Decade of a Feta way of life . . .

Posted on July 17, 2023 by Marjory

THIS month it’s 10 years since my first Greek travel memoir, Things Can Only Get Feta, was published and I’m thrilled to say the book is still going strong: a best-seller in various Amazon categories, despite a publishing drama early on. However, it has soldiered on with vigour and even found its way recently onto the syllabus of a Greek university course. But more of that later.

If you’ve followed my blog over the past decade, you’ll be familiar with how the book, about living in Greece during the economic crisis, came about. But if you’re just tuning in for the first time, in short: my husband Jim and I, and our famously bonkers Jack Russell terrier Wallace, left a Scottish village in 2010 for a mid-life adventure in southern Greece. It was during a British recession and a downturn in the newspaper industry, in which we both worked as journalists.

**Wallace, above, and again with Jim and Marjory in Koroni**

And what an adventure it turned out to be, settling in a rented stone house in a hillside village in the remote, wild Mani region. It was a working village, raw in places, sometimes well beyond our comfort zone but perfect for our aim of living a Greek kind of life while we freelanced for various publications in Britain and Australia to help fund our odyssey. Greece was on the brink of meltdown due to its devastating economic crisis of 2010. The country, with massive debts, had to accept a bailout from the EU and punishing austerity to go with it. An ideal time for journalists perhaps, but not for a trouble-free stay in beautiful Greece.

However, we went regardless and found ourselves in an ideal location, living amongst big-hearted goat and olive farmers. We made friends with many, particularly the inimitable Foteini, the eccentric goat farmer with her famously endearing taste for thick, clashing layers of clothing and rural mayhem. Ironically, it was my curious friendship with Foteini (pushing my imperfect Greek to its limits) that helped steer our path in the village. She also became an unlikely literary muse – who knew?! Her touching stories and her antics inspired me to start writing Feta, to record a rural way of life in the Mani peninsula (one of the three that hang down from the southern mainland) that I was sure was about to change forever.

**Marjory with the unforgettable Foteini**

**The village of Megali Mantineia, where the author spent the first year of her Greek odyssey**

**Jim (back row, right) with the wonderful villagers and two of its priests at a celebration in Megali Mantineia**

The first year in the village of Megali Mantineia, beneath the Taygetos mountains, exceeded all our expectations. It was challenging, fascinating, often hilarious, and sometimes downright frustrating. We dealt with macabre local customs, a health drama for Wallace, a hospital visit for Jim, critters (scorpions, lots!), eccentric expats, but mostly it was a lesson in surviving Foteini’s ramshackle farm compound, her strong mizithra goat cheese, and a slew of scatty, but endearing animals. At the end of the first year, we decided to stay longer in Greece, which grew to four years in all, living for the final year in the nearby Messinian peninsula, near Koroni. I wrote four best-selling books about our life in Greece, and two romantic suspense novels, also set in the Mani.

**Some of the press coverage for the book in 2013**

I started writing Feta in the freezing winter of 2010/11 in our stone house, my desk wedged up against the loungeroom window with a view of the snow-capped mountains. But I also had a view of the rickety back entrance of Foteini’s old village house, where she spent her evenings. Sometimes, she must have seen me at the window. Or perhaps she just sensed I was writing about our village antics, many of them hers, and she’d phone, particularly if she hadn’t seen us for a while. It was usually with the same humorous lament. “Ach, you’ve forgotten me already, koritsara mou (my girl)!” she’d say. “When are you coming for coffee at the ktima?”

The idea of sitting in Foteini’s draughty farm shack in foul weather beside a dodgy petrogazi (small gas cooker) didn’t always appeal. However, we did go now and then in winter, which I wrote about, including the memorable day Foteini came close to blowing up the shed.

**Foteini on her donkey Riko, taken at her farm compound in Megali Mantineia**

I had plenty of material for a book, from the adventures and mishaps of the first year, and I continued to add to the narrative over the next three years. Things Can Only Get Feta was published in 2013 by a small London publisher, during a long intermission in Scotland before we returned to Greece again. From the beginning, Feta did very well and sparked great interest, particularly in Greece in the summer of 2013. After doing a phone interview with the editor (Sotiris Hadzimanolis) of the Australian Greek newspaper Neos Kosmos, about our life in Greece and the book, Sotiris filed a similar piece to a Greek news outlet and from there, the story of our exploits went slightly viral.

Versions of it turned up in a slew of Greek publications and internet news sites with variations of the headline: “Scottish journalist besotted with Greece”. While there are many authors today, focusing on a much trendier, revitalised Greece post-crisis, 10 years ago the story of a foreigner having a love affair with Greece in turmoil was certainly more unusual. More than that, it struck a chord with long-suffering Greeks who had hitherto heard nothing but negative, often beat-up, reports in the international media. There were harsh criticisms of the country’s fiscal attitudes and work practices, whereas the story about Feta was a good-news story.

We had scores of messages sent to our website with notes of thanks for my Greek ‘ardour’ and my favourite comment of all time is still: “For your information, Greece loves you back.”

However, despite the book’s success, two years later, while Jim and I were now living in Koroni, I had a falling-out with my London publisher when he seriously broke the terms of our contract. (In publishing, be careful what you wish for!) Rather than allow the book’s success to be sabotaged, I legally forced the return of the book rights to me, and republished it myself in a very short time. This was no small feat, working on an old laptop computer from a hillside house with just a mobile phone and poor wi-fi, or often, no wi-fi. But nevertheless, once re-published the book had a fresh gust of wind under its wings and continued to do very well. Not long afterwards, I published the second memoir, Homer’s Where The Heart Is, and there are now four in all (see links below).

But Feta will always be close to my heart and I’m proud to say it was to become (and the sequels too) one of the very few books to be written in English about life in the economic crisis by a non-Greek living in the country during that time. It prompted Greek author Stella Pierides to suggest: “This book might become a future reference source about life in unspoilt Greece.”

It may have been a presentment of sorts and in 2021, I was thrilled to be contacted by a charming Greek girl called Panayiota, who told me that Feta and the following two memoirs had been offered on the syllabus of a literary course she attended in a northern Greek university, under the theme of how foreigner writers viewed Greek life during the crisis. She had written a paper on the subject. When I first started writing Feta in our Greek rural village during a cold winter, I wouldn’t have believed it would end up on a university syllabus. Or that Wallace may even have been the subject of some literary scrutiny. About time!

**Wallace, up to his usual mischief on the first week of our Greek odyssey in 2010**

I’m grateful to all my blog readers on this site (some of you have been following my Greek blogs since the beginning) and others who have read my books and shared my stories and had a laugh over some of our more daring, crazy exploits and those of the famously crazy Wallace. I’m grateful to those who still write to me to offer their feedback. One Facebook friend recently told me she has read Feta 10 times so far. “Feta is my comfort-blanket read.” That’s a first! Many reviews and comments have been humorous. “More than Feta, this book is a whole picnic hamper of delights,” said one Amazon reviewer.

It would be true to say that going to Greece and writing the books changed our lives for ever, and only for the better. The only note of sadness in our otherwise happy life was that dear Wallace, one of the stars of Feta, passed away at the age of 16 in 2017 after we moved back to Britain. We were devastated, as Wallace had been through all our adventures with us and had been a talisman, as well as a welcome distraction at times. Few Greeks we lived amongst will ever forget his antics I’m sure, and neither will the many readers who wrote to me after Wallace died with kind thoughts and wishes.

The main consolation I have in Wallace’s passing is that he had a wonderful life and hopefully his memory will live on in my Greek books.

**The main stadium at Ancient Messene, which was no match for the shenanigans of Jim, Marjory and Wallace**

Feta extract

If you haven’t read Things Can Only Get Feta, here’s a funny extract from the book of one of our crazier exploits, when Jim and I set out to visit the archaeological site of Ancient Messene (10^th century AD), north-west of Kalamata. The only problem was we had Wallace with us and, as we’d discovered on an earlier attempt on Messene, only guide dogs were allowed inside this large gated site, even on a near-deserted January day. While we sat in the car eating chicken sandwiches for lunch, we mulled over how we could blag our way inside with the dog. Jim finally came up with a daring strategy. Inspired by the once-warring Spartans who’d also dreamt up unlikely ways to sneak into Ancient Messene, Jim planned to get inside with Wallace hidden in his rucksack . . . . .

“Okay. But there’s one big problem: how do we get Wallace to stay quiet in the rucksack and not start barking?” I said.

Jim thought for a minute. “It sounds a bit gross but we’ll put him inside with the last chicken sandwich. Then we’ll zip the bag at the top and leave him a little air hole. He’ll be busy eating. You know what he’s like about chicken.”

Wallace always had a thing about chicken because Brigit, his kind but eccentric breeder in Edinburgh, fed all her puppies with roast chicken, which was a disaster for feeding programmes later. It explained why chicken was the only food that the fussy Wallace liked unequivocally. He was so besotted with chicken that we had broken every rule in the dog-rearing manual by using the word ‘chicken’ on occasions where danger loomed and every other command was flatly ignored. I turned and looked at Wallace on the back seat. He was panting. He’d definitely heard the ‘chicken’ word.

I expressed serious doubts about the plan but Jim was more optimistic.

“Don’t worry,” said Jim, soothingly, “He’ll be okay in the rucksack. Remember the time we carried him in it when we were hill walking in Scotland and he hurt his paw and was limping? He was good and quiet then.”

“What would the staff do if they caught us with Wallace?”

“Call the cops, put us in the cells for the night. Feed us two-month-old mizithra cheese and village bread.”

My teeth started to ping. “Ach, let’s go for it!”

If nothing else, at least we’d have a bit of a laugh. And in a cold January in Greece, you can get like that, wanting a laugh, any laugh.

“Let’s try him out in the rucksack first,” said Jim, unzipping it and taking things out. First, we threw in a couple of Wallace’s dog biscuits and lifted him inside the bag, which was roomy. He didn’t like it at first but when he caught a whiff of the biscuits, he squirmed around inside to retrieve them, thinking it was a new game, better than hiding biscuits in shoes.

I wasn’t totally convinced, but Jim still seemed confident, and I guessed it was just a bit of a boy thing.

“Okay,” he said. “Get ready to leave now. Get all your stuff. As soon as we unwrap the chicken sandwich and drop it in, we’ve only got a few minutes or so to get through the gate and on our way.” He checked his watch at the same time, as if this was a finely tuned military raid.

We got out of the car and locked it. Jim put on the rucksack with Wallace in it and I dropped in the chicken sandwich, torn into several pieces, which was the messiest part of the plan, and zipped up the bag, leaving the air hole. The minute the sandwich hit the bottom, Wallace was down there like a deep-sea diver and the bag was wriggling like mad, then all went quiet. I could almost hear his lip-smacking enjoyment over the chicken. We walked quickly through the main gate, Jim stood to one side while I went to the small cabin window. I remembered the attendant from the first time we came here, but assumed she wouldn’t recognise me after a summer of foreign visitors. I asked her what time the site closed.

