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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Have the wheels come off Greece in crisis?

Posted on November 12, 2017 by Marjory

The wreck with no wheels in the Monastiraki flea market is a poignant but spirited symbol of Greece in crisis

WE hadn’t been to Athens since 2012, at the worst point in the Greek crisis, when the city was teetering on the edge of disaster, with austerity, demonstrations and social unrest. I wondered how it would seem now and if the indelible Greek spirit would be trashed, as some reports have led us to believe. But in a narrow street in the Plaka, just under the Acropolis, we saw the kind of feisty, maverick attitude that we have come to expect of Greeks, and admire. It involved a woman driver.

Greek motorists seem to have lost none of their desire to park ‘creatively’, where they please, whether it’s over pedestrian crossings or on pavements, or up trees, if it were at all possible. Outside a popular taverna on an intersection, a policeman was writing a ticket for a car parked completely over the corner of the pavement, blocking the way for pedestrians. What followed was a spirited exchange after the woman driver rushed out of a nearby shop to fight with the young cop (not a traffic warden but a fully equipped cop with ‘astinomia’, police, written on his jacket). She had a stream of excuses for the perilous parking – but he wasn’t having any of it. The parking, he told her, was illegal, and that was it. She started yelling back at him. He told her not to shout. People began to mill about, watching. Outside diners also stopped eating to check out the dispute that went on long after the parking ticket was written and handed over with a flourish.

I marvelled that crazy parking was still a sight in Greek cities (it’s notorious in Kalamata in the southern Peloponnese), despite all the new restrictions and the soul-searching of the crisis. I was also impressed at the woman’s aggressive front with the cop. You don’t see it often in Britain, where you’d probably be arrested for causing an affray or some such thing.

View over the rooftops of the Plaka towards Lykavetos hill

Athens, and indeed much of Greece, is now showing signs of crisis fatigue, it’s true, and anger as well. The streets of downtown Athens have a skint, neglected aura about them. There’s still graffiti gashed over buildings and while it’s often an arty emblem of the recent troubles, in other cases it’s downright ugly, especially scrawled over some of the old classical houses, as we saw in the Plaka, that don’t deserve angry art. There are more migrants about, that’s true, and people are still begging, which is sad, though no different from any other major city. What made it exceptional here was the number of older women we saw begging and holding up cardboard signs. One said, “I am a Greek woman and I am living in poverty. Help me.”

Graffiti art or just vandalism on an arty scale?

We heard tales of stress and frustration from shopkeepers and from friends who live and work in Athens, that the crisis has hammered their businesses, with endless taxes and cuts to wages etc, despite what the international media might say. I told an Athenian friend, who has his own business, that we had read reports in British papers that the Greek economy was finally improving and Greece was “turning a corner”. “Yeah,” he said, “turning a corner into a gremos (ravine)!”

A restored iconostasis, church screen, in the Byzantine museum

But the Greek establishment is still showing stoicism and a ‘business as usual’ attitude in the face of hardships, and has not stinted on cultural events/concerts/exhibitions in Athens. The museums are absurdly well managed and serene and among the best in the world, surely, which is an enormous feat in troubled times. The Acropolis Museum remains one of my favourites for its sheer beauty and serenity on the elegant pedestrian walkway, Dionisou Areopagitou. The museum has a cathedral calm inside. On one floor is a dazzling display of Athenian sculptures of young men and women like the almost perfect Peplophorus (530BC) with her braided hair and shoulder brooches.

The Parthenon Sculptures from the pediments of the building, and the Metope panels are arranged on the top floor, the few that were left after Lord Elgin’s infamous heist, and which are not now languishing in the British museum. The Byzantine Museum is often overlooked but is inspirational, with its early Christian artifacts and wealth of Byzantine icons. The only complaint was that there was just too much splendour for one visit and it will need another.

