It was just after the turning by the petrol station/post office in Kambos where one leaves the main road and starts up the road/track to the Greek Hovel where I met the nun. This has been bugging, if not haunting, me for two days.
The first fifty yards of the track to the hovel is well lit as you head towards a tiny little church which, as far as I can see, is never used. Thereafter the street lights disappear and all around you it is black. You can see the stars and eventually as you hit the brow of the hill you can see twinkling lights of a few isolated houses (mine included) on the other site of the valley. But otherwise it is just dark. You can hear the wildlife diversity in the bushes and trees around you but can see nothing.
And so as I rode back in the dark just before the church a small figure stepped out of the dark. She was dressed head to toe in black, all that one could see was her little white face. She was a nun and as far as I could make out a fairly young one wandering along the road swinging a small bag but with no torch. She seemed to smile and said Kale-nichta and I replied in the same way and she strolled off towards the village swinging her bag.
Where was she going? I have no idea. More importantly where had she come from? There is nothing out there in the dark except the odd isolated house, a Feta cheese factory and the monastery. Now I have heard it said that the monastery is actually a convent and some folk say that it has one inhabitant. It seems deserted to me. I have not seen a sign of life or a light on at all. Perhaps the nun is the resident? I have no idea.
I recounted in an earlier missive how when driving back past the monastery at night I used to fantasise in a deranged manner, designed to torture myself, about how the area was plagued with ghosts of long dead monks who would appear suddenly in front of me. I have got over that now, it is just another building to pass. But who was the nun and where had she come from? My mind is wandering again.