In time for Easter

The ferry from Pireaus was simpler this time. In fact everything we do now is strangely predicated by this statement; ‘ last year’. Which hangs on every action like a shadow in the midday sun. I know I feel less fraught and nervous about it all now I am here. For months we have had the questions from well meaning loved ones and negotiations with work stuff to deal with. It has been worth it. Things will be different and change is inevitable. After last year’s inventive skateboard / suitcase transporter incident which involved a hill and a tantrum, our luggage a little more streamlined. No more wheelie massive body bag, which has been resigned to the end of its travelling life. Everything we need, nothing we don’t, well so far at least.

Even in this Easter week, we have had glorious days of sunshine that feel like summer but it’s cold at night. Duvets and extra blankets are needed – as are warm socks to keep out the chill. It won’t stay like this but Spring has a way of tricking you every time.

I do love the thrill of the ferry ride, its escalators upwards to the desk when you arrive. Not quite the grand treatment but I do appreciate the welcomes you receive from the staff with their Blue Star waistcoats. Makes the idea of ferry travel somehow like a cruise. Although I’ve never been on one – I’ve seen enough of  Jane MacDonald’s attempts at promoting them on that TV show to have a good idea 😉 We bustled through the port under darkness and onto the ramp, were the man pointed us to the Mykonos bag storage section. Of course he imagined that most tourists in March would be heading there. “Oxi, Syros parakelo” “ahhh, endaxi” he looked surprised. Loading our 4 neat bags on the shelf and headed upstarts to get coffee.

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Instead of a golden sunrise full of pinks and oranges, when we left the mainland there was a dull slump of dark grey into light grey. A nothing sunrise. I was okay with that. The Blue Star left the smokey harbour and crazy traffic behind, half empty or half full with passengers depending on how you see life. To me then, as the wind whipped round the deck and setting sail across the Aegean, it was half full.

There is a magic moment when the boat comes towards the port at Ermoupoli just a few minutes after the captain sounds the horn echoing across the island and the Church at Agios Dimitrios replies by chiming its bells. It then turns to let the two hills come into sight in all their pastel shades tumbling into the blue sea and stretching upwards to green hills in the distance. It gets me every time – even in the grey patched clouds this time it looked spectacular. 

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Arriving back in the village was a little like time travel – the same turns, twists and views from the taxi.  Finding warm welcome’s and hello’s, noticing new things as we stumbled blindly retracing our steps like survivors of a small but significant storm. The past week has been both strange and familiar at once. Getting into the swing of life again here, settling into familiarity and making a home.  Separating out the week for work, shopping tasks and buses into town. Enjoying time with friends and neighbours, sampling new places and old favourites.

We took time out for a walk to Aetos beach last Sunday under clear blue skies and a howling wind. It was funny as we both had completely forgotten how to find the right path, we remembered the jumper tied to the post and the gap in the wall. But then we went too far and walked through a threshing circle before looping back and starting over. 

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Eventually we found the right path, it looked like not many had walked it as the bushes were so overgrown. This meant we were rewarded with Aetos beach to ourselves and it was the best place for the first swim. Bracing and brave would be two good words to describe it! 

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Since then I have swum a few more times at Kini beach. As it is Easter week there are plenty of people here as the Island prepares for one of its busiest times. Last night we ate a feast of calamari and fava; as its traditional to eat seafood during lent (nothing with a backbone) and only eat meat after tonight’s church service – when the magritsa soup is cooked. Not quite sure if I’m up for making lambs entrails soup yet, maybe next year… As traditions go, Easter certainly goes with a bang here and there will be fireworks near midnight after the services to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. We have been given red dyed eggs – so can battle them in a cracking match tonight!

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At this time of year there are beautiful wild irises dotting the paths, bees buzzing in bountiful flowering sage and wild thyme, a wonderful reminder of nature’s hold on the seasons. In these weeks after the Spring equinox and the shift to summer time it feels right to celebrate change, growth and rebirth. 

Happy Easter – Kalo Pascha!

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A postcard from Nafplion

I have talked about my love of Greek public transport before. In a land of mopeds and car drivers, sometimes the pedestrian can get a little disenfranchised in Greece. But when you’re a tourist you can act like one with aplomb and zip around the country on a bus or train to see how things are. That’s what we have been doing for the past week. Although given that the Peloponnese train line hasn’t ran since 2011, I had to settle for the sturdy Ktel bus for a mode of transport to explore Naplion and the Argolis region.