One of the narrow streets of the Plaka with the Acropolis above

I have always loved Athens from my first visit there in the 1970s on a working holiday. The city had a vastly different vibe then, of course, an exotic Greek and levantine mix which I wrote about in my second travel memoir, Homer’s Where The Heart Is. Syntagma Square was then a sociable meeting place in the city, a tree-lined space with outdoor cafes. Once the heart of this city, it has sadly become, because of the years of crisis and violent demonstrations, the focal point of discontent, understandably so, as it’s situated opposite the Parliament building. But the rage somehow lingers, or perhaps it’s just the maelstrom of humanity going in and out of the metro station, or just loitering about, that makes it feel edgy and it’s true to say it’s not everyone’s favourite haunt in the city.

Further down towards the ancient Agora lies Monastiraki. This also had a different vibe once; a colourful place full of traditional craftsmen and a far cry from the tourist hub it is today, with a slew of shops selling Greek goods, mostly made elsewhere. But it’s entertaining and there are still a few old shops left, like the wonderful old bouzouki shop on the main street.

Chairmen: Repairing rush-bottomed chairs in the flea market

The flea market here is worth a visit. Like a frenetic version of Steptoe and Son’s yard, without the knackered horse and cart, it teems with junk and the odd treasure, if you’ve time to sift through all the gaudy stuff first. More interestingly, amid all the tat, people are beavering away. We saw two guys with hands like grappling irons repairing rush-bottomed chairs with lengths of dried rushes, and it was no easy job, judging by the sweaty gleam of their foreheads, but it was fascinating to watch.

The ancient Tower of the Winds

Plaka is a place where the ancient rubs shoulders with the slightly more modern – the Byzantine

The streets of the Plaka are still worth a few hours of wandering about for their sheer eclectic mix of ancient sites (like the Tower of the Winds), Byzantine churches, classical houses and coffee shops. There are only a few traditional shops now selling more authentic local goods here but one small gallery at least sparkles with stylish Greek pieces, like small painted shutters with an olive motif, for wall mounting. The Tsolias Art Gallery is run by a genial, chatty guy called Michael Tsipa who, together with his wife Maria, design and make all the artworks.

Due to a slow morning, he was more than happy to talk about Athens and the crisis, and came out of the shop with us to bid us farewell, which was a refreshing change from my shopping encounter a half-hour earlier with the old crone of a proprietor outrside one of the gaudier knick-knack shops not far away. With the pretence of a welcoming handshake, she grabbed my hand with the speed of a black widow spider and tried to haul me into her cluttered lair, and I couldn’t shake her off and had to shout loudly like the woman receiving a parking ticket. What the shopkeeper had in mind for me is anyone’s guess, probably a blue and white cheesecloth shirt circa 1975 and a bust of Pericles in faux marble.

The view of the Parthenon from the roof garden of the Herodion hotel

But despite the pockets of stress and tat, Athens is still a fabulous city and still has a strong community heart. From the dining room of our comfortable hotel, the Herodion in the Plaka, where the breakfast banter was supplied mostly by loquacious Americans swapping notes on the day’s proposed itineraries (bless them!), or in the case of one guy, reading out unremarkable morning emails from his tablet for the benefit of everyone in the dining room, I caught a glimpse each day from our street-facing table of a small coffee shop, one of the many that have mushroomed no doubt during the crisis. It was nothing more than a wedge of paved land at the end of a row of apartment buildings with a small ground floor café and a couple of tables outside under the trees.

Every morning a small group of Greek residents of different ages would gather to shoot the breeze and a have a laugh over their tiny cups of Greek coffee. It was a nice little scene and I enjoyed the seeming conviviality of their lives despite the gloom of their economics. From all the years I have been visiting Athens, I have found this aspect of the Greek character comforting, that their joy of life is on the whole irrepressible. I hope that will continue to be the case. And that even though the wheels may be off their cart, they still have the front to park the wreck wherever they please!

