Sunday, 31st May, 2026
May is leaving with another lovely, warm and sunny day. June is expected to start with a run of rain which pleases me because I won’t be here.
I will be here in the sunshine walking and indulging. It’s funny but, when it gets to this stage, I begin to think that it’s all too much hassle but I’ve always done that. I tell myself that staying in the same routines and in the same place is the equivalent of being dead. Movement is life. Change is opportunity. Challenge is invigorating. Got to remember that. There will be plenty of time for sitting in a chair.
That is why I will be here and pushing myself to do things, see things, experience things and understand new things as well as enjoy things.
I will hear the music of the Greek Language & People. I may have been visiting Greece since 1981 but it was this BBC programme than impelled me to build a home on the Cycladic island of Sifnos which is featured in the programme. It began in 1983. Can you believe it? 43 years ago I was desperate to learn Greek and bought the book to accompany the BBC programme. The presenter is now dead which tells you something.
Greece is in my DNA which isn’t easy to believe of an East Midlands lad but I can never let it go just as other things in my life will never be released. That is why I return to Athens every year to renew my commitment and why I enjoy revisiting Thessaloniki to feel part of the nation that I love.
I was thinking yesterday of my Grandparents – my Mother’s parents. We were watching a fairly sloppy detective drama – A Taste of Murder – set on the island of Capri. It is located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula. I have never been that far south in Italy. Venice and Ancona in the North are my extent but I knew some one who has. My grandparents – my Mother’s parents – Lily and James Coghlan who lived in Croydon and worked in the city visited Capri as part of an Italian tour and their one claim to fame was that they were greeted by a girl from Rochdale. They should be so lucky.
This must have been in the late 1950s and the girl they met was once the highest paid star in the world. Gracie Fields was to their generation a rockstar. She had ‘retired’ to a villa on the island of Capri and my Grandparents were walking past when she came out to her garden gate and greeted them. If it wasn’t for her stardom, she would have appeared very working class but they were the ones with stars in their eyes after that experience and they both predated her – one dying in the 1960s and the other dying in the 1970s. At least they took the trouble of extending their experience and meeting a rockstar in another world.
Monday, 1st June, 2026
Happy new month, Dear Reader. Welcome to June 2026 and the start of meteorological Summer. It has opened down here warm and sunny although not as hot as recently and rain is forecast to be falling as I drive off to Gatwick Airport. The garden is looking forward to it.
Yesterday, I lifted our first new potatoes, boiled them with fresh mint from the garden and ate them dripping in melting butter. Absolutely delicious! When you lift, wash, boil and eat potatoes or any vegetable within minutes of them leaving our soil, they cook very quickly and taste better. Well, they definitely cook quicker whether the better taste is all in my head, I can’t be sure but it suits me to believe it.
The longest day of light is just 3 weeks away. Plants are growing almost unhindered now. All they need is rain. It is one of the dilemmas of going on holiday but one I’m prepared to live with. The garden will just have to get on with it without me.
I wonder what you were doing and feeling last night, Dear Reader. I was feeling reflective and slightly sad. I was looking at the moon. It was full last night and I learn that it is known as the Blue Moon. I took this photo through the glass of an upstairs window with a smartphone. Quite remarkable the definition one can achieve.
The distance of time and space that the moon symbolises makes me wistful and sad. Although it has always been there, it has certainly got worse with age. Not surprising as time runs out. I had spent some time in the evening watching the first episode of Greek Language & People which I referred to yesterday. It first showed on BBC TV in 1983 as I completed my 3rd Greek holiday and my first on Sifnos. Episode-1 includes filming on Sifnos. The series could not have hit me at a better time. Already keen to learn Greek and in love with Sifnos after 3 weeks there.
It was presented by Chris Serle and Katia Dandoulaki – an English man being led through the learning process by a pretty Greek girl. It was done at a pace that I could cope with and accompanied by a book which I featured yesterday and still have on the bookshelves.
Chris Serle died last year at the age of 81. Katia Dandoulaki is 78 and still performing on Greek TV but looks SO OLD! It’s not her age that makes me sad. It’s …
Tuesday, 2nd June, 2026
Travelling makes me tired. It always has. I tend to put myself into ‘sleep mode’ to get through long, cramped flights and tedious ferry journeys. I only try to stay awake when I’m driving myself. Today, I’m feeling even more tired than usual. I don’t like to admit it but it must be my age. Mind you, I know some little wrinklies who have given up on foreign travel altogether and I will never do that as long as I can walk.
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life ….
So said one of my heroes – Dr Samuel Johnson – in the 1770s. His inference was that we should never stop learning and challenging ourselves. I couldn’t agree more. The trip Sussex coast to Gatwick (1 hr), Flight to Thessaloniki (3.25 hrs), taxi to our hotel (0.5 hrs) even with the waiting around is utterly worth it.
Soon we were in the splendour of our suite high up in the 5* Electra Palace Hotel just off the utterly pedestrian Aristotle Street.
After all these years, there is something about Greece – anywhere in Greece – that makes me feel at home. It doesn’t stress or phase me. The taxi driver who brought us from the airport to the hotel thought I was Greek because I greeted and instructed him in Greek. He was shocked to find out I was English.
He dropped us outside of the hotel in the Platia Aristotelous and we were greeted like long lost cousins. We have learnt to take that with a pinch of salt but it is nice to be recognised. Our suite was still being prepared so we were ushered into the Meetings Lounge and provided with a Greek Salad, some Falafel and flavoured flat breads plus a bottle of red wine. Lovely way to start the week.