“Are you together?” the woman said, pointing to Jim.

“Yes?”

She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Can I ask what’s in the rucksack the man is carrying?”

“Just lunch things,” I said in a nervous, squeaky voice. I glanced at the rucksack and thought I saw the edge of it was wriggling. Maybe she saw it as well.

Jim sensed the hitch, aware that Wallace was growing restless, eager for another chicken soother, so he started walking down the dirt track that led between broken columns and the outlines of ancient buildings.

“My husband’s impatient…big archaeology fan. Been reading all about Ancient Mess…”

“Okay,” she said, cutting me off. “But you must be back by 3.30 when the site closes.”

I turned and legged it down the track, smiling to myself. When I caught up with Jim I could hear Wallace starting to whine and the zip was coming further apart at the top as he tried to get his snout into the cool air. Jim walked faster. The site sloped down to an old amphitheatre and from there it was a short walk to a cluster of olive trees. Once there we were safe, out of sight of the entrance cabin.”

. . . . . or were we? Find out how the smuggling strategy panned out finally, one of many amusing adventures in Things Can Only Get Feta

Book extract and all photos ©Marjory McGinn

To celebrate 10 years of Things Can Only Get Feta, the ebook will be discounted to 99p UK/US for three days on Amazon stores from Monday July 17. I hope enjoy it.

To buy Feta on Amazon UK or US click this link:

The book is available as an ebook and paperback on all Amazon sites. The other books in the best-selling Peloponnese series of memoirs, Homer’s Where The Heart Is; A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree, and A Donkey On The Catwalk, are also available on all Amazon sites, the paperbacks also through Barnes & Noble, Booktopia in Australia, and independent bookstores.

Marjory’s latest book Wake Me Up For The Elephants is a travel memoir with a broader canvas: Africa, Fiji, Australia, Scotland, Greece, Ireland. It’s a collection of candid and hilarious tales based on real journeys many taken by Marjory as a journalist and described by best-selling author, Peter Kerr, as “Travel writing at its best.” The book is in part a prequel to the Greek series of memoirs on what the author’s adventurous life was like even before she embarked on the Big Greek Odyssey.

The ebook and paperback are available on all Amazon sites. To buy the Kindle version, in either the UK or the US, click on one of the links below:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0C2N788HD
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C2N788HD

For all books by Marjory McGinn visit her Amazon page: https://www.amazon.com/author/marjory-mcginn

Or visit the website: https://www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

If you have liked Marjory’s books, do consider putting a review on Amazon sites. It helps a book become more visible and is always appreciated by the author.

Thanks for stopping by.

© All rights reserved. All text and photographs copyright of the authors 2010-2023. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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10 years after the big Greek odyssey

Posted on May 11, 2020 by Marjory

WHEN we decided 10 years ago to leave Scotland and have a year’s odyssey in Greece at the start of its economic crisis, people said this was madness. Yet now, with the Corona virus causing misery around the world with ‘lockdown’ restrictions on lifestyle and travel, we would have been madder still not to have gone for the odyssey while we had the chance.

Marjory, Jim and Wallace in Scotland weeks before they left on their Greek odyssey

As we look back to that spring of 2010, when my husband Jim and I and our fizzy Jack Russell terrier Wallace set off, we know that despite the economic risks, it turned out to be one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. And as one year stretched to four, it changed our lives completely.

We left with Britain during a harsh recession and our village in central Scotland, near Stirling, during a blast of Arctic weather. We had the added uncertainty of leaving regular employment in Scottish journalism to cast ourselves adrift with modest savings, but with the hope of future freelancing. But Greece, despite its massive bailout from the EU and ensuing austerity measures, still seemed like a safer option, to our way of thinking anyway.

Piles of luggage, and Wallace the dog, ready to be shoehorned into the Ford car to be driven to Greece

Even now, I recall vividly the excitement of planning the trip which was no small undertaking. Months beforehand we had a bullet list of things to do filling four A4 pages: renting out our Scottish apartment and putting personal items in storage; all the endless bureaucracy involved in cutting loose from Britain; having to limit our travel luggage to what would fit in a small Ford Fiesta. Amazingly, everything in the picture above was shoehorned in finally on a grey dreich Scottish morning, threatening rain.

Wallace taking his first look at Calais from our pet-friendly ferry cabin

And because we were taking our much loved terrier with us, there was a long list of necessities for him as well: microchip, pet passport, vaccinations. And hotels had to be booked along the way that were pet friendly, no easy task back then. While Wallace had a fabulous personality and was hugely entertaining, he did have the crazy Jack Russell gene: boisterous and often unpredictable. So it ramped up the uncertainty as well. A comical Scottish friend commented: “You’re not taking Wallace to Greece? Haven’t they got enough problems there already?” Indeed they did!

Marjory and Wallace in the car, outside a hotel in Battenheim, near the Swiss border

We drove south to Dover and took the car ferry to Calais and then made our way through France, Switzerland and Italy, to Ancona, for the crossing to Patras in Greece with a pet-friendly cabin. It was a great trip and Wallace was fine most of the time, apart from barking at every motorway toll booth attendant and having one or two angsty moments in hotels, the most memorable being in Italy. While we waited at the front desk in a large hotel in central Italy, Wallace took a dislike to two rowdy teenagers skittering about the foyer and launched into his characteristic slightly hysterical bark. The manager checking us in had a massive strop, which set Wallace off again. We were forbidden from leaving him in the room alone while we went out to dinner, so we had to take him with us. But that’s another nervy story.

Jim, Marjory and Wallace near Koroni, on the Messinian Peninsula, 2014

A view of Kalamata city on the Messenian Gulf from olive groves near the village of Megali Mantineia

Once we’d arrived in Greece, staying in a 4-week holiday let, and had our first taverna meal and swum in a warm sea, everything clicked into place. I’ve travelled to Greece many times during my life and worked in Athens in the 1970s for a year, and in those first few weeks in 2010, I couldn’t detect any sense of angst in the country. Life seemed sweet in the southern mainland least. It was a warm April, people seemed happy, tavernas and cafes had brisk trade. What we didn’t know then was that Greece was right on a tipping point, still with a lot of the ‘siga siga’ laid-back quality we all love about the country. But that was about to swing over as 2010 progressed, with unimaginable changes and hardships on the cards for Greek people.

The small stone house where we stayed for the first year with our Greek car out front

We had decided to live in the Mani peninsula of the southern Peloponnese, a wild and authentic region. We rented a small stone house in the hillside village of Megali Mantineia, just south of the city of Kalamata. We stayed in the village a year, which became the basis of my first Greek memoir, Things Can Only Get Feta (2013) and which I’ve written about in various publications as well as on this blog. The rest of our adventures in other locations in southern Greece are recounted in the sequels, Homer’s Where The Heart Is and A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree.

Jim and Wallace in the first few weeks of the Greek odyssey touring around the Mani peninsula

In our four years in Greece, we managed to cram a great deal into our lives out of sheer delight at being able to have a mid-life adventure at all, in those crisis-ridden days. We travelled regularly around the three peninsulas of this region and to the north Peloponnese and saw most of famed sites like Olympia, Mystras, Arcadian villages, and the island of Kythera. Occasionally there was some difficulty, travelling with a dog, in a country that regarded them more as working animals, like the day we had to smuggle Wallace into the Ancient Messene archaeological site because dogs were banned. Because of Wallace, there were mishaps galore (mostly comical). Yet conversely, some of the decisions we made just to accommodate Wallace on our trip, ironically turned out to be wise decisions which I describe in my memoirs.

The wonderful Byzantine church of Ayia Sophia at the top of the fortified rock fortress that is Monemvasia, a World Heritage site

We had a huge challenge on the gorgeous World Heritage Byzantine rock island of Monemvasia, on the east of the Peloponnese, when Wallace got the jitters in the historic 12^th century house we rented for a few days. Situated in the heart of the fortified settlement, where the owner told us some devilish times had been suffered by the householders during an Ottoman-Turkish siege, Wallace seemed to picked up grisly vibes. It was all brought to a head in a storm, when he howled like a banshee and then accidentally wrecked a piece of ancestral furnishing. If you’ve read my first memoir, you’ll know what I refer to.

In all, throughout our odyssey, we made a point of not sinking into the familiarity of expat communities, entertaining though they were, but sought out a more authentic Greek life. We went out of our way to meet neighbouring rural Greeks for which I had to brush up fast on my rusty Greek language skills. We went to festivals, endless church services, at least one funeral but no weddings, olive harvests, coffee mornings in hornet-infested, ramshackle farmyards, and dubious cheese tasting events.

The lovable farmer Foteini clutching an early edition of Things Can Only Get Feta with its cover showing her riding Riko the donkey

This turned out to be another good decision. It is the friendships and the kindness of Greek people even in dire circumstances that will stay in my memory forever; people like Foteini the goat farmer, who turned out to be an unlikely literary muse for me and who appears in all three memoirs.

A tough Maniot farmer and a charming but eccentric woman, she became a friend and provided me with many hilarious encounters that seemed skewed from other eras of old Greece. I well remember us sitting in her dilapidated village house one winter in front of a roaring fire while wind whistled through the cracks in her kitchen walls. We drank Coca-Cola and roasted chunks of goat cheese (which we hated, sadly, but pretended otherwise) on skewers over the flames. Other times we also observed and smiled over her many comical rituals: peeling bananas at a sink and then washing the fruit, or indulging in riskier pursuits like almost blowing up her farming shed while making Greek coffee.

But these were also challenging years. While Jim and I were freelancing for overseas publications and were able to live frugally without being affected directly by the crisis, we had involved ourselves in Greek communities and witnessed the impact of the crisis on locals. This was particularly so in 2012, when social unrest and poverty began to climb and Greeks became uncharacteristically depressed and nervous. It was the first time we questioned whether we had any right to continue our Greek odyssey.

The Greek car packed and ready to leave in 2015 with Wallace’s head just visible over the back seat, to the left

I have visited Greece during other difficult times in its history and these crisis years were no less frightening, especially with the rise of a particular extreme and violent right-wing party that had gained seats in the Greek parliament. I even began to hear Greeks anticipate the sight of tanks rumbling down the streets again, as they had during the infamous military dictatorship of the 1960s and 70s. Fortunately it never came to that. In the end, in 2015, we did finally leave but only because an illness in Jim’s family had made a return to the UK the right thing to do at that time.

