viola's people watching blog
Yes…autumn is the time of the year for letting go…of buckets of summer sunshine and ripe fruit with sweet dribbling juices and buzzing bees and the shrieking of children splashing in the waves and need I say more. Chania has gone quiet now with the children off to school and […]
We took whatever was available for a speedy escape from Chania before the autumn rains swept in and reminded us that summer was actually over. And the only place that was not fully booked was Budapest. We had never been to Budapest, a name that evokes images of sepia photos […]
Louise taught me one thing…be careful what you say or do in front of a toddler. They’re little sponges, they soak up everything and squirt it right back at you. She was 17 months when she flew in with her parents in July for the summer holidays. The parents needed […]
Why is it we can never tuck away our childhood and forget about it like old toys or even chuck it off like dreaded old school books? Well my childhood was in the 50’s and 60’s on rubber estates in peninsula Malaysia and those experiences had been hanging in the […]
After our friends left on 12 May we had to pack in a hurry because we were leaving for Brussels on Sunday 14 May well before sunrise, to catch the first flight to Athens. We had just one day to throw things into our luggage and it was fine by […]
The first couple of days this week…the Holy Week of the Greek Easter.. and the weather was acting up. It was chucking it down outside and the forecast was that it was going to be sullen and grey throughout the week and our pouting friend had forced me to stay […]
The moon had been waxing and waning in nebulous March skies…sometimes a shining crescent, hanging like a pendant and other times, lying like a cradle, suspended in the darkness, only to vanish behind an inky haze. But there was this one night when Yiannis walked in after concluding his business […]
ARTON, OINON KAI THEAMATA…OF BREAD, WINE AND SPECTACLE. It is what this nation of gods and philosophers is about and if you rub shoulders with them, you will inevitably be drawn into these pleasures of the flesh. We’ve just had…two weeks ago… `Apokries’…the last Sunday before Lent… when after the […]
We’ve had buckets of sunshine the last few days on these…`Alkionides Meres’ or Halcyon Days. Halycon is a kind of kingfisher that nests by the sea and lays its eggs in the frosty month of January. But nature in its mysterious ways, calms the icy winds and cracks open the […]
There we were once again on the early morning flight to Brussels. It was a Saturday before the crack of dawn when we left Chania. I got this déjà vu feeling when we dragged our suitcases behind us, rumbling all the way to Yiannis’ jeep parked outside on the road, […]