Going home

It's that time - in a couple of hours I'll be leaving for the airport to return from Crete to England.

I shall miss Greece and the sunshine but I'm happy to say that I'm not leaving with a heavy heart - and that's only partly because I'm looking forward to seeing all my family and friends. I've also learned that I can choose to feel inner peace, whatever is happening, and that it's far better to stay positive and look forward with anticipation than to look back with sadness.

I've really enjoyed being the person that I am in Greece - talking to strangers, feeling a female power and solidarity with other women, getting up to dance unselfconsciously at the drop of a hat, saying what I really feel quite boldly...and I think I'll take that persona home with me. You have been warned.... 

The spirit of old Chania

I woke this morning to the sound of bells followed by heavenly chanting - a rich bass voice with tremendous soul - and felt truly uplifted. My room in Chania old town is very close to the cathedral, so whilst my main view might be of a ruined building, the sound accompaniment from the early service is a reward and when I sit out on my tiny balcony, I can see the cathedral tower with the White Mountains far away in the distance.

With such a spiritual start to the morning, it seemed a good time to visit the remains of a Minoan site that is right in the heart of the city. This was not the site of a temple (known as palaces) but of houses and it was very moving to see the clear layout of a house where Minoan people would have gone about their daily lives with that lovely energy that pervades their art.

From here I went straight to the archaeological museum to see the artefacts that were found on the site, which was excavated and preserved thanks to a Swedish team working with the Greek authorities. Again it was great to get so close to the actual clay and paint, the flowing designs with their spirals and bulls' horns, so full of meaning and life.

The joy and grace of Minoan life is such a sad contrast to the underlying crisis in Greek life right now. Thanks Colm for tipping me off to this article by Tony Parsons, published today, on how the Greek tragedy affects us all http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/tony-parsons-opinion-how-the-greek-839514

I really hope and trust that the Greek stance, together with the shift of mood in France, will bring not tragedy but a breakthrough in awareness of how we have all been ripped off by the banking cabal, who have created an unnecessary economic crisis and climate of fear. Perhaps, led by the Greeks, we can prompt a huge, fundamental empowerment and change. We don't have to believe that there is no other way through this crisis than impoverishment and suffering and I will steadfastly hold a vision for a much more positive outcome.

 As Julie observed the other day, it seems that it's when you dare to ask for the seeming impossible that your vision is most likely to come to fruition. That's what brought me here to house-sit for four weeks when she thought that nobody would ever be able to come for more than two...

Moving on

Changes are afoot here as the first phase of my adventure comes to a close. Julie got back from England last night and so the house and animal sitting time is finished. I had my last swim this morning, the hire car has been handed back and tomorrow morning I will board a bus to go to the town of Chania for four days, returning to Julie's place for just one night before flying back home next Tuesday.

Chania is about forty minutes' drive away and I will be staying in the Old Town, a pedestrianised area around the old port. It has been settled since Neolithic and Minoan times and there are Minoan remains that I want to see, but the town as it is now was essentially built by the Venetians and the Turks, so there's a moody mix of architecture and history.

 


I hope that I'll have a chance to talk to Greek people about their view for the future of their country. The election results and stalemate have shown the enormous dilemma between the need for economic survival and the great sense of injustice in the detail of the austerity measures, which would inflict more hardship on ordinary people without bringing either politicians or the banks - national and international - to any sort of reckoning.

The visual backdrop to my time in Chania will still be the awesome White Mountains. While Jo was here, we drove up into the mountains and came really close to those white peaks, now devoid of snow but white from chalk deposits that seem layered over the rock. Here's a few photos of the breathtaking views as we climbed at least a mile up from sea level and reached the entrance to the Samaria Gorge

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Power to the girls

It's exam time for Ella and Daisy, the eldest of my five lovely granddaughters, by whom I am proud to be known as Ya-ya (Greek for Granny). They are both in the first year of the sixth form and, as always in our school system, are feeling under pressure to perform. Good luck to you both, I will be thinking of you - and tomorrow I will return to a beautiful little church I found recently and light a candle for your success.

