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
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.
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!
What would your life be like without music?
In theory, rather empty, but my head has the most delightful, personal Juke Box, playing in my subconscious, on demand. Sometimes in the form of earworms, when I least expect it.
As I write this Avalon by Roxy Music is playing. Absolutely no idea why.
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.
Do you see yourself as a leader?
I don’t particularly see myself as a leader because I am happy to follow while observing and learning. But life has a way of sometimes clearing the path and leadership finds me. At that point I like to be certain that i am providing a safe environment for others to learn and move forward. I worry when people push forward as leaders without the skills or understanding that leading requires.
I am back to my home bedding folds. Yesterday my last holiday bedding fold looked like this.
With the addition of a breakfast tray to bring sunshine to my morning, high up in the attic of a Greek writers house.
I was certainly NOT leading yesterday as we drove from the Mani in Greece to Athens and then on to the West Country of England after a four hour flight
I was a back seat driver on a journey from overburdened Orange trees in vivid sunshineso to a chilly autumnal dawn, with apples already falling to the ground and blackberries on dew covered bramble bushes as we arrived home in the early hours.
So much blogging to be had in the next few weeks, sometimes I will lead but other times I will follow, always pondering a random thought.
If you had to give up one word that you use regularly, what would it be?
Any number of swear words. I like to think I use them wisely and to make a point. But they slip out a little more often than they should, because I am a grandparent to impressionable small people.
Enough of my swear words.
The word I have used a lot today is luck and lucky.
For many more reasons than I need to go into here. Specifically because we took a ferry to a beach which looked like this four years ago
The owner made the decision to get rid of sunbeds, restrict trading to one taverna and have a well cared for public toilet.
The result for us was a quiet, peaceful beach approaching the end of the summer season.
Untroubled by mass tourism we swam and chatted on a near deserted beach. The water was crystal clear and we had a wholesome late lunch in the one remaining taverna.
Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.
Not a story about the furthest but a story about our current road trip before it even started. The only motorway that links us with our local airport was closed. An easy two hour journey became a tense four hour journey via A and B roads in Devon. Our flight was at 5:15 and we arrived at the airport at 5:05. Never were we so grateful for a delayed flight but regardless of the delay, check-in for luggage was very firmly closed. Thankfully we met some fabulous people and we were processed with kindness and expediency.
We arrived at 2 am and can reveal the start of our roadtrip.
Our first day was an odysea of coffee shops and nattering and a museum of Greek culture where I met this splendid fellow.
Goodness how I love this face painted in about 1870. A face so full of mischief I would be drawn to him at a party.
Has he just eaten the last pie?
Or farted?
Has he just heard the most salacious and delicious piece of gossip?
Is he trying really hard not to giggle?
I have no idea but he has brightened my first day in Athens. I will take his unusual portrait image with me on my road trip.
And this fabulous abstract created in a Sephora beauty product shop. Just nearby to our Airbnb.
What does your ideal home look like?
Our ideal home looked like it should be in a magazine. And it was.
It was planned to be our forever home but the urge to start again was too pressing. So now the name lives on as a blog . And Hugo still has to keep a paw on all the latest interior trends.
What brings a tear of joy to your eye?
The prompt from my blog host ( above ) exactly matched the blog I was planning to write. Yesterday tears of Joy/ mirth were shed as we enjoyed a coffee in a bikers cafe with two other bobbers.
It should be said that none of us have any actual experience of motorbikes. Two of us have, as the wall art suggests, shared the ride
Me at only a few days old when I was brought home from the maternity hospital in the sidecar of my dads motorbike. Rather more unusually Gill Bobber rode in a sidecar made of scaffolding poles when she had a biker boyfriend. This proximity to an actual motorbike allowed her to ride out with a motorcycle club. The name of which brought the actual tears of joy yesterday.
Just to prove I haven’t made this up to add pzazz to my blog, here is the map of the area just north of Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire.
The upper part of the road is called Slack Tops . Which has a scintilla of humour for all post-meno women as nature is not kind to older breasts.
Which leads me to the epic tears of joy which we shed yesterday. All four of us have substantial knowledge of 3D human anatomy. Sometimes that leads other people to ask us odd questions. Our friends had been asked by a fitness instructor if they could crochet a soft model of a pelvic floor so the instructor could more easily explain the importance and significance of pelvic floor exercises. Another essential for post-meno women.We puzzled over the problem and actually came up with a half decent design of such a thing. Including working parts. The tears of laughter were shed when we realised how long we had taken to seriously design a crochet pelvic floor and the consideration of making such a thing. Quite a different sort of engineering to the usual nattering in a bikers cafe I am sure.
As a cultural note, Slack Bottom, of Gill’s bikers club in Yorkshire, is just a little north of the grave of Sylvia Plath who wrote the best excuse for blogging that I know.
Everything in life is writable about.
And to finish, me, sitting on an actual motorbike. The only time in my life.
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