Posts
If anyone's wondering where I've vanished off to, the answer is Greece. I'm currently to be found here http://runningawaywithpausanias.blogspot.gr/ and will be blogging there for the next month. Don't forget to come and check it out!
Showing posts with label Greece. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Greece. Show all posts
Saturday, 12 September 2015
Tuesday, 25 August 2015
Two weeks to go
In a fortnight's time I will be sitting on a plane, on my way to Athens.
I've planned my route and booked almost all my accommodation, and I've sorted out a lot of information on things like bus routes and ferry schedules. I've treated myself to a better camera than the toy one I've been using for the last couple of years, and a new sketchbook. I'm a bit nervous, now the time is getting close. I'm also very excited.
Since the Greek government has now quit and called elections for mid-September, I'm going to be travelling during the last stage of the election campaign, and into its aftermath. The BBC are suggesting that polling day will be the 20th, when I'm expecting to be staying on Poros, one of the islands of the Saronic Gulf. So that will be an interesting additional thing going on.
I've planned my route and booked almost all my accommodation, and I've sorted out a lot of information on things like bus routes and ferry schedules. I've treated myself to a better camera than the toy one I've been using for the last couple of years, and a new sketchbook. I'm a bit nervous, now the time is getting close. I'm also very excited.
I am at something of a crossroads in my life. I’ve
been made redundant, I’ve recently been diagnosed with a life-long and serious medical condition; things I'd been certain of have changed irrevocably. Suddenly my
life has been reshaped, and perforce also seems shorter and more prescribed (and indeed proscribed, too) than I ever imagined it would be. On top of that, in
December of this year I will turn fifty.
I may never have another opportunity as good
as this to set aside the demands of regular wage-earning, and the expected cautious behaviour of the middle-aged, and risk doing something that excites me and me alone. And with my age and my altered health in
mind, the idea of travelling alone, trying to fulfil a challenging project,
becomes a kind of mid-life rite-of-passage.
Can I
still do something like this at all?
Am I going to be okay, setting off on this daft month of travelling as if I were still 23?
And then that question prompts a deeper one in me, of whether I'll be able to face the next stage in my life with a spirit of
hope and adventure, or have to accept lowered hopes and narrowed
horizons from now on.
I want to find out again who I am and what makes my life feel worthwhile. I want to prove to myself that I can still meet a challenge, instead of running away from it and hiding.
I want to find out again who I am and what makes my life feel worthwhile. I want to prove to myself that I can still meet a challenge, instead of running away from it and hiding.
The chances are that I am now getting on for 2/3 of the way
through my time on this earth. I do not want my
remaining years to be lived with the shutters drawn.
Since the Greek government has now quit and called elections for mid-September, I'm going to be travelling during the last stage of the election campaign, and into its aftermath. The BBC are suggesting that polling day will be the 20th, when I'm expecting to be staying on Poros, one of the islands of the Saronic Gulf. So that will be an interesting additional thing going on.
So, I’m going on a pilgrimage, at a time of flux in my life,
to visit a country also in flux. I first
visited Greece 26 years ago, and so much has changed here in that time. The country had just joined the EU when I first went there, and has now
come close to leaving it again.
When I travelled across Greece in 1989, the drachma was still the
currency, and the years of dictatorship weren't much more than a decade in the
past. And it was quite an old-school place in someways. One could get on a local bus and
still find someone in the next seat carrying a pair of live chickens tied together at the feet.
It was still quite common to see elderly people wearing elements of traditional regional costume as
their daily wear. I remember it as an extraordinary shift in atmosphere and pace, after the very deliberate and self-conscious style of Italy.
A lot has changed since then. Now my beloved Hellas is again in a time of
transition, struggling with enormous problems, facing frustration and loss. It would be crass
for me to pretend that I, as an outsider, have any useful insight to offer on
the situation of a people struggling to survive and a country rendered desperately poor by a huge complex mess of problems.
All I can speak of is my own experience, as a philhellene, trying to
come to terms with my own personal problems and looking around me at larger
problems, and at lives affected more drastically, and with less hope of rescue
or safety. I hope so much for things to begin to straighten out for them.
Well, when I get there, I'll see what I find. For now, I have the remainder of my planning to do, and there are just two weeks left to do it in. Much of which is already committed to other things (seeing friends, visiting my Mum, doctor's appointments and so on). So I really do need to get on now.
Monday, 10 August 2015
...if not quite to square one...
I've been writing on and off about this plan to go travelling in Greece this coming September, taking my lead from Pausanias and visiting places he writes about to draw or paint them as they are today. I just made a list of the places I'd like to visit, that seem moderately reachable (& in some cases, that have been identified with reasonable certainty - not every ancient site is as confidently known as Mycenae, say).