The church is dedicated to St Anthony, who is said to have resisted all manner of temptations to stray from his intended tasks and to have been sought after for enlightenment, so there you go girls! This tiny building is in the town of Kalyves and is built right into the rock. I've never seen an altar screen with lovely, simple flower paintings like this one. It gives the church a light, feminine look, so perhaps it was painted by a woman, which would seem very appropriate.

An encounter with the 'real' Crete

When I lived in Kalymnos I once had the pleasure of meeting Paul Hellander, author of the Lonely Planet guides to the Greek islands - and the opportunity to contribute information about sponge diving to the Dodecanese edition. I respected his conscientious and thorough approach to his work and, after years of use of the guides, have almost always found his take on places and recommendations to be spot on.

So when I read Paul's suggestion that the real, timeless Cretan way of life devoid of tourism is to be found in a hill village called Episkopi, I felt drawn to explore. As I walked up the narrow main street, I had the definite feeling of being regarded as 'strangers in these 'ere parts', but more with cautious curiosity than hostility.

There was an electrical shop whose extensive pavement was crammed with white goods, new and old, that cannot possibly be taken inside at night; a tiny butchers where the customers stood around a central chopping block watching the female butcher prepare their meat and a greengrocer where I bought some delicious cherries and strawberries for far less than I would pay in the more touristy areas. Much of the produce was clearly local - and much of it organic.

 
I would love to have photographed these places and people but it didn't feel right as that would have made me a spectator rather than the participator that I was trying to be, speaking Greek of course and being polite but friendly. But I did grab a shot of the main street and one of the church.

 
In the bakers shop -again tiny - I actually managed to get involved in a joke with the owner, her father and an elderly lady sitting on a chair inside the shop as, to the embarrassment of the owner, the father insisted on showing me a brown loaf that I had asked about but rejected. I complimented him on his selling skills, everyone laughed and I bought the loaf. It was worth it.

My next stop was Argyropouli, also nestling in the hills, where thousands of years of habitation, from Dorians to Romans to medeival people, have left their mark.

 Here I wandered along an ancient stone pavement and came across a beautiful little garden opposite a church dedicated to the Panageia - Virgin Mary, the most holy saint and the modern Greek incarnation of the ancient goddess. Inside her little chapel, all was peace and I felt very blessed.

Awesome Turner sunset

The light in Greece is, as everyone knows, sharp and crystal clear, making all things seem vibrant, new and sharply defined even when, like some of the venerable olive trees around me, they have probably been there for aeons. However, today is cloudy. Yes, just like England, the light here is grey with rain threatened. I have to mention this because I know that the entire population of Britain is thoroughly fed up and depressed by rain, which started on the day I left the country and seems hardly to have stopped.

However, I cannot pretend that grey is normal here - and certainly the weather performed brilliantly every day that Jo was staying with me. One of our evenings on the terrace was blessed by a truly awesome sunset, even in Greek terms. It was the kind of sky that makes you gasp, shout with excitement, reach for the camera and talk about Turner. No wonder he was so inspired by the elements, by the constantly changing interplay of sky and water. This is the really big stuff that our beautiful world performs for our humble pleasure and exhilaration - and maybe as a gentle reminder that really, for all the vicissitudes of our human existence, just being alive on earth is a privilege and joy.

Sunset over Souda Bay

Election day

Today, Greece holds a general election. The country will vote for a government to steer it through the next phase of management of its debt crisis and inevitable austerity measures. I was talking about this last night with Chrisoula and Sotiris, a couple of about my age who own a cafe/bar in the local village of Plaka. The business is run by their adult children, but my new found friends sit outside every evening and hold court or watch the world go by, sometimes snapping broad beans freshly picked from the garden and sharing the sweet goodness of the raw beans.

