lindsayford

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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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!

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 17^th 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 19^th 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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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…

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.

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’.

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.

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!

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

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.

The value of reading

Yesterday was World Book Day in the UK. That’s quite a funny concept, rather isolationist as the rest of the world seems to celebrate this in April instead. I have no idea why. But it got me thinking, not about the awful outfits children wear to school, but about the power of words to inspire and shape our lives.

I am writing this praise of finding the story amidst the rubble of the everyday. The power of reading and having free access to libraries is central to keeping this opportunity for everyone.

I’ve worked in the arts, making sure Government listened about the value of public funding and understanding culture’s contribution to society. But libraries have long been a problem and sadly one that’s only getting worse. Cutting non-statutory services at a local council level mean that libraries are the first services to be changed and absorbed. If you have limited finances how can you value something that doesn’t produce revenue or save lives? This has long been the conundrum of local councillors and battle ground for library campaigners.

I can only start this as the person I am today. The person who walked through Westminster last week and gave a book to a guy who spends most of the days sat outside the Sainsbury’s reading. He likes Lee Child books that are in his words “pretty exciting, I’ve read them all”. He’s homeless. When he’s not in the shelter during the day, he sits and reads. I could describe this act of reading as his lifeline, an escape from an existence on the streets that to most of us would be unbearable. But those aren’t the words he said to me. He just said he liked reading when we had a little chat. I see him there on these blindingly cold days so I brought a couple of action thriller paperbacks we had on the staff room shelf. They were on the shelf which I assume acts as a bookswap, but doesn’t have a sign telling me what the deal is so I have assumed it is acting like a library of sorts. I leave books there every so often and take the odd one away.

But underneath all the actions of the everyday I am also the person that I started off as. I mean, in that, the child standing in front of the shelves of Crown Street Library in Darlington which is now being threatened not with closure, but something worse – a move into a Leisure Centre involving not just a reduction in stock and archive, but an act that will abandon (and sell) a beautiful building that was given in trust to the town to educate and inspire us all.

It’s a place stacked with books. Those books I gazed on were not mere papers and dusty smelling pages and words I couldn’t yet form in my mind. They were worlds breaking open, doors to push into, to peer into, explore and be part of. More importantly, books offer spaces you can claim as your own. Of course, parents play a huge role in literacy. A reading family is important for a child to appreciate the value of words, literacy and imagination. What do you think happens when a child learns that those shapes on a page formed words and a language that was new and fresh? To me, and to millions of others it was like standing in front of a million possibilities.

If you were a kid that grew up like me in an average school, in an average northern town, what was expected? I imagine not much. The lines between traditional occupations and class are more complex than ever – and I like many of my peers are the first generation to go to University from families that could describe themselves as solidly working class. Yet, I now sit in that muddled place of earnings, lifestyle and education that puts me firmly in the middle classes. Despite the fact that boards of FTSE 100 companies are now more diverse than ever, we are still are faced by huge barriers to social mobility. There is less diversity of educational and social backgrounds in more liberal fields like the leaders in publishing, the arts and media. 47% of all authors, writers and translators hail from professional, middle-class backgrounds, compared with just 10% of those with parents in routine or manual labour. But yet, we all read. It isn’t an act that marks out status, and crucially the UK book industry is thriving.

How this is reflected by published authors? Obviously diversity is still a major issue. If you listen to Kit de Waal’s exploration of this in a recent Radio 4 podcast it shows, Where are all the working class writers? Writers beyond the white middle-class are not reflected in bestsellers or awards. And yes, it is also important to talk about regional divides and class, as well as gender and race. Newsflash – they don’t need to be grunting stereotypical tales of northern grit and determination, or plotting angry voices of disillusionment. Read Kerry Hudson or Lisa McInerney to see that being a female working class writer is worth reading and celebrating.

But more needs to be done to allow new authors the time, money and space to write from a place that explores these margins. Possessing talent is not enough alone, having the social capital to network and get the attention of the agent gatekeepers is a challenge.The hallowed privilege of affording to write and earn money stops most talent dead in its tracks.