The Herodion Hotel, Rovertou Galli Street is a friendly hotel near the Plaka with a great dinner menu if you can’t be bothered to trail out for a meal, and hearty breakfasts. There is a great rooftop restaurant/bar operating in the summer season with a view of the Acropolis. www.herodion.gr
Tsolia Art Gallery, Kyrristou 17, Plaka (2130 449337)
For more information about Athens do check out travel writer Matt Barrett’s city guide http://www.athensguide.com

On a sadder note

It is with great sadness that I have to tell you all that our dear Jack Russell terrier, Wallace, passed away in August, aged 16. He was such a huge presence in our lives and a dear companion, especially during our four years in Greece where he never ceased to entertain us with his crazy antics. He will be sorely missed by Jim and me but I hope that his memory will live on in my books and continue to entertain readers.

In my next few blogs I will be writing about the rest of our recent trip to Greece: the island of Poros and the southern Peloponnese.

For more information about my 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 the book page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

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

© All rights reserved. All text and photographs copyright of the authors 2010-2017. 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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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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Cracking Greek Easter: red eggs, euphoria and a touch of madness

Posted on April 9, 2017 by Marjory

Greek Easter service at Ayios Dimitrios, Koroni, Messinia

WHEN I think of Easter in Greece, I think of dyed red eggs, euphoria and feasting. I also think of mutant incense, terrier rebellion and ‘Ecclesiastical Knee Syndrome’.

The Holy Week (Megali Evdomada) is this week, and it’s the most significant date in the Greek calendar. From all my many years of visiting Greece, Easter leaves indelible memories for its sense of drama and anticipation. Much of the drama is supplied by the daily church services that are like small one-act plays of varying intensity and nail-biting climaxes that progress the story of Easter, which seems unique to the Orthodox Church. Even if you’re not religious, it’s a wonderful chance to see Greeks at their most reverent, and at their colourful best, with plenty of pomp, circumstance and sometimes unplanned slip-ups showing that the best rehearsed productions can be derailed.

When we were living in the hillside village of Megali Mantineia in the Mani (southern Peloponnese), the sombre Easter Friday service ran slightly amok when Wallace, our naughty Jack Russell terrier, disgraced himself, slipped out of our village house and raced along with the procession, turning a timeless ritual into a cross between a riot and a Crufts obstacle course for Jack Russells. The Friday service is the grand procession of the Epitafios, where a flower-decked bier, representing the crucified Christ, is carried through villages and cities everywhere in Greece, and is a magical event to witness.

Our village procession started at the main church, went up to the graveyard, so the papas could offer prayers for the dead, and looped back along village lanes towards the church again, with the papas and elders at its head. Wallace managed to invade it early on. I don’t think the villagers had seen anything quite like the hyperkinetic Wallace, weaving his way through the procession, a blur of white fur, and retrieving him required a bit of a miracle. It became one of the chapters in my first memoir Things Can Only Get Feta.

Marjory with naughty Wallace, the Easter procession buster

The services in this Easter week are awe-inspiring for their organisation, their props and those amazing psaltes, chanters, who advance most of the service and seem tireless. Even during the tough economic crisis, no detail was ever spared and for that you can only admire the Greeks. Yet sometimes nerves get the better of everyone. On one of the Thursday services in our first year in the Mani, which is a particularly long and devotional service, the poor deacon, standing beside the local papas, turning over the pages of the old hymn book, overlooked the massively smoking censer in his hand.

“The incense started off with fragrant puffs but quickly increased to billowing acrid clouds that shrouded the first few rows of seating. We started coughing and choking. If this had been an aeroplane, oxygen masks would have dropped from the ceiling by now.” (Things Can Only Get Feta, chapter 25).

Easter Sunday with the family who featured in Marjory’s second travel memoir, Homer’s Where The Heart Is

I have experienced Easter in many locations in Greece, from tiny islands to cities. In each location, the church services have been handled with aplomb. I have also found the same level of hospitality and kindness from locals, with many invitations to share the traditional Sunday roast with an extended Greek family. One of my first Greek Easters was in Crete, which I first visited in the 1970s on my first long odyssey to Greece. I had been living and working in Athens, but before I left I had taken a few weeks’ break in Crete with a friend. We were offered a tiny holiday house by an Athenian colleague. It was opposite the beach in a completely authentic, untouched area of the northern coast, east of Hania. While the area is, sadly, unrecognisable now from what I remember then, it was a glorious piece of old Greece, with a few nearby houses, a taverna across the road, a deserted beach and not much else.

