In the Greek Garden

Selfies and travel

I was rather taken aback when I read the news that a girl tumbled off a cliff in Zakynthos trying to take the perfect selfie shot with a shipwreck in the background – she was the second death in the same circumstances this year. This isn’t just tragic a waste of a life, its beyond sad as it is symptomatic of a wider malaise – everywhere you go selfie sticks are at sights, museums, planes, beaches….even churches. I wonder if people often know what they are taking a pic in front of. Its the opposite of why we travel isn’t it? We all want to remember things with a photo, but that needs to be complemented with experience and getting a feel for another place and ‘seeing’ the sights. This selfie-culture isn’t bad in itself, but it feeds an absolute obsession with the self, controlling your image on social media, filtered perfection, a projection of the ideal (often female) form. I watched one girl try on several hats and glasses to get the perfect shot in Mykonos Harbour last week, I did wonder what this performance achieved. Is it that we can all be the star of our own media channel or just another way to nihilism creates and curates the perfect online version of yourself? But I concluded there is probably no-real self in most of these posed selfies, authenticity can only come from a whole lived experience. I can’t say I’ve never ‘selfied’ up but there is a whole generation growing up with this scary scrutiny over their appearance – and it worries me.

We spent a few miserable hours in Mykonos last week, not miserable as we had fun, but just in the broadest sense it wasn’t a great place to hangout. We were there as G’s family had a flight back to the UK late that day so we decided to stay one night as a jumping off point for an island hop adventure. We arrived and took the boat bus to the old town, Mykonos Chora and it was just so busy on the tiny harbour. 4 gigantic cruise liners were docked in the bay…thousnads of people milling about taking selfies and shouting loudly. I didn’t hear any Greek being spoken at all.

Well here’s the deal – if you crave overcrowded streets, overpriced food and drink, fancy boutiques that will let you shop till your heart is content, please go, eat drink and be merry! I am totally sure the island is lovely – it gets millions of visitors so they can’t all be mad, maybe there are villages and goats and even smiley old ladies – but in my experience it was a strange Disney-esque version of a Cycladic town. Mykonos was once a hippie gay-friendly little place, and in the past 2 decades has embraced tourism and drank from the cup of exclusivity, letting such celebs Lindsey Lohan and the Kardashian clan be the island’s poster girls. It now has a rather wild party scene that means it attracts teenagers from around the world. Now it feels such a long way from Shirley Valentine sitting at that lonely taverna chair when it was filmed there in the late 80s. “The only thing I ever wanted to do was travel. I’d like to drink a glass of wine, sitting by the sea, watching the sun go down”. My favourite line!

Anyway we said goodbye to the family waving them off into an airport bound taxi, and survived a night in Mykonos. Mostly watching UK election coverage on the apartment TV – but hey…

Next morning at 8am we walked from the town to the new port to catch our boat, a pleasant enough walk but without any pedestrian friendly pavements (Greek town planners please note, people like to walk places, please build pavements when you build new roads). Apart from when an intoxicated young man swerved over on a quad bike and asked us the way to “Super Paradise” I thought he said “Parasite” which would have made sense..It then started to rain with a massive downpour at the port. No umbrella! But once we reached Paros on the new refurbished Superunner which has just joined the Golden Star fleet, the rain had cleared and we felt like we have arrived in an altogether different atmosphere. Less crowds, more space and less hustle!

A quick hop on the Antiparos Star (5Euros) took us to the smaller island to the south. Antiparos really is a little gem, a small harbour with daytrip boats and regular connections to Parikia (Paros Town) and car ferries via Pounda. Its not a tiny island like say, Halki or Antipaxos, but it does feel immediately slower paced as you step off into the harbour lined with restaurants and shops. It’s fairly compact and has a wide main street where most other shops, taverna’s and bars are.

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The town and Castro (castle) area are beautiful and postcard perfect. Also, without the crowds when we were there – so if you seek those typical Greek scenes of taverna’s on squares and bourganvilla draped over doorways and tiny churches, Antiparos town fits the bill.

The island is mostly flat so perfect for cycling, we hired bikes on day and drove the 9k to the Caves. I admit I got off my bike and pushed at the steepest last slog of the climb (190meters!)

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The caves were worth the effort, discovered in the 1700s (with graffiti to prove it!) and having held significance for both geological wonder and a place of shelter during wars and invasion, they remain the greatest and oldest example of natural cave chambers in the whole of Greece. Read more here: http://www.antiparos.info/En/Cave.htm

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We really just chilled out for 3 long balmy days and nights on the island. It has fantastic beaches and good priced taverna’s, with very traditional Greek fare. We ate heartily, and were shown around the kitchen at Pavlo’s Place and talked through the menu. I had delicious goat stew with orzo pasta. We devoured every moment, minimised the selfies and treated the time as a fantastic holiday.