That is to say, a list of sites in Athens, Attica, Boiotia, Phokis, and Corinth and the Argolid. I had already accepted I'd need to forget about the whole of Etolia-Akarnania and the whole of the rest of the Peloponnese - Achaia and Elis, Arkadia, Messinia and Lakonia - until another trip. But I'd an idea I could cover the rest in one month.
It came to 54 sites. Oh bugger.
Allowing one day per site, plus several travelling days to move between regions and between regional bases, that would mean around 60 days' worth of touring. And that's without allowing myself so much as a single day to forget being intelligent and cultured, and just go and lie on a beach or sit under a pine tree by the sea and enjoy the view.
I don't think I'm up for 60 days solid of history without a break. It could start to feel like a chore instead of an adventure. And on top of that, my travel insurance only covers me for a maximum of 31 days.
So I need to rethink my plans. It's back to square one; or at least, back several squares. This is why planning is so important! I need to book my plane tickets fairly soon, and at least some of my accommodation. So I need to have this planning stage sorted out. Which means I do need a clear itinerary.
So, I must narrow my focus. Do I start in Athens and then head for Corinth and the Argolid? Or do I start in Athens and then head west through Boiotia and into Phokis?
I would dearly love to see Delphi again. But the Argolid is so packed with things worth seeing; and I've only ever paid the most sketchy visit to Corinth, and I've never climbed the Acrocorinth, or been to Isthmia or Sikyon... Yes, on balance I'm starting to think the logical way to limit myself is to take just that little corner. A few days in Athens to start with, then cross the Isthmus and base myself in Argos or Nafplio for the remainder of the time. Then back to Athens in early October for a last day or two, and home.
I can have a city break in Athens in November, maybe. Or at my birthday.
I can do another region in the spring.
I don't want to skimp, that's the thing. When I went to Greece for the first time, I skimped. I knew there wasn't time to see everything, and I knew I'd never be happy just doing the main "circuit" and ticking those famous boxes; Mycenae, check, Epidaurus, check, Parthenon, check. I tried to fit in more, in the areas I'd picked out; and I still ended up skimping and leaving out places that sounded interesting.
The problem is, almost anywhere can be intersting, if you look at it the right way. The world is so full of fascination, the moment you start to go beyond the obvious. There's always so much more to see.
For example, I don't want to miss out Boiotia altogether this time. Twenty-six years ago, I went straight through the whole of Boiotia and eastern Phokis on a bus (in the pouring rain!) to Delphi, and ended up staying there for over a week because there was so much to do and see. I spent three days "doing" the site of Delphi itself, then I went to Amphissa, to Arahova, and to Itea twice (admittedly the second of those days was in order to spend a day at the beach) and I had an amazing day hiking up into the foothills of Mount Parnassos. And I wasn't stopping to draw, then; I was just seeing the sights and taking it all in.
I want to do things differently; properly. If a job's worth doing, it'sworth doing well,as my late father liked to say. If that means concentrating more carefully on a smaller area, well, okay, let's re-do the plan and do it that way.
Though maybe I'll tuck in a quick pilgrimage to Delphi, right at the end of the trip. It was a magical place.
That is to say, a list of sites in Athens, Attica, Boiotia, Phokis, and Corinth and the Argolid. I had already accepted I'd need to forget about the whole of Etolia-Akarnania and the whole of the rest of the Peloponnese - Achaia and Elis, Arkadia, Messinia and Lakonia - until another trip. But I'd an idea I could cover the rest in one month.
It came to 54 sites. Oh bugger.
Allowing one day per site, plus several travelling days to move between regions and between regional bases, that would mean around 60 days' worth of touring. And that's without allowing myself so much as a single day to forget being intelligent and cultured, and just go and lie on a beach or sit under a pine tree by the sea and enjoy the view.
I don't think I'm up for 60 days solid of history without a break. It could start to feel like a chore instead of an adventure. And on top of that, my travel insurance only covers me for a maximum of 31 days.
So I need to rethink my plans. It's back to square one; or at least, back several squares. This is why planning is so important! I need to book my plane tickets fairly soon, and at least some of my accommodation. So I need to have this planning stage sorted out. Which means I do need a clear itinerary.
So, I must narrow my focus. Do I start in Athens and then head for Corinth and the Argolid? Or do I start in Athens and then head west through Boiotia and into Phokis?
I would dearly love to see Delphi again. But the Argolid is so packed with things worth seeing; and I've only ever paid the most sketchy visit to Corinth, and I've never climbed the Acrocorinth, or been to Isthmia or Sikyon... Yes, on balance I'm starting to think the logical way to limit myself is to take just that little corner. A few days in Athens to start with, then cross the Isthmus and base myself in Argos or Nafplio for the remainder of the time. Then back to Athens in early October for a last day or two, and home.
I can have a city break in Athens in November, maybe. Or at my birthday.
I can do another region in the spring.