My friend and I had planned to have a quiet Easter as we knew no-one there and we knew very little about Easter customs and protocol. On Sunday morning, however, there was a knock at the door. It was the farmer who lived up the hill behind us. He vibrantly announced Christos Anesti which I knew meant, Christ Is Risen, the salutation after the Saturday night service. He told us that for the traditional Sunday feast he was roasting one of his lambs and that we must come and join his family. There was no way we could refuse. He insisted.

So we went up to his house, where the lamb was turning slowly on a spit outside and the olive groves around us were filled with succulent meaty, herby aromas. A big family had gathered: grandparents, kids, everyone excited to be eating a proper meal after weeks of the strict Lenten fast. We had lunch at a long table surrounded by these wonderful, big-hearted people, whom I could barely talk to as I spoke only limited Greek then. Somehow we managed okay and enjoyed all the conviviality, the laughter and lusty cracking of the dyed eggs, an ancient Orthodox ritual that symbolises eternal life and becomes a contest to see who can crack everyone else’s eggs without cracking their own.

Boiled eggs are dyed red for Easter and decorated with other symbols of the season

Jim and Marjory enjoying the egg-cracking contest at a memorable supper with their Kalamatan friend Kostas and his lovely family

This Sunday lunch experience was during my first long but youthful foray into a foreign culture and I had never come across such inclusiveness and kindness before from strangers, even having grown up in friendly, knock-about Australia. This was unique and the memory has lingered.

Every Easter I have spent in Greece has taught me something more about the Greek spirit, the sense of filoxenia, hospitality and this unique culture. It has also offered me some unexpected, occasionally humorous, outcomes, and the odd devious medical problem which Jim and I came across during Easter, 2014, for our second odyssey in southern Greece, in Koroni. We had decided that we would set ourselves the task for Lent of going to every evening church service of Megali Evdomada, in a different church each night, which we had never done before.

Some of the chanters at an Easter service in Koroni, Messinia

We made it through the first part of the week no trouble, but by Thursday, which is a very long service, nearly three hours, depicting Christ’s crucifixion, we were starting to run out of steam. Jim developed a painful problem which he called Ecclesiastical Knee Syndrome (EKS) because there is so much standing up and sitting down during Greek services, and at this time of year, churches are slightly cold and bone-numbing.

“The service was longer than I ever remembered any to be, full of Greek I couldn’t decipher, and as I glanced around the church I saw many Greeks looking pale and wilted, with many of the men discreetly slipping outside for a quick cigarette in the cool evening air. As foreigners, we felt the need to stay, and endure, lest we be considered slightly soft or disinterested. Nine-thirty came and went in a strange agony of chanting, incense and a babble of high Greek. Unlike Jim, after a while I welcomed EKS, and every opportunity to stand up and feel my legs like an economy passenger on a long-haul flight to Australia which is what the service began to feel like.” (Chapter 2, A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree).

A Byzantine church in the Mani hills

But the Thursday service actually ended with a surprise, slightly controversial, climax that was worth the wait, despite distressed knee cartilage. And it was a dramatic lead-up to the finale of this week, which is the Saturday service. This is something that everyone should experience once in their lives, which in the Orthodox Church represents the resurrection of Christ. And on a less illustrious level, it also represents the end of the Lenten agony for many devout Greeks, who have lived for six weeks on boiled greens and water, or near enough. It represents the end of an ecclesiastical marathon. I have experienced this Saturday service in Greek cathedrals and also in tiny island churches and it never fails to be affecting and inspiring.

The moment when the church is plunged into darkness at midnight and a single lighted candle is brought out of the sanctuary by the papas and its light slowly shared to every other member of the congregation until the church is luminescent is a simple, yet thrilling spectacle. And if you are lucky enough to also hear a particularly good rendition of the hymn Christos Anesti (Christ is Risen) then you are truly blessed.

Happy Easter!

Καλη Aνάσταση! (Kali Anastasi) Have a good resurrection, as they say in Greece!