Lovable and unpredictable Wallace was always up for a bit of fun and always a perfect photographic model. Occasionally a dab hand at book editing as well! Taken in Koroni, 2014

Although we’ve only been able to return to Greece for long holidays since 2015 and not an extended return, our former odyssey lives vividly in our minds and sustains us in so many ways. It is never forgotten, is always a source of lively discussion between Jim and me and has inspired us during happy and sad times, including August 2017, when dear Wallace passed away in England, aged 16 years. We could rightly say that he’d had an amazing life, and an odyssey that few dogs ever get a crack at, and which he took to with verve and stoicism especially during a serious illness that I touched on in Homer’s Where The Heart Is. And few of the Greeks we came in contact with will ever forget some of Wallace’s more diverting antics.

The Greek ‘journey’ for me still continues because after finishing my three memoirs, I wrote two novels in a series (A Saint For The Summer, and recently, How Greek Is Your Love?) both set in the Mani region, and more may be planned. And especially in these worrying times in lockdown, due to the Corona virus, Jim and I find ourselves thinking more and more of those Greek years, grateful we were able to have an amazing, long adventure that neither of us had anticipated in that freezing winter when we left Scotland.

If I’ve learnt nothing else from the Greek odyssey it’s been that when the opportunity to (safely) change your life comes your way, take it and don’t let fear cloud your vision. And at the very least, don’t worry over the awkward, nagging details, because “you never know what the next sunrise will bring you”, to quote a Greek saying. That applies more now than ever before as our world turns upside down with health worries. And let’s pray the ‘new normal’ will one day allow a few restless souls to still cut loose on foreign shores for their own big, fat odyssey.

* All Marjory’s books are available from Amazon stores worldwide, Barnes & Noble, and in Greece can be ordered through the Public stores, www.public.gr or ordered anywhere through independent bookstores.

The Peloponnese series of memoirs:

Things Can Only Get Feta

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree

Bronte In Greece series of novels:

A Saint For The Summer

How Greek Is Your Love?

For more information about Marjory’s books, please visit her Amazon page or the Greek books page on our website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

If you like the books, please consider putting a small review/comment on Amazon. It all helps to raise the profile of a book. And is always welcome. Thank you.

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© All rights reserved. All text and photographs copyright of the authors 2010-2020. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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Secrets of life in a Greek village

Posted on May 6, 2019 by Marjory

Part of the lovely plateia in Makrinitsa village, Pelion

NOT all Greek villages are created equally. Two villages can be several miles apart, with roughly the same background and geographical aspect, yet one will be thriving, with a plateia rimmed by busy cafes and tavernas, while the other is on the slide. Sometimes there’s no explanation apart from something that’s now lost in the natural twists of history.

When I was in the mainland region of Pelion last year I was strongly reminded of this fact and also how fiercely loyal and competitive Greeks are about their own village, no matter what shape it’s in. Jim and I had rented a villa in the south of the Pelion peninsula for a month. It was on the edge of a small village, which was quiet, with not many inhabitants apparently, but with gorgeous views down to the Pagasitikos gulf and well placed to access both this side of the peninsula and the other, on the Aegean. As people who don’t like touristy locations in Greece, we thought we’d done pretty well to find a comfortable house in this location.

View from the village of Metochi towards the gulf

Yet, while browsing in an old-fashioned souvenir shop in the coastal village of Milina, the black-clad owner of a venerable age asked us where we were staying. I told her Metochi, in the foothills behind. She pulled a great lemony face. “Metochi! Why would you want to stay there? There’s nothing there. Nothing but old houses. Pah! Here is better,” she said, waving towards the vista of crowded tavernas and sun loungers along the beachfront.

I laughed at her put-down of Metochi for being the poor relation to the buzzy, thriving Milina. In her mind Metochi fell into the second category of villages dwindling into oblivion. There are a number of run-down and abandoned houses in the centre of Metochi, that’s true, and it wasn’t hoaching with people, in September anyway. On the surface it was just a village on the way to somewhere else as it’s on the ‘main’ road from the popular town of Argalasti to the bigger village of Lafkos and then to the south of the peninsula. Lafkos is elegant with a large church and wide plateia (square) with classical houses and busy tavernas and cafes.

The elegant plateia in Lafkos village

Makrinitsa in the Pelion mountains is one of the most picturesque in Greece

The plateia is usually the hub of a Greek village and always a good indication as to whether the place is thriving or not, and it’s worth flagging this up when you’re in the market to buy a house in Greece. Some of the more remarkable villages in the Pelion mountains further north have sumptuous plateias, like Makrinitsa, set under huge plane trees and with a view down to the city of Volos. But Makrinitsa is well established with a stronger foothold in the region’s history. It has old churches with frescos and an impressive museum. This village has been the haunt of artists, writers and revolutionaries. Milies and Tsagarada are smaller mountain villages yet they too have obvious treasures. Milies has a public library with one of the largest collections of Greek and foreign books in Greece, with some of them dating to the 14^th century. Its church of the Taxiarchon is also world famous for its acoustics. Tsagarada has a 1,000 year old plane tree in its beautiful plateia.

The surviving kafeneio in Metochi has rustic charm and doubles as a shop

A slightly forlorn sign on the plane tree in Metochi says: “Our village square.”

Metochi’s plateia was a ghost plateia during the day at least. It was large enough and well situated, high above the road under plane trees with incredible gulf views, and perfect to catch a cool afternoon breeze in summer. It must have been lovely once, with a traditional kafeneio on the far side, now closed, and a smaller one beside it, still operating for limited hours and serving also as a general store. The only time we saw people in the plateia was at night, men mostly, drinking beer and playing the board game, tavli.

At the top of the steps was a sign fixed to a plane tree saying: “Our village plateia”, which was a touching and yet forlorn message. Such as it was, many people obviously still took great pride in their plateia. But its semi-abandonment speaks of a village having lost its way somewhat, apart from some modern, yet discreet, holiday villas at its outskirts, surrounded by olive groves, where we were staying.

The deserted grill house in the village that is a quiet reminder of more convivial days in Metochi

The village had obviously had a different life once. At one end of it there’s a natural spring, spouting cool sweet water, where people still stop to fill up bottles. Across the road from the spring, there’s an abandoned psistaria (grill house) with its huge barbecue still visible at the front, for spit-roasting meat. The broad terrace here would once have been packed, especially on important feast days, but is now just an empty space where fallen leaves twirl in the wind and people park to fill up their bottles across the way.

This is a reflection of what’s happening everywhere in rural Greece, in hillside locations. In the Mani we found many villages that were beautifully sited with once-lovely stone houses that now seemed dead. In one village we found an abandoned kafeneio, its door hanging open and a collection of old junk and furniture piled up inside and old bottles and dusty glasses still on the wooden counter. It was as if the owners had hurriedly disappeared and left everything as it was. In another village we found a group of old people sitting around the front door of a crumbling stone house. There were five of them, most of the current full-time population, they told us rather mournfully.

The village of Metochi is not in such bad shape, not as long as an essential road cuts through it. It wasn’t vibrant and yet we liked its wound-down appeal, its solitude, the view, and no-one bothered us at all, apart from one village gossip. She regularly passed by on the road and one day stopped to ask a slew of personal questions, as Greeks often do, including how much we were renting the villa for because her daughter also had one to rent nearby if we were interested. Cheeky!

Greek rural villages at least are a world apart, whether they buzz or not. When you plan to live in one for any length of time you have to navigated them thoughtfully and choose wisely. Too quiet, too noisy, too parochial, or too steeped in difficult history, and you might be in peril.

A view of Megali Mantineia under the northern slopes of the Taygetos mountains in the Mani

The small sign on the main road to Megali Mantineia. It’s all you get. Blink and you’ll miss it!

When we settled in the Mani, southern Peloponnese, in 2010, for our long Greek odyssey, we picked a hillside village that felt remote, with the Taygetos mountains as its backdrop, but in fact was only a 15-minute drive to the outskirts of Kalamata at the head of the Gulf of Messinia. As it turned out, Megali Mantineia was perfect for us and our crazy Jack Russell Wallace, a type of dog that none of the villagers had seen before and thought resembled a small goat – and he often acted like one!

Megali Mantineia is a successful working village where locals still cultivate their vast olive groves and herd goats. We decided the best way to live there was to befriend Greek villagers rather than cultivate the British expats because we didn’t want to live an expat life. Not that trying to fit into any village as a foreigner is easy. It’s not. Had I not spoken reasonable Greek from a long association with the country and endless Greek language classes, I would have found it more difficult, as few of the villagers spoke much English. I quickly learnt the secret of fitting in was simple: go well beyond your comfort zone and leave all your preconceptions about life, up to a point, behind you.

Foteini, thrilled to have a copy of my first memoir which features her, and donkey Riko, on the cover

Riko grazing outside Foteini’s farm compound

When we first met the goat farmer Foteini – who features in my three Greek memoirs – she was riding into the village on her donkey. Conversing was a challenge as she spoke a heavy mountain dialect and things could easily have gone nowhere. But there was something so unique about her that Jim and I instantly took to her and when she invited us back to her farm compound (a place of rural junk and manic disorder) we never thought twice about it really. And so a strange and unusual friendship flourished, particularly between myself and Foteini. She certainly trounced all my personal preconceptions and, in her way, became a very unlikely muse. Our regular, generally very funny, interactions sparked my journalistic curiosity and inspired me to write the memoirs. How could I not? Fate had cast her on my path, on the very first day in the village.

Some of the villagers and priests from Megali Mantineia on a special feast day. Jim standing in back row, right

Since my first memoir, Things Can Only Get Feta, was published in 2013, readers have contacted me to confess they want their own Greek odyssey, which is lovely, and have asked for advice. I don’t have much really except for this: learn some Greek, talk to everyone. Go beyond what’s comfortable and take part in all the village celebrations (there are many during the year), and church services too because this is the best way to see Greeks as they really are. It’s a window into their society and shows villagers that you respect this, and their culture, and you’re not in the village just to have a remote, parallel life to them.

Before we finally returned to Britain, for personal reasons, we invited many of the villagers from Megali Mantineia to a farewell meal at one of the local tavernas. It was a bitter/sweet night and very sad to say goodbye at last. Everyone lined up to kiss us farewell, some bringing small gifts. One of the women, Voula, whom I’d also become fond of, hugged me and announced: “You’re one of us now Margarita (the name Foteini had given me). You’re a Maniatissa.” Maniatissa is the Greek word for a woman of the Mani. It was humbling to get the title; far better than a Queen’s honour.

Navigating the cultural terrain of a Greek village isn’t easy. It requires more of you than you sometimes want to give. But in the end, it offers you life experiences and insights you will struggle to find elsewhere.