I don't want to skimp, that's the thing. When I went to Greece for the first time, I skimped. I knew there wasn't time to see everything, and I knew I'd never be happy just doing the main "circuit" and ticking those famous boxes; Mycenae, check, Epidaurus, check, Parthenon, check. I tried to fit in more, in the areas I'd picked out; and I still ended up skimping and leaving out places that sounded interesting.
The problem is, almost anywhere can be intersting, if you look at it the right way. The world is so full of fascination, the moment you start to go beyond the obvious. There's always so much more to see.
For example, I don't want to miss out Boiotia altogether this time. Twenty-six years ago, I went straight through the whole of Boiotia and eastern Phokis on a bus (in the pouring rain!) to Delphi, and ended up staying there for over a week because there was so much to do and see. I spent three days "doing" the site of Delphi itself, then I went to Amphissa, to Arahova, and to Itea twice (admittedly the second of those days was in order to spend a day at the beach) and I had an amazing day hiking up into the foothills of Mount Parnassos. And I wasn't stopping to draw, then; I was just seeing the sights and taking it all in.
I want to do things differently; properly. If a job's worth doing, it'sworth doing well,as my late father liked to say. If that means concentrating more carefully on a smaller area, well, okay, let's re-do the plan and do it that way.
Though maybe I'll tuck in a quick pilgrimage to Delphi, right at the end of the trip. It was a magical place.
Tuesday, 23 June 2015
Strange week
It's very odd to be, as I currently am, in my last week at Kew. For all its peculiarities, for all the stress and pressure it's put me (& many others) under over the years, I have loved working here and have been deeply committed to the place. Up until just a few months ago I honestly thought I'd be here till I retired. The evening of the day I accepted I would have to leave, I cried for hours (all over a very patient friend whose forebearance and loving-kindness I aspire to have one day). It seemed beyond belief; and in many ways it still does now. Yet at the same time, part of me just wants this to be over now.
This last week is so weird. Each day, when I go out at lunch for a stroll, I know I am saying goodbye. I am losing my connection to these places, these trees and flowers and historic buildings; when next I see them I will just be another visitor, no longer one of their people. I am saying goodbye to little hidden corners, to short-cuts behind the scenes, to all the secret places that have given me refuge and a moment of peace on hectic days.
And, of course, I am saying goodbye to people.
Many of my friends have left already (or been made redundant); many others are away on annual leave at the moment. Yet others do not work on Fridays; and still others for various reasons I don't see often to begin with. By now it's very likely I won't see them again before the end of the week. And I finish on Friday.
I'm trying hard not to get depressed. I'm also trying not to brood over-much about what will happen, going forward, to this venerable place as it struggles to modernise without killing itself. It's simply not my look-out anymore. I have to let go.
But I look at the big, bountiful shapes of trees, cushiony with foliage, delicate with their many-textures of leaves large and small and bark silken or rough; I smell the perfume drifting down from the lindens as they flower in the midsummer warmth; I see the Rose Garden at last really come into its own, six years after being completely replanted; I talk to people I'm fond of, people I've never told how much I like them; I listen to their sense of humour, I laugh and hear their laughter rolling along with mine. And I miss everything that has been good about Kew.
I won't miss the stress; I have to be honest about that. I won't miss some of the really arcane and circuitous decision-making practices, either, or the frankly lousy internal comms. I won't miss waiting in fear to see if the next difficult, business-essential round of cuts will hit me. But I will miss the place, I will miss knowing I'm contributing to something of real value in the world, and I will miss the people.
Well, very soon now my life is my own again, to do with as I will. And who knows what the future holds? Not me.
My week in Crete, last month, was so blissful and restful that I'm sorely tempted to do it again. There are (unsurprisingly) some very good special offers around at the moment for trips to Greece. I'm sure foreign tourism is too important to the Hellenic economy for them to risk anything impacting on visitors from overseas. I would take cash with me because I always do take cash anyway. And I could be sitting on a terrace somewhere with a good book, with a long swim in the sea already done and a good supper of fish and salad to come, putting all this behind me for a week. I know my few hundred quid of spending money is a microscopic drop in the ocean of the Hellene economic woes, but it would still make a tiny scrap of the difference to the individual restaurants and cafes and shops where I spent it. And I would have sun on my back and pine trees to walk under, the sea to swim in, and xiphias and sinagridha and horiatikisalata to eat and a glass of good wine or two.
On the which note, it's extremely silly of me, but I'm enormously encouraged to discover that the person in charge of the Greek Government's economic negotiations at the moment is Euclid Tsakalotos. I heard him mentioned on the radio a couple of mornings back and did a double take, and stood in the kitchen with a mouthful of cereal, and a silly grin spreading across my face as I listened.
A long time ago - a very long time! - I used to deal with him in my then job; he was an economics lecturer at UKC, and I was the economics buyer at the Uiversity bookshop. He was a nice man, always courteous and helpful, and friendly, even to a shopgirl like me (he was also terribly ornamental - I had a dreadful crush on him). I'm very happy he went into politics. The world needs politicians who have some empathy with people who work in dull jobs. I know it's completely idiotic of me, but I do feel reassured now I know that he's working on something so vitally important, for a place I love so much.