When our suite was ready, we went up to unpack and relax. We had lots of treats like a sickly Greek cake, a bowl of exotic fruits and a bottle of Almond Liqueur from the islands. Neither of us drink it but the thought is appreciated. It is a relaxing day and a gentle evening today.
Wednesday, 3rd June, 2026
Up late … or early depending where you are. Greece is +2hrs which takes a day or so to adjust to. This morning, we didn’t get up until 8.00 am but that is 6.00 am in UK and still felt a bit like it. Would have been the perfect time to try the Melatonin gummies that M gave me recently but I completely forgot.
Certainly got up feeling refreshed and ready for an interesting day after yesterday’s relaxation and acclimatisation. The temperature over night didn’t fall below 24C/75F and will get to 33C/92F at the height of the day.
By the time we get to Breakfast, it is so humid that we sit inside under the air conditioning. Can’t manage much more than orange juice and coffee which is a pity because the restaurant presents every food known to man … and woman. At the table next to us is a Greek priest dressed all in black and surrounded by his acolytes. The table is gradually piled high with plates of eggs, rocket salad leaves, cucumber, tomatoes, smoked salmon, various cheeses, fresh bread, bowls of strawberries, kiwi fruit, Greek cakes & biscuits. Greek coffees and the obligatory accompanying glasses of water.
They really stint themselves in the church. Religion just thrives on self denial. Still, everybody has to have a holiday, don’t they Dear Reader. From prayer and abstinence to sex, drugs and big breakfasts is the way to go. Particularly, against the back drop of this warm water bay of commercial and tourist vessels.
Out walking, the flower beds leading up to the hotel just echo those back home. Marigolds are popular in this hot country. These African Mophead variety add a jazzy colour to the landscape.
Thursday, 4th June, 2026
Very humid this morning and 25C at Breakfast time. It feels close and we might have a thunderstorm later. That will be exciting because Mediterranean storms are dramatic and it will be fun to watch bolts of lightning flashing across the bay. So often in Greece, these storms are accompanied by biblical rainfall so we hope they organise it in time to go out to Dinner.
Often, when the weather has a spell which isn’t conducive to the beach, tourists wander around glumly looking rather lost. I’ve always treated travel as moving my life to another place and I carry my normal activities with me. Of course, I don’t attempt gardening out in the street but, although I’m only here for a week, I have my laptop, iPad and smartphone with me to continue writing, reading and communicating.
Although I’ve been doing it for years, what has changed and been a great improvement is the easy availability of VPN apps. Virtual Private Networks allow one to be in any country in the world while on the net while not being there physically. It is digital deception. It also prevents invasion of one’s computer through unprotected WiFi feeds – in a hotel or an airport, for example. It means I can check my Bank Accounts without fear of being compromised. Previously, there were scary stories of criminals working hotels and farming logins of guests which allowed them to scoop passwords and entry to those bank accounts.
Of course I had to watch PMQs yesterday. The only difference here is that it happens a 2.00 pm rather than midday in UK. Keir Starmer was brilliant and actually allowed his true passion to show through as he made Farage look more like the grubby, little man he really is as he encouraged the Great Unwashed and uneducated to violently riot while affecting to just represent their views. It is an act that he has perfected over years although this snake oil salesman is finding that his image is beginning to fall apart as he is increasingly focussed on.
None of this would have been possible until ten years ago – partly because of internet speeds but also because major UK media outlets understandably feeling the need to protect their output from unpaid access. Yesterday, I was in central London to watch the House of Commons on BBC TV from my settee in Thessaloniki and then switch over to Sky TV for the ongoing discussion. My online calendar said I should order my repeat prescription and it can only be done online from UK. The VPN allowed me to do that from abroad.
I’ve also brought my exercise regime with me so a long walk is now on the agenda before deciding where to eat Dinner tonight. Yesterday, I went around photographing menus outside restaurants so we could consider in our own time which one to visit. Ultimately, we were too tired and not hungry enough to go there but tonight we will visit this menu. I wonder what you would choose, Dear Reader.
Friday, 5th June, 2026
Well, yesterday we got our storm but before that I had to indulge my travelling companion with retail therapy. The Hondos Centre is the Debenhams of Greece.
It stinks of perfume and nail varnish downstairs as highly coiffured Assistants stand around trying to look busy without any customers. Further up, there is floor after floor of Female clothes where women absent mindedly flick clothes on rails and occasionally go as far as to hold them up against their chests in front of a mirror. Down in the basement, of course, is the men’s stuff but no one goes there out of choice.
On to Pauline’s favourite food of all time and a staple of the Greek (snack) Breakfast – a Bougatsa (Μπουγάτσα) – a traditional Greek pastry made of crispy, golden-brown layers of phyllo dough wrapped around a thick, sweet semolina custard flavoured with vanilla and lemon zest and dusted with powdered sugar and ground cinnamon. I have to admit they don’t do it for me but I know my duty.
And then the storm came which was fun for us but awkward for the contractors working down in Aristotelous Square in front of our hotel where they were preparing for the Women’s Beach Volley Championships. Each year, they import the beach into the square and assemble seating and television staging and they usually manage it in a day. They were rushing to complete after the storm just as a cruise ship arrived for the night.
It was soon followed by a mocked up Pirate Ship that fleeces tourists with a short cruise around the area accompanied by loud music and cheap drinks. My idea of absolute hell.
As so often in the Mediterranean, the storm is strong and dramatic but short and quickly replaced with a gentle and romantic atmosphere as vessels disappear over the horizon to distant shores.