Greece is the word

  ... Greece was the word on our plane tickets at the end of September. We didn't want to be obvious and visit an idyllic island with sweet blue-and-white houses, charming windy streets, fairy lights and jolly tavernas that would slap down a fresh fish soon as look at you. No we went to a part of Greece with an unusual amount of mattresses and unwanted toilet bowls by the roadside. A part of Greece where the only 'taverna' had a chalkboard outside promising many different sorts of fresh fish but in actual fact only ever had frozen shrimp and things made with a lot of cheese.

We stayed in a stone barn in the middle of olive groves, the view out over the blue blue sea and the islands beyond made us forget about the mattresses and too-much cheese. Also a lovely dog called Susie adopted us. Susie slept outside our bedroom on the balcony and accompanied our morning walks (past the wayside mattresses and toilets) to the beach and the bakery.

Also there were chickens, we cooked with their eggs and they offered endless entertainment, best was the evening show as they climbed or tried to fly into their roosting tree, then jostle and do that happy chicken noise as they found the right branch suitable for them all to settle down side by side for the night.

Turkey

After the queen's funeral, the Man and I took a holiday. We stayed in a sleepy town on the Turkish coast,  lodging with our friend Selma in the pension she runs with the help of her three daughters. 

The town is notable for having a mountain that has been perpetually on fire for ever - one can walk up a path at any time of night or day and come to an area where flames are burning out of holes in the rock. These flames are visible to boats on the sea. People thought it to be the breath of a Chimera - a fearsome snakey-goaty-lionish creature that lives inside the mountain. 

Every evening, large tour groups follow men with flags to see the flames, where they roast marshmallows, and drink beer at sunset.

We went to the flamey mountain before dawn, the route involves meandering uphill for a couple of kilometres, then a steep kilometre of increasingly impressive stone steps, it was still quite dark when we turned the corner and saw all the fires dancing on the rocks ahead of us, - and completely magical. A cat had followed us to the flames and we'd noticed bobbling headtorch lights much further up the mountain path but at that dawn moment we were just the three of us being in awe of the phenomenon.

Once the sun was up the debris left by the marshmallow revellers from previous evenings became apparent, the headtorch lights ahead had gone, there were now voices and then young people with backpacks.

The young people were Russians, Putin had announced a partial mobilisation a few days previously, it seems that few were prepared to fight his war, everyone knew what happened in Russia if you put up opposition and the young are trying to leave in their tens of thousands. These people told us about the limited options for ways out - most borders are closed, their homes were now abandoned and they didn't forsee that they could ever return - whatever might succeed Putin was not likely to be any better.

When we  returned to our pension we started noticing all the Russian cars and started meeting other young Russians, they had also backed what seemed like the only viable alternative - Navalny -  apparently now very weakened by continued torture in detention, there is little faith that he will be allowed to recover.

We headed out to a Greek Island

it was out-of-season-closed-down so no-one else was there, the spring flowers ran riot in abundance and the weather was out-of-season mad, wild winds, then calm, mostly sun but some blustery black skies and a bit stormy sometimes.

We stayed in a white white cottage on the edge of a tiny bay where a grumpy old shepherd brought his flock of maggotty old sheep to nibble at the grass edges, the sheep liked to go in the water which made the shepherd furious, if I went down to the sea when the sheep were trying to swim to freedom they would come out of the water to see if they could come home with me - which made the shepherd doubly furious.

The local tavern had no inside, a bit of clear polythene was wrapped around one of the sides of the open air terrace - giving pale shelter from raging winds, we double-wrapped up for our daily fried-cheese-and-chips-with-Greek-beer visits.

The sea cottage was owned by someone in Athens who sent daily messages to remind me what is forbidden:

DON"T USE THE BBQ!!!

DON'T TURN ON LIGHTS AND HEAT AT SAME TIME!

DON'T DRINK WATER!

DON'T FEED ANIMALS!

DON'T LEAVE DOORS OPEN, ANIMALS WANT TO COME IN!


Around the house, drawings of massive mice with big crosses over them are pinned to the doors

A few scraggy cats came by but most had read the notices and didn't stay except for the gray-and-white one who took up residence on the outside mat.