What would schools and colleges be without creativity and literacy? They become hollow halls of educational expectations. Kids now spend so much time with screens and games, swiping mindlessly in a fog of self-obsession. They are tested and told, and tested again. Streamed and taught, not to think and create, but to imitate. I have a distinct memory in junior school, on a summer’s day. The windows are open in Ms Blands classroom and there was an abandoned car in the playground that the police were due to remove. Joyriders had left it there during the night. We were told to stay away and play on the other side of the asphalt playground marked with neon painted lines. Perhaps I was 8 years old – like a sponge soaking it up. I couldn’t focus on the story Mrs Bland was reading us about Kings and Queens in the middle ages because the real story was unfolding outside that room. The music blaring (kingston town by the fine young cannibals),the battered car, what it meant to be there in that moment, with the wonderment of danger so close and not acknowledged. That’s what good literature and a creative education inspires: inquisitive questioning and imagination beyond the walls you live in.

When I was 15 I walked into a library ready to give up, I mean really give up. I really hated school. As a lost teenager, where do you turn? You discover something edgy like Jack Kerouac’s masculine beat-down adventures, Irvine Welsh’s monstrous drug taking anti-heroes and Anne Sexton’s raw poetry like a rare gem in the dust. Hide yourself in music and fanzines, and all the wild literary ideas your favourite bands quote – these weren’t in bookshops, they were in libraries. Here you find the words that make your life real and devour them. Like good friends you met and since marked the shape your life.

As I teenager I read Plath’s Bell Jar and Joan Didion’s essays – I fell in love with America, politics, cultural history and feminism. But I didn’t see my own experience reflected there. It wasn’t in English books like the Famous 5 or the Secret Seven either, or even in any of the Point Horror trash books me and my mates devoured and swapped as keen pre-teen readers. All written by and about people far removed from my own world.

I am sat in Bromley Library writing this – contrary to my belief, it is not the quiet place of reflection I was seeking. Every computer is taken and there is man talking loudly on his phone. A man three chairs down from me loudly opens a packet of crisps and starts munching handfuls of them between deep breaths as he studies his books. I wonder if I can say ‘SSSSHHH’? Is that even allowed? 10 minutes later 20 adults arrive with a variety of bundled babies and toddlers who start assembling in the children’s area for story-time. THEY HAVE INSTRUMENTS! IT GETS VERY LOUD! Although I came here to write – I am still writing yet surrounded by comforting sounds. People use and appreciate this Library. Its shelves are stacked and busy. They apply for jobs on the computer, tapping away on blank pages and writing emails. Retirees, students and writers avoiding the cold and enjoying the warmth here. I value this place for what it is and what it represents; opportunity.

Books are not always escapism, like all good art they helps us find meaning and answers in otherwise unreal times. And that is life-saving.

The trick is to keep swimming

Its not the kind of pool you can dive into, so I walked in to the water at the shallow end and started swimming when it reached my hips. Back when it was built in 1992 it was perhaps designed to emulate a beach with its vaguely nauseating tropical colours. It’s now fading a little and showing its age with tiles missing – still functional and happy to be open and being loved by the daily swimmers. Towards the back a wave machine hides behind dark vents in the deep end. Luckily in the 2 hour early morning session, the orange and blue fibreglass slides are switched off and silently snake their way round the high ceilings. I swim towards the floating lane markers and start charting the waters with slow strokes. Although miles away, this local swimming pool here in a corner of zone 5 is in many ways like the leisure pool I learned to swim in as a child. A little too warm and chlorinated, stubbing toes on tiles and showers that frustratingly switch off after 10 seconds, leaving you holding down the button to rinse away the bleachy smell.

I don’t think I come from a ‘swimmy’ family – ok let’s be realistic I don’t come from a sporty family. Although my mum swam for the county as a girl (can we verify this?) and my Dad in his retirement is now a fully-fledged-lycra-clad bike fanatic in a cycling club. My paternal grandma only learnt to swim when she was in her 70s so she could swim with me and my brother.

I think swimming played a big part in my childhood. Water-babies, 100 metre badges, diving classes, life-saving with junior school which seemed to only involve being made to swim a length in your pajamas and dive for a brick made of rubber. We spent a lot of time in that leisure centre as a family and it’s comforting that my nephew learned to swim there 30 years later. Then school swimming galas – breaststroke saw me getting placed last in the heat. Coming home afterwards I sat on the kitchen worktop eating the top half of a white bread bun spread with tomato paste and grilled with grated cheese. I remember feeling sad and sorry for myself for letting everyone down– but I also remember how nice the mini-pizza snack was. The snap of swimming cap, the smell of talc, the humiliation of being forced to the dreaded wear verruca sock and being treated like a leper. I swear everyone had a verruca and those kids that refused to wear the dammed sock were the cause of constant plagues circulating on those wet tiles.