Anyway, their take on the election is that everyone is tired and indifferent about the two main parties, Pasok and New Democracy, who have both held power during the period of Greece's economic decline and are both characterised by hubris, scandal and accusations of corruption - and people are angry. "Humph, what does it matter who we vote for? Greece will still be run by the Germans, they're in charge now."

In the peace and beauty of Crete, it's easy for visitors to forget how dire is the country's crisis - but this island has been much less affected than smaller islands and the mainland, especially Athens and its suburbs. Crete's relative prosperity is maintained by tourism, for which it is well organised, offering a variety of holiday types, and by agriculture. With its rich, fertile soil, reasonable water supply and centuries-old traditions of farming, Crete supplies fruit, vegetables, olives and olive oil to much of Greece.

In fact, I've been told that people from all over Greece, especially Athens, are moving to Crete in search of work and a relief from the hardships of life in the capital city. The brunt of this crisis is being borne with outrageous openness by the poorest of workers, whose real income and rights are being utterly eroded, while the ship owners, lawyers, doctors and others continue to enjoy their traditional tax concessions.

The truth is that alongside the openness, friendliness, great sense of community, creativity and joie de vivre that charcaterises Greek people, corruption, croneyism and tax evasion have been a way of life, endemic throughout government and all of society, as people resent what they perceive to be payment into the public purse only for the funds to be abused and misused. It's a time of hard awakening to the truth about the dark side of this society and the way in which its nature has left it vulnerable to the American banking predators.

Even now, the country's scarce resources are certainly not being used for the common good, either by choice or by dint of the bail-out terms imposed by the international financial cabal. One of these terms, for instance, is that Greece is now obliged to buy a clutch of new military fighter planes from the USA.

Minoan grandmothers, Greece needs you now...

Holiday time!

My time in Crete has entered a new phase. Until earlier this week, I was taking life at a very slow pace with lots of solitude, walking, reading, meditating, contemplating. I think of it as my retreat phase. Now I have a hire car and a visitor, the weather has become unseasonably hot and we are definitely in Holiday Mode.

The car is a Citroen Xsara, so quite a bit bigger than my wee Micra, which was very scary at first, but it's good and powerful, so great for climbing hills with hairpin bends, of which there are many. Now I'm quite enjoying it and had a smooth run to the airport on Wednesday evening to meet the heroic arrival of Jo, my daughter-in-law and friend. I say heroic because this was Jo's first long flight in 14 years, as she has suffered severe claustrophobia, so we were very glad to see each other all in one piece at the Arrivals barrier and she is delighted by the beauty of this place.

Jo definitely wants the holiday experience, so yesterday we went to the beach at Almyrida, just down the road, and both went swimming as well as soaking up the rays, and in the evening we had dinner sitting under a pretty flowering tree outside the best taverna in the village. I'm sorry, dear followers, I know it's rained every day since I left England and you're entitled to be very fed up - but that's outside my control and no just cause for me to enjoy myself less, so please don't even think of sending guilt trip vibes in the Crete direction...

Mayday

It's the first of May and a public holiday in Greece. I'm sure there are some ties to the tradition of Labour Day, but in this country, as with all festivals, there is a much stronger tie to the Pagan past. This is a day to celebrate nature in all her fecundity, to acknowledge the easing of the all too brief flowering of spring into the heat of early summer.

                            


 So tradition has it that women young and old get up early, before the sun catches the fragile wild blooms, and pick flowers to make a simple wreath for the front door and small bunches to adorn cars, boats and shop doorways. Having done so, everyone gathers for a family lunch and maybe an afternoon at the beach, weather permitting.

And is the weather obliging today? Well, it's as if the first day of May has brought a real taste of summer right on cue - the first day that it's felt seriously hot. The dogs have been sleeping all day in the shade, the cats stretching laconically. Me? I've been doing housework - but that's another story!

And as it's the day of flowers, I thought I'd share some pictures of the blooms that are currently gracing the garden here. Something uplifting after the sad zoo story....