The Quiet Pace of Island Life
Grey skies but warm, up to 26 degrees yesterday afternoon, and no threat of rain, just one of those plain cloud covers that doesn’t seem to move. A calm, silvery sea, through which the Blue Star cut its way before dawn looking, as it always does at night, like an ocean liner off to cross the Atlantic, steaming west from Ireland like that one 109 years ago last week.
Collard doves cooing, the swallows and martens are back and flitting, smaller, more fidgety birds too, and the courtyard has become the sparrows’ playground. There, the chilli plant is coming back; that’s the one taken from Yianni Rainbow’s plant. The bougainvillaea is sprouting as is ‘Heavy Plant Crossing.’ That’s the one by the porch I don’t know the name of, which has pink flowers and sits in a heavy pot, and something has made its home in an empty pot of earth. It looks like a wild succulent, so we’ll leave that and see what happens.
The shutters are now open again (and the windows need cleaning), the washing dries in a few hours, and there is no need to turn on the electric heaters. Today, I must go down to the sea again, to Yialos, to get permission to go to Rhodes next week, and then all my papers and tickets will be in order for stage one of the biometric application. Apparently, the lady who will deal with us is very helpful and pleasant and has assured us that she can ‘do’ a ‘family’ of four in half an hour.
Meanwhile, at the desk, I continue to plough through my first draft to check the story and plot while thinking about what I can cut out, what is repetition, and ‘what the hell did I mean by that?’ If it doubt, cut it out, as our old family doctor used to say. So, the quiet pace of island life ticks on as we await more news of the lifting of restrictions and the opening up of tourism, hopefully, after Easter, which, by the way, starts next Monday with the beginning of Big or Great Week.