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Staying in Astera’s Apartments was perfect, tucked away from the main street in the Chora, but close to the beaches and peacefully quiet on a night. Pretty and quiet beaches shaded by tamerisk trees and only a few beach bars in sight…what’s not to love about Antiparos.

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Just don’t let too many people know about it, that’s the tricky thing – Tom Hanks and his Greek-American wife have a house there…there’s a smattering too many ’boutiques’ in the town…please don’t ruin it!

Here comes the summer!

Whilst I was lounging in the sun in the UK the weather back on Syros was just plain weird – the village experienced a deluge of a months’ worth of rain in a few hours which caused a mudslide down the main road onto the beach. Sounds worse than it turned out to be – but still the clean up took a while for the tavern and hotel owners, and there were a few grumbles about the drainage. Concrete roads and houses create run off problems in places like this when unseasonal rain falls, which is worsened by the heavy clay-like soil which isn’t be able to quickly absorb extra rainfall when it hits.

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But luckily the house and garden was intact upon our return. Bar a massive sweeping of pollen and pine needles fallen from the big trees that shade the terrace. In fact, the garden had had a major growth spurt from the milder and wetter weather. Our landlord also popped by to water the seedlings, which I am forever grateful for. So the tomatoes, courgette and cucumber have spurted along in our absence. On our return, I made a bamboo climber support for the cucumber (which was indeed a cucumber, not a courgette – an easy mistake!) Luckily we have a limitless supply of bamboo from the canes growing in the garden which means everything will be supported nicely.

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We had a few ‘days of gloom’ as I describe it last week, where the sky stays a grey colour all day and the sea looks murky and un-enticing. I heard the announcers on the Radio describe the weather forecast as ‘winter’ – it’s not far wrong, most of the Cyclades have had much less rain and colder temperatures this Spring than usual. But the garden soil was wet and warm so I planted more calendula seeds, potted out some cosmos and marigolds. Last Monday it was 20c and cloudy, yet now a week later it is 29c and wall to wall sunshine. The locals have assured me that summer has finally arrived!

I woke this morning with Namaste inspired intentions of a run and yoga session – but on wandering outside with my coffee I was immediately distracted by the garden. One of the most brilliant things about working UK time is that I start work at 11.30am Greek time, so I have these blissful long mornings to fill before work commences. Although usually filed with chores (Greek houses take a lot of sweeping and de-anting!) or exercise and writing, this time makes the day seem longer and quite frankly when I think of the daily 1 hour commute in London, these hours back are a gift to be used wisely.

So this morning I pottered and deadheaded some of the petunia and pansy flowers. Replanted radish seeds, as many either failed to germinate or washed away. I am persevering with lettuce and spinach although it is starting to get too warm for germination. I planted out the aubergine in the bed and another courgette. The first one bought as a plug plant is flowering, so I am hoping that I find some larger pots or oil cans for the remaining tomato and courgette seedlings, as it’s getting late now. I bought some unusual Trombocino seeds (trumpet shaped squash) at the RHS Chelsea Show so was really pleased that one germinated in a few days.

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The broadbeans look full of promise but local horticulture knowledge says it might be too war for them to fruit. While I was pottering and weeding, our feline friend nicknamed Bowie skipped over to purr round my ankles, then our landlord popped over and gave us some bulbs of garlic from his garden, enticingly fresh and with the cucumbers he shared last week, and the dill from the market – we will be surviving off homemade tzatziki for weeks.

Graeme’s family have been visiting this past week, so it was the best excuse to be tourists for a few days, eating out and cooking BBQ’s, enjoying sunbathing and snorkelling, wandering round Ano Syros and walking to Galissas. This coincided with a Greek bank holiday for Orthodox Pentecost (Whit Monday) which marks the end of the Easter cycle of celebrations and the day of the Holy Spirit. Kini was incredibly busy with Athenians here on holiday and the weather heated up accordingly. All the Taverna’s were full on Saturday and Sunday night as suddenly everywhere we went felt like summer had arrived. The near empty beach we had known and loved, was brimming with families and sun seekers, enjoying their first taste of a glorious Greek summer. But this only lasts three days – and walking past today on my lunch break it was back to its more expected scattering of tourists and locals.