We got home at the end of last week and now a very young French Boy is living with us, FB wears glasses, from the front he is brainy-looking, when he turns around we see the design carved into his almost-shaved hair, this might be the 21st century equivalent of a mullet.*

*business out front, party round the back!

I'm trying to get as much of lovely europe as possible

while we're still in it.

At the weekend I booked flights to go to a Greek island. This evening I booked the house we'll stay in. It's located in a 'village' with two other houses and two tavernas, all clustered at the end of a long peninsula.

the house owner has contacted me with directions and other relevant things to note:

Other informations....every day in the piazza of the village,at 10.30 comes a white van,and sells bread,beverages,biscotts....and every monday and Thursday at 9-10 another white van sells vegetables ,frutts...
Remember have bottle water with you,the water in the house you cannot drink it

Spain was delicious

the hothot sun and shinyblue sea were wonderful, but the day after returning home my skin reacted with fury to the fresh British autumn chill with an outrage of hives and I've been looking like a red crocodile for the last week.

Italy: children

The first bit of Italy was Pontremoli which was full of children and ice cream, so delicious and so so sun-burny-hot I almost burnt my tongue and when we tried to go to the seaside there was no room in the sea and then when we did manage to sardine ourselves into the water between all the shiny hologram-and-tinfoil swimwear the children cried because their bottoms got itchy-salty so we had to squeeze our way out of the water and walk like egyptians along the sand among people WHO WEAR HIGH HEELS ON THE BEACH and stand in line to use the solitary shower.

the best ice cream that day was chocolate

During my Pontremoli stay we visited BIG BEN PIZZA an establishment that handed out extravagant amounts of Doritos to go with our fizzy drinks while we waited for the too-much-amount of food that gets ordered by people who are too hungry to think sensibly

the best ice cream that day was blackberry and peach

Italy - Genova

I took a train from Pontremoli to Genova - a port city. People live in  in vertiginous layers up the cliffs around the port - a network of funiculars swish you up to different levels. If you like, you can sashay back down among the palazzos on foot, along leafy, zigzagging footpaths

My landlady was Valeria, her home full of beautiful artwork and movie-set furniture. I spent a day on the funiculars and pathways and palazzos, then, next day, before heading to Pisa on the 2pm train I spent the morning with Valeria on her tropical verandah drinking coffee and eating bouncy smoked cheese from Majorca.

Italy: De'Coltelli's

My last evening in Italy was in Pisa, in a guest house full of large ugly artwork - the owner took one look at me and said

Forget the leaning tower - you need to go to the best ice cream in Italy, here is a map, this is the route ...

I visited De'Coltelli's twice before supper and once after, this is peach sorbet with pink grapefruit granita

The passage to Dubrovnik

began reasonably well, the plane stayed in the air all the way to Split. We deserved to be ripped off by a taxi because there was a neat bus that went all the way to the doorway of the hotel in Split and we were too stupid to notice.

Next day at the bus station we caught a bus to Dubrovnik and discovered just how unhelpful bus-related employees can be. Also I discovered travel sickness for the first time since I was eight years old.

The holiday bungalow

in Dubrovnik is in the grounds of what should be an imposing mansion but the Grand Palazzo next door has menaced it into submission.

To get to there we have to heft open the gate-like-a-prison-gate then up steps-and-path steps-and-path  until we reach the door that marks the threshold of the path to the grove of trees surrounding the place where we will stay for four days.

There are windows around the walls and also big french doors all along one wall and windows are also in the ceiling. The bathroom and bedroom are divided off with walls that don't go right to the top so the light from all the windows can be everywhere. The bungalow is mainly painted in different shades of apple and lime green. Cobalt blue is added in the bathroom and the bedroom has a pink ceiling. The vegetation grows much higher than the roof adding filters and shadows to the sunlight that's trying to pour in.

Lottje is waiting for us, sitting at the white dining table set with a big bowl of strawberries which we must dip into grainy honey and eat while she tells us about buses and boats and also some sad stories.

this all happens before we take the boat to Starri Grad

the old centre of Starri Grad has streets of polished marble

In the olden days all visitors and horses must have been fitted with special shoe covers to get the streets this shiny. Closer to the central church the streets get narrower and coming out into the big square brings on vertigo.

