List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.
Neccesity not money has always driven my employment. Now in the afternoon/evening of my employment life I choose to volunteer and paint. Money does matter, but there are far more inportant things to chase
Flashbacks, 10 years ago we were on a roadtrip in mainland Greece. Two Weddings and a Baptism.
2 Weeks ago we were on a roadtrip in mainland Greece.
Fougaro Artt Centre featured in both trips. Weddings too.
10 years ago I took one of my all time favourite photographs at an exhibition at Fougaru.
I also took this photo, of a photo, of a wedding tradition, bride and groom dancing in the streets of a home village.
Despite attending Greek weddings We had never witnessed this.
But then in our first moments in Stemnitsa, 2024, this happened.
What are the chances!
Fougaro is one of my favourite small Arts Centres ever but even Fougaru had a little surprise for me.
I had never noticed this ornamental rill on previous visits. The rill took its revenge for being ignored. I failed to notice it again, until I was in it. No photographic evidence, just wet dungarees and a lot of laughter.
Website below.
What could you do more of?
Travelling, off the beaten track. I will freely admit that often the ‘off the beaten track’ is an error of my navigation or a misfiring memory. But ‘the road less travelled’ has always been fascinating to me. As for todays blog I have decided to go with some alliteration.
If it is Monday it must be Monomvasia, although, in truth we visited on a Tuesday. Images from Monomvasia 2 weeks ago will illustrate this blog.
First my aversion to alliteration, like swearing I believe alliteration should be used sparingly. Too many people on Social Media use it as a reliable tagline.
I once protested, by swearing, when someone running a Social Media account gave me a list of alliterations to use for the month when I was taking the account over. Despite me explaining gently that I was alliteration averse. Not my finest hour.
By nattering on about alliteration I have ably demonstrated how easy it is for me to go off the beaten track. But I needed to explain myself as I delve into ‘Its Monday, it must be Monomvasia’
Monomvasia was a misfiring memory. When it was suggested as a destination on our road trip my head thought Mount Athos. A monastery destination near Thessaloniki which is closed to women.
Both places played a part in my vivid imagination as a child with access to the National Geographical magazine.
The adult me never thought to question why women would be admitted, I suppose I imagined some form of orthodox emancipation had occurred. Regardless Monomvasia was everything I had hoped and welcomed women. Which is always a good thing. The unexpected road less travelled did not disappoint and off the beaten track is always thought provoking. Plus Alliteration can be useful in small doses but it can be taken too far.
The End.
Memory is a funny thing
I have been exploring mine with a fine tooth comb or even a tooth pick for the past few weeks
I have been on holiday with a man that I was at school with 55 years ago. It seems there is no limit to the amount of useless information we have both retained from our school days or the village we lived in. Every small memory from one of us promoted a surprising response of more information from the other. Even really random observations helped us find a recognition of the cast or script of our distant past
So used to delving in the past am I, in my waking hours that my nocturnal meanderings in the dream world have also taken to historic recollection. Dreaming about the past and revisiting the most mundane of old scenarios has become my nocturnal adventures. I find it both comforting and reassuring. Somehow I am braver in my dream world than I ever was in real life.
Memory is a privilidge I am happy to accomoadate.
Which topics would you like to be more informed about?
The world is a complicated place and I have a magpie mind. Never really knowing what will interest me next. Frequently I surprise myself. This week I have been intrigued by football chants and songs. Who knew?
Goodness knows what it will be next week. I also plan on baking macaron biscuits some time this week. Not delicate little french ones but chunky almond coated ones to accompany coffee. I also have a rather ugly piece of furniture that needs some TLC to make it acceptable as my bedside book store. I sense my magpie mind is busy storing projects to get me through the winter months, once this glorious early autumn descends into dreary dreariness.
Post holiday the yard is working hard as a drying space. The climbing plants managed very well while I was away. Climbing and flowering in my absence.