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While I’m glad the weather has turned in Syros, I’ll keep doing a sundance for my friends back in the UK who have been updating me with rain stories…

reflections on the past week

I arrived back from London on Sunday night. Shaken up on choppy waters from Piraeus and needing some well-deserved sleep. I had been back to London for a week to work and then spend time catching up with family and friends. A week flew by from the moment we landed back; filled with work, drinking tea (oh, tea I love you!), drinking in the sun, eating curry…
London was on top chaotic form. Sunny, buoyant and alive. Through the city streets, the pavements hummed with bustling bodies and warm concrete. The city magically turns itself inside out to enjoy what could just be a fleeting glimpse of heat from the sun and showering everyone with the frisky feel of summer. Windows open, laughter and music travelled through the dusk air. It was like a brief affair that could drive you back to a lover – London was flirting now I’d left and I had to resist. I met friends, we jostled for seats in the sun and I enjoyed the frenetic pace. If only it was ever this nice to me when we were together.

I tried not to eat terribly, but failed on arrival (a pub burger and pint of English cider) and by Monday evening I got back to my hotel room with a Tesco sandwich meal deal. Sadly the first of 2 I ate that week and I’m not proud. I scoffed it down watching the TV news, something had happened in Manchester at a concert at the Arena, reporters were trying to piece it together but details were hazy. I switched off, my mind rendered blank from a busy day, opening events, answering questions and doing more talking in 12 hours than it felt I’d done in weeks. The next morning I had an early start for an event so my alarm pinged at 4am…switching on the news stopped me in my tracks of making coffee. I, like most of us on Tuesday morning woke to what was the reality of a tragic scene unfolding – dozens of teenagers and children injured, missing and dead. I don’t wish to repeat what has already been reported – a home-grown terrorist, one of us radicalised by whatever force entices a once reasonable young man to walk into a public space with the sole aim of killing the maximum people possible and himself. I cannot even imagine what that takes. But more so, we are forced to live through what his actions have taken away. Young lives on the cusp of adulthood, children at their first concert, parents waiting patiently for their return. All their unwritten futures erased in seconds. The news cycle went over all the details and most people I met that week were experiencing a mix of shock, anger and crucially, resilience. As I was at work this meant I was forced to adapt and get on, minimise risks, that’s what we do – be aware. Although the country was in the midst of a glorious heat wave, a cloud of doom and fear hung close.

The events in Manchester made me consider how fear can permeate our lives. We are the lucky ones, when tragedy strikes and it wasn’t your loved ones, we get to live on. Each day is a gift and each could be the last. Yet this provides no comfort if we allow fear to inhabit this space.

Those teenagers getting ready to go to the concert didn’t even consider the possibility of fearing a terrorist act – why should they? No person should ever have to think of such danger – we can’t live like that. It’s impossible to predict. I recall the absolute life changing excitement of my first concert. The details are burned into my memories like scorch marks. December 8^th 1994, Blur Newcastle Metro Arena. I wore an orange shirt over a black shiney baby doll dress from Topshop and Chipie trainers that had stripes that glowed in the dark. I was 13 and my Dad drove me and my three best friends there. He waited outside in his van to pick us up. It was actually the literally most exciting night of my, up to then, life. We learned all the lyrics to every Blur song ever written in the weeks beforehand, talking of nothing else but what to wear, what to do, what to sing, who we loved best. Mine was always Graham Coxon, the weird outcast of the band. We chattered through classes at schools, “Blur, Blur, Blur” Gigs and music were the doorways to possibilities that existed outside the confines our little town, our childhoods, our desires. Once inside the Arena we bought everything pocket money could afford; souvenir programmes and scarves and t-shirts.

That night 23 years ago still speaks to me as a significant life event, it holds a precious feeling of freedom, singing along to every word in every song and seeing the world as a place of pure joy– believing in possibilities. Ideas are being formed, everything is new and breathless, scary and at high speed. Because that is what being a teenager should be; thrilling and fearless.

No-one can ever take that away.

I hope that every person affected by what happened last week doesn’t forget how precious a first concert is as a rites of passage. Music can be a great healer for us all.

Small island manners

It struck me on Sunday as I went on a little walk to Delfini beach how people are a little kinder and helpful on a small island. It was a little walk – it takes less than 25 minutes from to spiti mas (our house) to the paralia (the beach). Yet in that short amount of time 2 cars stopped to offer me a lift. I know what you’re thinking “stranger danger” and accepting lifts is so unheard of these days. This isn’t just because we have lost trust in our fellow humans and been programmed that everyone out there is set to rob or murder us, its endemic of how we fear things we don’t know. I was a woman alone walking in the heat of the sun. I mean the path is hilly, there’s a couple of steep climbs as you near to the bend before reaching the bay – but I like to think in my sporty trainers and hiking backpack, I totally looked like a typical thing for me to do. But I think it comes down to the fact that it isn’t common to see people walking to the beach here – so a nice thing to do would be to stop and offer them a lift as it’s a dirt road that ends at the beach, you know anyone going in this direction is heading to the same place. When the first car stopped, I said a simple “oxi, efharisto” and he waved and went on his way. But when the second car stopped merely a few minutes later on the ridge of the steepest hill, I started saying no and he waved and smiled, then his slightly worse for wear car started struggling to keep going and started to splutter and stall. I thought, now if I have to help him push the car up the hill that will be just brilliant timing! Man stops to give woman lift on midday sun – and she ends up pushing his slightly worn out car up a hill like a superwoman. His ego would probably never survive!

