A week away

Holiday feet and holiday lizard

It was so good to get away - and better still to arrive. Teleportation remains a fantastic idea and I hope and pray that some boffin will make it a reality before I have to sit on a Thomas Cook Airbus or set foot in Corfu airport again. If I want Paxiot sunshine and hospitality then both are a necessary evil. Sigh.

We stayed, as we have done many time before, in Loggos. We note small changes; a few more cars and higher prices and some of the older folk do not spend as much time in the village clicking their worry beads and sipping their Metaxa as they did in previous years, but essentially this little island is much the same. The islanders are warm and hospitable and even at the end of a busy season are welcoming as ever.

 The harbour at Loggos - we stayed in part of the white building in the centre of the picture

We turn our faces to the sun and gently unwind - returning again and again means that there is no need to rush and explore to find new things - we know what is around most corners. I find when I get home that I have taken very few 'touristy' photographs of scenery and the picturesque landscape - my camera downloads a very odd selection of pictures which on reflection represent fleeting moments - the abstract interplay of light and shade, colour and form.

We are beguiled by frosty 'sea-glass' which we seek amongst the pebbles which rattle onto the little beach below our apartment. As once ubiquitous glass gives way to plastic 'sea-glass' becomes harder to find. Catch it while you can.

Wild colour combinations not to be tried at home - colour theory from art school days when art schools still taught colour theory. Somehow the Greek light is sympathetic to this counterpoint.

I play with sunsets:

and shadows:

We weren't the only ones to loll in the sunshine.

 We listened to music too - an unexpected treat. Our stay coincided with the annual Paxos September Music Festival.

More Village Hall than Wigmore Hall perhaps.

It was only a little incongruous sitting in the old school house in Loggos listening to three of Walton's quirky Facade settings; Daphne, Through Gilded Trellises and Old Sir Faulk.  Then Franck and Schubert too - a little more serious in tone. A young and talented string quartet, a pianist and soprano played to a receptive and mostly British audience while outside the Greek night provided symphonies of its own - the laughter and shrieks of youngsters playing football, the barking of a particularly lively mongrel and the waspy-buzzy whine of the scooters favoured by racy young men.

Then all too soon it's time for home again. A day in transit and we are back in the small mountain kingdom of Trelystan.  All is well. The grass has grown, courgettes have become marrows and the leaves of the Liquidambar are now more rusty than green. There's definitely and autumnal feel to the air and I am quick to cover my Grecian tan with a warm and fleecy jacket.

That's it for the foreseeable future then. Refreshed? I think so. Just as well when I look at the diary for the next couple of weeks......