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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When the saints go marching in …

Posted on October 22, 2019 by Marjory

THIS Saturday is the feast day of Ayios Dimitrios (Saint Dimitrios), pictured above in his usual guise, a jaunty character in a green cape, riding a sorrel-coloured horse.

It’s a big feast day in Greece (October 26) and the ‘name day’ for anyone with the moniker Dimitris, Dimitrios, or Dimitra for women. There will be a service early at churches named after the saint and then usually a yiorti, a celebration, nearby, especially in rural areas.

I’ve featured a few of these feast days and celebrations in my books as well as the local characters who frequented them. They are one of the best ways for foreigners to get a unique insight into Greek life with some of its pomp but mostly its spontaneity and eccentricity. It’s Greek people in their own world, enjoying the simple pleasures of village and family life with a rural papas, priest, or two in the mix as well. Tables will be spread out under the olive trees, as it was in the hillside village of Megali Mantineia, where we spent our first year in the southern Peloponnese. Locally sourced goat or lamb is often roasted in the village fournos (woodfired oven), or a spit-roast barbecue set up, or food brought from local tavernas. It’s always a nice occasion, unless you’re vegan perhaps!

Villagers, and two local priests, enjoying a yiorti celebration in the southern Peloponnese in front of a mad, smoking fournos

Ayios Dimitrios was a martyr saint who, in the 4^th century AD, was imprisoned and tortured for helping the citizens of Thessaloniki in northern Greece to rise up against the pagan teachings of the Romans. The feast day of Ayios Dimitrios has an added charm because if the weather has turned especially warm in the last two weeks of October, the Greeks call this The Little Summer of Saint Dimitrios. It’s a mellow, euphoric end to the summer season. Traditionally, October us the time for farmers to bring their flocks down from the hills to lower pastures for winter grazing, so the Little Summer is always a welcome occurrence.

The Little Summer of S D featured significantly in my first novel A Saint For The Summer. The Saint in the title has a few different meanings in the narrative but the main allusion is to Saint Dimitrios because his feast day celebration in a Taygetos mountain village is instrumental in the plot, bringing an intriguing World War II mystery to its nail-biting conclusion.

Jim, Marjory and Wallace in the town of Koroni, one of the places featured in Marjory’s Greek trilogy

In my three travel memoirs, I describe other saints’ days because when we first went to the southern Peloponnese on our four-year odyssey we never said ‘no’ to these occasions. St Dimitrios was a favourite because my husband Jim was given the name Dimitris (the Greek equivalent) by villagers, and I was christened early on as Margarita by my goat farmer friend Foteini because she couldn’t pronounce my real name. These names stuck the whole time we were in Greece and seem to fire up again every time we return.

The feast day celebrations were always convivial and Greeks were generous in embracing outsiders in what is essentially a very traditional Greek day. We had good company, great local cuisine and plenty of wine and gossip. More importantly, as foreigners, we learnt a lot from these celebrations.

The tiny chapel of Ayios Yiorgos (above) in the hills behind the village of Megali Mantineia with its flower decked icon. A centuries-old fresco of St George in a Mani monastery (below)

One memorable celebration was for the feast day of Ayios Yiorgos (St George), possibly the biggest of the saints’ celebrations in Greece. St George was another great martyr saint and a tribune living in the first century AD who is always depicted on his white horse, spearing a dragon-like interloper. You can just see the beast above at the bottom of the icon where age and water damage have diluted the colours.

It was at this celebration in 2011 at a small chapel in the hills above Megali Mantineia that we met a businessman called Tassos over lunch who was curious about our odyssey in rural Greece in the midst of the economic crisis.

“Why come to live in Greece now?” he asked. “If weather and the beach is the main reason, there are sunnier and easier places to live than Greece.”

Greece has lovely unspoilt coves like these at Otylo in the Mani but it has many more hidden assets

It was hard to convince him that it was Greece we wanted for this mid-life odyssey and nowhere else. Still puzzled, he then asked: “What do you really seek to find, my friends, in our country that you cannot find in your own?”

It was a very good question. What indeed? And the question remained with me throughout my years in Greece, informing my own search for meaning and fulfilment in this country as well as informing my writing. The scene with Tassos found its way into an early chapter in the second memoir, Homer’s Where The Heart Is, as we took on more adventures in southern Greece and experienced the chaos of an increasingly bitter crisis.

