You’re in Ireland stupid, not Italy.

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In my fancy I'm sitting at a table outside a cafe in the empty Piazza del Duomo in Siracusa at eight o'clock on a morning in May, and the painfully blue sky is raining down sunshine that bounces off the white marble of the street forcing me to put on shades. A priest comes out of the tiny side door in the white wall of the church on the other side of the wide piazza. He's all dressed in black. He coughs into the quiet, soft morning and a flock of pigeons takes flight, lifting off the pavement on dusty wings. I take the first sip of coffee and my mind clears and I start to remember that I'm sheltering in a café down by the harbour in Larne waiting for the boat to arrive from Scotland and outside it’s wet, cold and very windy. Oh bum.