Heading out of the city centre after storing most of our luggage in Athens, we embraced travelling light and on a budget by attempting to walk from Elaionas Metro station to Kifisou Bus station, where all the Ionian and Peloponnese busses go from. A walk that’s eminently doable on safe-ish roads on an industrial estate and across two motorways, but I wouldn’t recommend it with luggage! I started to get a bit huffy when it took longer than the google map ’20 minutes’, but a kindly man in a wheelchair who was begging at the intersection waved us in the right direction. I wouldn’t say it’s a tourist highlight walking through an industrial setting but could demonstrates the reality of a country still in financial crisis, despite what the sunshine PR says and Instagram perfection shows. Once you take a turn onto the pedestrian walkway (!) next to the National road there is a tiny 17th Century Byzantine chapel of Agia Nikolau sitting sunken just metres below two Mercedes garages and narrowly rescued when the road was built – I didn’t have chance to take a pic but you can see its magic here. That seems to sum up some things in this country, the old and new, not quite in harmony but jostling for space in the bustling chaos.

The journey out of the capital takes in some fine sights, like the boat yards and power stations as the coastal motorway goes by a number of toll-roads, towards Corinth and Isthmia (from Isthmus, which means neck in ancient Greek). The Corinth Canal is a wondrous engineering feat and one I had wanted to see for a while. It not only created a boom for Greek Shipping and export trade, but it also forever changed the fortune of the island of Syros. Once the canal was finished in 1893, after many attempts, cutting the journey time between Italy and Athens in half which meant that Pireaus grew to become more significant than Syros for shipbuilding and trade. This post Corinth period towards the late 19th Century changed Ermoupolis forever, until then the city had been the centre of Aegean trade with its unrivalled steamships and industry. Although the canal is a fine example of engineering endeavour, it really is incredibly narrow at 21 metres wide. When you see it from the bridge as you drive over that having it as a one way system for boats makes perfect sense. I didn’t even get chance to snap a photo as we trundled by!

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Once out into the hilly countryside of the Argolis region the fields are full to bursting with ripe orange trees and the straight lines of creeping vines. Oranges were on nearly every tree – some rotted and fallen to the ground. I’m not sure if this has something to do with farm subsidies that make it better for farmers to let them rot than sell at such a low price…either way quite a sad sight to behold.

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Nafplion was Greece’s first capital city, a significance not lost on the fact that we arrived just before the celebration of the Greek Independence Day on March 26. Nafplion has memorials to many of the fighters in the War of Greek Independence, as the city was held by the Ottomans for over a year before their defeat. The Church of Saint Spyridon is the site where the first Greek Head of State Ioannis Kapodistrias was assassinated in 1831. It’s a place of history, warfare and politics. Here we experienced Greek Independence Day in all its rousing enthusiasm, with the Sunday parade attracting a lot of people from all over the region to line the streets.

The first day was spent exploring the town, which is as majestic as it is soaked in history. It is famous with tourists and Athenian weekenders for its terracotta hued houses and pretty Venetian mansions that line the grid streets of the old town. The newer side is more run of the mill typical Greek urban sprawl, but that shouldn’t put visitors off. Its charm really does lie in its ability to be one of those places that feels calm and invites you to while away the hours just wandering around.

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We opted to stay in a little converted building that was like a little log-cabin and had its own friendly cat resident called Molly. Complete with minature kitchenette and a luxurious duvet for the chilly nights, it was a perfect hideaway for two.

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Throughout the days we were there the Saharan dust storms we just hitting Crete in the south, making the skies turn red there. But the weather in Napflion seem ominous and shifting under grey skies, with all the seasons in one day. I spotted an abandoned hotel when we walked through the old town – I am just a little more than intrigued with ruined buildings which you do see a lot of here. If you haven’t heard of Xenia Hotels before, they were hotels built across the whole of Greece as part of an ambitious infrastructure programme by the EOT to attract tourists. It started in the 1960s and went on up until the early 80s when most of the architecturally modernist (and some say ugly) hotels ended up sold off or sadly, abandoned. Some apparently still operate under the Xenia name. There is an Xenia Hotel in Andros Town which sits derelict we came across a few years ago. In Napflio, despite being open until just the early 2000’s this Xenia monument sits ghostly and graffitied. Despite its decay, it has the best views over the town beach, Arvanitia from its position at Acronauplia which is the oldest part of the fortified city. We explored the shingle beach here (and another abandoned bar/nightclub) and there was only one swimmer – and it wasn’t me as I decided the wind was too cold for my first dip of the year!

