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Tuesday, September 9
Just in time before we leave for Greece the new henhouse is finished. With plenty of room for any additional family members and strong enough to defy the worst storms.
Thursday, September 11
While
we are packing for tomorrow's 4.55 am flight, the village is slowly
warming up for the annual end-of-summer fair. Who will be the winner
of this year's regional home-made Gouda cheese contest?
And more important, who will be Borefts Cheese Queen of 2003?
Tuesday, September 15
As we are making house visits with our real estate agent, seriously considering buying a house on the island, Robert Dessaix's latest novel Corfu turns out to be an unexpected booster of introspection.
"What's so seductive about this chronicle of a year in Molyvos is that it dawns on you as you read why whiling away your life in an insignificant Greek village is so life-enhancing for many foreigners - at least at first: here, magically, everything matters all of a sudden - a broken flowerpot, the priest's wife's gossip, your neigbour's sprained ankle, the beauty of the mountains against the molten evening sky, a funeral, a drowning, fried sardines with friends down by the water... and also doesn't matter. [...] It can't exist at home, where your failure to live significant life is advertised on the side of every passing bus." [...]
"There's
sex, too, naturally. Foreigners, with their marvellous lack of serious
family ties or obligations to anyone in the village, live in an enchanted
space as far as the local fishermen and their sons are concerned. Sex
with no consequences is miraculously just there for the asking."
At the end of the book the main character decides to go home. "Unless I go back, it won't have been my journey - or my life - at all. [..] The old beginning must be made new. Otherwise my life will be like one of those shapeless conversations you have in trains with complete strangers - interesting enough at the time, but in the end little more than random noises."
A choice between traveling or being adrift.
Sunday, September 21
A
few days after we had asked Vagelis whether it was possible to arrange
some life music on the plateia some day - like in the old days
- an old bard with a guitar and a very raspy voice showed up playing
some wonderful rebetika songs.
Tuesday, September 30
On one of the last days of these holidays Vagelis and Fausta invited us and some friends for an end-of-the-season get-together at Christos' restaurant in the mountain village of Vourliotes. This time we had stuffed turkey instead of the traditional stuffed goat.