But that’s just a more chivalrous way of life here. I’m not saying I like it – it is just different and something you notice in the older generation more often. I was in the post office last week when an older man ahead of me offered to swap tickets. It has the same system as back home where draw a ticket from the machine and ait to be called. He probably made a judgement at my blonde hair and flip flops, realising my need at the counter would likely be a swift transaction to buy stamps, rather than his complicated pension forms or some other administrative red-tape that would take time to get stamped and approved. It was very kind of him and I thanked him in my best formal Greek.

Not that this happens everywhere, but it does happen more when I am without G, evidencing the lone female theory, but I certainly don’t have a free pass to universal kindness! But I’ll certainly try to reciprocate it. On ferries, busses and ticket counters I have been shoved, pushed in front of and tutted at for being too orderly and well, darn-British for following a sense of THE QUEUING SYSTEM. The hallowed order doesn’t work here, it has no currency.

Anyway there is a sense of neighbourly kindness and community in Greece – I won’t make a sweeping statement and say it just so much better here, but it is different from what I have been accustomed to. At home having an elbow shoved into the ribs and overhearing the swearing pent up anger of fellow commuters was a good day in London. Here it’s old ladies pushing to the front of transport and traffic jams caused by runaway mules. But I can forgive all of this – when I’m 70+ I want to be first on the bus too. It’s just mellower and friendly, it seems customary to speak to strangers, offer words of kindness or give welcoming gifts.

Our landlord stops by with fresh eggs, an assortment of veg from his plot. He brought beetroot over and I made a delicious panzarasalata (beetroot salad with garlic and yogurt) I met the lovely Jacky and Flora who run the Syros Cat charity last week and somehow left with a box full of ripe strawberries. Well, at least fruit requires less responsibility than a cat! Our neighbours have left us bags of lemons which G made into Lemon Curd. I’m starting to worry that I need to return the favour but haven’t got anything to give! (well let’s hope the garden gets productive soon – the pressure is on!)

We are on the wonderful island Tinos at the moment. G has been here all week volunteering with Paths of Greece. He is walking an average of 20k+ a day to map out the paths. He’s having a great time. I arrived yesterday and have been taking it easy. Guiltily of course.

I spent a while wandering the picturesque streets of Pyrgos in the north of the island while they were off hiking a trail. This is one of the well preserved and pristine examples of a traditional village whose main industry is marble. It has a great museum of marble crafts, which was sadly closed. But I managed to peek in to one of the workshops the students from the college were sculpting marble in.

The main square is entirely made from marble slabs and has statues, hand carved adornments above windows and doorways everywhere and even the bus stop is made of marble.

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It is quite honestly the most picturesque little place to while away the hours – hardly any tourists around at all.

After lunch I was pointed in the direction of a nice easy trail from Vlakos through the ancient boulders to Koumaros and back to the rural village we are staying in, Skalados.

After admiring the old abandoned houses in Vlakos, which have hand written memorials, poems and stories about their inhabitants, I set off along the road to the boulders.

All of a sudden I heard an old lady calling me, from the churchyard I’d just passed. She was waving a broom at me and I was scared! What had I done, offended someone on a holy afternoon? After a few minutes of shouting Greek words at me, none of which I could fathom, all I could say was ‘then katalaveno – signomi’ (sorry I don’t understand). She then took the broom in her left hand and made a waving movement with her right arm and said in a French accent (most Greeks here seem to also have a grasp of French too as plenty of tourists visit from there) “Serpent, l ‘attenzione, serpent!” Now the penny dropped, she was warning me about snakes, that hand movement was a snake not a ‘rollin’ with the homies dance‘ which had thrown me! I replied, “Nai, Nai! Efharosto para poli” (yes, thank you very much) and I mimed back a gesture of keeping my eyes on the path. Phew! The lady was just being kind to me and letting me know there are snakes around. Yes, snakes. Another thing to add to my fears; heights, rabid dogs, spiders.