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One of the must-do’s is a walk up to Palmiadi Fortress. I must confess this was a scary experience for me – the vertigo held off on the way up, but reared its nagging head on the way down! There were no handrails and after 999 steps to the top, admiring the views and the medieval castle architecture…all of a sudden it kicked in and I found myself getting dizzy and sitting down for a rest, the taking it a step or two at a time, then is little but of bum shuffling. Luckily it didn’t last – G took one look at me and uttered ‘pull yourself together, it is fine!’ with that boost I seemed okay. After lunch we followed the coastal trail all the way to the next beach, 3km away at Karathona – which is a stunning walk next to the sea and along the pine-tree lined path, which has cliffs used by rock-climbers (nope never tried that either, thanks!). Later when we were enjoying a post walk beer G confessed that it was a big fear that he’d have to coax me all the way down from Palmiadi or call the fire brigade! Neither seemed the best option. I must work on the old vertigo…

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Although Nafplion has enough to keep most entertained with its museums, shops and picturesque cafés I’d totally recommend venturing out. Not only does the region have some of most visited archaeological sites, it also has pretty villages and vineyards in Nemea.

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On the Saturday we took the trusty Ktel to Argos. Legend has it that the bird flew over Argos with one wing over its face to shield its eyes from the ugliness of the town. The lady who we rented the place from said a similar thing when she asked what we planned to do for our 5 days; “why would you go to Argos, Napflio has all the beauty!” she laughed. It sounds like this rivalry persists even now. In Argos we wandering through the town, a little less grand and more real than its rival, and eventually found a path up the peak to Larissa Castle. It was a moment when I was reminded why I love this country, as we headed off the road and onto an unmarked trail that wound upwards through an olive grove. There were spring flowers bobbing their heads in the sunlight, poppies in their vibrant red and wild white daisies scattered on the path. This was truly a pastoral slice of rural Peloponnese life when we came across a shepherd herding his flock across the hills and exchanged pleasantries ‘Kalimera’.

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Apart from a family who were just leaving, we had the castle to ourselves with its layers of medieval walls, sunken churches and turrets to explore. I sat quietly and absorbed the solitude of the place in the sunlight. Not a sound of human life, just birds, sheep bleating and the buzz of bees collecting pollen for the honey the region is famous for.

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On our return through Argos we ventured to see the Ampitheatre, which was free to visit, impressive but overlooked by many tourists who prefer the bigger sites. We wandered through the town market with stalls laden with piles of colourful fresh vegetables, flowers and fruits in the central platia. We then found ourselves engaged in a protracted dialogue with an elderly Greek lady with a gold tooth and a big smile. G let her walk past in a gentlemanly manner as she was laden with shopping, but this led to an interaction of many words but little understanding! We are convinced she asked us where we were from, what we were visiting and we replied appropriately (we think)…but after that, our collective understanding of Greek was challenged beyond comprehension. She gesticulated wildly and we stood there smiling and nodding wondering when it would be appropriate to escape!

On the way back we took the bus to Tiryns (Tyryntha) half way between Argos and Nafplion. It is a significant example of a Mycenaean archaeological fortress site which was built with Cyclopodean walls and featured several dams for water collection. It was super quiet and ghostly nearing 2pm when we arrived (3E entrance and only open until 3pm in the winter). There are still ongoing excavations of the megaron of the palace of Tiryns and reconstruction work to the inner walls. This site was solitude compared to our visit to Mycenae (Mykines) a few days later, which was so crowded, full of busloads of tourists and much more expensive with its 6E entrance fee. But we found that teh Ktel bus took you directly to the site entrance, despite what the guides and websites advised – which saved us a long walk! Mycenae does have very specific treasures, like the Lions Gate and the Bee Hive Tombs…which were incidentally full of bees and wasps!

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The food in Nafplion was exceptionally good, although a little more expensive as it’s rather touristy. But away from the front there are lots of traditional places to eat. Aiolos was a highlight where we restored our energy with hearty beef stew and fresh boiled horta, followed by orange cake and local tsipouro.

Despite the mixed weather it’s been the perfect first part to a Greek adventure. But I still haven’t had an ice-cream and still haven’t had a swim yet. What kind of holiday can I even call this?

A postcard from Athens

Athens March 2018

It’s been less than 48 hours since we left the UK and already it feels like entering another world. That’s not just the weather. But walking off a plane to face wind that felt balmy instead of arctic certainly helped soothe the soul! Athens is always a city of contradictions and chaos, staying Koukaki is a bit of both. It means we can walk to the Plaka pretending to be tourists or wander this neighbourhood pretending to be locals. I guess right now we are a bit of both.