Greek book offer

If you want to read more about life, drama and romance in Greek villages, my first novel A Saint For The Summer is currently on an Amazon ebook promo, 99p/99c (UK/US) from August 16 to 23. It’s a tale or heroism, faith and love with a narrative thread back to WW2 and set in the wild Mani region of Greece. One reviewer described it as: “An excellent read. I was hooked from the first page.” Another said: “The story made me laugh, made me think and made me cry a little.”

Link: https://bookgoodies.com/a/B07B4K34TV

If you have read any of my books and liked them, please think of leaving a small review on Amazon. It will be gratefully received. Thanks.

For more information about all the books please visit the books page on our website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

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© All rights reserved. All text and photographs copyright of the authors 2010-2019. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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Would the Durrells have picked Corfu today?

Posted on May 1, 2017 by Marjory

Peaceful Kaminaki beach in the north-east of Corfu

THE Durrells, the popular TV drama based on the memoirs of naturalist Gerald Durrell, has just started its second series in Britain. Once again it promises light-hearted entertainment in the glorious surroundings of Corfu, and follows the adventures of the slightly skint Louisa Durrell and her four children as they move from Bournemouth in 1935, searching for a cheaper, more liberating life on a Greek island.

The Durrell family from the popular ITV series

When we were deciding on locations for our own Greek odyssey back in 2009, ironically, we first thought of Corfu, as it was an island we had visited many times, particularly the northern part, which has spectacular beaches and historic mountain villages, such as Old Perithia.

Jim and Marjory in a taverna on Corfu’s nearby island of Paxos

We were quite in love with the beauty of the place for a while and its easy-going people, but in the end we decided against Corfu as, to us, it seemed the most ‘British’ of all the Greek islands because of its historic link with the UK and ironically probably because the Durrells’ association has lured more Brits there than anywhere else. Not that we had a problem with that, but for a Greek adventure we were seeking a totally unspoilt location, something rougher and wilder, and the Mani, in the middle peninsula of the southern Peloponnese, fitted our requirements perfectly. We were not disappointed.

Having watched all The Durrells’ episodes up to now, and read many of Gerald and Lawrence’s books, particularly Prospero’s Cell, a fascinating account of Lawrence’s time living at the White House in Kalami Bay, when life in Corfu was grittier and more authentic, I can’t help but wonder: if the Durrells were around now, planning a Grecian odyssey, would they really have picked Corfu? Or would they also have looked for a location with more edginess.

Chris Nye, writing for Greece Property Guides www.propertyguides.com/greece/news/ believes anyone wanting to ‘do a Durrell’ these days would be better off choosing Crete for its glorious landscape and affordable lifestyle, and he outlines a helpful comparison of current living expenses in Bournemouth and Crete and what kind of property you can find on this island. Incidentally, Chris is the brother of Simon Nye, who wrote and co-produced the ITV television series The Durrells.

The hillside village of Megali Mantineia, beneath the Taygetos mountains where we first lived in the Mani

Spectacular view from the north Taygetos looking down on Kalamata city, the olive oil capital of Greece

I can imagine the Durrells in Crete, no problem, but for sheer rawness and rural eccentricity, which Gerald Durrell’s books have in spades, I feel sure they would have gone for the wilder shores of the Mani as well. As a slightly unorthodox family, led by feisty, sometimes bibulous Louisa, they would have been looking for the kind of rural adventure that we were searching for, and you don’t easily find that in Greece any more. You need to go off the beaten track to places such as the Mani and the nearby peninsulas (Messinia, Laconia) of the southern Peloponnese, or the far north and north-west of the Greek mainland.

Local farmer Foteini became a good friend and eased us into rural life

I think the Durrells would have enjoyed reckless encounters with some of the local farming community in the Mani, as we did when we first settled in the hillside village of Megali Mantineia, in the shade of the Taygetos mountains. They would certainly have enjoyed our eccentric, donkey-riding farming friend Foteini, and her ramshackle farm compound. And Gerald at least would have relished our stone house with its scorpions, hornets and the big prowling kounavi, pine marten, not to mention a few fuzzy expats in the undergrowth.

I did love the scene in Episode 2 of The Durrells, where Louisa is holding a food stall to raise some much-needed cash for the family, selling her home-made English ‘delicacies’ to Greeks, like trays of toad in the hole (for non-Brits, that’s sausages baked in a pillow of batter). A philandering British expat called Hugh tries to justify his chat-up lines, saying it’s nice to make contact with interesting fellow Brits, but the petulant Louisa bats him off nicely saying she prefers to mix with the locals and not feel that she’s back in Bournemouth. Good for her!

One of the coves close to where we lived for part of our odyssey, with Kalamata city in the background

The Durrells have many adventures of the rural kind, with animals, guns and dodgy neighbours. And they have house rental woes. In reality, the family moved a few times in Corfu but the house most remembered was the Daffodil House, near Gouvia, a large sprawling Venetian mansion, which is depicted fairly accurately in the TV series as having plenty of ambience, but was pretty shabby and chaotic inside. The best family home they could get for the price. Like the Durrells, we also had plenty of rental woes, many of which I outlined in my three travel memoirs. I only wish we’d had the gumption though to refuse paying rent at times, as Louisa did in Episode 2, when the coquettish landlady called round.

Wallace and his animal magnetism

We had trouble finding suitable houses because we had taken our lovable but bonkers Jack Russell terrier, Wallace, with us. The house we rented in Megali Mantineia had its drawbacks, but was owned by an Englishman who was sympathetic to a resident dog. Wallace rewarded him and the village with a slew of antics, the odd breakout, and some distinctive barking, which I hope they still think fondly of! Every house we rented had issues/difficulties: industrial garbage bins, critter infestations, crazy neighbours, sparse furniture, though the problems were mitigated by stunning views. I will write more about renting in Greece in a later blog post.

Wallace and ‘guard dog’ Zina

The second property we rented in the Mani, from an entertaining Greek family, was a wonderful rambling place, with an olive orchard. It also had animals: chickens, rampant roosters, a big chained-up dog called Zina, plenty of stray cats, but also water strikes, Arctic winds whistling through in winter, and Orestes, the eccentric neighbour with a hunting rifle, who used to drive us mad, firing off rounds regularly, mostly at song birds perched in his precious almond trees. When he took his sheep out to graze nearby, he often carried a long hunting knife, for a worrying reason, which I revealed in my second memoir Homer’s Where The Heart Is.

Marjory, Jim and Wallace spent the fourth year of their odyssey in the nearby Messinian peninsula in lovely Koroni

The southern Peloponnese is the perfect location for a glorious life on the edge, for Brits seeking more than just sandy beaches and an easy, ouzo-flavoured lifestyle. Unlike the smaller confines of most Greek islands, pretty though they are, places like the Mani are BIG and diverse, with plenty of room to spread out and even discover your inner rebel/cowboy. Here you can lead the kind of life that you could only have lived in Britain decades ago. Or okay, at a pinch, you might still discover in the highlands of Scotland, or the wilds of Ireland.

If it was madness and mayhem that the Durrells of today were searching for, trust me, it’s all there in southern Greece. We had adventures we only dreamt about before we left the UK. But there are limits. I would never have flogged a tray of toad in the hole at the laiki, farmer’s market. No way! I think if I’d tried that, Orestes would probably have swung by and shot it!

Illustration of Jim and I taken from Womankind magazine

Our big fat Greek odyssey has featured this month in the international magazine Womankind www.womankindmag.com and is available in the UK at WH Smith stores. It will be out in North America shortly (through Barnes and Noble), or via the magazine’s website. I love the small illustration of Jim and I on donkeys in the Mani.

Illustration: (c) Womankind Magazine

For more information about Marjory’s three travel memoirs about living in Greece during the crisis, go to the books page on the website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com/greek-books www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com or her books page on Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

New Book

Marjory has recently a new book, a novel, set in southern Greece, called A Saint For The Summer. This is a contemporary tale with a narrative thread back to the Second World War, a tale of heroism, faith and love, described by the Chicago magazine site, Windycity Greek, as a book “that will renew your faith in mankind”. For more information, see the books page link, above.

The book is available on all Amazon sites.

A Saint For The Summer

If you have liked my books please think of adding a small review on Amazon sites which is always very welcome. Thanks for calling by. x

© All rights reserved. All text and photographs copyright of the authors 2010 to 2019 No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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Will the crisis kill off unique Greek monasteries?

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Marjory

Dimiova women’s monastery high up in the Taygetos mountains in the southern Peloponnese

IT was sad to hear of the death of one of the last two nuns at the unique Dimiova monastery, east of Kalamata, in the southern Peloponnese. Sister Christina, in her seventies, died last December after a long illness. I had met her and the Abbess of Dimiova, Sister Kiriaki, during a retreat at the monastery in 2012 and wrote a blog piece about my memorable experiences there.

With only the Abbess remaining now at this remote place high in the Taygetos Mountains, the future of this outstanding monastery, which houses one of the most revered, and mysterious, icons in this part of the Peloponnese, will now be in doubt. There are only a handful of working monasteries left in this region, particularly for women.

During lunch that day at the monastery, it was Sister Kiriaki who remarked that the economic crisis had impacted drastically on the monastery, on its much-needed repair and renovations and its ability to support more nuns. The two remaining nuns had been leading very humble, restricted lives even before the crisis began, but now the situation was much bleaker, as it has been for most priests as well in the Orthodox Church, and the churches themselves.

In a few short years, the lack of funds throughout Greece will mean that many old monasteries will have to close their doors, apart from the highly visible and protected monasteries of Mount Athos. Already in the southern Peloponnese many have closed, due to lack of staff or because they are becoming derelict.

In a modern world where religion has less significance for many people, a common complaint (even from younger Greeks as well) is: “Why do we need monasteries?”

The Orthodox religion is an integral part of the vibrant Greek culture, but the issue goes beyond religion, I think. These Greek monasteries, and many churches, are unique historic buildings and contain a wealth of outstanding Byzantine frescos that are surely as important to European art tradition as any Italian Renaissance masterpiece. Painted on the interiors of churches, often open to the elements, the frescos are fading and in need of regular upkeep, now mostly impossible in the crisis. If you are lucky, you might see inside one of these establishments once or twice a year on certain saints’ days.

The monasteries are also an enduring part of the communities that surround them and have, during difficult periods of Greek history, protected communities, hidden Greek freedom fighters and promoted the Greek language and its culture. If these great institutions close, and finally crumble into ruins, it will become near impossible to revive them in future decades.

One day in the future, Greeks will surely climb out of the economic crisis, but without these splendid historic and religious monuments the country they inherit will not be the one we know today. And that would be a tragedy.

To give an idea of how special Dimiova is, I am posting here a slightly shortened version of the blog I wrote in 2012. If you feel strongly about the subject, do please leave a comment on the post.