Most people have a similar relationship with exercise. The new year is a time of battles with the body and mind, I have reset my intention and dabbled again with swimming. But its complicated. You love exercise as a kid, because its just activity, fun and freeing, it wears you out. But nothing prepares you when puberty hits like a sledge hammer and the thought of standing in front of your class mates in basically your pants is horrifying. You should have seen the notes I forged at comprehensive school that managed to get me excused from any sporting activity, my fiction was invented here.

I think I stopped swimming at 13 and apart from holidays, didn’t swim properly again until I was 29. By then I was mad enough to sign up for a triathlon and swam in cold water to train at Parliament Lido. That was freezing, in April it was 13c and found myself braced in an expensive (secondhand) wetsuit, neon cap and goggles. Like a superhero armed for the chilly water battle. Slowly in those cold mornings and late evening swims in the lido I learned to fall back in love with the rhythm of swimming. It wasn’t without its humiliation, to be in a lane with the super-triathlon swimmers twice as fast as me, overtaking, splashing their skilled arrogance with arms flying outwards and then under like a pack of wet skinned seals. But I did it, in spite of the mucky smell of the Thames on the day of the race miraculously I didn’t drown or get kicked in the face. The gun set off and 200 people swam like a hungry snapping school of piranhas. I even signed up for other races, even swimming in Dorney Lake smelled much cleaner than the Thames.

I think I had a favourite swim last year. It was on Easter Sunday in Ermoupoli, after sipping hot coffee in Maouli Square. The café owner asked us very sweetly if we didn’t mind just leaving the cups when we’d finished as he wanted to shut up to head home to eat Easter lunch with his family. Who could argue with that? Eventually we sauntered off in the bright sunlight to Vaporia, past the blue domed Agios Nikolaos church. There is a bathing platform here that gets crowded in summer, but here on an Orthodox holiday in spring it was near empty. Just a handful of others sitting in the sun and a brave lady in a flowery bathing cap swimming slow breast-stroke in the turquoise water. I stripped off to my cossie in the breeze and timidly at first dangled a foot in the water. It was fresh, cold and clear. I felt reborn, baptised – my first swim of 2017 in the Aegean in April. Like lizards warming our cold blood, we laid out drying in the sun afterwards on the concrete of the closed Asteria Café.

In the summer I swam over the same section of Kini bay most mornings. Day after day, charting laps between the orange buoys until I had memorised the topography of the rocks and sand and could say greetings to the fishes. Breath and rhythm become an underwater meditation. I kept swimming until my arms were tight and felt strung like a bow. Then I would sit quietly in the beach crunching tiny cracking bubbles in my neck, stretching my legs out on the warming sand.

I think sometimes I have lost my love for exercise and suddenly surprise myself as I fall back in love with its endorphins every so often. I need it the most when it takes me away from the fuzz of every day and creates breathing space.

A few days ago after my morning swim, I stood under the unisex showers with shampoo in my eyes. I glimpsed the future…there it was; a bundle of noise – gossiping, putting on swimming caps, snapping costume straps into place. Loud voices talking over the changing room “How’s slimming world, Pat?’ “I’ve lost 7 pounds!”. Then one lady turned to me “Is the water warm, love?” I beamed back “Positively tropical today!” I was a bit taken aback, having spent a few years of my adult life in posh-gyms, crap pay-as-you-go gyms, try-hard gyms, yoga-death-stare-silence gyms. I hadn’t heard people chat like this in changing rooms ever…well maybe since I was back in the pool of my childhood. This was leisure as it should be – fitness and fun. No pressure.

I longed to stay all morning and hang out with these spirited retirees, all full of life and laughter. As I was leaving, the Shirelles ‘Will you love me tomorrow’ sang out over the loudspeakers and the instructor shouted “let’s get going girls” Aqua-fit is the future, I can’t wait to be retired.