Waking up in a new place always holds a kind of magic. Yesterday was no exception. First peering our heads out to a balcony in the actual SUNSHINE, followed by figuring out how to use the fancy coffee machine and then wandering out onto unfamiliar streets. Squinting upwards and stumbling onwards was the order of the first new day in Greece.

Later, after lunch I decided it was time for our long overdue visit to the Benaki Museum. This place is quite possibly the best treasure trove of a collection I have seen in a long time – its magnificently crafted displays have an eclectic range of objects from Ancient Greece ceramics and jewellry, to Byzantine orthodox art, folk costumes, paintings and even the interiors of 18th century mansions, including full wood panelled ceilings and rugs. Its like a potted history of Greece over 4 floors with around 6000 items in the collection!

 

I especially enjoyed the special exhibition ‘Travels in Greece 16th-19th Century’ which displays the collection of rare maps and travel material donated by Efstathios Finopoulos. Here is all the work of essentially the first tourists in narrated diaries and journals, promotional articles from the 18thC in English, German and French; rare posters detailing beautiful peasants and wide green horizons to promote the world to Greece for the ‘Grand Tour’. Books and notes by the most renowned Hellenophile Lord Byron are also on display.  It is well timed collection as Greece prepares to entice even more tourists this year. Although the methods may have changed a little these days.  Even the rare maps are wonderful with their inaccuracies and confusion between Delos and Delphi, mismatching the islands and mainland. Its at the Benaki Museum until 29 April 2018 (entrance to the museum is 9E, but free on Thursdays and the exhibition is an extra 5E)

Afterwards we climbed the steep slope to Mount Lycabuttus but clouds stood in the way of the sunset. Despite the warmer temperatures and the scent of orange blossom filling the air, it still has a chill in the air and eating indoors on an evening is still recommended. With this in mind we found hearty food and a warm welcome at To Kato Allo; a small place hidden behind the Acropolis. In a world of white tablecloths and hip food, it still offers wine from the barrel and homecooked specials on a chalkboard. We opted for moussakas and beef stew with horta. Perfect.

A few more days of feeling out of place and I’ll feel right at home.

 

10 meditations on 2017

Christmas is spent with ghosts.
Just like the three ghosts that visit Ebenezer Scrooge (or Frank Cross, played by Bill Murray in my favourite version, Scrooged), the phantoms of our past, present and future haunt us every year. I am not alone in thinking more about the big things in the days after the frivolity of Christmas while awaiting the shiny promise of a New Year.

If Christmas is for nostalgia, the Ghost of Christmas Past has been and gone by the 29th December, discarded like the turkey bones thrown into the food recycling bin. If you’re lucky to not be back in work this week it is like a no-man’s land, some call it ‘Twixt-mas’ or the in-between days before NYE’s fizz. We sit and watch repeats on the telly, internet shop and wonder what the future will hold. These days are prime hunting ground for the Ghost of Christmas Present, who asks questions about here and now, waiting the future to knock at the door as the clock strikes midnight onto 2018.

Every year I feel berated by the grace of John Lennon’s lyrics; “Its Christmas time and what have you done, another year older, a new one’s just begun”. I can’t help feeling he’s pointing accusations when I hear it. Yes, compared to a member of the Beatles, my life has been quiet from one year to the next. But I think it is fair to say 2017 has been a myriad of adventure between the UK and Greece – one which has given me a lot to be thankful for.

Here is my 10 tiny little meditations on 2017 from the Ghost of Christmas Present:

