Sunday, 23rd August, 2026
A hot night which didn’t fall below 32C/90F. Manchester? 12C/54F. Brrr … Just 10 years ago today, it was a hot 32C morning. We were living in Surrey and a lorry arrived to collect a store of about 40 framed prints of Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian Neoclassicists like Lawrence Alma Tadema and Frederic Lord Leighton
More than anything else in those preceding years, I was keen on collecting John William Waterhouse. When I start, I can become obsessive. Each framed print would cost me £150 – £200.00.
Looking back, I went too far but there is nothing new there. We brought them from a large house where they could be displayed well to a modern Duplex where they couldn’t. They were collected by St Barnabas Hospice in Sussex
What really piques my interest and amuses me about this memory is that one, relatively minor event threads a string through a large spread of my life as I sit looking out over Athens in the baking sunshine. If I can face the heat, I am going to walk up to Syndagma – the Greek Parliament Building – which is illustrated this morning from a Webcam mounted on the Hotel Electra Rhythm in Ermou Street.
I think it would normally be rather busier but the excessive heat is making tourists reluctant to venture out. Even the hotel rooftop pool is quiet this morning. I will see if I can walk into the picture. Where is Waterhouse when you need him?
Monday, 24th August, 2026
Can’t get up early enough because we were 31C/90F over night and we are being warned it is going to get hotter.
There is hot and there is unbearable and we may just be spilling over. Got to accompany my wife to the shops on Ermou Street this morning. The quality of Greek clothes is not great although she has bought suits for work that lasted. In recent times leather goods have been the main attraction because they are really well made.
I don’t eat Breakfast at home but you will all know the duality felt when you have paid a large sum of money for a hotel stay that includes a sumptuous Buffet Breakfast with all the things you normally deny yourself. It feels both wrong, wasteful and almost rude to not enjoy it
I have now eaten 6 Breakfasts – Bacon, Scrambled Egg, Croissants – and I am the stage where my body says it can take no more. Why do I not have more self-discipline? The trip up to the rooftop Breakfast Room is a real experience. It is there that you really integrate cultures.
I love salads, and cheese and tuna and smoked salmon BUT I don’t want any of that too early in the day. Some cultures relish tuna and tomato sandwiches for Breakfast with hunks of cheese on the side followed by chocolate mousse. My senses reel. My palate cannot take coffee immediately. I have to work up to it. Some cultures relish strong, black coffee with an acrid cigarette first. Some cultures stuff things in to their mouths like there is coming famine and have to show their mouths full for the appreciation of their guests.
We British feel totally embarrassed by such shows of indulgence and even feel uncomfortable loading our plates. And there is one, specific thing which we have long seen as we travel across Europe and in Greece specifically. Sit in a Taverna for any length of time and you will see Greeks order mountains of food, pick at it, light a cigarette, talk a lot, pay and leave with mountains of barely touched food still on the table. My Generation emerged with war time rationing still in place and wasting food was a crime/sin. You just didn’t do it.
The noisy Americans would ask for a doggy bag to take it away. Last night a girl took half a piece of Moussaka away. What on earth she did with it in her hotel room, I could only fantasise about. In April 1968, the British photographer Don McCullin made his first trip to Biafra, the newly independent republic that had broken away from Nigeria the year before. The Biafrans were starving and I remember it being used by parents who were trying to persuade ‘picky’ children to eat. The Biafrans would love it, they would shame them. I remember thinking they could have every portion of ‘stuffed marrow’ I was ever offered. I would even deliver them. Now, we find it very hard to leave food on the plate. Good manners mean taking no more than you can eat and leaving nothing. You see, there is politics and culture within every act.
Tuesday, 25th August, 2026
The heat of yesterday hardly abated. By mid day, it had reached 38C/100.4F and stayed there until we went out for Dinner in the evening.
Our neighbours at home have just returned from a business meeting in Tallinn, Estonia. They were hoping to snatch some sunny downtime but it didn’t quite work out like that. At least Jill was brave enough to share this with me. We can expect rain at the end of the week when we get home which will be wonderful.
