The day broke with low scudding cloud and the occasion spot of rain so we all spent the entire morning reading; the entire van der Riet family sitting quietly side by side on the one and only settee.
By lunch time everyone was feeling like we really needed to do something and the weather had cleared up so we went for a walk to the other side of town and caught a couple of "slovaks" for lunch at kargas which is the anglicised, bastardised version of what the store's name actually was. What we actually ate were souvlaki's and they go down extremely well; very cheap and very nice.
I'm not sure why the world tilted so much in the photograph below. I think I have an unconscious tilt when shooting that I need to correct.
After fortifying ourselves for the hill up to the big church at the top we pressed on and walked through the graveyard behind the church which had a couple of unusual aspects. Firstly, almost all the graves were from the last 20 years and it is quite disconcerting to see more than a few of people that are or were younger than we are now. People have been vrekking here for thousands of years and one would have thought that this graveyard, being so close to the main church, would have been filled ages ago.
Carl commented upon looking at the graves that whether the deceased were successful or not, trustworthy or not, beautiful or not, christian or not; the marble gravestone with a name and date was all that remained and spoke nothing of the life that was. My contribution to the conversation was that in a couple of generations the hole in history that they had occupied would have closed completely like water around a pebble; not remembered by friend, family nor foe. The philosophical thought of the holiday and, as unpleasant as it makes one feel, that is just the way it is so best we make the most of what we have while we have it.
After that philosophical moment we walked down the hill and found the most fantastic beach so it was decided that the remainder of the holiday was going to be an impromptu beach holiday and because the sun is so gentle here even I thought that I would manage that. We returned to the flat and gathered towels and costumes and headed for the beach and spent until sundown there before walking back around the edge of the coast, past the harbours and home.
One happy family warm again and enjoying the last of the sun in the same bay as we had been swimming in. It must be said that the water was near freezing and it took a bit of getting used to and a little courage to go right under. Once all the adults other than Caron who refused to get into the water we all had a good laugh at Alistair coming into the water; the pain and shock on his face and the way his arms were held so stiffly at shoulder height made it look like he was being crucified.
While we were sitting on the beach and in fact several times in the week we had been here we had heard and seen a van with a loudspeaker advertising something in greek; it was all greek to us but we thought that maybe it was electioneering or something but couldn't quite work it out. As the van drove past on the road behind the beach we saw that it was like a mobile chicken coop; the greek equivalent of 'mielieees' in South Africa. A lot of chicken and egg based mirth followed as we lay on the beach whiling away the time looking out over of the Aegean.
Back at the shack we baked the cheese pie and miniature calzone's we had previously purchased for supper which was only moderately successful. In fact that may be a bit kind for the supper that emerged from the oven.
No comments:
Post a Comment