Happy Easter!

I hope you have, or had, a wonderful Easter! Here are some of the beautiful Easter birds, with their chocolate eggs, who temporarily inhabited the windows of the chocolate shop in Fuengirola, where we have been during Holy Week. 

 Fuengirola is a small town on the Costa del Sol, Spain, and we were there with one of our daughters, her family and her in-laws.   T and I flew into Malaga and so took the chance to spend three days there. I like the city very much.    

Holy Week, (Santa Semana,)  is very important in Andalucia, and we are all still a bit dazed by the huge and amazing processions of Jesus and Mary on their ornate silver and gold floats, lit by dozens of huge candles and carried mostly by men, some of them blindfolded, others in long robes, preceded by robed penitents in long pointed hats and always accompanied by a band.  

The masks and robes of the penitents can seem quite frightening, partly because the evil founders of the Ku Klux Klan have perverted them by adopting very similar robes.   The confraternities which run the processions are of course devoted to helping the sick, living holy lives, etc.  

 It's hard to convey just how extraordinary it is to have these processions going for hours through the workaday streets of the town.  Every afternoon evening and night in Holy Week is given up to it - it's very much a living religious tradition with all ages and both sexes participating. 

 The atmosphere of the processions is exciting, positive and family centred. 

 

All traffic is stopped and a large proportion of the local population takes to the streets, often till the early hours - and the shops and cafes stay open too, so the town feels fully alive.    

Many children and young people collect the wax from the penitents' long candles, and at the end of the day the penitents' robes are often bespattered with wax. 

The vast majority of people at the processions that we saw were local, and it was very much a social as well as a religious occasion.  I suspect it is a custom that has its roots in very long tradition. 

However narrow and maze-like the streets, the floats will get there, and the carrying of it is a highly skilled affair. This float arrived outside the tapas bar where we were having a snack at about 11 PM. 

Nothing is mechanised, the floats are carried by human effort for hours and hours, often until the early hours of the morning

.  It is clearly very tiring, and some of the bearers also do the work blindfold.  Here are some of the bearers taking a rest in Malaga.  

They were carrying a most spectacular float of the Virgin, and some of the candles were being renewed and relit by a very strong fellow carrying a long taper.  Can you see him on the left?

I haven't downloaded all the photos yet, and there is so much more to say, I suppose -  but I will post this now, as I wanted to wish you  a Happy Easter before the holiday ends. 

Regents Park, Ithaka ... and Noddy

I took the day off on Wednesday because the weather was SO BEAUTIFUL, with that brightness you only ever seem to see in Spring. We took one of our usual routes through Regents Park, which was carpeted with daisies and radiant with blossom, with trees sprouting tender new leaves.  Here they are,  showing up against the blue sky.... and in the background are the domed, stucco Nash buildings that line one of the roads beside the park.

The daisies don't show up as well in my photos as they do in real life, but I hope this picture suggests how white the carpet was...

This tree is, I think, some kind of a prunus, I wonder if it is a plum.

It was such different weather when we babysat the twins the next day.  It was so cold and wet that we couldn't take them out for a run around, so we put on our waterproofs and went for a walk to the local charity shops instead, and they each chose something.  Then we came home, had lunch and they played with the box of toys we keep for them. And finally, we watched some Noddy.

Do you know Noddy? He is one of the many creations of Enid Blyton, who was once the best known writer for the under-10s in Britain.   I loved her "Famous Five" books as a kid, my older daughter was obsessed with her "Malory Towers" boarding school series, and the younger daughter was a big fan of "Amelia Jane", the big naughty doll.  Blyton had an almost uncanny ability to write in exactly the way that children think, but her personal views were traditional 1940s and 1950s and these had become very unfashionable by the 1990s.  Now, though, most of her work has been updated,  and most of her books are now available minus the naughty gollies, stupid sinister foreigners, and frequent references to smacking. 