Go well and good luck, sir!
This last week is so weird. Each day, when I go out at lunch for a stroll, I know I am saying goodbye. I am losing my connection to these places, these trees and flowers and historic buildings; when next I see them I will just be another visitor, no longer one of their people. I am saying goodbye to little hidden corners, to short-cuts behind the scenes, to all the secret places that have given me refuge and a moment of peace on hectic days.
And, of course, I am saying goodbye to people.
Many of my friends have left already (or been made redundant); many others are away on annual leave at the moment. Yet others do not work on Fridays; and still others for various reasons I don't see often to begin with. By now it's very likely I won't see them again before the end of the week. And I finish on Friday.
I'm trying hard not to get depressed. I'm also trying not to brood over-much about what will happen, going forward, to this venerable place as it struggles to modernise without killing itself. It's simply not my look-out anymore. I have to let go.
But I look at the big, bountiful shapes of trees, cushiony with foliage, delicate with their many-textures of leaves large and small and bark silken or rough; I smell the perfume drifting down from the lindens as they flower in the midsummer warmth; I see the Rose Garden at last really come into its own, six years after being completely replanted; I talk to people I'm fond of, people I've never told how much I like them; I listen to their sense of humour, I laugh and hear their laughter rolling along with mine. And I miss everything that has been good about Kew.
I won't miss the stress; I have to be honest about that. I won't miss some of the really arcane and circuitous decision-making practices, either, or the frankly lousy internal comms. I won't miss waiting in fear to see if the next difficult, business-essential round of cuts will hit me. But I will miss the place, I will miss knowing I'm contributing to something of real value in the world, and I will miss the people.
Well, very soon now my life is my own again, to do with as I will. And who knows what the future holds? Not me.
My week in Crete, last month, was so blissful and restful that I'm sorely tempted to do it again. There are (unsurprisingly) some very good special offers around at the moment for trips to Greece. I'm sure foreign tourism is too important to the Hellenic economy for them to risk anything impacting on visitors from overseas. I would take cash with me because I always do take cash anyway. And I could be sitting on a terrace somewhere with a good book, with a long swim in the sea already done and a good supper of fish and salad to come, putting all this behind me for a week. I know my few hundred quid of spending money is a microscopic drop in the ocean of the Hellene economic woes, but it would still make a tiny scrap of the difference to the individual restaurants and cafes and shops where I spent it. And I would have sun on my back and pine trees to walk under, the sea to swim in, and xiphias and sinagridha and horiatikisalata to eat and a glass of good wine or two.
On the which note, it's extremely silly of me, but I'm enormously encouraged to discover that the person in charge of the Greek Government's economic negotiations at the moment is Euclid Tsakalotos. I heard him mentioned on the radio a couple of mornings back and did a double take, and stood in the kitchen with a mouthful of cereal, and a silly grin spreading across my face as I listened.
A long time ago - a very long time! - I used to deal with him in my then job; he was an economics lecturer at UKC, and I was the economics buyer at the Uiversity bookshop. He was a nice man, always courteous and helpful, and friendly, even to a shopgirl like me (he was also terribly ornamental - I had a dreadful crush on him). I'm very happy he went into politics. The world needs politicians who have some empathy with people who work in dull jobs. I know it's completely idiotic of me, but I do feel reassured now I know that he's working on something so vitally important, for a place I love so much.
Go well and good luck, sir!
Friday, 23 May 2014
Made it out...
...I made it out alive...
It's Friday and I made it to the end of this week, and now I have finished work for ten whole days - no, eleven, even. Yea! And at crack of dawn on Tuesday I go to Kefalonia for a week.
Before that I have three days to work my way through a stack of odd jobs. It looks like being a busy weekend. Tomorrow, hopefully I'm meeting up with some friends for tea, after one of those ridiculously cheering pre-holiday shopping expeditions for new walking sandals, sun lotion, insect repellant etc.
Sunday I want to have a proper, full-on Writing Day. I want to make some progress on "The Healers" and I also want to get the rest of my recent poems typed up. I probably won't post many more of those here for a while, though. The majority of them lately are about the odd feeling of falling for someone you thought was a friend, and realising the "It's just biology" trick isn't working anymore... But they're quite good in some cases, these poems, albeit lyrical and soppy; so I mean to keep them. Maybe publishable in twenty years or so; when I retire, yes, that sounds about right.
Monday I will be packing and stashing left-over food in the freezer, or taking it to the Dipgeek for her and the Lovely J to eat, and then I'll be getting two hours' sleep before catching a night bus to Victoria Station, and the train to Gatwick, and my flight...