His query is something that many expats ask themselves, if just in the form of ‘What is it about this complex country that I’ve fallen in love with?’ Of course, there’s no simple answer to this. For me, there were many things I sought and found, and loved, about Greece, as you will discover if you read Homer, and the other memoirs of course.

For the feast day of St George, tables spread under the olive trees for villagers, and the priest (left), of Megali Mantineia

It could be that being able to access these unique celebrations on feast days, like the one for Saint Dimitrios, is part of it, an ability to enjoy simple pleasures in beautiful surroundings, embraced by warm, inclusive communities. In our four years in southern Greece, in the Mani and later in the nearby Messinian peninsula, we went to many of these feast days. They were all different in location and intensity, and we enjoyed every one of them.

If you’re in Greece and you get the chance to attend a feast day, or indeed any of the other larger celebrations of Easter and August, do go, and also to the church services preceding them. You don’t have to be especially religious to attend because the services offer unique insights into much more than just the Orthodox faith. It is here that you gain insight into Greek traditions and social life, and rituals that are gloriously diverting and rooted in the Byzantine world. These are rituals that have changed little in the past 500 years. You won’t be disappointed. And Greek people, I promise you, will admire your interest and curiosity.

Χρονια Πολλα!

Happy Name Day/Feast Day!

For more information about Marjory’s books including the novel A Saint For The Summer and the Peloponnese trilogy, above, please visit Marjory’s Amazon page or the books page on our website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

Or visit Marjory’s books page on Facebook

Thanks for dropping by. All comments are gratefully received. Just click on the ‘chat’ bubble at the top of this page.

© 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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New travel memoir set in Greece

Posted on June 18, 2016 by Marjory

Hello, blog readers. I am happy to announce that my third travel memoir, set in southern Greece, is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

Called A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree: Mad adventures on a Greek peninsula, the book charts my second long odyssey in the southern Peloponnese with my partner Jim and our crazy Jack Russell dog, Wallace.

While the first two books were set in the Mani, the central peninsula, this one takes place in and around Koroni at the tip of the Messinian Peninsula, where we stayed for 14 months from early 2014.

Marjory, Jim and Wallace in Koroni.

At the window of Palio Spiti (the old house), described in the new book.

Why we ended up in Koroni, when we had our heart set on living once more in the Mani, forms the basis of the book and reveals how you can plan your life down to the last detail but it will be derailed in the end, especially in the wonderfully spontaneous, and sometimes chaotic, place that Greece is. There are more perilous and funny adventures along the way as we try to find long-term rental accommodation and finally come to terms with living in a house that we didn’t expect we’d end up in. If you read the book, you’ll find out why.

A lemon tree at Villa Anemos overlooking the Gulf of Messinia.

You might be wondering about the title, A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree. There are specific reasons why I chose this title and apart from being unlucky enough to have these pesky critters calling on us quite a bit, the title is a kind of metaphor as well, and you can make your own mind up about what the scorpion represents in the context of the narrative. And in case you’ve missed it, there is a scorpion in the lemon tree on the cover illustration. Can you spot it? Wallace the dog should give you a clue.

View of Koroni from its old Venetian castle.

The artwork was produced by the talented London artist Anthony Hannaford, www.anthonyhannaford.co.uk, who created the fabulous covers for my first two books. Once again, he has managed to capture all the colour and vibrancy of Greece. And cheeky Wallace got a front-row seat this time. I also have to thank Jim Bruce for his great editing and formatting of this edition www.ebooklover.co.uk

In this memoir we will make friends with a new cast of heart-warming characters, while connecting again with old friends in the Mani, including our dear friend, goat farmer Foteini, with whom we have several humorous encounters, as always.

Long sandy beaches along the gulf side of Koroni.

While we may have started our latest odyssey disappointed at not being able to live once more in the Mani, we fell in love with Koroni in the end. What’s not to love? It is in a remote part of the (left-hand) Messinian peninsula and I was surprised that there had been so little written about it in the past, so I am thrilled to be able to highlight this region and I hope I will entice more of you to visit. It is a haven of peace and quiet where you won’t see the outward signs of economic crisis, or the effects of recent migration to Greece.