The twins totally "get" Noddy, because Noddy lives the dreams of five year olds.   He has his OWN CAR and he is able to drive it around because he is a real taxi driver! He has his OWN HOUSE in Toytown, which he lives in all by himself!  All his friends are toys! He has a kindly old friend called Big Ears who is always there to sort really hard things out for him, and there is a policeman to chase away the baddies, who consist mainly of some not terribly scary goblins called Gobbo and Sly, and some pesky monkeys.   Noddy isn't so clever that he makes anybody feel jealous. He can of course write his own name, because he is a big boy,  but he can't yet write a whole letter by himself.  In fact, he often gets things a bit wrong, but there are plenty of slightly older toys around to advise him, and they mostly get things more right than he does.  It is exactly at the twins' level and to be honest I quite enjoy escaping to Toytown myself sometimes.   

When we finally switched Noddy off yesterday, Boy Twin gave a big sigh and said to me, "You know, none of those people are alive today."   So true, and I had to smile to realise that he is still not entirely sure if the characters are actual people. He clearly suspects not; but then how old were  you before you realised cartoons weren't real? 

I mentioned the Greek island of Ithaka in my last post, and before I move on I 'd like to add a bit about a few days we spent there during our recent trip to Greece. It's half an hour or so from Kefalonia on a rather elderly ferry.  Not only is the ferry old, but it's not always dead on time. But I don't think you take this ferry if you want to be on time. So it suited us.

When we arrived at Vathy, the capital of Ithaka, at about 4 PM, it seemed asleep, with just a few boats bobbing in the harbour and hardly anyone to be seen.  My first impression was that it was like a film set.

 But by 6 PM the shops were in full swing after their afternoon break,  and I realised I had quite forgotten that many Greek shops close in the afternoon and re-open in the evening.

I quickly learned that much of Kefalonia, including Vathy, was devastated in a terrible earthquake in 1953. It was rebuilt in modern style during the following years, and is pretty enough with its bright colours, but occasionally you come across a fragment of an old house and you can see what it must have been like before.



Most of the island is hilly and wooded, and the hillsides are reflected in the water to give it a deep turquoise colour.



On our first day we hiked into the hills around the town, encountering masses of wild flowers and many mossy, gnarled olive trees - some of them were clearly hundreds of years old.

Every now and then you'd hear the sound of goat and sheep bells tinkling as a shepherd drove his flock past, and the asphodels were in full bloom. I like these flowers; they're tall and striking, but they play a slightly sinister role in Greek folklore - the Asphodel Meadows of the Underworld are where the "ordinary" dead live - those who are neither good nor bad during their lives.  I suppose they could end up with worse than living in a flower meadow, but I suppose there is something a little ghostly about asphodels. 

The next day, we didn't go for a long walk. The weather was a bit like you'd find in Scotland in March; that is, cold and windy.   We visited the two museums in the town; my favourite exhibit in the charming folklore museum was this travelling chest with the initials "S.P." studded on the top.



Then we looked round the small but interesting archaeological museum, where I was captivated by this ancient Greek woman's head.  You see there are holes for a diadem, and I believe that statues like this were also painted to look lifelike; but to me she looked lifelike anyhow. Or at least, I was aware of her calm gaze all the time I was in the room.

 

Then, since the rain had stopped, we took a drive on a steep narrow coastal road, and I mean narrow. It also had extreme hairpin bends, and I mean extreme. It was fenced most, but not all, the way to Anogi, the oldest and highest settlement on the island.

Now, many of the roads in Mauritius were no better than the roads on Ithaka, and, in Mauritius, like in Ithaka,  there were also animals wandering about unpredictably... but in Mauritius at least they drive on the left like in Britain!   In Greece, they drive on the right and T. kept saying, "Hm, can't quite tell where the right hand side of this car is, can you just look out of the window and let me know if I'm OK?"  So I did, but not with much enjoyment of the drive.