* * * * *

WHEN my friend Gillian Bouras and I hit on the idea of going on a short retreat to the monastery of Dimiova, in the Taygetos mountains (southern Peloponnese), the plan had great appeal. Friends said we were crazy, but undeterred we went ahead with our strategy for a trip in early August in the lead-up to one of the holiest dates in the Orthodox calendar, the 15^th of that month, which is the feast day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

Gillian is an Australian-born writer who has lived in the southern Peloponnese for over 30 years and has written extensively about it. We both had slightly different expectations for this jaunt but what we did have in common as writers was being able to gain access to this traditional and rarified way of life, still shrouded in centuries of Orthodox mystery, before it disappears altogether in Greece. At Dimiova, in the remote northern western slopes of the Taygetos, sadly there are now only two elderly nuns left.

Sister Christina, who died last December, was one of only two remaining nuns at Dimiova monastery

The church of the Dormition inside the monastery walls

The preparation for this short trip was more protracted than I would have guessed. I had to enlist the help of a Greek friend who had contacts within the Greek Orthodox Church. Because monasteries are highly respected and guarded here, we needed authorisation from the head of the church for the Messinian region, Bishop Chrisostomos. And after many weeks of waiting, we were gratefully given the go-ahead.

Two weeks before the visit we were also required to meet Papa Sotiris in the hill village of Elaiohori. He was co-ordinating our trip and also takes the Sunday services at Dimiova and oversees its ecclesiastical well-being.

Papa Sotiris is a genial young priest with a modern outlook. Having worked previously as a businessman in Kalamata city, he gave up his career to join the priesthood, despite the fiscal sacrifice that entailed, and has not had one moment of regret. He was delighted (and a little intrigued) by the request to visit Dimiova, but there were certain conditions.

We had to be at the monastery 7am sharp. The clothing rules were strict: sensible dark/black clothing – long skirts, no bare arms or legs, sensible shoes, no bling of any kind. We were told the nuns led a simple and somewhat severe life, that they would be adhering to a semi-fast on the lead-up to August 15. The most vexatious rule was saved for last. There would be no talking at the monastery. No talking?

Although talking is not strictly forbidden, Papa Sotiris told us the nuns don’t like to talk unless they have to, especially at this devout time of the year. But since we wanted to write about monastery life, the no-talking rule was awkward.

“How will we be able to glean anything about the nuns’ lives if we can’t talk to them?” asked Gillian.

We were simply to find that out for ourselves, Papa Sotiris seemed to indicate rather mysteriously.

Sister Kiriaki (left), Papa Sotiris and Sister Christina

IT’S Friday morning at 6am when set off on our pilgrimage and it promises to be another scorching August (38C) day. The drive up the winding road with hairpin bends, occasionally with a scattering of rocks, from a recent unseasonable downpour, sets the right kind of reflective tone and we are both secretly wondering if we aren’t crazy after all with this monastery expedition.

The last few hill villages are left behind as we drive further into the Taygetos, having passed no other vehicle along the road, or seen another soul. But Dimiova, when it comes into view, tucked into a mountain slope, surrounded by fir and pine trees, is bigger than expected. The outer walls and monastery buildings are white and the tiled, domed roof of the church is poking up from the inner courtyard like a jaunty hat. I am now anxious to get there as I bump the small Fiat car painfully up the last steep, boulder-strewn metres of dirt road to the front gates.

A morning service has just started in the monastery church, dedicated to the Dormition of the Panayia (Virgin Mary). A bell tolls and the sound of the liturgy is sonorous and spine-tingling in this lonely mountain location. At the door of the church we are met by Sister Kiriaki, who is also the Abbess of the monastery, whom we are relieved to find does talk (though not volubly).

But she has rather charmingly forgotten why we are here or what they are to do with us. She looks a little weary but at least the modest bags of cold drinks and fruit we offer as gifts for our stay are met with a smile. The large watermelon is given an especially warm appraisal.

She ushers us into the church beside the other remaining nun, Sister Christina, who is wearing a similar long black robe, her head wrapped in thick long black scarf. Kiriaki returns with offerings of her own, prayer ropes called komboskini, comprised of thick knotted wool interspersed with small beads (rather like a Catholic rosary). We are to hold these during the service, taken by Papa Sotiris.

The church is a lovely example of early 17^th century design, with frescos painted in 1663 by the monk Damaskinos. The main focus of this church however is the old and much revered icon of the Virgin Mary (Panayia Dimiovitissa), and Child, which is claimed to have miraculous powers, as are many icons dedicated to the Panayia, though this particular icon attracts many pilgrims from all over Greece at this time of year.

The icon of the Panayia Dimiovitissa shows the blood stain down one cheek. Above, Papa Sotiris lights the votive lamp that hangs above the icon

The icon is best known for the curious mark on the Panayia’s right cheek, which is said to be a blood stain, and there are many theories as to how it came to be there.

Papa Sotiris at the end of the service explains a little of the history of the icon and tells us it is the general belief that the icon was damaged by a sharp blow with a knife or axe during the struggles of the Iconoclastic period of Greek history (8^th to 9^th centuries AD), when many icons in Greece were defaced or even burnt.

The icon, he says, had been brought here for safe keeping some time in the 8^th century, when the first monastery building was erected, and during a violent skirmish between the defenders of the icon and interlopers, the image of the Panayia was struck and blood sprang from her face. The signs of it remain today, hence its miraculous powers.

The monastery of Dimiova has always been one of the most important of the Messinian region and has a gripping history. During the 15^th century it was set on fire by the Turks during a local skirmish and rebuilt a century later, only to be attacked again by the Turks in 1770.

However, it survived and became a meeting place for some of the great revolutionary leaders in the Greek War of Independence against the Turks in 1821. It is said that some of these leaders, like the heroic Theodoros Kolokotronis, plotted the opening shots of the war, started in Kalamata on March 23, from within these hallowed walls.

The monastery is best known in Messinia for its annual procession (started in 1843), and the carrying of the icon from the monastery down to a church of Giannitsanika on the edge of Kalamata, a journey of over 13km, which takes around five hours.

After the service, Papa Sotiris offers us Greek coffee with several other parishioners in one of the lovely old dining rooms in the monastery. Despite the no-talking rule, Kiriaki, at least, is in good conversational form, perhaps enjoying a respite from their solitary life. Kiriaki is in her mid-sixties yet looks much younger with a fresh, unlined face.

Kiriaki’s story is not an unusual one in Kalamata. After the Second World War, along with many other war orphans, she was left, aged two, under a certain plane tree near Kalamata Cathedral. The convention was that youngsters were left here to be taken in by kind Kalamatans, but in Kiriaki’s case she was taken to Dimiova.

She has known no other life but this. It’s a fairly regimented existence, with a 5.30am start for prayers, a simple breakfast (they only eat twice a day) and then work in the fields and gardens, tending the monastery’s flocks of sheep and goats, cooking, and then retiring at eight or nine o’clock, depending on the season.

The winters here, says Papa Sotiris, are long, cold and dark, with very simple accommodation and heating. They have no TV, no computers and only one radio tuned into an Orthodox religious station.

“The nuns are allowed to speak if they want to,” explains Papa Sotiris, “But most of the time they choose not to. They find it peaceful not to talk.”

“They are like two canaries in a cage,” he explains with an ingenuous flourish, “It’s a lovely cage though, a lovely environment and they don’t want to fly out into the outside world.”

To us it seems a bit lonely and yet once it would have been otherwise. When Kiriaki was a child there were a few dozen nuns in residence, and earlier in its history, as a monastery for monks only, it was capable of housing up to 100 people. Over the years, though, as the older nuns have died, the numbers have not been replaced.

Many people come to Dimiova primarily to see the miraculous icon and it is kept under lock and key for most of the time. In this region there are many stories also about its miraculous powers.

Papa Sotiris says: “There have been many, many stories in the nearby villages of people experiencing miracles. Everyone has their own special story.”

The miracle that needs to befall the monastery at the moment, sadly, is funding. The monastery buildings and the church, which were partially damaged in the earthquake of 1986, are in constant need of maintenance and restoration. The monastery is always grateful for public donations, however small, to help this cause as one of the few working/occupied monasteries, for women in particular, in the Messinian region.

Over a simple but tasty lunch that day of black lentils with onion and sturdy village bread, Kiriaki tells us the monastery is suffering in general from lack of funds, like other church institutions here, because of the economic cutbacks in Greece.

With restoration work on some Byzantine churches, particularly in rural areas, already being scaled back, the future of monasteries like Dimiova and the gentle souls who inhabit them is more in doubt than ever.

Sister Kiriaki hitting the traditional wooden talado, which is used to call the faithful to prayers or for meals

When we finally take our leave much later after the lovely esperinos, the evening service, for the long nerve-pinching drive back down the mountain, we are told to come back soon and are given more gifts of filakta, small embroidered pouches smelling of lavender, which, whispers Kiriaki in my ear, are to be worn near the heart “for protection”.

The inside of the church with its ornate iconostasis and some of the frescos on the interior columns

All the way down the mountain road in the fading light I feel sleepy with the heat but I have to keep my eye out for more scree over the road, but luckily it’s all clear. Neither of us feel inclined to talk, lost in our own thoughts.

Apart from the heavenly mountain setting and the history of the place that you feel in every well-worn corner of Dimiova, for me it is the two lovely nuns who are the spirit of the place. And unexpectedly inspiring.

At a time when Greece is rocked by harsh austerity measures, job losses, rising suicide rates, and loss of confidence, here are two people uncomplaining about a life pared down to the bone. Their simple life and their serenity has a way of cutting through all our modern worries like that church bell tolling down a deserted mountainside at seven in the morning.

* Information about Dimiova through the Metropolis of Messenia www.mmess.gr

A longer version of this blog post formed the basis for the Chapter, Touching Heaven, in my second travel memoir Homer’s Where the Heart Is. For more information about this book and the first memoir Things Can Only Get Feta, about my three years living in the southern Peloponnese, go to the books page on the website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com or order through www.amazon.co.uk or www.amazon.com

Thanks for calling by.

© All rights reserved. All text and photographs copyright of the authors 2017. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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Don’t drive yourself mad in Greece …

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Marjory

Driving in Greece can really get your goat

I HAVE come to the conclusion that the only way to deal with the nervy business of driving in Greece, with poor roads and maverick drivers, is to treat it as a metaphor for life itself.

Focus on the scary, I’m-about-to-die moments as they come up and don’t obsess over the whole, long journey, or you’ll never set out.

Take it all one deep, crumbling pothole at a time.