Koroni is set beside a lovely old harbour, with a castle on a high acropolis above and narrow winding streets ascending to it. It is atmospheric and unspoilt, with the Messinian gulf on one side and the Ionian Sea on the other. On either side of the promontory are wide sandy beaches, old churches, and thriving villages within easy reach.

Over the coming months on the blog, I will focus on other aspects of Messinia, as mentioned in the book including some of the hidden corners of this area, and a few curious and unexplained phenomena, like The Hand of God Tree. Watch this space!

I hope you enjoy this memoir, the third in my Peloponnese series. Like the other two books, the narrative is such that you can read it on its own and understand what our travels in Greece have been all about, but you will get a better understanding of how we connected with this region, and its people, if you read the other books as well, starting with Things Can Only Get Feta. The first two chart our adventures from 2010, when we first left our Scottish village to relocate to a remote hillside village for a year, despite the economic crisis. But the year became four in the end. Four of the most fascinating years of our lives.

Enjoy the new book, which is currently available as an ebook and a paperback on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other outlets. I thank you all for your ongoing support of my work. I always appreciated comments on the blog and if you have liked the books, a small review on Amazon will also be most welcome. It is the lifeblood of authors.

Marjory’s new book is on all Amazon sites:

amazon.uk

amazon.com

On the website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com you will also find a ‘books’ page with other information about the books. Or visit the Facebook page www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

To buy either of my first two books please click on the Amazon links below:

Things Can Only Get Feta

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

Thanks for calling by. x

© All rights reserved. All 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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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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Back in Greece & barking mad to travel with a Jack Russell!

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Marjory

The coastal town of Koroni nestling under the mighty walls of its 12th century castle

WELL that’s us back in Greece for another adventure, but more of an Odyssey-Lite compared with last time. We went by car again so we could accommodate the great travel mutt Wallace and, as before, it created scenes of joy and angst. The joy was seeing how well he behaved in a car packed to the gunwales and how he slept the whole way and only barked at motorway toll collectors. We are in accord on this one.

Wallace the Jack Russell scaling the peaks of travel in Switzerland

The angst came in the form of a check-in at an Italian hotel (part of a big chain) that claimed to “take dogs, of course!” We got told off in the foyer by the manager when Wallace did a round of screamy barking at two teenagers who were shouting and skittering about, making Wallace nervous. They were making me nervous as well. One thing I’ve discovered about Wallace over the years is that he’s really quite conventional for a fizzy Jack Russell and, apart from people shouting and screaming, he doesn’t like folk wearing outlandish clothes: funny big hats, eye-watering colours, and so forth. I think most of all he barked because he didn’t like the hotel manager’s outfit: apple green trousers; loafers, no socks; a blueberry-coloured jacket. And I have to agree! What was this? Horticultural couture? But all went well really, most especially when we quit the establishment, our foreheads beading with sweat and Wallace muzzled up this time, and looking like a detained psychopath.

The pretty town of Bellagio on Lake Como

On the trip, we had our first ever satnav and discovered that telling it to find the quickest route anywhere isn’t always a good idea. On our way to a hotel above the shores of Lake Como, the satnav arrow pointed straight across the lake at one stage. What? Did it think we had an amphibious vehicle?

“What’s it trying to tell us here,” said Jim plaintively as we followed the lakeside road, getting closer to the predicted lake plunge. All was revealed, however, when we came to a dead end at a small ferry terminal where it was explained by a grumpy ticket seller that this was the quickest way to the hotel, down the wrong side of the lake and across on the ferry to the town of Bellagio on the other side, where the hotel is situated. How were we to know? But if we’d been much later we’d have missed the last ferry. That wouldn’t have been quick!

The Pappas at the church of the Panayia Eleistria in Koroni handing out the ‘holy light’ on Easter Saturday

Jim guarding his flames after the spectacular climax of Greek Easter

Greek drama

Lovely to be back in Greece in spring, and at Easter. We managed three swims in the first week and almost an Easter service every night of Holy Week, and enjoyed the high drama of Great Saturday, outside the church as people held their candles with the “Holy Light” first brought out by the Pappas at midnight and shared to the congregation from there. Bells tolled and fireworks boomed on the periphery and everyone went home, well resurrected, but with their ears ringing.

Koroni has a nice feel, with its harbour and narrow streets winding up to the castle on the top, which was once a stronghold of the Venetians. It’s easy to see why various imperial groups wanted to control it because the castle was almost impregnable and the town out of sight from the sea, cuddled by a high, wooded headland.