It has been another hectic week at work; I wound up putting in almost 1 1/2 hours unpaid extra at the end of today sorting things out, in order to leave a reasonable state of affairs while I'm away. The constant barrage of irritating problems with the new system just slows everything down; and there are only the same number of hours in the day as there always have been. I am working flat-out, and I still can't keep up. I'm tired. But I have - I think I have - left a fairly clean desk.
On Wednesday we had a big meeting, all our section, to learn more about the staff restructure. In the event there still wasn't very much to learn about, as the details are yet to be hammered out. The overall new structure, which was presented on Wednesday, makes a lot of sense; but it isn't final and may change further. This is going to take a while, and the lack of certainty is pretty depressing. But then such things always are depressing. I now know that my role is affected, but not much more than that; it's all basically still speculation - "It's likely to be this or maybe more like that, but things may change".
So - well, okay. That's how it is. Nothing I can do but wait and see, give my input if/when asked for it, and do my best whatever happens. If what's been outlined to me as a possible scenario is what does finally happen, I'll be okay with that. But none of it is fixed, so I won't pin too many hopes on it just yet awhile.
Saw my crush on Thursday, and found to my relief that I could be around him, talk to him intelligently and reasonably sensibly, and enjoy his input and his company, without feeling heart-sore or making a fool of myself. And I don't think he has a clue what's going on in my head, which is also a relief (unless, of course, he's just a very good actor!). He's one of those people who restore your faith in human nature; so it would be a pretty rotten thing if I were to be a cause of embarrassment to him. I'm an old-fashioned enough Brit to think one should do right by those one respects; so not to cause a problem for this chap is important to me. Now I can let myself hope that in time we'll be able to be friends. Much the best outcome, if it can be so.
But anyway, now I am off work for a spell, and I can put everything behind me; walk away from the tiredness, from the wry sadness, from having had to crush feelings I had just begun to allow myself after seven years, and from the non-stop pace and general anxiety at work... And so I will go to Katelios, to swim, walk, read, do some writing, eat grilled fish and salad and drink good Greek wine, and have a rest.
I wish I could bestow a week in Greece on all my friends and everyone I work with. I see so many tired, stressed faces lately. It's a busy time of year at the best of times, and with the restructure and the uncertainty that brings, a lot of people at work are worried. Whilst among my non-work friends there are theses to be completed, weddings to be planned, houses to be sold, new jobs to be found, new digs to be settled into, bad break-ups to be got-over... Yes, stressful times for so many people at the moment.
I wish I could just pluck them all up and drop them down in my favourite places in Greece. Athens for the city-break buffs, Crete for the lovers of mountains and archeology, Thassos for the swimming nuts, the serious foodies and everyone who likes a bit of everything, Kefalonia for those who want a complete rest... I wish I could give Greece, the home of my heart, to everyone who would benefit from it.
If I am ever rich, maybe I will. Remind me, if I write a best-seller!
It's Friday and I made it to the end of this week, and now I have finished work for ten whole days - no, eleven, even. Yea! And at crack of dawn on Tuesday I go to Kefalonia for a week.
Before that I have three days to work my way through a stack of odd jobs. It looks like being a busy weekend. Tomorrow, hopefully I'm meeting up with some friends for tea, after one of those ridiculously cheering pre-holiday shopping expeditions for new walking sandals, sun lotion, insect repellant etc.
Sunday I want to have a proper, full-on Writing Day. I want to make some progress on "The Healers" and I also want to get the rest of my recent poems typed up. I probably won't post many more of those here for a while, though. The majority of them lately are about the odd feeling of falling for someone you thought was a friend, and realising the "It's just biology" trick isn't working anymore... But they're quite good in some cases, these poems, albeit lyrical and soppy; so I mean to keep them. Maybe publishable in twenty years or so; when I retire, yes, that sounds about right.
Monday I will be packing and stashing left-over food in the freezer, or taking it to the Dipgeek for her and the Lovely J to eat, and then I'll be getting two hours' sleep before catching a night bus to Victoria Station, and the train to Gatwick, and my flight...
It has been another hectic week at work; I wound up putting in almost 1 1/2 hours unpaid extra at the end of today sorting things out, in order to leave a reasonable state of affairs while I'm away. The constant barrage of irritating problems with the new system just slows everything down; and there are only the same number of hours in the day as there always have been. I am working flat-out, and I still can't keep up. I'm tired. But I have - I think I have - left a fairly clean desk.
On Wednesday we had a big meeting, all our section, to learn more about the staff restructure. In the event there still wasn't very much to learn about, as the details are yet to be hammered out. The overall new structure, which was presented on Wednesday, makes a lot of sense; but it isn't final and may change further. This is going to take a while, and the lack of certainty is pretty depressing. But then such things always are depressing. I now know that my role is affected, but not much more than that; it's all basically still speculation - "It's likely to be this or maybe more like that, but things may change".