Probably happy not to have my interfering fingers trying to encourage them in directions of my choosing rather than their natural urge to find the best sunny spot for their new shoots.
Our yard planting is all about improving privacy and encouraging wildlife, alongside creating an outdoor space that we want to sit in.
Our first new visitor of the autumn is a Pug Moth.
Named, apparently, because at some angles it resembles the dogs with the same name. Not from any angle I could find. Maybe that is something I could be better informed about!
How do you celebrate holidays?
I am not sure that I have a way of celebrating holidays beyond enjoying them in whatever form they take. Our most recent holiday ended yesterday as we eased our Australian friends into their hire car and set them free to explore North Wales and East Anglia without us. It has been a holiday of joyful surprises and beautiful places. Embellished with great conversations around all subjects both ancient and modern, great and small.
The picture above was taken in a small mountain village called Stemnitsa in Arcadia. Early autumn leaves edging a storm drain. I knew, when I saw it, that this image would somehow symbolise the end of summer for me. Here we are now in the middle of September and it seems only sensible to accept that Summer 2024 has slipped away. Accepting that allows me to celebrate autumn.
Not with fat, fresh figs as I could in Arcadia but definitely with the fruits of an English Harvest. I am on the hunt for Quince again and optimistic for autumn sunshine. Both things to celebrate a summer well spent and an acceptance of a change of season.
One week apart, two windows with blinds project sun into a room. This one, this morning heralds a day to be spent in a beautiful harbour and scenic village. Maybe tomorrow’s blog.
This one, last Friday, heralded a day in Spetses. A beautiful harbour and a scenic town.
Sunshine flooding a room in the morning sets the day up well. Last week we had Turquoise sea and water taxis.
Today who knows what we will have?
Both blinds are casting light on holiday clothes.
In Spetses they were contained and orderly, knowing their place in holiday hand luggage. Back home they are scattered on the floor awaiting their turn in the great post- holiday washing cycle. Sunshine an asset in both endeavours.
All the colours of my day. We took a trip to Monomvasia. Two reasons. Someone had said it was ‘Worth a look’. And secondly I remembered reading about the fortress town, in an old edition of National Geographical, such an old edition that the pictures were in black and white.
The understatement of black and white images and a throw away remark had not prepared me for the vibrancy and beauty of a town hanging on the slopes of a rocky island close to mainland Greece.
Our day started very grey, torrential rainfall and a waterspout accompanied the bitter, but essential phase of coffee in a taverna.
Arrival to Monomvasia brought turquoise sea, free parking and a cheap bus ride up a steep hill.
Every corner of the town was a visual treat. Old houses still awaiting some twenty first century tweakments, or not. I do love a dishevelled building in the right circumstances.
A taverna for sale had a laconic sitting tenant with no expectation of being disturbed any time soon. Monomvasia is in Laconia.
For a touch of blue with both meanings of the word, I realised yesterday that I really regret getting rid of all my dads old National Geographics when I cleared my old home 30 years ago. There is something magical about discovering a fantastic world of colour hinted at in monotone.
September is a month in flux. A roadtrip in September is fluxxflux . But some things stay the same. Breakfast and bedsheets. Waking up to a new day to gently observe the summer slipping quietly away.
Waking up on a rainy Monday morning in’the’ village. Not my village but a village nevertheless.
This village is the home village of one of my travelling companions, she has cousins on every corner in this idyllic Greek mountain village. Her husband and I grew up in a small Essex village, in England 50 years ago. We live half a world apart. Me in Plymouth, England and him in Melbourne, Australia.
For us there has been an anecdote on every corner of this trip. Small inconsequences of our teenage lives are remembered and chuckled over.People who we knew well are fondly recalled. People we barely knew are fleshed out as we share our personal experience of them. We both went to an entirely normal secondary school, not an iota of an enhanced educational experience for us. And yet every day we have marvelled at the people we met and the quality of teaching we received.
A good foundation for lives well lived.
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