Καλό ταξίδι;

Saying farewell, we dropped in on our neighbours and were given a pastry with a filling from one of the squashes grown in the garden.

Delicious. We learned more Greek in minutes than we would have in weeks as Lin got the recipe via Natasha and her mother in a mix of English and Greek and we drank a toast to our return.

Saying "Goodbye" for a few months

** ** **

Who wrote ’dust to dust’ was acquainted with the stew of hair, dead insects, particles of paint and plaster, crumbs, sawdust, threads, mingled with grey matter powdered beyond normal sight – a sample of recent activity – in our case a small midden made by sanding, filling, swatting, scratching, drilling, painting and eating.

Preparing to go back to England and having friends for supper is a good opportunity to tidy and clean things that otherwise get left beneath carpets, under furniture and in corners from which I try to sweep dust without over zealous treatment of webs from which spiders scuttle. “If you wish to live and thrive, let a spider run alive.” From the kitchen - the smell of onions frying and sounds of chopping, stirring and small doors closing. Sally, Mark, Tim, Nancy and Nick are coming round this evening.

It's that languid time in mid-afternoon - from 3.00pm - when the place goes almost silent; until around six, we avoid hammering, power drills and the like. In Wales babies were made in the imperative inactivity that followed a long morning’s Sunday chapel; other places siesta, and that village in the north of England whose exceptional population growth was eventually attributed to the mail train for Scotland flying through it in the early hours. There’s something to be said for interruptions but a proper village should be able to agree its times – for work, worship, play and time to for everyone to be quiet.