So - well, okay. That's how it is. Nothing I can do but wait and see, give my input if/when asked for it, and do my best whatever happens. If what's been outlined to me as a possible scenario is what does finally happen, I'll be okay with that. But none of it is fixed, so I won't pin too many hopes on it just yet awhile.
Saw my crush on Thursday, and found to my relief that I could be around him, talk to him intelligently and reasonably sensibly, and enjoy his input and his company, without feeling heart-sore or making a fool of myself. And I don't think he has a clue what's going on in my head, which is also a relief (unless, of course, he's just a very good actor!). He's one of those people who restore your faith in human nature; so it would be a pretty rotten thing if I were to be a cause of embarrassment to him. I'm an old-fashioned enough Brit to think one should do right by those one respects; so not to cause a problem for this chap is important to me. Now I can let myself hope that in time we'll be able to be friends. Much the best outcome, if it can be so.
But anyway, now I am off work for a spell, and I can put everything behind me; walk away from the tiredness, from the wry sadness, from having had to crush feelings I had just begun to allow myself after seven years, and from the non-stop pace and general anxiety at work... And so I will go to Katelios, to swim, walk, read, do some writing, eat grilled fish and salad and drink good Greek wine, and have a rest.
I wish I could bestow a week in Greece on all my friends and everyone I work with. I see so many tired, stressed faces lately. It's a busy time of year at the best of times, and with the restructure and the uncertainty that brings, a lot of people at work are worried. Whilst among my non-work friends there are theses to be completed, weddings to be planned, houses to be sold, new jobs to be found, new digs to be settled into, bad break-ups to be got-over... Yes, stressful times for so many people at the moment.
I wish I could just pluck them all up and drop them down in my favourite places in Greece. Athens for the city-break buffs, Crete for the lovers of mountains and archeology, Thassos for the swimming nuts, the serious foodies and everyone who likes a bit of everything, Kefalonia for those who want a complete rest... I wish I could give Greece, the home of my heart, to everyone who would benefit from it.
If I am ever rich, maybe I will. Remind me, if I write a best-seller!
Thursday, 23 May 2013
A bit of a touch of the blues...
I thought I had posted a short "I'm going on holiday, yippee!" piece, but it seems to have vanished, along with several other recent posts. Perhaps it will reappear when I upload this? Who knows... The mysteries of blogger are past my fathoming.
I went to Kefalonia for a week; I relaxed and swam in the sea and read a great deal and did some writing and slept a lot. There were swallows nesting under the eaves of almost every house in the vllage and the air was full of their lyrical twittering, morning to night. The beach was scruffy and undeveloped, with clean sand and pebbles, pine trees and a few elderly benches along the track at the back. The sea was clear, and as warm as bathwater. The tavernas and the couple of local cafes were good, the local wine was excellent, and the nights were silent apart from the croaking of frogs and the calling of owls.
And now I'm back in London, which seems incredibly dark in comparison, and decidedly chilly. My whole being feels like one huge sigh of regret. It's just one of those blue returns, when I have more than a touch of dust and ashes, and less of a touch of the human spirit, in me. I wish I did not live in a country where the sky is so very often grey. There are places where the colour grey is hauntingly beautiful - in some people's eyes, for example - but in the sky it is just sad.
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Oh England, my England...
How grey and damp it feels here, how cold, how flat.
The temperature on Thassos was about 33 degrees C, almost fifteen degrees hotter than here, and the humidity was about half this. The sky was huge and blue and the sea like sapphire (albeit rather rough at first - I was semi-surfing rather than swimming for a couple of days). My studio had a view across olive groves to the sea, one way, and across olive groves to the mountains in the other direction. At night, the full moon shone on the mountainside like fairy dust, and fireflies hung in the trees. Swifts and swallows, which had left the UK a couple of weeks ago, swooped over the valley at morning and dusk, and the terracotta roof tiles housed a cheerful sparrow colony.
I ate too much, and probably had too many cold beers. I swam (or hurled myself about in the breakers) every day. I did some rather bad watercolours, and read a nice fat fantasy novel, and did a bit of walking and a lot of sitting looking at the view. I took a tour into the mountains by jeep, bouncing along unsurfaced tracks to a deserted village, a beautiful country church with a fifteenth century painted iconostasis, a hidden mountain lake, spectacular stands of old-growth forest full of birds and wildflowers and with resin-perfumed air, and finally right to the very top of the tallest mountain, Ipsario - which is slightly higher than Mt. Snowdon.
England feels so grey, so dark, so damp and cold in comparison. London seems all grey concrete and grey faces, yellow brick and yellowing leaves. Greece is blue and white and brilliant gold and clear green. Greece is light itself, and England is dimness and the approach of winter.