Koroni harbour with the Taygetos mountains in the background

I thought of this the other day when I had a long 50km drive from Koroni, at the tip of the Messinian peninsula to Kalamata, for a few early appointments. The road from picturesque Koroni is long and narrow, twisty in parts and used by tractors, pick-up trucks, buses, and all kinds of crazy drivers. It has poor edges in places, where the road sheers off on to deep drops, with no guard rails.

No driving through on market day at Petalidi

It also winds through two large villages with bottlenecks at intersections and is a nightmare on the laiki, market, days, and in summer, where the narrow roads are log-jammed with tour buses, camper vans, tractors and gypsy hawkers in pick-up trucks crammed with fruit and veg, the watermelons regularly bouncing off and splattering on the road.

A typical sight from the road that winds along the coast from Koroni to Petalidi in the Messinian peninsula

Of course, it isn’t always hell. There are a few calm days, and if you can ever relax for a moment, the views along this road are gorgeous, looking across the Messinian gulf towards the Mani and the Taygetos mountains, with Kalamata city spread along the head of the Messinian gulf. There are moments when you glance at this beautiful region and remember why you’re in Greece to start with, but you can never take your eyes off the road for more than a second. Around every corner is the outrageously unexpected, and the close shave, of which we’ve had many.

This is what I saw on that one morning driving to Kalamata: drivers overtaking on blind bends and coming straight for you (very normal); pick-up trucks loaded with goats in the back (normal, though sometimes its donkeys and horses); one driver hogging a whole busy stretch of road while a police car desperately needed to overtake. The driver wouldn’t budge (Greek rebel, very normal). Luckily for him, he wasn’t later pulled over by the cops. I’ve seen similar with ambulances trying to overtake on life-saving missions.

That morning I also saw a motorbike rider with no helmet (very normal) weaving about and awkwardly carrying a large wrapped package under one arm; a couple on another motorbike with two children sandwiched on the seat between them (no helmets) and at least one farmer walking along the road trailing four skittery goats on ropes. There are animal hazards aplenty on Greek roads, including runaway chickens, and once I had to dodge a horse cantering down the road with no rider or escort.

Spectacular view from the road down to Kardamili

For British drivers, the roads here can be terrifying. I know expats who refuse to drive, or will only drive around their own village. I sympathise with their anxieties, especially in the Mani, where the roads through the Taygetos mountains are full of hairpin bends and sheer drops.

So when I set off on a long journey alone, I psyche myself up and say, “I’ll just take it one hazard at a time”. If you think of the whole journey, you’re doomed. It’s all you can do.

It’s also while driving that the mystifying nature of Greeks always occurs to me. I mean no offence, of course, to the Greeks because as a race I think they are wonderful, generous, unique, and I love them. But why oh why do they go bonkers on the road, breaking every rule in the book, playing with the equivalent of a loaded gun? Ordinarily, I love the maverick, non-conformist attitude of Greeks. I love the way they can think for themselves and not rely on the nannying attitude we suffer in Britain, for example, but behind the wheel of a car, this attitude goes to a lethal extreme.

In the rural Mani villagers prefer donkeys to tractors

Sometimes it is comical, too, like the guy I once saw in Kalamata, driving with his knees while he rolled up a cigarette. A guy on a motorbike with a trombone in his lap. A motorbike rider on a busy city street ferrying a tray in one hand with frappes on top. A motorbike pulling a small, two-wheel trailer, in which a man sat – holding a ladder. And the parking is also crazy: cars parked at the head of one-way streets, across corners, on pavements. Sometimes you laugh at all this eccentric behaviour. But other times you live in fear.

If you were expecting any advice about driving in Greece, I haven’t got any, other than the one I stick resolutely to. Give way to everything, always, even when you have the right of way. And get a good insurance broker because if, God forbid, you do have an accident, sorting it out in Greece can be complicated, with so many drivers uninsured, driving old wrecks with no MOT, bald tyres and dodgy brakes.

Wallace trying out his advanced driving techniques

Our Kalamatan broker Panayiotis is a star, who will let you speed-dial his number any time, if you have any incident on the road.

When we first came to live in the Mani in 2010 we went to see him to get comprehensive insurance for our Greek car. Initially there was a setback, which was typically Greek and amusing. I included the anecdote in my book Things Can Only Get Feta and I quote it here:

“We had to wait about 10 days for the paperwork to arrive, during which time we only had third-party cover, and drove the car around as if it were a Ming vase on wheels.

“When we returned to pick up the paperwork, the broker told us there was a hitch. We had been knocked back by the preferred insurance company and another would have to be arranged. When we asked why we had been rejected he told us the first company was no longer insuring foreign drivers in Greece as they were a high risk.

“Do you mean they think we are poor drivers?” I asked.

“No. The company says foreigners don’t know how Greeks drive,” he told us. When we burst out laughing, he offered a wry smile. By then we knew exactly how Greeks drive – at high speed, on the wrong side of the road, while rolling up cigarettes, eating souvlaki, slurping coffee, talking loudly on the mobile. Doing anything, in fact, but driving.”

On the way home that particular day at the quiet siesta time, the nicest time to drive, I had to smile when I saw the nonchalant farmer again leading his goats along the road, going home this time. Happily, we had all survived another day on Greek roads.

Book news – Things Can Only Get Feta

AFTER being out of print for several months, the paperback edition of Things Can Only Get Feta: Two journalists and their crazy dog living through the Greek crisis has been republished and is now available on Amazon sites:

Amazon UK

Amazon US

It is also available on Kindle as well.

The book explores our first year of living in the Mani, in southern Greece, with our dog Wallace, trying to live as authentic a life as possible with sad and funny consequences. The sequel to this book, covering our last two years in the Mani, will be available in the summer.

For more information on Things Can Only Get Feta, visit the book page on this site www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

Thanks for stopping by.

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2015. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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Mani happy returns …

Posted on November 25, 2014 by Marjory

Foteini holds a copy of the book in which she is one of the starring characters, along with donkey Riko

RECENTLY we returned to the village of Megali Mantineia, in the Mani, where we spent the first year of our Greek Odyssey from 2010. It was also the place that inspired me to write the book Things Can Only Get Feta about our decision to live in the southern Peloponnese for a while.

Megali Mantineia is situated on a hillside, just south of Kalamata city, and beneath the towering Taygetos mountains. It hasn’t changed much in centuries and continues its rural traditions with olive harvesting and farming. As we turned off the main road with its big blue sign pointing to the village, I felt the same flutter of excitement I had on the first day of our original adventure because everything was just the way it was five years ago.

Megali Mantineia sits on the edge of the deep Rindomo gorge, with the Taygetos mountains behind

When we drove up to see our farming friend Foteini at her ktima, farm compound, we weren’t sure if she’d be there and she doesn’t carry anything as modern as a mobile phone. But straight away we saw her small donkey Riko, tied up under an olive tree beside his old feta tin, filled with water. Moments later, Foteini came bounding up to the front gates, looking much as she always did in a big plaid shirt, an apron and wellies. She threw her arms around us in turn, wanting to know how long we’d be staying and eager to catch up on our news.

Foteini is often described as a ‘traditional woman’ because few older Greeks live her kind of rural life any more

We followed her down to her ‘kafeneio’, the ramshackle spot I often described in the book, a place with an old shed, a shaky table and chairs, and trees patrolled by hornets and wasps. Though in winter there’s not too many of them, fortunately. We sat in the sun and drank Greek coffee from small white cups and again I felt as if the intervening year we had spent back in Scotland hadn’t happened at all, and that we had always been here.

When I gave her a copy of Things Can Only Get Feta she sat with it in her hands, admiring the cover illustration of her riding Riko, with Wallace our Jack Russell trailing behind on a dusty village road. It’s a lovely image by London artist Tony Hannaford (see note below) and Foteini is very recognisable on the cover. She had seen the cover last year when a story about the book appeared in one of Kalamata’s newspapers, the Tharros, and it delighted and amused all the other villagers as well to now have a ‘rural star’ (Foteini) in their midst. Though of course, this isn’t her real name. I changed the names in the book to protect people’s privacy. But everyone knows Foteini. She’s priceless!

The village road where our Greek odyssey began

The view from the edge of Megali Mantineia towards the city of Kalamata, spread along the gulf of Messinia

Foteini is a unique character and with the help of my rusty Greek I’d had an unusual friendship with her from the beginning. It was one of cultural differences that challenged all my assumptions about life but I was drawn to her stoical character and her story, as I was to many of the other villagers. I never thought, however, when we first met the irrepressible Foteini, riding her donkey along the village road, that five years later we would still be in touch with her and that I would have exchanged letters, cards and even called her from Scotland on several occasions to see how things were going. “When are you coming back?” was her usual question.

Now that we were finally back on her farm I asked her how it felt to know that so many people around the world had now read about her and were interested in her rural life? Her pale blue eyes simply looked at me uncomprehending. “Really?” she finally said, but I knew my question meant little to her and it made me smile.

How rare a thing it is, in this slick internet world, to meet someone who knows nothing about the customs and taste of people beyond this southern region of Greece. Although she had a village education and can read and write and is wise to rural life, she has read few books and has no concept of the media, the publishing industry or publicity.

I told her that in a very small way, she was kind of ‘famous’. I don’t think she really understood this concept either. But her eyes danced with mirth as she gazed at the book cover, and that was good enough for me. I almost envied the monastic simplicity of her life in this glorious setting, which is something that won’t last forever, and one of the reasons our time in this region was so precious to us.

We didn’t have much time to spend with her, as we are staying in a different part of the southern Peloponnese, and we only had a few hours in the village, and other friends to see, but we will be heading back to the Mani again before too long.

We also visited the delightful Eftihia and her brother Yiorgos, who also featured in the book and were amongst the warmest people in the village. Eftihia (meaning happiness) is not her real name and most names were changed for the book, but it suits her big personality exactly. She bear-hugged us and took us inside for a big plate of delicious, home-made olive oil biscuits and we spent a long time in her cosy kitchen catching up on village gossip. Yiorgos was away for the day with a harvesting gang working on his olive groves.

Eftihia told me that while nothing very obvious had changed in the village since we left, sadly, everyone had felt the effects of the crisis with all the new farming and property taxes, and there was a general complaint that their earnings, however small, go straight to the government with little left to spend which is the same all over the country and one reason the economy has stalled in the past few years.

The main church and a Byzantine church behind which was once the village school

People are now living off the land, she told me, growing their own food and keeping animals. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for many of these hard-working people and many villagers who had earned money previously doing building, painting or gardening work in the area now have no jobs. The Greek clients have tightened their belts and many of the expats, who had built houses here and employed Greek workers, are selling up and returning to the UK.

But the price of olive oil has gone up this year from 2 euros a litre to around 4 euros, partly due to a bumper crop and the fact that the harvests in Spain and Italy have been disastrous. As one taverna owner told me: “Just for once Greece is claiming a small victory over other Mediterranean countries.” It couldn’t have come soon enough.

