Early Thursday morning as I remember it: Wake at around 4.30 thinking it is time to get up. Note that it is not, the fan is still going full pelt and the room is still around 35 degrees, with the window wide open. There’s no breeze. Wake at 5.30 with alarm going off. Out of bed, into shorts, straight to front door to let in cat before the whole village is woken up. Feed cat, wash face, grab water bottle.
Heading out of the gate (via the thermometer at 31 degrees at 5.40 a.m.) and through the empty village square. Lefteris kafeneion is open and Lefteris is around somewhere. Pass the bakers, the bread just coming out of the wood oven on long peels (I looked it up), notice the baker wiping his forehead and swigging water. Pass the Jean And Tonic Bar, music coming from behind semi-closed doors, the sound of chatter, and on through streetlamp lit lanes, turning right to head up towards the museum. Pass a fit family carrying their bags and rucksacks and heading for the 6.30 boat to Rhodes. (Or else just mad about exercise, or in training for an assault on Everest.)
Pass the museum, work still underway, up through Triada square to the top road where the sound of cicadas is nearly deafening. Down to the main road and across to the cemetery – two rubbish collection trucks are about to meet up at the parking area next door where the small one unloads into the large one who then heads back up to the dump to do his business. Pass the madly barking dog at the gates and head out onto the track. Wonder about the gate: often open when I pass, should I close it and risk inconveniencing someone who may have just popped through to collect something from his shed or field? Should I follow the country code and close it like I would if it had already been closed? Thoughts evaporate as I negotiate the goat poo and start up the hill.
Soon ignoring the squish of goat poo under trainer and wondering if it’s the humidity that is making the scenery so silver this morning. Wave at the kids, a large herd, tribe or trip of young goats, and carry on up the hill, oddly enjoying the country smell of the stuff I am now treading in as I forget to look where I am going. The smell reminds me of my youth on the marsh… The sun is not yet up but the horizon is misty and pink and the sea lies as flat as an anti-God joke at a prayer meeting. Wondering where that came from I head up the next part of the hill, swigging from the water bottle and wondering if the cicadas ever get sore patches.
Reach the monastery, touch the gates (a tradition) swig water, stretch and start on down again, past the cicadas, the goats, the kids, the poo, the tree showing its roots, notice the sun is nearly with us, the sky is redder now, back to the now closed gate and the sound of a generator churning behind the barking dog as his owner does something with a barrel under a bush. Don’t stop to investigate, close gate, pass cemetery, smell of frankincense, and get back to road, carry on back up the hill, pass more noisy insects to the top road, see that the sun has now appeared huge and red, and the see the village streetlights turn off.
Back down through the village, no one around yet, apart from those still celebrating the new day at the Jean and Tonic bar, the bakers still baking, Lefteris watering plants and Nikitas opening the kiosk. Crossing the square I can hear the Panagia Skiadeni heading out, assuming the fit family made it, and back to the house where Neil is just up and the cat is already flat out and fanning himself with a delicate cat fan from Andalucía. Shower, and to work by seven. And the photos today were taken as I was working at the desk and so are rather boring but show you some boat activity on the bad-joke flat calm sea. And I made up the bit about the cat’s fan. It’s actually from 島牧村 (Shimamaki, Japan), he picked it up there last time he visited.
