Greece: Flashback 1

It’s true that I am actually in France now, and will be posting about that, and the fact that I have eaten my own weight in bread every day since I arrived, but I started off in Greece so for the sake of having a FULL and COMPLETE account of my travels, I’m going to flashback to some of the things I saw and did there (besides, the Greeks invented flashbacks, The Odyssey is full of them.)

First of all, I had to leave London. If you guessed that I cried to say goodbye to my beautiful flat in Bonnington Square and my lovely flatmate of six years, you would be right. The last Sunday in the flat, I drank all of the leftover champagne from my 30^th birthday party on the roof with Fan, Mary, Andy and Wiebke, in the rain.

Then I had to fly to Dublin, pick up the car, get the ferry to Holyhead, drive to London, pack up the flat, say goodbye again, drive to Holyhead, unpack the car, clear out approximately 1/8 of the attic, put all my boxes away. If you guessed that I was a pale, quivering wreck by the time I finished, you would also be right.

Then I had to go to Italy. That part was very fun, although Mary and I may draw a veil over our inability to find our agriturismo until 5 in the morning. There were no signs!

Then I had to pack. Packing, I’ve said it before, is fiendish.

But then I went to Greece. Greece was hot and sunny and the sea was clear and blue. Roisin met me at Thessaloniki and we talked very, very fast all the way to Kariani where their house is.Gregory was being shy when he saw me and hiding his face in his mammy’s shoulder but really giving lots of flirtatious smiles. To be honest, he took a while to warm to me … for example, one day I went to pick him up from his nap and when he heard the door open he stood up and lifted up his arms … then he saw who it was and lay back down in disgust.

We swam every day and ate lots of Greek salad (and in answer to all the people who wanted to know, in Greece, Greek salad is called village salad) and I surprised the 28 inhabitants of Kariani by taking lots of pictures of the village.