Last night I had booked a ticket for the first night of a new dance adaptation of Kafka's "The Metamorphosis". I had a feeling I might have post-holiday blues (and boy was I right!). It was good to remind myself, with supper at Patisserie Valerie and a trip to the theatre, that after all it is not the end of the world to have had to come home. I think there are probably very few minor blues that would not be eased at least a little by eggs benedict and buttered spinach, fresh-pressed orange juice, tarte aux framboises and a hot chocolate, followed by Edward Watson being a giant beetle. Edward Watson coated in treacle, what's more.
But oh, how dark and damp it is in my own country. A part of my heart belongs in Hellas, and cannot credit it has to live here...
The temperature on Thassos was about 33 degrees C, almost fifteen degrees hotter than here, and the humidity was about half this. The sky was huge and blue and the sea like sapphire (albeit rather rough at first - I was semi-surfing rather than swimming for a couple of days). My studio had a view across olive groves to the sea, one way, and across olive groves to the mountains in the other direction. At night, the full moon shone on the mountainside like fairy dust, and fireflies hung in the trees. Swifts and swallows, which had left the UK a couple of weeks ago, swooped over the valley at morning and dusk, and the terracotta roof tiles housed a cheerful sparrow colony.
I ate too much, and probably had too many cold beers. I swam (or hurled myself about in the breakers) every day. I did some rather bad watercolours, and read a nice fat fantasy novel, and did a bit of walking and a lot of sitting looking at the view. I took a tour into the mountains by jeep, bouncing along unsurfaced tracks to a deserted village, a beautiful country church with a fifteenth century painted iconostasis, a hidden mountain lake, spectacular stands of old-growth forest full of birds and wildflowers and with resin-perfumed air, and finally right to the very top of the tallest mountain, Ipsario - which is slightly higher than Mt. Snowdon.
England feels so grey, so dark, so damp and cold in comparison. London seems all grey concrete and grey faces, yellow brick and yellowing leaves. Greece is blue and white and brilliant gold and clear green. Greece is light itself, and England is dimness and the approach of winter.
Last night I had booked a ticket for the first night of a new dance adaptation of Kafka's "The Metamorphosis". I had a feeling I might have post-holiday blues (and boy was I right!). It was good to remind myself, with supper at Patisserie Valerie and a trip to the theatre, that after all it is not the end of the world to have had to come home. I think there are probably very few minor blues that would not be eased at least a little by eggs benedict and buttered spinach, fresh-pressed orange juice, tarte aux framboises and a hot chocolate, followed by Edward Watson being a giant beetle. Edward Watson coated in treacle, what's more.
But oh, how dark and damp it is in my own country. A part of my heart belongs in Hellas, and cannot credit it has to live here...
Friday, 9 September 2011
Holiday!
On Sunday morning I’m flying out to Greece for a week; after eight years, I’m finally going back to the lovely northern Aegean island of Thassos. I would have preferred, truth to tell, not to fly this Sunday, as I imagine that airport security will be even more hectic than usual on September the 11th. But as things worked out, that’s the day the holiday begins. Charter flights to Thassos are on Sundays; end of story.
To be precise, it’s a charter flight to Alexander the Great Airport, which is on the mainland at Kavala. From the airport there’s about a thirty minute journey to the small port of Keramotí. From Keramotí, opposite Thassos, another thirty minutes by ferry takes one to Limenas, the main town of the island. From there, about another thirty minutes takes one to where I am staying, the resort of Chrisi Amoudiá, aka Golden Beach. The name says it all, really; Chrisi Amoudiá has one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen. I tried to upload a picture, but blogger has come over all queer and won't let me. Never mind...
In forty-eight hours I’ll be there - what a blissful thought. I will have stood at the bow of the ferry, watching the silhouette of the island approaching; the little white and terracotta town, the green hills behind, the central mountains soaring above. I will have walked down onto the white marble quay, and been put in a coach and driven up across the nearest ridge of hills, and have been deposited at my studio. I will have discovered what the view from my window is like, the view I will live with for the next week. I will have sorted out how far it is to the nearest minimarket, to the nearest cafés and tavernas. And I will have walked down to the beach, and swum in the warm, blue Aegean Sea.
See you all when I get back!
Thursday, 1 September 2011
After the four days...
It’s hard sometimes coming back to work after a Bank Holiday weekend. I took an extra day off this time, which gave me four days to flop. The problem is that that’s enough time to begin to relax, but not really to recharge; one needs a few days to get right down the hill, as it were, before one can begin to come up again. So I came back to London yesterday thoroughly relaxed but not much recouped.
The gynae problems took advantage of my relaxing to come on again, and I ended up having to talk to my mother about them before I had planned to (I’ve learned over the years that presenting Mum with a problem without also having a solution in place is simply inviting her to worry, and then work herself into a state of misery trying to find a solution and force one to implement it). I think when my GP gets to the bottom of it (pun not intended, sorry!) the issue is probably going to come down to my age and my hormones; but as I’d feared, Mum is now convincing herself that it’s going to be cancer or coronary heart disease or some other horror. I’ve provided various samples to my doctor and have another appointment next week, at which I fully expect to be told that A) I have had a bacterial infection and B) my oestrogen levels are down. We’ll see, anyway.