(To hear the Vangelis rendition of Christos Anesti performed by Greek actress, Irene Pappas, please click on the link below.)

https://youtu.be/AKwizUzyj0I

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 or the books page on Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

The third book, A Scorpion In The Lemon Tree is available on all Amazon sites:

amazon.uk

amazon.com

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

Things Can Only Get Feta

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

Messages are always welcome. 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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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

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Moussaka under the mistletoe . . .

Posted on December 13, 2015 by Marjory

Wallace in a Greek festive mood

“YOU can’t have moussaka for Christmas,” said one of our English expat friends in the Mani just before our second Christmas in the region, as we discussed festive menus.

“Why not? It seems perfectly reasonable for a Greek odyssey.”

“Okay,” he said with a shrug. “But you can get moussaka any time. Christmas calls for turkey, or at least a chicken. It’s tradition.”

Yes it was, but not necessarily here. Of course he thought we were mad opting for moussaka, but madder still was the whole British faff of trying to replicate Christmas in Greece, with turkeys and even Brussels sprouts. One genial expat who lived full-time in the Mani had bemoaned the fact he had not been able to grow a sprout yet in his garden. If there was one thing I didn’t miss about a British Christmas it was the metallic after-taste of a sprout.

It seemed bizarre to even think of a normal Christmas when some years you can swim until the end of the year ̶ in the southern Peloponnese at least. And if had been any hotter that particular December we may have plumped for a day at the beach, like some of my teenage Bondi Beach Christmases, when I was growing up in Sydney.

That was because the traditional Christmas in Australia is bizarre as well. I had plenty of those in my childhood from my Scottish family keen to stick to the rules of the ‘homeland’, with turkey or a fat chook (chicken) in 100-degree heat, watching the tree ignite from overheated festive lights, and all the oldies squabbling and then passing out in front of British Christmas reruns on the TV.

Christmas in Greece is a quiet time and revolves around family and the church

Christmas in Greece is refreshingly and sensibly low-key, no hysterics, no burn-out. It’s more about family, a time of reflection and religious observation. Greeks do buy presents but they are exchanged mainly on New Year’s Day, which is the feast day of Ayios Vassilis, the Greek version of Santa Claus, without the red suit and reindeer mates.

Villages still opt for the old tradition of a decorated boat like this one in the square at Koroni, Messinia

Some younger Greeks, particularly in towns, have slowly adopted elements of the western Christmas, and having a decorated tree is something of a status symbol now, despite the economic crisis. However, the old ways remain, especially in villages. You still see illuminated boats in a village plateia because this symbol is associated with Ayios Nikolaos, whose feast day is earlier in December, and he’s the patron saint of sailors. You will also hear kids shuffling about the streets on Christmas Eve singing the kalanda song, a kind of Greek carol which might earn them a coin or a sweet.

Christmas decorations with a rural Greek flavour

Our first Christmas in the Mani had been in 2010, the year we moved into the hillside village of Megali Mantineia. On Christmas Day there was a morning service, which was hard to ignore as the sound of the chanting rolled out over the entire village. After this, there were quiet preparations for the long family lunch.

In the morning some village friends had brought us gifts of olive oil and kourabiedes (shortbread) with a thick dusting of powdered sugar. We had visited our farming friend Foteini in the morning and took her a small gift. She was having her Christmas lunch with a neighbour Eftihia and her family but, as with most rural Greeks it would be a modest meal, probably roast goat, since everyone here kept goats.

Foteini insisted we come with her to Christmas lunch and it was tempting but we had already accepted lunch with an expat friend further down the Mani. She had recently retired to Greece and perhaps it was an attempt to summon up the familiar, but it was a proper British meal with all the trimmings and plenty of wine. It, too, seemed bizarre and slightly out of place, but at least we could work off the lipid overload by pacing round the nearby olive groves after lunch.

During the second Christmas we were living down the hill from Megali Mantineia in the seaside village of Paleohora. We were renting a house from a genial Greek couple, Andreas and Marina. On Christmas Day, while they stayed at their home in Kalamata for a family gathering, we planned to have a quiet lunch this time, and make the moussaka, for which we had bought all the ingredients. But it was such a gloriously sunny day, despite being cool, that even after all the fuss we had made about the moussaka, we changed our minds.