The bumper price for oil this year is good news for most of the villagers in Megali Mantineia who all have olive orchards on the edge of the village, and many earn the bulk of their income from the harvest.

Yiorgos and his gang returned in good spirits in the afternoon and sat in the sun eating a late lunch and toasting the results of the day’s labours with small glasses of home-made wine. There was family here, villagers and friends, and that’s the most heart-warming thing about Greece that when things get tough, people pitch in and help each other. It has always been this way, and that fact of life is never likely to change.

A detail of the book cover by artist Tony Hannaford, showing Foteini

Greece at a stroke

MANY people have commented on the lovely cover of Things Can Only Get Feta and thanks must go to the artist who created it, London-based Tony Hannaford, who has a particular love for Greece and its islands. You can see his collection of Mediterranean-inspired artwork on his website www.anthonyhannaford.co.uk

For details about the book and where to buy it and for reviews and articles, please visit our Big Fat Greek Odyssey website, book page

Visit Amazon to buy the book (Kindle version – new edition). A new edition of the paperback will also be available shortly.

If you like the book please think about leaving a review on Amazon. It will be very much appreciated.

Thanks for stopping by.

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2014. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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Searching for the real Arcadia …

Posted on November 7, 2014 by Marjory

Stemnitsa nestles on the edge of the Lousios Gorge.

ARCADIA! The word suggest images of pastoral bliss and goat-legged Pan, the god of shepherds, twirling around olive trees, playing his pan-pipes. It was a place that inspired the European poets and painters of the 18th and 19th centuries and suggested an innocent, golden age. It sometimes seems more of a mythical place than a real province. So, on a cool autumn day, we set off from the tip of the Messinian peninsula and drove north to discover what Arcadia is all about, and if it still has mythical charm. The excellent Cadogen guidebook, Peloponnese and Athens, describes Arcadia as “one of the best kept secrets of the Peloponnese … a place that seemed ancient even in ancient times”. I know just what that means now as Arcadia has a certain timelessness, sitting snug amid mountains and ravines in the centre of the Peloponnese.

Gerousia kafeneio, a little piece of traditional Greece

We were heading for the mountain eyrie of Stemnitsa, west of Tripolis. It is one of several mountain outposts in this region, including Dimitsana and Karitaina, but Stemnitsa is also claimed to be one of the 15 most beautiful villages in Greece. Dating back to the Middle Ages, Stemnitsa is built in giddy tiers up a precipice on the western slopes of Mount Menalo, at 1,100 metres, with a view down the long, deep Lousios Gorge.

Gerousia promises to be cosy in winter with its wood-burning stove

On the day of our visit it had a wintry feel so high up, despite being a warm day elsewhere. The main square is the heart of this old village, with tables and chairs under the walnut and cherry trees, an old church nearby, and a few tavernas and kafeneia. The Gerousia is an elegant old kafeneio with outdoor seating, but it wasn’t hard to imagine how, in deep winter, villagers would be huddled around the central wood-burning stove inside. It has a feel of how kafeneia used to be in Greece, and in case you can’t imagine it, there is a wonderful collection of old photos around the walls showing groups of villagers from last century sitting outside the main door. Sophia, the owner’s mother, is very friendly and obviously proud of the establishment, as it featured not long ago in a travel story in a popular Greek magazine. Along with coffee she serves some of the local sweets like skaltsounia, pastry shells filled with walnuts and honey. She was very taken with our Jack Russell dog Wallace hiding under the table. “He’s very quiet,” she said. I knew she was tempting fate and the minute her back was turned he sprang to life, like Pan chasing a woodland nymph and barked loudly, scattering a group of passers-by. Just another day in Arcadia! Before we left, Sophia gave us a small container of cherry tomatoes from her garden to take away, and insisted we try a couple first. They were sweet and delicious and it was a nice gesture of hospitality. But coffee followed by tomatoes? Don’t try it at home!

One of the arty village gates

The village is full of old-world charm with some quirky rural corners – great stacks of olive wood for the winter, donkeys tethered in gardens, gates and fences seemingly fashioned by crafty elves from sticks. It could have been a setting for a Brothers Grimm fairytale, without all the scary stuff. The village is best appreciated by walking up the narrow streets bordered by solid stone houses with heavy wooden shutters built for winter weather.

Cute donkey with a fringe on the top, and a traditional wooden saddle still favoured by villagers

The village is also renowned for its gold and silver smithery and there is school here in an old renovated building that teaches the craft. Several shops selling items made there and also a range of other traditional and modern jewellery, and at least one with more folky designs called the Politimes Dimiourgies.

Politimes Dimiourgies, one of several jewellery shops in the village near the silversmithery school

There are 18 churches here, from the 12th century to 17th century, though you will need to ask around or the keyholders. The church in the main square, Ayios Yiorgos, is open most mornings and has a nice collection of frescos and an intriguing relic in a silver box which is a piece of bone from the 13-century Peloponnesian saint Leontios. Most of the village is open in the winter and has some nice boutique hotels.

The spectacular Prodromou monastery hanging onto a rockface on the Lousios Gorge

One of the more curious attractions of this area are the three amazing monasteries built along the side of the Lousios Gorge, particularly the monastery of the Timios Prodromou. You can’t see the monastery from its parking area at the top of the gorge and a sign sends you on to a cobbled path that leads down the side of the gorge. Just when you think it can’t possibly be here, because there’s nothing but a steep-sided ravine, and trees, you look up and there it is, above you, a long mass of buildings clinging like limpets to the rockface, with some tiny, box-like structures with wooden buttresses underneath. It’s eerily quiet in the afternoon, hours before the monastery opens for visitors, and all you can hear are the sounds of birds and the Lousios river gushing way below, and maybe even Pan pipes when the vibes are right.

The bullet-scarred door of the monastery church hints at turbulent times

The Prodromou monastery was established in the 12th century and its church is also built into the rockface, with frescos from the 16th century. It hasn’t always been as quiet though. This area was the haunt of hero and clan chief Theodoros Kolokotronis, who was one of the leaders of the Messinian uprising against the Ottoman Turks that kicked off the War of Independence in 1821. During the war, he took refuge in this area and in the Promdromou church, securely locked by an impenetrable thick wooden door which was repeatedly shot at by the invading Turks and still bears the bullet holes to this day (see photo above).

Marjory and her woodland sprite Wallace at the ancient site of Gortys

A trip to this region wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the site of Ancient Gortys, further down the gorge from Stemnitsa. The site was established in 335 BC and was once an important shrine and centre of healing. In the river Lousios below, Zeus, the father of the Gods, was said to have been bathed as a child. Alexander the Great was so impressed with the site he offered his breast plate and shield as a tribute.

Some of the ruins of Ancient Gortys with the Lousios Gorge behind

There’s not much to see here now apart from fallen columns and crumbling walls amid ancient olive trees and clumps of wild sage. The original ‘spa’ and bathing area is still visible, with a curious wall of ‘cublicles’, each with a small stone depression in front, which may have been for foot bathing, and I can only assume the ancient Gortyians had tiny feet.

Bathing cubicles of ancient Greece?

Arcadia is an enchanting place that does feel rather ancient, a small corner of Greece that probably won’t change much because of its mountainous terrain. Perhaps the minxy nymphs and sprites that inhabit this blissful zone had taken control of our sense of direction but when we left late in the afternoon, with a long drive back to Koroni, we ended up driving west past the equally alluring town of Karitaina, with its massive castle atop a craggy hill, instead of heading south, and added another hour on to our journey. For more information about Arcadia and what to see, visit the Greek government website www.mythicalpeloponnese.gr

Wallace goes large in his backpack

He ain’t heavy, he’s a Jack Russell!

AFTER my book about living in the Peloponnese, Things Can Only Get Feta (Bene Factum Publishing), came out last year, a few readers contacted me about one of the chapters. They doubted that you could get a Jack Russell terrier to sit still in a rucksack. Readers might recall that we smuggled Wallace into an archaeological site near Kalamata after being told dogs were not allowed in. So, here’s a picture that shows it’s possible. But how did we keep him quiet for a while once he was inside? Well, you’ll just have to read the book … For details about the book and where to buy it and its sequel, Homer’s Where the Heart Is, Big Fat Greek Odyssey website, book page.

Visit Amazon to buy the book (Kindle version – new edition). A new edition is also available. Please remember that reviews on Amazon are always much appreciated, however small they are. Thanks for stopping by and your comments on the blog are always welcome too.

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2016. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog or used in any way without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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How does Wallace handle 15 minutes of fame? Madly, of course …

Posted on July 12, 2014 by Marjory

Wallace’s surfing antics always draw an audience.

IT was supposed to be a relaxing few hours at a long sandy beach near Koroni, in the Messinian peninsula. It was around 32 degrees and steaming.

We picked the quiet end of the beach and couldn’t wait to jump in the water. Wallace wasn’t interested in trying out hang-five manoeuvres on his small red surfboard today but more intent on grabbing the board by its side handle and trying to swim to shore with it.

While we were engaged in a game of tug-of-war with Wallace and the board, two guys strolled along the sand and stared at our watery antics. They looked Greek and I assumed they’d probably never seen a Jack Russell terrier before.

Then one of them shouted in a London accent: “Hey, didn’t you write that book? Isn’t that Wallace?”

“You mean the Feta book?” I shouted back. Okay, I had to be sure.

They nodded. “We recognised Wallace straight away.”

Is Wallace so recognisably crazy, I thought? Obviously, yes! It gave us a good laugh anyway.

“We loved the book, by the way.” That bit was good at least.

The two boys were from the UK, staying at a nearby holiday villa, and had read the book a few months earlier.

“He’s so cute!” said the other guy. “We’ve got a Jack Russell as well.”

“Is he mad like Wallace?” I asked.

“He’s… em, quieter than Wallace.” Very diplomatic!

With impeccable timing Wallace decided to demonstrate crazy for a bit and ran up and down the shoreline with the surfboard clamped in his teeth. Kids were giggling and sunbathers running for cover. It’s exhausting for everyone really which is why we don’t take him to the beach very often. Wallace has always loved the beach and is a tireless swimmer. I suspect he also likes the attention.

A Jack Russell terrier like Wallace is equally eccentric in the sea and on dry land

I think he always has. It’s in his genes! His Edinburgh breeder, Anne, told us recently that Wallace is related to Moose, the first Jack Russell to play Eddie in the US sitcom Frasier, after an American bought one of her dogs and took it over the pond. I used to watch Frasier regularly and fell in love with the dog. That’s why I always wanted one. What was I thinking?

