What with Covid-19 raging away around the world I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to get away on holiday this year. Various different countries came and went off the safe quarantine list, so my options started to get quite limited. In the end after a couple of abortive holiday attempts, I decided to head to Sicily. Italy was on the safe list and I figured if the UK cancelled the air bridge while I was away hopefully it would only be for mainland Italy not the islands and Sicily was meant to have a particularly low R rate. A few years ago I’d spent a glorious month in Sardinia with an ex, so I’d always wanted to check out Sicily as well. I waited til the UK Government usually added countries to the no fly list on Thursday evening and then when Italy was still safe booked my flights for just a few days later to avoid any chance of then getting cancelled. Return flights came to a relatively bargain price of just over £100. Though it was was Ryanair and I elected to only take hand luggage. I always think this is enough, but it’s really not. I do really need more space for all my many grooming products!

I checked in and posted on Facebook that I was flying to Palermo and on landing I got a message from an old friend, Gabriel, telling me he was also in Palermo and that it was his birthday weekend, so before I knew it we were meeting for drinks and he was inviting me to his birthday party on the Saturday night. Suffice to say I spent the first few days in Palermo rather tipsy. We went to a lovely little bar/ restaurant called Al Chiosco where we had many Aperol Spritz and then dinner. Later on we ended up in Exit, Palermo’s only gay bar which was really buzzing. I met a lovely couple from Turin and even bumped into another London friend there. That went on til quite late and to be honest I don’t even remember getting back to my Airbnb I was so drunk. Saturday daytime was therefore a bit of a write off, then in the evening it was time for Gabriel’s birthday party. I met the boys at the bar from last night and we got a taxi to Villa Napoli, a stunning venue just a short car journey outside Palermo. The party was amazing and I got to try at lot of traditional Sicily food. We also had a full on dj and proper disco which was amazing after so long of being in lockdown and nightclubs closed in the UK.