We drove instead up to Megali Mantineia to have lunch in one of our favourite tavernas, the Iliovasilema (Sunset taverna). The place was open though the whole family was gathered at one long table to eat their lunch of succulent oven-roasted goat and lemony potatoes. There were several other people dining, a few expats and Greek couple from Athens with a house in the village, but somehow we were all annexed to the family proceedings and it turned out to be one of our loveliest Christmases: traditional, with plenty of parea (company) and no fuss.

Our lovely Greek landlords in Paleohora, making Christmas wreaths

During our second Christmas in Paleohora, however, we did discover one surprising thing about our landlord Marina. She had a secret obsession for some of the rituals of Christmas and it all started way ahead of the festive season. It became one of the chapters in my sequel Homer’s Where The Heart Is, which, to end my Christmas blog, I would like to share in a small excerpt:

“One Saturday there was a knock at the front door. It was Marina and Andreas. Marina was loaded up with things in baskets and myriad plastic bags hooked over her wrist. I was very afraid though when I saw the big pointed red hat of what appeared to be a papier maché Santa Claus.

“Good morning, I’ve brought some Christmas things. I will just sort them out, yes?” she said.

With her usual proprietorial charm that we had fully accepted now, she barged passed us. I assumed she was taking them to the apothiki (store room) to leave until Christmas. Andreas stayed on the doorstep because his feet were muddy and handed us a bag of sweet oranges from his trees. We stood outside, talking and leaning on the wrought-iron railing on the top steps.

While we chatted outside we forgot all about Marina. Suddenly I became aware of furious scurrying and hammering going on behind us.

“What’s happening inside, Andreas?”

He rolled his eyes. “Marina has just decorated your place for Christmas.”

“What?”

We turned around and the living room, which had looked atmospheric and Greek, now resembled Santa’s Grotto at a John Lewis store. The big red Santa was on the dining table and tinsel was strung up over the fireplace, with Christmas lights, candle stands and a dozen statues of Santa Claus striking various festive poses.

“Here,” said Marina, pushing two festive woollen socks towards me. “For Christmas Day.”

“But Marina, it’s only November. Too early for Christmas, surely?” I pleaded.

Andreas shook his head. “I agree, Margarita, but Marina loves Christmas, you have no idea.”

Oh yes I did! The living room − lit up and pulsating, lacking only a sound system for Christmas carols − told me so.

“This old place looks better now, don’t you think?” said Marina, hands on hips like the presenter of a TV home makeover show.

One of the things we liked about being in Greece at Christmas was the lack of commercialism and houses lit up like Blackpool seafront. It was a quiet, reflective time instead. But now we had the whole Christmas fizz inside the house. We laughed over it all later and slowly began to dismantle the effects, leaving some of Marina’s festive tat in place and hiding the rest in the apothiki, hoping she wouldn’t notice….”

Wallace the lovable Jack Russell sends love and licks for Christmas

Well that’s it for the year. To all readers, I would like to thank you for your continuing interest and support of the blog and my Greek books. I wish you a very happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year. If you happen to find yourself in Greece at Christmas, go for the roast goat every time, or have an Aussie beach Christmas instead.

(Text: © Marjory McGinn)

See you all next year.

Χρονια Πολλα. X

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

TO read more about living in Greece during the crisis in the southern Peloponnese, read my second travel memoir Homer’s Where The Heart Is.

This book is the sequel to the first, Things Can Only Get Feta (published in 2013) about the start of our long odyssey in the rural Mani.

To those who have already read the latest book, thanks for your kind comments and Amazon reviews, which are always appreciated.

Both books are available on all Amazon’s international sites and also on the Book Depository www.bookdepository.com (with free overseas postage).

On the website www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com you will also find a ‘books’ page with other information about the books.

