Winding down
Last three days, after Saturday's excitements were spent close to our hotel on Skala Potamia. The resort seemed less busy in the last week. Annoyingly I developed a summer cold, which became a chest infection. However as our days were spent underneath beach umbrellas reading and going for the occasional snorkel it didn't spoil anything and we were winding down very well by now, dreaming on our sunbeds and with the wooded arms of the land stretching out either side of the bay, and the mountains behind. Reprehensibly, we managed to put on several kilos. Not a great place for keeping to a diet.
We also got to know some of the new guests, a likeable couple called Dave and Jeanette knew my old school friend Mike Longman. Dave and Mike had been in the police together. Another was a recently-widowed woman in her 40s who worked in education called Penny. Fell in with these a bit and sat in the hotel bar with them from time to time, being served by a pleasant Englishwoman called Sue. We all went out for a meal one night sitting by the sea being snacked on by mosquitos, and listening to Dave describe what our faces said about our characters, and hearing his pitch for a movie about 1066.
The seabed was shallow and stony for the first few metres immediately in front of the hotel, which meant it kept free of all but a few folks at the hotel. Nearby a group of gulls gathered every day, and sat about with their mouths open in the heat, which gave them an amusingly affronted look.
Once beyond the stony bit and just thigh high, the bay was completely sandy. Quite good snorkelling on some days, with enough rocky bits to provide interest, and the lovely sight of lines of condensed sunlight rippling over the sandy ripples of the seabed. On the last evening, Lorraine and I saw a longnose (garfish) and I saw a cuttlefish, as well as all the of the usual suspects, urchins like stars reversed, blennies guarding their little territories, various mullet and other Aegean fish I know by sight. Best was drifting over shoals of little bait-sized fishes. Once when I swam across the bay to the little harbour, I floated above a shoal a couple of metres deep, and perhaps ten metres long. A beautiful sight with the fish moving as one sinuous whole and gleaming in the sun.
Over the holiday I read a new (to me) translation of Cavafy's poems which was wonderful, the Axion Esti by Odysseus Elytis, I finished The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, an excellent book in many ways, although the end slightly disappointing. Also read most of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, which I had started ages ago. Lorraine reading inspiring books on Education in between holiday novels.
Bolstered by having The Remembering Cliffs (one of my oldest poems, and always one of my personal favourites) accepted by The Island Review. I tried to write, but to no avail.
A few snaps in the pearly light of evening (we were on the east coast) cleverly omitting the hordes. A little road train that clanged along the seafront, often full of children that Lorraine would wave at. The bar of The Kamelia, some beach scenes omitting the beach throngs.
We also got to know some of the new guests, a likeable couple called Dave and Jeanette knew my old school friend Mike Longman. Dave and Mike had been in the police together. Another was a recently-widowed woman in her 40s who worked in education called Penny. Fell in with these a bit and sat in the hotel bar with them from time to time, being served by a pleasant Englishwoman called Sue. We all went out for a meal one night sitting by the sea being snacked on by mosquitos, and listening to Dave describe what our faces said about our characters, and hearing his pitch for a movie about 1066.
The seabed was shallow and stony for the first few metres immediately in front of the hotel, which meant it kept free of all but a few folks at the hotel. Nearby a group of gulls gathered every day, and sat about with their mouths open in the heat, which gave them an amusingly affronted look.
Once beyond the stony bit and just thigh high, the bay was completely sandy. Quite good snorkelling on some days, with enough rocky bits to provide interest, and the lovely sight of lines of condensed sunlight rippling over the sandy ripples of the seabed. On the last evening, Lorraine and I saw a longnose (garfish) and I saw a cuttlefish, as well as all the of the usual suspects, urchins like stars reversed, blennies guarding their little territories, various mullet and other Aegean fish I know by sight. Best was drifting over shoals of little bait-sized fishes. Once when I swam across the bay to the little harbour, I floated above a shoal a couple of metres deep, and perhaps ten metres long. A beautiful sight with the fish moving as one sinuous whole and gleaming in the sun.
Over the holiday I read a new (to me) translation of Cavafy's poems which was wonderful, the Axion Esti by Odysseus Elytis, I finished The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber, an excellent book in many ways, although the end slightly disappointing. Also read most of Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, which I had started ages ago. Lorraine reading inspiring books on Education in between holiday novels.
Bolstered by having The Remembering Cliffs (one of my oldest poems, and always one of my personal favourites) accepted by The Island Review. I tried to write, but to no avail.
A few snaps in the pearly light of evening (we were on the east coast) cleverly omitting the hordes. A little road train that clanged along the seafront, often full of children that Lorraine would wave at. The bar of The Kamelia, some beach scenes omitting the beach throngs.
Comments