It was still good to chill out at Mum’s and do very little.
My brother Steve collected me from work on Friday evening, in the middle of a dramatic thunderstorm. Strangely, despite the atrocious weather and the fact it was the eve of a bank holiday weekend, we had a very smooth easy drive down to Kent. This time last year, trying to do the same journey, the traffic heading south through Richmond and Kingston was barely crawling; after leaving Kew by 5.15 we found ourselves just outside Banstead at about 9.00pm, and parked up for a while in the large Asda supermarket there to get a sandwich and a drink, use the loo, and stretch our legs, before embarking on another two hours drive to Canterbury. Kew to Banstead, about fifteen miles, had taken us over 3 ½ hours - we could have walked it quicker. So this year we set off with a certain frisson of dread, and the speed and ease of the journey was all the more wonderful for it.
Saturday – what did we all do on Saturday? Lie in, lazy breakfast, bit of light gardening, lazy lunch, walk by the sea, tea and cake, large G&T, supper with a bottle of wine. Sunday? The same, with a giant crossword thrown in. Monday, which was Mum’s birthday, same again, only with Stephen and me doing all the cooking. And Tuesday?- still more laziness and another walk by the sea, and for me another G&T (Steve was driving). Then the drive back to London, which again went off smoothly and in excellent time.
Now I’m back at work, and the weather is okay, and I was able to spend my lunch break today sitting in the sun eating rice cakes and melitzanosalata among the magnificent semi-hardy tropical flowers of the Duke’s Garden. The taste of melitzanosalata takes me back with a lovely sensual swoop of memory to Greece, and reminds me that in ten days I’ll be flying out to Thassos for a week. The weather in Kavala (nearest weather station the BBC link up with) at the moment is hot and dry – averaging 28 degrees with about 30% humidity and clear skies. The place I’m staying is five minutes’ walk from the magnificent beach of Chrisi Amoudia. I will swim and read and paint watercolours, and sit at beachside cafés, and relax again… for a whole week… and I can hardly wait.
The gynae problems took advantage of my relaxing to come on again, and I ended up having to talk to my mother about them before I had planned to (I’ve learned over the years that presenting Mum with a problem without also having a solution in place is simply inviting her to worry, and then work herself into a state of misery trying to find a solution and force one to implement it). I think when my GP gets to the bottom of it (pun not intended, sorry!) the issue is probably going to come down to my age and my hormones; but as I’d feared, Mum is now convincing herself that it’s going to be cancer or coronary heart disease or some other horror. I’ve provided various samples to my doctor and have another appointment next week, at which I fully expect to be told that A) I have had a bacterial infection and B) my oestrogen levels are down. We’ll see, anyway.
It was still good to chill out at Mum’s and do very little.
My brother Steve collected me from work on Friday evening, in the middle of a dramatic thunderstorm. Strangely, despite the atrocious weather and the fact it was the eve of a bank holiday weekend, we had a very smooth easy drive down to Kent. This time last year, trying to do the same journey, the traffic heading south through Richmond and Kingston was barely crawling; after leaving Kew by 5.15 we found ourselves just outside Banstead at about 9.00pm, and parked up for a while in the large Asda supermarket there to get a sandwich and a drink, use the loo, and stretch our legs, before embarking on another two hours drive to Canterbury. Kew to Banstead, about fifteen miles, had taken us over 3 ½ hours - we could have walked it quicker. So this year we set off with a certain frisson of dread, and the speed and ease of the journey was all the more wonderful for it.
Saturday – what did we all do on Saturday? Lie in, lazy breakfast, bit of light gardening, lazy lunch, walk by the sea, tea and cake, large G&T, supper with a bottle of wine. Sunday? The same, with a giant crossword thrown in. Monday, which was Mum’s birthday, same again, only with Stephen and me doing all the cooking. And Tuesday?- still more laziness and another walk by the sea, and for me another G&T (Steve was driving). Then the drive back to London, which again went off smoothly and in excellent time.
Now I’m back at work, and the weather is okay, and I was able to spend my lunch break today sitting in the sun eating rice cakes and melitzanosalata among the magnificent semi-hardy tropical flowers of the Duke’s Garden. The taste of melitzanosalata takes me back with a lovely sensual swoop of memory to Greece, and reminds me that in ten days I’ll be flying out to Thassos for a week. The weather in Kavala (nearest weather station the BBC link up with) at the moment is hot and dry – averaging 28 degrees with about 30% humidity and clear skies. The place I’m staying is five minutes’ walk from the magnificent beach of Chrisi Amoudia. I will swim and read and paint watercolours, and sit at beachside cafés, and relax again… for a whole week… and I can hardly wait.
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