Eddie the JRT terrier in Frasier

“He’s just like he is in the book, isn’t he?” said one of the lads, chortling.

“Oh yes,” I sighed. “You bet.”

It’s always heartwarming to meet readers of Things Can Only Get Feta wherever they crop up and one of the great joys of being a writer. Wallace in particular has won quite a few hearts due to his appearance in the book. We recently met a lovely couple from Surrey who have a Jack Russell of their own and while on holiday in the southern Peloponnese, drove all the way from Kalamata to Koroni (over an hour’s drive) just to see Wallace. Overshadowed by a Jack Russell? It’s okay, I’ll get over it!!

The easy charm of Koroni

Wallace and Marjory looking at the world from a Greek window

We are currently based just outside Koroni in a small Greek house for the summer. It’s around 200 years old, with an archetypical style: white with blue shutters and shady balconies everywhere. It’s in a lovely location in an olive grove with distant views of the sea. In the garden we are growing tomatoes, peppers and aubergines. There are also clumps of oregano, mint and marathos, fennel growing nearby.

When the owner comes to strim the grounds, the air is full of fresh herby aromas. There are fig, lemon, orange, apricot and almond trees as well and several grapevines already drooping with fruit.

Grapevines and roses in our Koroni garden

There are old rose bushes growing as well, planted by the owner’s grandmother, and it’s not hard to imagine how pleasant it would have once been here with the whole family gathered on the balcony enjoying one of the many light breezes that sweep up from the sea most afternoons and cool the tip of this peninsula.

As with most of rural Greece, there have been critters as well. Jim has already found two large scorpions in the garden and pulverised them, I’m afraid, with a breeze block. We also saw a snake slither under a metal baking tray beside the old fournos (woodfired oven) in the garden, while we were tidying up. Not sure what kind of snake it was (a deadly ochia, horn-nosed viper perhaps?) we made a hasty few calls to the owner who came along her brother, who was equipped with a long bamboo pole (snake sorting implement). He threw back the tray to reveal … well, a rather tiny snake, and not worthy of all the fuss we made about it. The family were very gracious about calling them out and we even got a short snake handling/despatching lesson, which I hope we’ll never need.

A view of Koroni town with its old castle and harbour through the olive groves

Koroni has proved to be a very friendly and laid-back town. This lower part of the peninsula (left hand one of the three southern prongs), facing the Ionian sea on one side and the Gulf of Messinia on the other, feels more like a Greek island at times rather than the mainland. It has a casual charm about it: a row of tavernas along the waterfront, as well as bars and cafes, while tucked away in the narrow backstreets that ascend to the old castle are traditional kafeneia, ouzeries, bread shops, general stores, and some nice churches as well. In my next blog I will feature some of our favourite places in Koroni.

Wallace showing a more demure side to his personality

Wallakos

Wallace has been given a new name while we’ve been in Koroni. In the Mani, where we stayed for three years, he was called Vassie. But one of our lovely friends here, Stavroula, who is fond of dogs, decided to call him Wallakos, ‘little Wallace’, which is cute and we have started using it as well. But sometimes Big Wally seems more appropriate!

GREEK BOOK IN NORTH AMERICA

My book about living in the Mani, Things Can Only Get Feta (Bene Factum Publishing), is available in North America, paperback and Kindle. It’s available on Amazon.com and through Barnes & Noble and Longitude Books. Longitude kindly featured it last month in its June Newsletter and on its blog page called A Favourite Spot. If you read the book and like it, please think about putting a small review on Amazon. It will be much appreciated. Thanks to all the North American readers for your support.

For details about the book and other places to buy it and for reviews and articles, please visit our Big Fat Greek Odyssey website, book page

Visit Amazon to buy the book (Kindle version – new edition). A new edition of the paperback will also be available shortly.

Thanks for stopping by and your comments on the blog are always appreciated.

© All rights reserved. Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2014. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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They live in North America but Greece is still home …

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Marjory

A Greek-American parade in Chicago

WE had an experience recently in Koroni that brought home to me the enduring, sometimes fateful connections between American and Canadian Greeks and their homeland.

Not long after we arrived back in Greece this year, this time at the tip of the Messinian peninsula in the southern Peloponnese, we started visiting a small, secluded beach on the other side of Koroni, facing the Ionian Sea. At the back of sandy Zaga beach is a set of stone steps and we were intrigued enough to climb them and discover what lay beyond – a white house with a large shady garden.

A stone table built for Big Fat Greek lunches

Its best feature by far was the huge round table made of stone on a thick plinth and a curved stone bench around one side that could easily fit a dozen or more people. The place gave the sense of Greek ownership and I could imagine a big, garrulous family sitting here on hot summer days sharing a meal. Perhaps it was owned by Athenians who only came in the high summer.

Every time we went to the beach we pondered who the owners were. But in a quirk of fate, I was to find out sooner than I could ever have imagined.

After my book Things Can Only Get Feta was published in North America on May 1, I had a few emails to the website from readers, and one in particular from a lovely woman called Alexia from Montreal, Canada. She had a particular interest in the book as her family originally came from Kalamata, and the rural Mani. We exchanged several emails and she told me she had spent a few summers back in the southern Peloponnese visiting relatives and friends.

Since I mentioned living in Koroni, she sent me a photo of her father on a beach here – and I recognised it straightaway. Zaga, the beach with the stone steps. I quizzed her about the house and, sure enough, it was owned by a Canadian friend of her father. Small world. She had been to the house in the past and had had one of those long summer lunches, just as I had imagined.

Zaga beach, Koroni, beneath the church of the Panayia Eleistria

It was certainly a spooky coincidence, you might think, but not where Greece is concerned. The longer I stay in this country, the more I recognise the tight webbing between Greece and the Greek diaspora (fittingly a Greek word) of Canada and America, and Australia too; the families who had to leave, mostly for economic reasons, though sometimes political, sometimes in a desperate bid for freedom, who have never forgotten their faith, their culture and whose connections between the two places continue to spread and flourish.

In the past year I have had many North Americans becoming regular correspondents and FB & Twitter friends, especially among those whose families came originally from the southern Peloponnese. I am always impressed and touched by their passion for Greece, how the more recent emigrants from the past four decades talk about the place as if they’d never left it, sharing pictures on FB, reminiscences and anecdotes. Many talk longingly of their next visits in the summer, counting off the days, even though most have successful, happy lives in North America. But to these people, Greece is still their patrida, their homeland.

Many Greeks fled to North America from Kalamata after the city’s devastating earthquake of 1986

As Alexia explained: “My Dad has shared so many stories of his childhood and of his teenage years (in Greece). His father, who passed away the year I was born, shared stories of the war he lived through. He planted the trees at the Anastasi (church) on Navarinou Street in Kalamata. My uncle Soulis dove for the cross in the water for the Epiphany holiday (in January) when he was a teenager. Crazy to feel so connected to a place that my brother, sister and I have only visited a handful of times.”

It makes me think a lot of my own family and how closely it parallels emigration from Scotland, and the Scottish diaspora. After historic skirmishes with the English and from the time of the infamous Highland Clearances of the 18^th and 19 centuries when tenant farmers were evicted from their land, Scots have been leaving the country in droves seeking political and economic refuge mainly in North America, Australia and New Zealand.

More recent departees, like my family, left to seek new opportunities in Australia in the 1960s, lured by assisted migration, the famous £10 boat ticket to freedom. Despite decades in Australia my family always called Scotland ‘home’. “We’re going home next year for a holiday,” they would tell their friends, as if the permanent lives they had so painstakingly etched out in Australia were nothing but a temporary fix. Which they weren’t.

Gorgeous Kapsali beach on the island of Kythera. The island has been dubbed “Little Australia” because of the number of villagers who migrated there and then returned

Greeks are everywhere in the world, in every far-flung corner, and so are the Scots. Two very different diaspora – Greeks and Scots, but we both do exile very well.

But what the Scots don’t do is keep up the cultural life of their homeland the way the Greeks do. Perhaps if we had the vast extended families that Greeks have, we would. We tend to float away into our individual lives and endeavours and in a few generations our Scottishness is often diluted. Not so the Greeks.

I have followed my North American friends’ posts on FB and Twitter with admiration and often envy: how they have built Greek Orthodox churches to rival many in Greece and sent their kids to Greek language school, kept up the rituals of Easter, the saints days, name days, and all the Big Fat Greek weddings. Greekness is alive and well in North America. A massive achievement. How could it be otherwise?

The bay of Otylo in the remote Mani region which has seen mass migration to the New World

Yet for all that, they often talk of an intense longing for what they or their family have left back in Greece and the things that can never be replaced. Some of this sentiment was conveyed beautifully by Katie Aliferis, a Greek American from San Francisco, in some of the poetry she shared earlier in the year on my blog. Her poems express an intense love and longing for the remote Mani region in the southern Peloponnese, and for her village of Areopolis and the old family home, even though Katie has, remarkably, never set foot in the country.

Most Greeks would probably never have chosen to leave their homeland and you understand this better when you see some of the outstanding places they hail from, physically beautiful with a traditional, often rural, way of life that can’t be replicated anywhere else, and villages that are now semi-abandoned, ironically due partly to the mass migration.

While living in the Mani we came across a semi-deserted hillside village that was hosting a big Greek wedding for a family from Chicago. It was, unusually, filled with noise, music, life, and for a few days, the small Greek population was vastly outnumbered. Some of the Greek villagers remarked that it all felt like old times.

Wars and occupation have driven out the Greeks, so did the military junta of the 60s and 70s. But also earthquakes, like the devastating Kalamata earthquake of 1986, and the recent economic crisis has tragically forced Greeks to leave yet again, seeking opportunities elsewhere. These circumstances will no doubt inspire a painful longing to return one day and to never forget where ‘home’ really is, despite making wonderful lives in their new host countries. Whenever I hear an American accent now in the Peloponnese I am more attuned to the complex stories behind the sunny repartee.

My new Canadian friend Alexia says she will be back this summer, as will some of her family. They will visit their ancestral homes and also Koroni. A lunch around the stone table at the house by the sea will probably be on the cards. In my mind I can already see them crammed around it, full of kefi (high spirits) sharing a typical Greek meal, under shady trees, the sea a few stone steps away. The circle will then be complete.

GREEK BOOKS

My two travel memoirs about living in southern Greece, Things Can Only Get Feta, and the sequel Homer’s Where the Heart Is are available in Kindle and in paperback through all Amazon sites

www.amazon.co.uk or www.amazon.com

For more information about the books and other outlets please visit the book page on my website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

Thanks for stopping by and your comments on the blog are always appreciated.

© Text and photographs copyright of the authors 2016. No content/text or photographs may be copied from the blog without the prior written permission of the authors. This applies to all posts on the blog.

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