  1. Action: Things are learnt by action not by indecision. If I kept waiting for the right time – a momentary bliss when the earth aligned on its axis, the moon was cradled softly by a cloud in an open sky and there were no distractions, no moments in which my mind would wander and fill with the voices and dreams of other lifetimes. How long would I wait? Now is the time. Postponement is not a state to relish.
  2. Sunsets: by realising that sunsets are just an illusion of the end of the day as the world continues on round its path, I did not feel cheated. Instead I felt wonderfully relived, that these were not endings but merely intervals like curtains being drawn over one day to the next, they only had meaning when we see them collectively and gave power to them. 2017 was a year of many sunsets,  so many beautiful minutes of silence as the earth spun slowly round into the magic of the blue hour where the fading echo of the sun’s light turns the scene sepia gold  before turning away into darkness again. To witness this repetition is be sure of nature’s true hold of time.
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  3. Language: I am still a beginner at Greek and need way more practice with the language. If I believed in resolutions for 2018, this would be high on the list. Instead I just believe in giving it a go.
  4. Sunrises: also pretty special to witness. Nothing can beat that feeling of excitement holding cups of coffee to keep our hands warm on the deck of the Blue Star Ferry in early April, watching a dawn rising up from the horizon of port buildings in Piraeus with no idea what would happen when we arrived on Syros. Reflecting against the jumbled architecture of Athens port, orange and pink light reflecting off silvery towerscapes and crumbling warehouses, we looked outwards and held expectations against the unknown, fears and hope, not realising the possibilities those months ahead would reveal.
  5. Cats: when a little black and white long-haired furball with a mottle tail and one eye permanently dilated, turned up at the house in Greece, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It became obvious had moved into its territory and it eyed us up for a few days…slinking from one side of the terrace to the other, nose in the air and sniffing. Eventually she came closer, growing trustful when we responded with saucers of water at first, then later titbit snacks she would devour with her snaggled tooth grin. She sidled up to us and purred, played with string and sticks.  I think wherever she is now, she is still a little rebel-rebel like Bowie her namesake.
  6. Books: I have cherished the time alone this year with just a book. Some have moved me to tears, made me angry, hopeful and even disappointed – an act that felt voracious and needy, hungrily devouring their pages. It felt like a good year to a be a reader. I meandered through a range of fiction, biography, history, philosophy and poetry – losing count of numbers, but feel enriched and privileged by the worlds I have peeked into. I have already started hastily compiling a list for 2018. Please send me your recommendations!
  7. Writing: sometimes you come to the page with an intention, a fully-fledged idea and other times I come unstuck with just a few words, allow them to form and take you away. Anything can happen here. Practice, explore, mess around with structure – I am happiest doing this, easing off the pressure. Fight the will to compare or mediate or suffocate the process. Just let it flow. Anything creative with words will be a long battle.
  8. Noise: To take yourself away from the noise, not just the ever-present hum and whirr of traffic, over-crowded cities, distracted by the cacophony of digital attention and the rich/poor, left/right, good/evil, fake/true paradox that entrenches indifference. 2017 was filled with heartache, etched by news that broke at such speed and changed direction from despair to joy in seconds. Most of us prefer to keep up rather than check out – the competitiveness of being busy and misappropriation of information as wisdom. The only thing I needed in this year was to slow down and stop being afraid of what happens away from the noise. The internal noise of my own brain hasn’t yet shut up, chattering over long held beliefs and holding the stick of other people’s success up like a marker. But it is quietening down and allowing me to focus. I now like the sound of a ticking clock, the fierce meltemi wind, the sea waves crashing in a storm and the song of cicadas. This alone won’t solve much in the world but it allows me to think and process what I can do.
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  9. Fear: I held so much anxiety inside me in the UK I didn’t recognise another sensation when I wandered round grinning ear to ear, walking over hills scattered with spring flowers and being on the verge of tears of what felt like happiness. The weight of fear and worry is mostly based on imagined threats. By taking away those tiny small stresses that pile up to a mountains, I found myself standing differently, shoulders hang freely and hands that don’t fidget. I found it took me a while to ease into the blankness of living without them. I mean blankness as the only way to describe the feeling when the heaviness goes away and the catastrophe of worry subsides. I will save my worry for things I can change.
  10. Family (and friends): the time I have had with them this year has been up and down, but filled with stories and laughter. The annual Christmas journey from Kings Cross has been done countless times with my backpack, balancing presents and cake tins on my lap on an overcrowded train. The same ritual since I was 21 is still being recreated year after year, a return to a home-town that you no longer know but all is still familiar and steeped in memory. Family waiting by the door, food stock piled, the aging Advocaat bottle in the drinks cabinet, the sprout jokes and plastic After Eight chocolate (apart from that one year it went ‘missing’?). This time of fervent celebration is shaped by nostalgia, that busy time when you try to see everyone, give presents and have long talks over bottles of wine. Amidst the calm currents, loneliness and grief bubble up to surface of our lives. I am thankful for their health, happiness, support and most of all…jokes.

When the clock strikes midnight and we collectively look towards a New Year wrapped up in possibility with its promise of newness, reinvention and satisfaction. I for one will be looking outward thinking about how I can do more in 2018 and keep the Ghosts at bay.

