Sunday, 25th August, 2024
You can have too much of a good thing and that is what we found when we spent half the year in our Greek home. Yes, British weather can be awful but every day of hot sunshine can get you down. In fact, after the initial burst of heat, we quickly seek out the cooler shade. After eating two or three cooked breakfasts, just orange juice and coffee is enough.
Got to stop eating. We went out for another, wonderful Supper last night at the lovely Ella restaurant. Ella in Greek means Come On so it is an invitation or insistence to go there. We did but, because of the heat of the day, we hadn’t done enough exercise to justify it. And here we are, once again Breakfast …. UGH! Got to recommit when we go home. Less food. More exercise. No Alcohol. Must do it!
We love our hotel but Brexiters would hate its multi-national qualities. There are Greeks here, of course, and lots of Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Israelis, and a few British. This weekend, Athenians traditionally return from their island holidays where they have been trying to avoid the intense heat that has been a feature of Athens for weeks. The islands at least are cooled by sea breezes which help. The city will be noticeably busier from today.
Our walks have become more like shopping ambles in the heat. The Pharmacy (Φαρμακείο) signs all around highlight the local temperature – Here it was 37C at 11.00 am with still a bit to go.
To be honest with you, the stuff my wife looks at is all ‘tat’ but it amuses her and it is just cheap, holiday amusement. I like watching the world go by while she ‘flicks the rails’. Aren’t women strange? Men are so normal. I was reading about the cost of a middle class holiday treat in UK this morning. A trip for two parents and two children to Chester Zoo would cost £160.00 for one day’s admission which seems quite a stretch. The parents featured had a little daughter who was fascinated by fruit bats in Primary School. Chester Zoo happens to have an extensive Bat Pen but £160.00 for a Fruit Bat? I couldn’t eat a whole one!
Monday, 26th August, 2024
I won’t bore you with a weather report – no change. Out walking it is easy to see ancient, old and modern Greece all jostling for space. I featured the Ancient last week but I would like to show you this, Dear Reader. A simple domestic, village scene with the lady mopping the pavement outside her shop as others stop to chat. It really isn’t so long since Athens was just a simple village and the Greek capital was Nafplio on the Peloponnese coast.
When we were building our house on a farmer’s field, we had to have holes dug by a JCB to prove there were no ancient remains or acropolis under the soil. If they uncovered them and the authorities found out, we would have been prevented from building. Having spent £60,000.00 on the land, I panicked when I was told that. I was told not to worry because canny islanders would just rapidly cover it all over with soil and dig more holes until they got the all-clear.
In Athens, a huge, posh hotel in our Electra Group – The Electra Metropolis – was built out of the former Education Offices which had a very old, little church in front of it. In order to create a marble-clad, covered front lobby, they were forced to incorporate the church into their building. When you’ve spent time in Greece it doesn’t surprise one. We are so old that we really do remember this little church standing alone on Apollonos Street.
There is a huge wealth gap demonstrated across the city as in so many great cities and here there are many pavement beggars – often dressed in black to suggest they are widowed and alone and often cradling a grubby, tiny child to add to the sentiment. It is impossible to give to them all but people try. Within yards of the beggar you wouldn’t be surprised to see upper middle class homes like this. Expensive real estate in a world capital – cool, well constructed out of fine materials with space and comfort. Set back from the road for a little quiet and seclusion but still in the heart of the city.
Our quite grand, 5* Hotel has its entrance on a grubby, narrow back street that taxis struggle up to deliver their clientele. The fully liveried Doorman stands in 95F looking out on a hairdressers and a religious relics shop. Just 50 metres up the road is a carpark on one side and a roadside taverna on the other. This is the magic of Athens.
Tuesday, 27th August, 2024
Early breakfast. Packing. Checkout. Taxi called. Nice, new Mercedes E Class to the Airport. Athens Airport is lovely but busy and a nightmare for Business Lounges. They are in Terminals A & B but not in C where our flights depart. Consequently, we have had to go through security to Airside A slump in an Executive Lounge until our Departure Gate is announced and then dash across through Security again to Terminal C where our Gate would be. Took so much time and involved so much walking.
Now, Goldair have opened a new Executive Lounge on C side which we can use. Perfect. Relaxed there with our Laptop and iPads, a glass of orange and peace and quiet. On to Gate. Easy Boarding meant we were first on. Settled. On Time take off. On Time time landing after 3hrs 10 mins flying. No bags to collect. Shuttle Bus to Long Stay North Car Park. Our Car! Lovely to be reunited. Carpark was bathed in hot sunshine out of a cloudless sky. The car reported 25C/77F which was a nice re-entry feel.
Just under an hour’s quiet drive home. Met by Gill, our neighbour, weeding her drive. Unpacked and off to Sainsburys for essentials. There had been quite a bit of rain while we were away and the garden looked good. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with friends and relatives, Dear Reader. But now, I am bit tired. Kevin has come home from Spain this morning and has already gone to bed. Poor, old man. He just can’t take it nowadays!
Wednesday, 28th August, 2024
Travelling does make me tired. I need a holiday after that and there is so much to do. Shopping, gardening, washing, ironing, plus quite a lot of Office work, emails and Whatsapps, etc.. I’m just too tired for most of it. Woke up at 4.00 am (6.00 am (Athens) and slipped in and out of sleep until UK 6.00 am. Wasn’t going to sleep after that. We have left 37C of heat but returned to the sunny South Coast and 27C of warmth. It really is quite delightful.