The big winner from this Athenian trip has not been me. Of course, I am loving it but some people get all the perks. Yesterday, as these photos illustrate, it was definitely someone else.
We walked down Ermou Street which is looking scruffier than usual. It is narrow, cobbled and shady making it cooler. One of the rules of Ermou Street is that you can’t walk down it without buying something. Usually, it is leather but yesterday it was hats.
Someone couldn’t decide (It’s an old tactic.) between two colours of the same style so we had to buy two. It wasn’t a lot of money – about €50.00 – but it calmed the world for a while. Walking was exhausting in that heat and a measure of that was to say that while I am intrinsically allergic to clothes shopping normally, yesterday I was begging for the respite that Ermou Street’s air conditioned shops offered.
We retreated to the hotel and our balcony above the pool where walruses immersed themselves in a vain attempt to stay cool. A glass of ice cold white wine and relax while I talked to friends across Europe and America. It’s what I would do at home so why not here.
Then, it was time to eat. We went out to Ella Restaurant on Mitropoleos Street. We have been there many times before and know it is quality, urban-chic cooking. Last night, my wife was more intent on replacing me with a toyboy. I don’t know why.
Anyway, I was there to eat and the food was great. After a starter of Κολοκυθοκεφτέδες or courgette fritters, I had the most wonderful slow cooked, oven baked, Lamb with citrus sauce – Αρνί με σάλτσα εσπεριδοειδών and baby roast potatoes.
It was all so wonderful, I ate too much. I’m sure I was compensating for emotional rejection, Dear Reader.
Today we’ve managed a walk around the Parliamentary Estate. The temperature seems to be stuck at 38C at the moment and it takes your breath away. All around are people and birds trying to mitigate the furnace.
Syntagma – the Greek Parliament – means arrange together and Greeks are proud of being the cradle of Democracy
Wednesday, 26th August, 2026
Whether we are here for a week or six months, leaving is always strange. Will I see you again? I must but will I be alive? Last night, the news of Dolly Parton dying at the age of just 80 years old comes as a shock. She was nothing to me other than a fellow human being. I must admit I was impressed with her attempt to pour money into children’s literacy in UK. Why? What was it to her? Must have come from her early deprivation. No, it is the fact that she was just 5 years older than me that shocked me.
I don’t know anything about pop music but I was shocked to find Dolly Parton wrote this song and had a hit with it years ago. It is one of those hauntingly moving lilts that tears at the heart strings …. if you have a heart.
After a lovely meal in a favourite local taverna and coffee on the balcony, we packed – well one of us did – and went to bed early. I slept like a log. Someone else who doesn’t like flying so much didn’t. Up early for a last very quiet Breakfast which only one of us could eat and I wish I hadn’t and then down to checkout and a taxi for the airport.
It is 10.00 am and very hot outside. I am in the Goldair Business Lounge, Athens Airport. We were up early
An oasis of cool calm and tranquility, I was able to sit with my Laptop and Blog to my heart’s content. Our flight is delayed by 30 mins but will catch up most of that in-flight. We should be in the car and driving home by 2.30 pm.
Well, famous last words. Our delay doubled to an hour and we had to sit on the plane in the hope of an earlier take off slot which didn’t come. We whiled away the time by watching videos on our iPads. The people above are Vicky Pryce and Denis McShane.We politics geeks were treated to the sight of Vicky Pryce and her partner, former Labour Minister, Denis MacShane coming on board. Both have served time in prison. Pryce was married to Chris Huhne – Liberal Deocrat and former Minister in the Coalition Government. Pryce is a Professor of Economics and was Chief Economic Adviser to the Government. Both went to prison for fraudulent use of the driving laws. Huhne destroyed his political career by persuading his Greek wife to say she was driving when he got caught for speeding. They subsequently divorced.
Pryce has been in a partnership with former Rotherham and Labour MP, Macshane who is a Doctor of Economics in more senses than one. He went to prison for delibertely defrauding Parliamentary Expenses.