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

Things Can Only Get Feta

Homer’s Where The Heart Is

You can also find me on Twitter @fatgreekodyssey

And Facebook www.facebook.com/ThingsCanOnlyGetFeta

www.facebook.com/HomersWhereTheHeartIs

Thanks for calling by.

© All rights reserved. All 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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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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Southern Peloponnese is the star attraction

Posted on July 7, 2013 by Marjory

Stoupa beach in the Mani

THE Hollywood movie Before Midnight is now doing the rounds with mixed reviews, but one aspect is indisputable – the real star of the piece is the southern Peloponnese.

Focus on this wonderful region of Greece has been long overdue. Having spent three years living in the Mani region (situated in the middle of the three peninsulas), I can vouch for its beauty and real authenticity.

From my experience there, I have drawn up a list of some favourite places to visit, mostly in the Mani. The recommendations for tavernas and other businesses are based on my personal taste alone. Come to the region one day so you can draw up your own list of favourites.

Hillside village of Megali Mantineia

* BEST HILL VILLAGE: Megali Mantineia, in north Mani.

There are many lovely rural villages in the southern Peloponnese but this is my favourite, partly because my partner Jim and I, and our mad Jack Russell dog Wallace, spent the first year of our Greek adventure here and it was the inspiration for my book Things Can Only Get Feta. It’s a short drive from popular Santova beach and nestles on a quiet hillside beneath the north Taygetos Mountains. It’s an unspoilt village with a tight-knit community where most people work as goat farmers or harvest olives.

Unusually for a rural village, there are four very good family-run tavernas here offering traditional dishes. The Lofos (27210 58630), with its vast terrace overlooking the Messinian gulf is on the drive up from the sea; Iliovasilema, or more commonly called Yioryia’s after the owner’s wife (27210 58660), and nearby Sotiris Taverna (27210 58191); Anavriti Taverna (27210 58062), behind the main church, and the Kali Kardia kafeneion in the heart of the village (27210 58306).

Dining experience in Kardamili

* BEST COASTAL VILLAGE: Kardamili

Kardamili is an hour’s drive from Kalamata and is the village where some of Before Midnight was filmed. It has a nice old harbour and pebble beaches. The Taygetos mountains form a picturesque backdrop and there is an historic area with traditional Maniot tower houses. From the village are good walking tracks up to the villages behind, like Agia Sophia and Petrovouni. The late Patrick Leigh Fermor’s house is situated at the southern end beside Kalamitsi beach, with excellent swimming and snorkelling.

Favourite walk: from the old town up to Agia Sophia. Favourite taverna: Hariloas (27210 73373), by the harbour, for its charming owner Maria, and the food, of course. Try the doorstep-sized moussaka, always freshly baked.

Favourite shop: The Bead Shop on the main street of Kardamili (693 9455 365), run by Gill Rochelle. This is a treasure trove of unusual handmade jewellery and a trillion fab beads if you want to get creative while on holiday and make your own. Gill is also very knowledgeable about this area.

Kalogria beach with the house of George Zorbas

* BEST LITERARY CONNECTION: Kalogria beach

Ten minutes further south from Kardamili is the sheltered sandy cove where much of the book Zorba the Greek was conceptualised. Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis spent some time here with the real George Zorbas when they were running a lignite mine nearby (see earlier blog post in November for more details). The beach here, where the writer lived in a wooden hut, now demolished, was also the inspiration for the scene in the book where Zorba teaches the narrator to dance the sirtaki. Stoupa is a close second, a long sandy beach nearby with a good selection of tavernas.

Altomira village in the Taygetos mountains

* BEST LOFTY VILLAGE: Altomira

This is a fabulous village in north Mani at nearly 3,000 ft with a stunning view towards Profitis Ilias, the highest peak in the Taygetos range. The village is partially in ruins, though many Greeks are buying houses and renovating them for summer holidays. The best approach is from the main Kalamata to Stoupa road with the turn-off to Sotirianika, and a 4×4 is recommended.

If you’re a fit, keen walker, there is an old stone kalderimi (donkey track), called the Biliova, from Sotirianika up the side of a hill that will lead you to the village, with great views. You will need to get hold of a local walking map.

