Funny What You Come Across Sometimes...

 Thursday November 3rd. It's 9.15am and I'm enjoying a lone frappe at the "On the Road" bar in Kalathos. My wife is otherwise occupied for the morning and I shall be walking from here to Lindos to meet her later on. Nicolas, who runs the bar, is a nice, slow-paced gentle kind of guy and he's the brother of my friend Mihalis, who offers me agricultural advice at every opportunity, and who crops up quite often in the books. Notably in Tzatziki For You to Say, Chapter 4, "Hares and Hosepipes". Nicolas has a seriously huge number of olive trees and last year sold us some of his oil, since we didn't get to work harvesting olives ourselves. Buying from a friend of a friend (or in this case, the brother of a friend) is seriously cheaper than buying any other way, including from the mill. I ask if he'd be willing to sell us some more oil this year. 

"How much will you want?  Will you want 'new'?" The new oil is not considered quite as good as oil that's been kept a while. But we don't mind. I reply: "Yes, new would be fine. We'd want about 30 kilo."

"No problem," he replies. "But if this drought continues, there will be no olives!" He's right about that. So far this autumn, there has been a tiny amount of rain compared to the average. In fact in many olive groves the leaves are curling on the trees and the fruit isn't swelling or ripening. We ought to have had several good storms by now, but we've only had one to speak of and it wasn't a very big one at that. He walks off tutting to carry on with his chores and I leave him some cash for the coffee and rise to begin my walk.

There now follows a series of photographs taken on the walk.

Looks like the taxi is being refuelled. This is on the road down to Vlicha from the road to Lindos from Kalathos.

The two main beaches at Lindos are stunning when the sunbeds have all gone. Also, as you can see, the light on days like these is wonderful.

Ditto about the light. Doesn't Lindos look simply scrumptious?

The beach at the far end of St. Paul's Bay. Impossibly inviting now the sun beds are all packed away. As it happened, I'd popped a towel in my shoulder bag. So I whipped off me togs and went for a wonderful solo swim. Out in the bay there was one small fishing boat. On the beach at the far end, under the shadow of the Acropolis, there was a clutch of people at the water's edge, some taking a dip. But here, there was just one woman at the other end of the beach reading a book while she warmed her back in the morning sunlight. She didn't turn around even once while I was there. I could have skinny-dipped. Must admit it was tempting.

A lot of people who I talk to during the season express concern about the welfare of the donkeys which carry the weary tourists to and from the Acropolis and down to Pallas Beach and back. I usually reply that these animals love their owners and know their home. They won't do what they don't want to do, so if they decided that they didn't want to trot up through that village, they would stand still and would be very difficult to budge. Plus they spend 6 months every year grazing, many of them in green pastures further away. It's fair to say that they don't have bad lives, honestly. They are often sent home from work during the season without anyone to tend them, they'll just trot quite safely and happily, two or three at a time, back to their paddock on the periphery of the village. In fact, they can frequently be seen trotting off to work in this way too. Plus, they don't work incessantly during the season either, they do manageable shifts.

This next three were taken with my phone, hence the inferior image quality...

It seems you need to be really sick to rent these rooms.

 

Honestly, trying to find a parking space for the flash, Italian motor is a nightmare in this village. You'll have noticed it's a cabriolet too.

If I were only a little taller, I could reach the door handle and get in.

So, anyway girls, I can't stand around here all day talking. Must get on with my chores. See you when you're next round. (This one's once again taken with the camera)

(All the photos will open in a larger view of you click on them)