Anogi village dates from Byzantine times. It is 550 metres above sea level, and the height offered some security from the pirates who more or less ruled the island in those days.    It contains one general store and cafe, which is a spacious old fashioned emporium with a cast iron stove that also seems to be a meeting place for local people, with photos of families and a notice board on one wall.  I can't express how grateful we were to the wonderful owner who gave us huge hot mugs of tea as we staggered in, so cold that T's fingers had gone numb and I was shivering.



The cafe owner holds the keys to the neighbouring church, which dates from the 12th century, and she lent them to us.  It's a most magnificent place. Here is a Doom Painting, with sinners being swallowed up by a monster of Hell, while on the left, the good people ascend to Heaven.

I have brightened this picture up a bit because it was quite dim in this long, low, ancient place.

Then we headed down the road, and detoured along a track to see some of the menhirs, great stones which look intentional, but apparently occur naturally.   Here is  one of the biggest,  Herakles (Hercules ) who must be thirty feet high, on the left. What the photo does not show is that he is surrounded by lesser stones who appear to be listening to him.  The entire place was completely deserted except for a few birds and sheep.




Sorry for the murky light. It was very atmospheric but there was a strangely sinister air about the island that day. Even the wild flowers looked a bit strange....



And the view from the hillside looked very different from anything we had seen previously, with the dark hills glowering alongside a rough grey sea oddly rimmed with turquoise.

The next day, the clouds and rain had gone, and the skies were very bright and the sea was glittering brightly  at midday, as we wandered along a little beach where people were repairing and painting their boats, and squinting against the sun.

When the season starts, I'm told Ithaka will be quite different. Despite the weather, I'm glad we saw it in a way that was not "touristy."  

Waiting for the Season to Start in Kefalonia.

The political situation here in Britain is so dreadful that I've decided I can only deal with it by quitting newspapers and magazines, switching off television or radio, abandoning all social media and turning off the internet all day. I reconnect it for an hour or so daily,  the way we always used to do - remember? Saving up all those little questions we'd normally google and having all the emails in at once.  As someone said to me the other day, "well, it means we talk to each other a lot more, doesn't it?"  Yes, and that's good.  It means I'm behind with blogs, although I do my best, as I love to read what you all write. 

So, almost immediately after I finished my last post, we finally headed off to two of the Greek Ionian islands, Ithaka and Kefalonia, which we'd planned to visit before my ankle started giving trouble.

You can only get flights to Kefalonia in the off-season via Athens, so after spending a night at the airport we took one of those little planes that I rather like.  You can see everyone in their winter gear, despite the bright sun.  Greek weather isn't always great in March, although we had some sunny days up to about 21 degrees (around 70F), but it became so cold and windy at times that I was sorry I'd left my woolly gloves in England!  

 The reason we went to Kefalonia is that T subscribes to something called "Footpaths of Greece"  which waymarks and describes some of the many old pathways and donkey tracks that criss-cross the country and its islands. Kefalonia and neighbouring Ithaka are two of those islands.   I was hoping my ankle would be better enough to risk tackling at least some of the easier tracks, and I'm glad to say I didn't have any problems at all. 

I can't tell you how beautiful it can be walking Greek trails at that time of year.   This is the start of a 2 km hike up a hillside to an large abandoned Venetian castle at Assos, dating from 1598, which we had entirely to ourselves the whole balmy sunny afternoon.

We stayed in the capital, Argostoli, where many shops, cafes and hotels stay open before and after the main season.  I don't usually recommend hotels, and I didn't get any freebies from ours, but I'll recommend the Aggelos Hotel for two reasons. No, three reasons. It is only a two star, and inexpensive, so that needs to be borne in mind, but it has a beautiful, beautiful view of the bay and the mountains. This is what you see when you look out of the front door. And so quiet, with just the  occasional pedestrian, yet an easy walk to restaurants and bars if that's what you want. 

Second, the breakfast was great, with a big variety of food ranging from Greek cheese pie to sesame sticks, lemon cake to the most delicious Greek yogurt and honey ever.   There was a breakfast room in the basement, but since we were staying out of season we had a choice where to sit and eat, so we took our food up to the small terrace, and sat in the morning sun with that view. Yes, I know it's a half eaten breakfast - but I hadn't thought to take the photo beforehand! 