The town reaches up to the castle walls which encloses a monastery at the top with superb views on all sides

A tiny chapel at the monastery of Timios Prodromos with stunning views down to Zaga beach

The castle has been razed now apart from its massive walls but inside is the delightful leafy monastery of the Timios Prodromos, which has only six nuns left. It’s a peaceful, dreamy spot, and the small shop near the entrance has a phenomenal range of items hand-made by these industrious nuns.

It’s one of those monasteries that posts a list of what you can’t do, or wear, inside the monastery church. No trousers for women, which ruled out a church visit for me, though there is still plenty to see here with a fragrant garden with fruit trees and flowers. There are various nooks here to wonder around and touches of drama amid the foliage. A tiny courtyard had a stone entrance with a carved lintel saying: Orthdoxia i Thanatos Orthodoxy or Death. There is also the tiny Byzantine church of Ayia Sophia built beside the ruins of an ancient temple dedicated to Apollo. Some of the original remnants of this temple have made their way into the later walls of the castle.

Caption here for Koroni wall at monastry

Remnants of Apollo’s temple at the Prodromos monastery have been cleverly inserted into the later castle walls

Jim was left at the monastery gates with Wallace because we assumed the nuns wouldn’t permit dogs, JRTs especially, but when I mentioned this to one of the nuns later she surprised me by gripping my arm and saying: “Bring him in, we don’t mind.” Ah bless! But take Wallace to a quiet monastery with six genteel nuns wearing unfamiliar headgear, long flappy skirts, and half a dozen aging Easter pilgrims outside the shop trying to enjoy their delicious loukoumi (Turkish delight) and glasses of chilled water? I think not! Maybe on a quieter day.

Wallace comandeering my work station and chair on the balcony with its view towards Koroni

The house we are staying in here has a wonderful view of Koroni and the sea. My current workplace, a table on the balcony for the laptop, is possibly the best I’ve had for a while but the only problem is keeping Wallace off my chair. He won’t hand it over until I confess what I’m writing about him next. Has he lost the plot? I’ll let you all know soon enough…

GREEK BOOK IN NORTH AMERICA

I AM thrilled to announce that my book about living in the Mani, called Things Can Only Get Feta (Bene-Factum Publishing), is now available in North America, paperback and Kindle. It’s available on Amazon.com and through Barnes & Noble and Longitude Books in America. Longitude has kindly run a story about the book on its blog page called A Favourite Spot.

The go-to blog for writing tips

I was recently interviewed by Athens-based writer Maria Messini on her fascinating blog MM Jaye Writes, under the category Work In Progress. The blog is geared towards writers, their methods, tips, networking secrets and is a fabulous resource for all writers whether they have publishers or are making their own way in the self-publishing world. Read the interview here:

For details about my book Things Can Only Get Feta and other places to buy it 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.

© 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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The real Greece: How hard is it to find?

Posted on March 19, 2014 by Marjory

Independence Day on March 23 in Kalamata is a great opportunity to see traditional folk costumes and customs and the day ends with festivities and fun.

SOME people have written to me lately asking how they can go on holiday and find the real Greece, something closer to the unpredictable, plate smashing Zorba-style Greece of old, before mass tourism and the spread of EU cultural blandness.

It’s impossible to turn the clock back but obviously you’ll get a head start with this one if you steer away from popular destinations that attract most tourists, and particularly at the height of summer, even if these are often the most picturesque places, like Santorini or Mykonos.

If only a Greek island will do, then pick one without an airport so it’s harder to get to, like gorgeous Symi in the Dodecanese, or Serifos and Sifnos in the Cyclades, tiny Paxos, near Corfu, though there are numerous others. These islands will give you a better chance to conjure up a more traditional Greece, and engage with the locals. Tourists often avoid the mainland and yet it’s here you can still find towns and villages that are more authentically Greek, especially if you go off-season.

Jim and I spending a happy Easter Sunday with a lovely Greek family in the Mani.

I am biased after spending three years in the wonderful, unspoilt southern Peloponnese, but you can really get away from it all here and tackle a slightly more raw side of life. Away from the more popular tourist areas, you will find hill villages galore where life moves to a slightly different beat and hasn’t really changed that much in centuries. In the Mani hinterland you will find small Greek communities, olive farmers, goat herders, and at least one tiny cove where the real George Zorbas, who inspired the book and film character, hung out and danced the sirtaki along the shoreline. In search of old Greece? It doesn’t get better than that.

