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."