And third, the staff were really helpful.    Nothing was too much trouble.  I guess you could add a fourth plus, which is that it was actually open when so many other places were closed. 

In fact, Argostoli is quite a thriving little town and it has been spending the winter renovating its sea front to create walks and places for visitors to go. Here's an evening photo of the causeway that cuts off the end of the bay to create a wildlife lagoon beyond. 

One of the nicest walks we did was called "Seven watermills," and it's near the port town of Sami. We only saw two mills before the path became too technical for my ankle to cope with, but even so we took four hours meandering around,  including a stop for a picnic, because there was so much to see.  We didn't meet a soul, and all the time we were accompanied by a very, very clear and fast river running between white stone banks.

We really did spend a lot of time just sitting and looking at the water, rushing and twinkling in the sun.

There were clouds of butterflies of all types. I'm never going to be a wildlife photographer but I managed to catch a common blue 

and a much rarer one called the Southern Festoon

Before we left the UK, I went on the Kefalonia forum at Tripadvisor and asked advice from one of the experts about things to see in Argostoli.    He suggested I visited ARK, Animal Rescue Kefalonia. "You might like to bring the volunteers some sandwiches," he said. 

So, one evening we drove down an extremely narrow country lane, and just as we were wondering if we'd come to the right place, we arrived at the rescue centre. It had officially closed for the day, but the chorus of barking at our arrival brought along Joyce, a young Dutch woman who has volunteered there for three years, followed by Marina, the lady who started the refuge in memory of her friend Doris, many years ago.  They were happy to show us around. 

We loved it.  It was run entirely for the animals' benefit, with just the kind of things animals like ... here you see dogs sitting on chairs and tables to their hearts content. 

The cats were allowed to lie on the bed all they wanted, too - and note the little tiled "houses" and carefully divided feed plates so all the cats can live together in harmony and have a night on the tiles if that is what suits them....  Of course, the cats roam about more than the dogs, but most of them chose to live in the shelter. 

What struck me is that the place smelt completely clean, and considering there are 250 dogs and goodness knows how many cats, I can't imagine the work it takes to keep it that way.  

Marina was really delightful, a most warm hearted lady who reminded me a bit of one of my great-aunts, who was also a devoted animal lover.  Here she is. 

Each of the animals is given a name, and Joyce and Marina know their histories and look after them appropriately.  These two below, for instance, are a mother dog (at the rear) and her son.  I've forgotten what they were called, but the mother was chained on a very short leash and starving when found, and the son was the only puppy from her litter that had survived.   Now they are fully restored to health, but are still unhappy when other dogs are in their compound.  And, when the son was adopted, he pined so much that he was returned.  So the pair of them now live at the shelter permanently, in a compound of their own. 

All the dogs in the group below, though, are happy in a pack but would probably like an owner of their own. 

Certain dogs who are used to all kinds of people and understand a domestic environment, are allowed to range around freely and meet the visitors, and very well behaved they all were.   T and I were full of admiration to see such a huge crowd of happy healthy animals. 

 The whole place is supported by donations, and it gave me quite a headache to wonder how much it costs to feed 250 dogs every day - not to mention vaccinate and de-worm them, and neuter them if there is enough cash.  We hadn't brought any sandwiches after all, but we gave them a bigger donation than we'd planned, and I am sure that every penny of it was put to good use. 

That evening we ate in a souvlaki place on the main square, and very good it was... but there was far too much, so we took away a doggy bag.  Literally so.  Next day, we took the ferry to Ithaka, and a couple of dogs at the Ithaka port were very glad indeed of the leftovers.

I'll leave you with this picture taken one evening at dusk on the other side of Argostoli lagoon. I've been wondering for years what this pink shrub is called. It lives near water and is quite pale and dainty in appearance - so if you know, please tell me!