I’ve put together a few things you can definitely do if meeting locals and learning about the Greek way of life is your objective.

Two happy villagers taking part in a saint’s day parade.

Get spiritual

1. If you find yourself in Greece at Easter, do take part in some of the celebrations, as this is the most important time of the year for Greeks. Whether you’re religious or not, it’s worth going to some of the daily Orthodox Church services that lead up to Easter Saturday for their sheer spine-tingling drama, ritual and the Byzantine chanting. In fact, any time of the year it’s worth going along to a Sunday service to observe Greeks in their own unique setting. No-one will mind if you just go for 10 minutes because in this respect the Orthodox service is much more flexible than our services, but don’t push your luck by dropping in on the way to the beach dressed in shorts and flip-flops.

Feasts and fairs

2. During the summer months, paniyiria (fairs) and saint’s day ‘feasts’ are held all over Greece, particularly in the villages. In the southern Peloponnese alone there are 64 different paniyiria for various saints and to mark other religious events. There are also festivals commemorating different foods and crops: a Potato Festival in the Mani, an Onion and Tomato Festival in the Messinian peninsula and others to honour bread, wine, figs, fish, to name a few. Many of these fairs last several days and are the best place to rub shoulders with locals, and are great fun. For details of various festivals held in the southern Peloponnese visit the Costa Navarino website www.costanavarino.com Ask at your local kafeneion, council office or tourist office about festivals and fairs.

Off season, volunteer to help a farmer with his olive harvest. It’s hard work but you’ll feel like a local.

Try an olive harvest

3. If you are in Greece in November or later, especially in olive growing areas like Crete, southern Peloponnese or some of the islands, offer to help at a local olive harvest to get a feel for this ancient practice which is vital to the local economy. There are plenty of farmers in Greece still suffering because of the economic crisis who will be happy for you to help – and you might get some olive oil at the end of it all. Ask around your local village.

Food for thought

4. Seek out tavernas and coffee shops where only Greeks go because the food will probably be more authentic for a start and you will soak up some local colour. If you’re in a city, try to find the small street stalls selling souvlaki and gyros (slices of grilled meat in pitta bread), favoured by locals. In Kalamata try Jimmy’s, near the Archaelogical Museum in 23^rd March Square. And in towns and cities try an old-style ouzerie which sells ouzo and other drinks, as well as serving meze (appetisers) to go with them. Plenty of interesting characters congregate in these places.

Market forces

5. If you’re in a town or city, seek out local fruit and veg markets where you can soak up some Greek vibes. In Kalamata there is a fabulous laiki community market on a Wednesday morning in the city, not far from the historic centre. There’s a vibrant camaraderie among the sellers and Greeks from all walks of life do their weekly shop here. You’ll pick up colourful stories, bargains and the odd freebie. There are also nice bars and cafes nearby.

Find a fisherman in the harbour to take you out on his boat. You never know how the story might end.

Float your boat

6. If you’re staying in or near a fishing village, go down early in the morning to where the boats are landing fish for a real local experience and try to find a fisherman who will take you out for a morning to experience a traditional way of earning a living. Ask in your local kafeneion about this. In fact, the kafeneion is the best place to go for almost any inquiry in Greece.

Talented iconographer Maria Tsiboka creating a Byzantine masterpiece in her workshop in Mystras.

Icons of style

7. Try to find art and crafts studios, or jewellery workshops in villages and towns where you can watch someone carrying out a traditional skill. Although I have mentioned her a few times before, one of my favourite people in the southern Peloponnese is Maria Tsiboka, a traditional icon painter and a lovely soul with excellent English who will demonstrate how a Byzantine icon is produced, at Porfyra Icons, her studio and shop in the town of Mystras (near Sparta). The town is beside the hillside famous as the last outpost of the Byzantine Empire. Maria also has a lovely collection of icons at reasonable prices and will paint one to your own specifications and post it back home for you. www.porfyraicons.gr (003) 27310 82848.