Now in November

I have been doing many things over the past 6 weeks, but one of them hasn’t been writing this blog. I have been distracted, open mouthed and furiously plotting. I picked up my old copy of Now in November by Josephine Johnson on Saturday as I sat down to write. Having not read it since university, I was overwhelmed as these lines really centered my thinking.

Now in November I can see our years as a whole. The autumn is both like an end and a beginning to our lives, and those days which seemed confused with a blur of all things too near and too familiar are clear and strange now. It has been a long year, longer and more full of meaning than all those ten years that went before it.”

Johnson’s first person narrative tells the struggles of a poor white tenant farmer family battling with nature, religion and social class in the Great Depression. Although only 24 when it was written, she won the Pulitzer Prize in 1935 and fair to say coming 5 years before Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, Johnson was ahead of her time.  It is an emotionally raw and illuminating read, written from the daughter’s perspective in the landscape of the dust bowl. It felt like a good opener to remind me of the power words can have. 

The 11th month of the year marks my birth month, so it also calls for beginnings as well as endings. I always think of November as a reflective brooding time, the shorter days slowly folding itself into Christmas and then a new year. There has been a lot of catching up and family time in the past few weeks, and generally aligning ourselves back into a rhythm that we had lost. I have relished being back in a fully operational kitchen, I even baked a Greek honey and almond cake. As well as trying to replicate the souzoukakia recipe from Stou Zaloni’s. They weren’t bad!

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Now in this November I found myself walking along Regent’s Park with a dear friend in the biting cold on a Sunday afternoon. We walked and talked. Catching up conversations about work and ambition, life, love and all the stuff that chatters around our brains in-between. I hadn’t felt that absorbed for a long time, as we crunched golden leaves beneath our feet and squinted in the sunlight. It was nice to be out in the fresh air, breathing it all in and bathing in daylight. After our taxing walk we found a cosy pub and shared more long conversations over pints and stodgy food. Proving that this is a time for reflection, we managed to put the world to right over kind words and ideas.  This is autumn loveliness at its finest.

I am lucky to have been able to walk through St James Park on the way to meetings. Dawdling a while to stare at the ducks around the lake, admire the tourists posing and see how the fig trees are getting on. One of which is reported to be the biggest specimen of Ficus carica (brown turkey) in Britain. I always wonder if the figs are tasty from that big old tree. One day I’ll check them out in season. 

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I didn’t really appreciate how glorious fig trees are before with their deciduous vast flat leaves. I always thought of the fruit first rather than the tree. How the overripe figs would fall and collect in sad splatted piles, smelling sickly sweet while they rotted. Often they were pillaged by giant ants marching in a line of military precision. I ate dried figs at my parent’s house a few weeks ago when they opened the box of Kini figs from Theresa. They had been sun-dried in the traditional way with sesame seeds with a bay leaf on each layer and wrapped in tissue paper.  Their sweet taste made me feel sad and happy all at once thinking of summer.

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I do miss the fig trees that leaned over our garden in Syros. By now their leaves will have also turned into shades of golden rust. I keep seeing pictures on social media of northern Greece where the forest leaves are aflame in all the radiant hues of autumn. A November walk in the Greek hills sounds about perfect right now.  In Greece the olive harvest is always traditionally done after the first rainfall. Spreading out the nets and raking through the tree branches to make the ripe olives fall, it’s back breaking work. I might sit in an office all day but that’s no comparison to the hard labour of the olive farmers.

I had got used to having a lot of freedom over how I spent my time, which manifests itself in getting frustrated over the constrained time squeezed into work.  I relish snatches of time being alone on the train and staring up at the sky whenever the opportunity presents itself.

I miss the sky , the big ol’ blue Hellenic sky – the sheer expanse of the horizon. You don’t get big horizons like that in London… even from the top of the Sky Garden it looked pretty grey. 

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I think it is the light and colour I miss the most. I leave in the dark gloom of dawn, a train ride through terraced streets with hues of brown and mud coloured buildings flashing by. If it’s cloudy all day before getting dark at 4pm, a whole day can go by in this strange wishy washy landscape without seeing anything bright and inspiring.

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Compare that London grey smudge with the palette of Ermoupoli in its candy coloured houses and pale blue domes, bright skies and sea of turquoise, dotted with terracotta, bright pops of pink and  emerald green. I have been cheering up the dark nights by sorting some of my pictures from walks around the town. These are just a few of my favourites.

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The weather certainly won’t be as nice there now as I remember it, but everyone will be starting to hibernate for winter as  the grey skies and stormy weather sets in. But I can look over these pictures to remember the light and hope it keeps me going through the dark days of November.