I chose the room in one of the oldest towns in Europe through my telephone. I liked that it was next to the church and didn't pay any attention to the size. We had to step down a deep step into the tiny kitchen, we two and our luggage could only just squeeze in to the space and we had to take it in turns to breathe. The bedroom was bed-sized and up against a glazed door next to the pavement. There was a net curtain but, as we could hear every inhalation of passersby, we were pretty sure they'd notice the Man's snoring.

The boat from Dubrovnik arrived in Hvar town at eight fifteen in the evening, the guide book tells us that Hvar Town is where the Jetset stay and all the paparazzi come here. Starri Grad is the other side of the island. I was sure there would be a bus to take us there.

There was not a bus so we took a taxi. The taxi driver assumed that we had made a mistake, he kept asking if we were sure we wanted to go to Starri Grad, when he dropped us off he said.

next time you stay in Hvar town, Starri Grad is very quiet.

No cars can come into the polished area so we had to find our way in by ourselves. From the outside you see the church tower but once into the streets they are too narrow and house walls too high to see.

I saw Ljublinka's silhouette - her daughter had told her we were coming so she went outside and waited - like a lighthouse to guide us in.

I left Starri Grad yesterday

Today I've been shooing out the strange odours that have taken up residence and been having a party in my home while I've been gone, some of them I tracked down straight away, the long-forgotten piece of broccoli, vases of not-quite-dead flowers that I hadn't the heart to throw out before I left - others are still evading me

I did some drawings. They might appear here

Found a snorkel

in the dressing-up box under the wigs.

Also got

a gaily stripey/polka dot skirt
a straw hat
shorts with beads sewn on
some scarves
sandals

I'm off to Dubrovnik

Drunk Trike is all Packed Up

and ready to go off for a little holiday with her new boyfriend - a recumbent tandem who's taking her to Ashby de la Zouch. She got the large black valise into the luggage rack the little brown vanity case has to stay behind.

I'm not projecting at all - no I'm not - but it just so happens that I will be heading away from here for a couple of days myself.  I'm within 24 hours of starting to pack and getting quite excited.


Just looked at the details of this post and read that it was published at 5.04pm 'Standard Athletic Time' that's because my eyes won't read properly anymore.

Surprise Holiday

19th April
The journey door to door France to UK takes 16 hours. On Thursday at 5am The Director slammed the car boot shut ready to start the drive.

Then it dawned on me that we weren’t supposed to be leaving until the following day. Builders have been busy in our house and we’d agreed that they could destroy the place until Friday tea time, then it all had to be cleaned up. After a lot of tutting and eye-rolling we decided to set off anyway and stop somewhere en route - a surprise holiday.

I did a quick internet search and found an interesting-sounding place to stay that night, nearly all the B&B’s in France are run by British citizens, this one had a Russian proprietress (novelty value) and was in a rural area we were unfamiliar with.

Svetlana is as extraordinary as her house which is a combination of royal hunting lodge and the sort of sweetie-trap that Hansel and Gretel wandered into, our bedroom ceiling all pointy wooden slopes, the walls lined with deep-coloured, ornate fabric. Throughout the house there is curly-legged antique furniture and lots of gilt, in the salon a shiny grand piano. An astonishing dinner (for dessert: hot strawberries in port) was cooked and served by Svetlana who modelled a full-length, shiny turquoise evening dress. over the course of the evening we listened to her life story; she’d been a concert pianist but with the arrival of her children she’d become a music teacher at a school in an area with a lot of social problems, apparently the teachers there were expected to act as a sort of über-social worker, she’d visit the children in their homes and they stayed with her when their parents were ill or in prison.

She met her English husband in Russia and he convinced her to go to England with him for a 'better life’. In the UK she worked as a shop assistant at WH Smiths, newsagents, an isolated and friendless existence with scratchy teenage children but she persisted, got promoted and a few years ago, children now away working, she exchanged her Surrey semi for the gingerbread house.