Learn the lingo

8. It might seem obvious but try to learn some Greek if you can and use it everywhere even if your efforts are riddled with mistakes. I have made many howlers of my own over the years but Greeks will only love you all the more for trying and it’s your first step in engaging with the culture. You might even make a new Greek friend and be invited to their home for a family celebration or for Easter Sunday lunch with spit- roasted lamb and red-dyed eggs to crack for good luck. You know you’ve done something right in Greece when this happens. Enjoy it!

A book about living in Greece

For more details about my book, Things Can Only Get Feta based on three years living in the Mani, southern Greece during the crisis, visit my website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com or visit Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

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

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Things can only get feta …

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Marjory

CAN you have an adventure in crisis-torn Greece and not come unstuck? Can you take a mad Jack Russell dog to a rural region and not create havoc? Can you ever feel like more than an outsider in a mountain village that has changed little over the centuries?

You might find the answers to these questions, and hopefully have a giggle along the way, in the book based on my first year in the Mani, in the southern Peloponnese, due to be published in July this year. It’s called Things Can Only Get Feta (Two journalists and their crazy dog living through the Greek crisis) by Marjory McGinn.

In the first year of the big fat Greek adventure, along with my partner Jim (which I started writing about in this blog in 2010), we had such an amazing time, having travelled extensively through this beautiful region, and having befriended some wonderful local characters, that I wanted to shape it into a book so that other adventurers/armchair travellers could get a feel for this unique rural way of life.

Chairman: Wallace soaking up the sun in the Mani

Chairman: Wallace sunbakes in the Mani

I was encouraged by many of the regular blog readers who wrote to the website saying how much they enjoyed our mad meanderings in Greece, especially with naughty Wallace the Jack Russell in tow. A big thanks for that and I hope you enjoy the book.

For an outline of the book and details of how to pre-order it, click on this link to take you to the home page of our website: http://www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com

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

Land’s end: Marjory and Wallace at the southernmost point of the Mani peninsula

Looking back

When we set off in early 2010, it was supposed to be for a year’s adventure only. We aimed to live in the Mani region (middle peninsula of the southern Peloponnese), but we had no idea of the exact location, or what our life would be like, or even if we would find a suitable place to live, especially in the midst of an economic crisis. But that’s the whole point of adventure – stepping right into the unknown and taking whatever comes your way.

The village we ended up in surpassed all our expectations, particularly with regard to the location and the wonderful local characters we met, some colourful British expats, and the mad escapades that would unfold. But other things were difficult, as we outlined in the blog: dealing with Greek bureaucracy, buying a Greek car, surviving the first scorching summer, dealing with alien wildlife (the critters, not the expats) – scorpions, polecats, snakes, hornets.

Then there was the problem of getting a tiny Greek village with typical zero-tolerance of ‘pet’ dogs to accept the crazy, barky, territorial Wallace. Many villagers had never seen a Jack Russell dog before and to their mind, he just looked like a small mutant sheep. To find out how Wallace’s immersion into Greek life panned out, you’ll have to read the book.

Branching out: Jim and Wallace enjoying the lush olive orchards in the spring

One year’s adventure turned into another and in the end we stayed almost three years in the southern Peloponnese, having loved every mad and magical moment. Then there was the Greek crisis, of course. I commented on this in the blog along the way and we did see some massive changes over the three years, particularly in the city of Kalamata where shop closures and business failures were a daily occurrence.

The austerity measures affected everyone in the region, sometimes tragically so, but one thing that never changed was the stoicism of Greek people and their enduring spirit particularly in the face of often spiteful criticism by the international media. Stories from outside the country that depicted Greeks as ‘lazy’ and ‘work-shy’ were not helpful, and yet anyone who has lived in the country will know just how hard most ordinary Greeks do work and strive for a better life, with no state handouts.

Water baby: Wallace swimming in a cove in the shadow of the Taygetos mountains

In our three years, we travelled the whole of the southern Peloponnese, through the Mani, Laconia and the Messinian peninsula, much of which we have already written about and many places we haven’t got round to writing about yet. I will post some short blogs on these, with photos, over the coming months, and general thoughts about Greek life, as we found it. So please keep reading, and your feedback, as always, is appreciated.

We are currently back in Britain for the time being but are keeping close ties with Greece and look forward to our next big fat adventure there.

Best wishes for a happy summer.

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Big fat Greek blog

Life in the southern Peloponnese with two journalists and a crazy dog

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