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Well at least I was warned, now I could be fully prepared. Well I’m pleased to say I enjoyed the walk and wasn’t victim of a snakebite (only very few are poisonous and they are the patterned vipers). I made it through Kamouros, admiring the sweet little honesty café they have there where people can help themselves to drinks and leave the correct change.

That’s a nice neighbourly thing to do – creating a little place people can drop in and have a space for the community of 20 or so houses of the village.

These reminders of the kindness of strangers and trust are all things I am finding different here but certainly are welcome views of Greek life.

The weekly shop and meeting goats

Life has started to form a routine here, not just work, but also the domesticity of living in a little house and doing all the regular things in a highly modern way (read: back to basics) So we don’t have a washing machine, a microwave, a heater or TV. Life without TV is actually blissful given the current state of global news and politics– (don’t get me started on the election palaver). Although we obviously consume most of our news online, so we aren’t totally living in a bubble. But we agreed not to have Netflix or watch TV shows and stuff online. A good break from entertainment overload. Which is the best excuse to have a packed kindle reading list and various books to get through. (Please send recommendations!)

Our two ‘luxury’ purchases were a battery operated FM/AM radio to listen to local radio (6.99e– looks like it was made in the late 80s). I love Greek music, like Rembetiko and just having it in the background when cooking is my little piece of heaven. The second item was a cafetiere – such a common item back home actually took a while to track down here. Mainly because, the Greeks are fond of making their traditional ‘Ellinko Café’ in a briki (which is a small pan to boil the sandy fine coffee grounds in). But I was overjoyed when I finally found a ‘French Press’ in a cookshop as the lady described it. Here we are drinking fine coffee and scrubbing our clothes by hand.

Luckily Graeme loves washing so he has dutifully taken a lead on this. Hand washing takes exactly the same amount of time as using a washing machine, the only snag is that it is you that shoulders all the hard work. Equipment needed: 2 large buckets, a pair of washing up gloves, and hand detergent. We now have it down, which is exactly what happened to the washing line in the middle of hanging white sheets on…an almighty PING and the whole load went down. Everything had to be rinsed as they were covered in pine needles and dust! The rinsing and wringing is the real physical labour. Guns of steel in the making!

The other big differences here are felt in the buying food. Kini has a mini-market which gets bread delivered every morning and stocks the basics. In Ermoupoli, which is a short bus ride away, there are 3 big-ish supermarkets, one of them being a Lidl. None of them huge hypermarkets like Tesco. But they stock most things, but you do need to also go to the butcher shop (kreopoleio) and the greengrocer (manavis), as well as the bakery (forno). The real beauty is seeing how everyone shops around, and gets the best price, buying everything under one roof just isn’t possible here unless you ignore what everything costs! So when I get the bus in to do a ‘big shop’ it is at least 5 shops to get the basics and many ins and outs to get other stuff. Yesterday, after waving Graeme off on the Blue Star to Tinos, I hunted down blue tack (3 shops to find it) and a trip to the post office to get stamps, then butchers to get meat and then the greengrocer, with whom I had a hilarious Greek-lish conversation when he asked me whether I was here on holiday, he soon twigged he’s spoken to Graeme the week before. “Oh you must know the man with the moustache” i replied “Yep that’s Graeme, andros mou (my husband)”. “Ah send him my regards, he likes the football”. Then proceeded to ask if we had children and why not, “you make great babies”…yep, no subject out of bounds while buying red onions and a melon.

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We also have a close-ish AB Supermarket in walking distance from the house, it’s a hilly 35 minute walk there as its half way between Galissas and Kini. I am sure we get a few looks of humour at us walking there (you see it is rather weird for us not to have a car or moped, but hey, we are walkers and like it that way!). But what a walk it is! Once out of Kini, the road ascends high up the hill to Danakos and through pastures of farmland, passing green fields of cows, sheep and my favourite, goats. On a walk there on Monday morning to get milk and bread, we passed by a lady Goat-Herder walking her flock of 10 or so goats from one field to another. She just sat there peacefully serene in the morning haze. She waved and we waved back, a cheerful “Kalimera”. After a quick whizz-round the supermarket, and loading up our rucksacks with goodies we set off again. As we neared the turn down into the village, the lady was crossing the road with her goats, two kids bouncing around and not following her orders! We waved again and I said “mou resi katsiki” (I like goats). She beckoned us over and picked up one of the little ones so I could say hello. There I was stroking a baby goat on a Monday morning, life dream achieved! He was so cute and happy to see us. We passed a few words in Greek and then went on our merry way home to log-on and start work.

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I can honestly say the food shopping used to be such chore back home, but here you never know what you’ll run into and how it might just brighten up your day.

My love of goats. To be continued….