Near the Cave of Hades, Cape Tainaron

* BEST SPOOKY SITE: The Cave of Hades

This is situated on Cape Tainaron at the tip of the Mani peninsula. From the end of the road, at the car park, you take the path down to a nearby cove and the cave is behind a high rocky outcrop, covered by bushes. This is the doorway to the Underworld mentioned by ancient writers and scholars. The place where Hercules performed his 12^th labour, dragging out the three-headed dog Cerberus. From here there is a path to some ancient Roman ruins with mosaics and further on is the lighthouse on the southernmost point of Greece.

Favourite taverna: This is on the road down to the fascinating town of Areopolis, and the Cape, at wide Limeni Bay near Otylo. Takis Taverna (27330 51327) is right by the water where fishing boats pull in and land the day’s catch.

Stunning Voidokoilia beach

* BEST BEACH: Voidokoilia

Apart from the long peaceful Santova beach in the Mani, the most perfect, photogenic beach is Voidokoilia, near Navarino Bay on the Messinian peninsula (left-hand prong). Shaped like the Greek letter omega Ω, it has two headlands, one with a ruined Frankish castle on top. The sand here is soft and the water pale and silky. There is nothing much here apart from the beach, so head back towards Pylos town to the fishing village of Yialova with its own sandy beach and a row of nice tavernas and cafes by the water.

View across Kalamata city centre

* BEST CITY: Kalamata

Okay, it’s the only city of the southern Peloponnese, but as Greek cities go, this one is very appealing. Set at the head of the Messinian Gulf, it has the lot: a long clean city beach; history (the historic centre, Frankish castle, cathedral and archaeological museum); a vibrant café scene along Navarino Street; a bustling marina with a selection of tavernas.

Favourite tavernas: Koilakos for fish, especially calamari and grilled octopus, Navarinou St, 12, (27210 22016); the Argo, Salaminos St 52, (27210 25380). Favourite dish, grilled sardines. The other dish is the lovely Adonis, a very entertaining waiter, and a city celebrity. Ta Rolla, Sparta St, 53 (27210 26218). An old-style taverna in the market area of the city with wine barrels full of a lovely local brew and specialties like bean soup and stuffed tomatoes.

Best monastery/silk workshop in Kalamata:

Head to the 18^th century Kalograion (Nuns’) Monastery in Mystra Street (near the Ypapanti Cathedral). Once internationally famous for its silk products, made at the monastery by the nuns, it still produces many lovely items in-house though the nuns number only a couple of dozen these days. The shop here stocks unique hand-printed scarves, embroideries, as well as small icons and religious books.

This is an oasis of calm in the city with a courtyard shaded by orange trees and two small churches. Later, head to the Ypapanti Cathedral to see the ‘miraculous’ icon of the Panagia (Virgin Mary) saved from a fire in the 19^th century during a skirmish with the Turks, and the patroness of this city.

Other places to visit in the southern Peloponnese: the archaeological site of Ancient Messene, north-west of Kalamata, close to the village of Mavromati; Nestor’s Palace, one of the finest Mycenaean sites in southern Greece, near Pylos. The twin “eyes of the Venetian empire” Koroni and sprawling Methoni castles at the tip of the Messinian peninsula; lastly, Monemvasia, Greece’s “rock of Gibraltar” in the Laconian peninsula.

For more information about what to see and do in the southern Peloponnese go to our home page on www.bigfatgreekodyssey.com or visit www.mythicalpeloponnese.gr run by the Greek National Tourist Board. A great site for walking tracks in the Mani and other information: www.insidemani.gr

Marjory and Wallace with the new book

A book about living in Greece

For more details about my book, Things Can Only Get Feta (Bene Factum Publishing, London) 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.

To read my recent story in The Scotsman newspaper about the southern Peloponnese please click on the following link: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/features/travel-mani-delights-in-greece-1-2976801

If you are a resident or frequent visitor to the southern Peloponnese please share your favourite place and tell me what it means to you. Click on ‘comments’ link below

To leave a comment please click on the comment link below

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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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