen, domineering drivers, pestilential teenage girls, a mafioso maitre d’, not to mention a glamorous older woman – these are just some of the colourful characters whom the gods send to cross the author’s path and severely try his patience, whilst his own bungling incompetencies result in an hilarious narrative as he attempts to extricate himself from yet another fine mess he has got himself into.
With a fine eye for detail and his penchant for the off-beat and the peculiar, the writer describes not only the people and events, but also the places he visits. You may have visited Sorrento before, but you’ve never seen it quite like this!
A native of Banff, David Addison now lives in Falkirk with his wife. He has one married daughter and a son. After spending a career in teaching, he retired early to spend his time travelling as far as funds would permit. When not at the computer writing up his latest adventures, he can usually be found hunting for bargains in the wine and spirits aisle of his local supermarkets or at the Jazz club in Linlithgow, where he is an enthusiastic, but non-playing member.
For further details on the author and his books visit his website: www.davidmaddison.org
The
author would be pleased to hear from readers and would be happy to
answer any queries you may have. Send an e-mail to:
davidaddison@talktalk.net
The bus draws away and turns off to the right. No one else alights. What the hell am I going to do now? My gaze alights upon a bus at the other side of the road in a small piazza. It has its engine running and is pointing down the hill, the way I want to go. Could this be my saviour? I scamper across the road before it disappears like a mirage.
The driver, like the last one, is young, dark haired, wearing a short-sleeved blue shirt which seems to be the badge of all his trade and wearing sun-glasses which give him a sinister sort of air. This one and the other could be clones. In that case, he won’t be able to speak English either. I wish I could say: Does this bus go to… but all I can say, like an idiot is: “Hotel Monte Somma?”
He shakes his head. “Nostra Verde,” he says and points to his right along the road.
“Nostra Verde?”
“Si. Si. Nostra Verde,” he nods and indicates the road again.
“Nostra Verde?” What the hell is Nostra Verde? I’ve heard of the Cosa Nostra and I know that verde is green. Perhaps it’s the youth movement of the Mafia though what he would imagine a wrinkly like me would want with that organisation, defeats me. Maybe the Hotel Monte Somma is the headquarters in this region, where they meet for a working dinner and complain about how Signore Corleone marshals them into seats they don’t want to sit in and demands they choose the wine before the meal.
“Si. Si. Nostra Verde.” We could keep this up all day. He is nodding at me as if I were a congenital idiot, each nod urging me to retreat down the steps of his bus. He thinks I’m probably harmless, but he’s smiling at me to keep on my good side, because, as it is written in page three of the bus driver’s handbook: In the event of an insane person trying to board your bus (he will probably be dressed in swimming trunks and a Panama hat) do nothing to antagonise him as he may turn violent.
“Nostra Verde. Grazie,” and I back off, literally and metaphorically, down the steps, nodding back to him as if we were Japanese, and indeed, we might just as well have been for all the sense it makes to me.
The doors of the bus shut with a pneumatic hiss and it disappears across the road and down the hill. Bloody hell! That’s the way I want to go! I check an impulse to run after it, knowing it’s hopeless. It is a forlorn sight seeing it disappear down the hill like that. Perhaps if I’d said “Sorrento
