1206 days ago
This time it was nothing to do with being forced by the Mrs to make a long drive to beaches packed with lobster red, blubbery, North Europeans where the sound of ghastly music was omnipresent and where the Daily Mail could be purchased not far from the Irish pub. I think the Mrs has agreed that, for the sake of our marriage, I will never have to visit Stoupa again. When I die I shall, for my sins, find that I am in Stoupa for eternity forced to sit on the beach in the blazing heat next to a man lying on a Stoke City towel, only able to gaze up at the mountains but never able to leave what is, for me, hell. This resentment was rather different.
2327 days ago
It was my penultimate day in Greece and my last time at the Greek Hovel until I return next month. Driving down my side of the mountain towards the valley floor, I stopped briefly on snake hill to take in the view.
2476 days ago
I was woken this morning by the most almighty explosion of noise. For a moment I wondered if a ship had crashed into the quayside for my hotel in Kalamata is right on the harbourside. It had not. It was thunder. Yet again it was sheeting it down, making three days of torrential rain on the trot. Now the sun is shining but the effects of the downpour were evident as I made my way up to the Greek Hovel.
3061 days ago
It is one of the charms of Greece that if one makes an appointment for 7.30 PM on Friday in really means any time between Wednesday and Sunday afternoon. It was in that spirit that I prepared for my date with the most amazing woman to be shown around the deserted monastery, actually a convent, which sits on the other side of the valley from the Greek Hovel. As the crow flies it is actually my nearest neighbour and, as you can see, it is a pretty impressive building.
3080 days ago
The meeting with the most amazing woman from last week is still something I am thinking about almost daily. Prompted by a couple of let-downs, I almost sent an email firing nearly all of those working with me today. That was a direct result of that meeting.
I have known for a while
3083 days ago
It was the night of referendum day and, having enjoyed a relatively late meal at Miranda's I drove slowly home to the Greek Hovel at well after ten, a time when it is pitch dark. Three hundred yards along the main road that winds through Kambos and I turned right into the small road that leads out of the village towards the abandoned monastery, then onto snake hill and the track through the olive groves to the hovel