I’ve just been writing to the Athens hotel to thank them for their hospitality and service. They really did go beyond expectations and I couldn’t resist re-telling the story of how we first chose their Group of Hotels which you may have heard before but which you’re now going to hear again.
We first went to the Electra Hotel, Ermou Street in 2004 at the time we were travelling to our Greek house. I had read a book while relaxing on a Greek island beach about a couple renovating a grand old house in Nafplion on the Greek Peloponnese coast. The couple were Austin Kark, Head of the BBC World Service and his wife, the children’s novelist, Nina Bawden.
They were clearly a wealthy couple and they constantly travelled back and forth to Greece to supervise the building work and source fine materials for their house. Each time, they would fly to Athens and stay either in the Electra Hotel or the Electra Palace Hotel as a base. The book inspired me to do what we subsequently achieved. We had already been travelling to Sifnos and Athens for 20 years and we bit the bullet and bought a farmer’s field, hired an architect and had a house designed.
As we went out to check on things, we stayed first in the Electra Hotel in Ermou Street and later in the Electra Palace Hotel on Nikodimou Street. It felt good to be following in their footsteps. I wanted to speak to them about our project but, unfortunately, they were caught up in the Potters Bar train crash where Kark died and Bawden was severely injured.
I thought they might like to incorporate this story into their own history and use it in the advertising brochures. Anyway, I have established a relationship with their newly appointed Guest Relationship Manager and I will be looking for special treatment next time.
While we are sweating away in 27C/81F here, my friend Kevin in Leeds is complaining about the cold having returned from Spain. Why did he return?
Thursday, 29th August, 2024
Beautiful, sunny morning. I’ve got catching-up jobs to do. I mowed all the lawns to within an inch of their lives before we went away but, with all the rain, they have grown thick and luscious. I think I’ll have that engraved on my headstone: Here lies John. He was thick and luscious. Unfortunately, it is making mowing slow and laborious but producing beautifully striped grass.
The neighbours in the street love the appearance as they drive in now with well cut grass and bright flowers in clumps under the trees. I must admit, I quite like it too. It’s brought me more into contact with people living on our street who I would never normally meet. They stop and tell me how their friends and relatives remark on how lovely the approach is as they arrive at houses.
A couple have already said I was going to increase the price of their property if they sold. Just before we went away, a man who I had never met before but who lives just round the corner came to our door with a bottle of ouzo that he had brought back from a recent trip. That was lovely of him.
It turns out he has a Greek wife and she had heard we loved Greece. We didn’t like to tell him that Ouzo is one of those things which doesn’t travel well. It tastes fantastic outside a taverna in the Greek sunshine but doesn’t quite work in grey and damp England. Still, it’s the thought that counts.
My wife is distraught. She thinks she has found areas of her face which are collapsing. I’m not surprised at her age and she has been losing weight which has that effect as well …. so I’m told. To add to her woes, I have to take her to the hospital this afternoon for a check-up and not on her face. The result is that she has to go in for a procedure which won’t be pleasant.
I spent an hour in the hospital car park which turned out to be an amazingly pleasant place this afternoon. Warm and sunny and surprisingly attractive.
To lift her spirits, we have booked two more trips to Thessaloniki and to Athens for 2025. It’s always good to have something to live for, isn’t it Dear Reader?
Friday, 30th August, 2024
Another lovely, sunny morning but make the most of it, Dear Reader, because Autumn is on its way. Officially, we have two days left of Summer 2024 but already the signs are there. Hints in the leaves on trees, flowers going over, farmers fields down here are scraped of wheat and straw ready for the stubble to be ploughed back in. The days are shortening frighteningly fast and schools go back on Tuesday.
This morning, our monthly village magazine was pushed through the door and typically echoes the season. A drive out to Sainsburys where they sell punnets of Blackberries for £3.15 are undercut by the hedgerow outside where blackberries are free in abundance to the whole world. Soon, we will be looking to ‘buy’ sunshine elsewhere.
We can’t do anything until Pauline’s medical problems are sorted out and we haven’t got a date for that yet. Even so, the Mediterranean is not really reliable enough. Two days after we left Athens, they were experiencing thunderstorms and a bad weekend of weather is forecast for Aegean.
When we were living there, we were always surprised how quickly September ushered in a complete change to the weather. The photo above was taken from our house on this day 15 years ago. We woke up to extensive sea mist which filled the port and the valley. It signalled the end of Summer and the start of uncertain Autumn.
Saturday, 3st August, 2024
After a poor night’s sleep, the morning has opened with a bit of light rain and a disappointingly grey and breezy last day of Summer. We are discussing travel arrangements as we always do when the sunshine is about to be rationed. I’ve also been talking to our hotel in Brighouse for a trip to torment our Friends in the North.
We’ve been in our house for more than 8 years and conversation has turned to what to do next. We like it here but we also like ‘new’ so the dilemma begins. The Labour Government has been elected on a manifesto of change and a manifesto to build 1.5 million houses in the first Parliament. To do this, they know they will have to upset some people – mainly the established, middle class home owners who tend to vote Tory and read the Mail/Express.
Our village really used to be a village and you can understand their sense of dislocation as the size and feel changes, We have had a great deal of house building just in the times we have been here and the villagers who have been here since the 1950s will have seen massive change. But that’s how life is. Nothing stands still.
One of the biggest (understandable) complaints down here is that the new properties are all, large, executive designs to attract those moving out of London for better value and healthier lifestyles. It has really pushed the prices up and left many locals priced out of the market. There is still lots of green space around us but long term residents are shocked by how quickly it’s disappearing. I can’t complain. My house was built on a former market garden but I understand the emotions and they are running high down here.