WALKING WITH THE GULLS AND EMBRACING LIFE…

It was Sunday, the first week of December… a clear day with a splash of winter sunshine, pale gold but luxuriously warm on the face. The garden was carpeted with clover and nettles and fallen vine leaves, brown and brittle and the once fragrant roses sat shrivelled on their stems. But…I…felt this exhilarating sense of freedom…no more watering and tending to the plants in the winter months to come. We would just sit back and let nature run its course. And Yiannis… was free of his vegetable garden and had ample time on his hands…free to scan the local newspaper and attend memorial services. He’s been doing this almost every Sunday for the last month. This time it was somebody’s very old grandmother…` But did you know her? ‘ I asked…` No, but the grandson’s my client. ‘ Well I suppose it’s a small town and everyone knows everyone else and it’s customary to show your face on such occasions. And for Yiannis, it’s a social thing…and he’s a` good guy’…everyone says so and in my face…` Do you know what a good guy you married?’ This reminds me of a cleaning lady who looked at me through narrowed eyes, through his aunt’s kitchen window, so many years ago, during my first years in Greece and shouted…`Arkoudes! Arkoudes! Pou piratae ta kalitera mas paidia!’…Bears! Bears! [foreign women] You’ve stolen our best children! [young eligible males] Well, in the face of all that…what rebuttals could I possibly have? But there’s an upside to it…like a condemned criminal who is free to behave in whatsoever way he pleases…I tend to skip the memorial services. It’s really no fun sitting in a dark church, inhaling candle smoke to remember the dead…and I’m sure they’re not too bothered about it.

At midday, we decided to exercise our limbs, walk a bit and earn our lunch. We drove to a vacant lot, just outside the town centre, parked the car and walked all the way to this small marina with a stretch of beach. Small fishing boats were tied to the pier, bobbing in the breeze. The rows of fish restaurants lining the waterfront were plying a good trade, with customers sitting outside at tables heaped with dishes of fresh seafood…bought straight off the boats. We ambled on to work up an appetite first and then quick marched the length of the white sandy beach. Seagulls were flying low and a few, standing around absentmindedly, wondering where all the hordes of bathers had gone off to. They had lain, littered around, on deck chairs with colourful umbrellas all summer long. Now all that remained were… the winter athletes… a woman in a red bathing cap, swimming the length of the shore and a man our age, stripped down to his swimming trunks, running near the water’s edge. Yiannis and I…were fully clothed with jackets zipped up, walking and… darting glances at the fish restaurant on the other side. The minute we spied a table vacant outside, we dashed towards it and claimed it. We had done our quota of exercise for the day and we were so looking forward to a good meal.

But there’s always a small problem and it usually starts with me. The thing is this…when you’re this age, certain idiosyncrasies creep into the niches of your mind and take residence there… and they just nag and nag at you and won’t let you go…you just have to have things done in a certain way. I have always prided myself on being a liberated soul…a free spirit, so to speak…or at least I’d like to believe that. But not when it comes to the wind and eating out in the open. I don’t like it when the wind with a nippy bite in it, whispers in my ears or blows on the nape of my neck…or worst still… whips my hair on my face and strands get stuck to my shiny lips… when I’m eating and pushing in forkfuls of food in my mouth. It can really ruin a good meal. So we told the waiter to carry the table a little further and… then a little further… and little to the left and the right… until we found a sheltered spot. The people here know us and put up with our little peculiarities.

Then it was time to dig in. We had worked up such a ravenous appetite that we ordered all our favourite dishes and kept assuring each other that we’d stop when we were full…no need to finish everything really. But did we stop????…Nooo. We chewed on stringy boiled greens sprinkled with lemon and olive oil, winkled out mussels from their shells…cooked in white wine and garlic…and scooped the sauce with chunks of bread and devoured a platter of fresh pink prawns and slices of avocado arranged around a mound of rice steamed in some tasty broth and finished off with a couple of red mullets, so fresh that the white flesh fell off the bones… and drenched our throats with a lovely white wine. Ah yes…we did stop…we declined the dessert. Then we walked a little light headed and joyful all the way back to the car… living life to the full…embracing the moment and all that jazz…we were in sync with the gurus.

When we got home, we tumbled out of the car and stepped into the house, ready to stretch out and drift off into a sweet Sunday afternoon siesta. Miu yawned and purred to greet us and… we stopped short, reeling. The thing is this. Yiannis’ doctoring practice has now spilled over into veterinary medicine… the cat being the recipient of it.  Miu is administered with a gooey substance he got from the vet for her fur balls. Instead of once a week, he’s increased her dose to a couple of times a week to get her completely detoxed. Normally she goes outside for a stroll, right after. But that Sunday she had decided to stay in… and she had been sitting quietly… in our absence… breaking wind… emitting a hot sulphuric stench that hung in the air like a low dense cloud… awaiting our return. We admonished her against such disgusting habits, made retching sounds and flung open all the doors and windows to let the draughts and winds rush in…and we threw the cat out.

And that is, my friends… embracing life to the full…which can at times knock the wind out of you. Cheers till the next time.