Summer 2024: A Greek Adventure Pt. 1
I’m trying out new islands, visiting old memories and pondering whether there’s a change-a-coming.
Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!
Sorry it’s been a minute. I’ve been busy.
To be frank, I’ve been close to burn out after the busiest few months. Not party Pipering. Just juggling a lot of work. Two companies. Social life. Family life. General life. It’s been a lot this year.
I was getting to the point where my mind was whirling. Sleep was getting hard. I’ve working my weekends and generally using any available opportunity to get ahead of each and every week. Otherwise, I’d sink and get so behind.
As a journalist, I learnt early on that the job was being a professional juggler. As I transitioned to PR the role of juggling only increased. And with the recent addition of a second company (Ola, Deprave) I was getting to the point where if I carried on juggling so many heavy items one was going to fly off and whack me on the head.
But there has been light on the horizon. A distant calling throughout the darkness of winter. Summer. And my usual antics in Greece. I say usual, as for the past three years I’ve taken time out and gone in search of the simple (or simpler) life in Greece. The best thing about Greece is it calms, replenishes and rejuvenates my soul. I’d recommend it to anyone.
Last year I took my mum on the ferries to a couple of islands.
While she’s still young enough and super mobile, why the hell not, eh. She loved it. I loved it. We get on. She’s basically a solar panel that likes a beer or two from roughly midday and never gets pissed with it. Great chat at dinner and very much up for an adventure. Mum time is always the best time.
For those of you who keep up to date with this newsletter – we did Sifnos and Serifos last year and it couldn’t have been more perfect. Read my beginners guide to ferry hopping in Greece HERE.
This year we decided to do something different. I’m writing you from a pit stop in Santorini. We’ve come from Heraklion in Crete on a very early ferry, and we are en route once again to Sifnos.
Santorini doesn’t seem like my sort of place AT ALL and we are stuck here for five hours. Fun. Straight off the ferry it was a bum fight for the cafes trying to get you in, taxi drivers arguing with each other and a gazillion tourists trying to join their coach tour of the infamous Fira and Oia. A friend of mine honeymoon’d there a few years back and said “sure it’s beautiful, but the rubbish in the streets is insane – it stank round the back of each hotel”. I’m much more about the small islands where you can eat out for 25 euros per head (with a glass of wine) and there aren’t any Brits. Those €250 per head trendy lunches can do one.
As a rule, I don’t want to bump into anybody I know on these Greek adventures. That’s my aim.
So, if you’re heading to Sifnos, you’re going to be ignored. My brain is on a ultimate regenerative mission. That involves no Instagram (I’m off for at least two weeks), no emails for at least a week (v v hard to do) and siestas every single day. Without fail. I;m also trying to eat clean and avoid shitty holiday food. This might sound boring to some of you. But this to be is bliss.
Anyway, I digress. We started our trip in Crete. Now, me, my family and this island at the south of Greece go way back. 36 years to be exact.
Back then, mum and dad booked a package deal trip to a small town on the outskirts of Chania in the northwest of the island back in the late eighties. Pretty much from the start of our trip we realised the place was significant – mum and dad clicked with the owners of the apartments, Voula and Antonis. My brother and I made friends with their kids Sofia and Ilias and we spent our days in the pool having the best time. From that one holiday we returned countless times. So much so that aside from covid there’s pretty much always been a member of the family in Crete for at least a week during the summer months since that first trip. After my dad died we had a year off and then we returned. We thought it would be hard without him. It wasn’t. It was just nice – like he was still there in some ways.
The place is drenched in memories of our youth and that only adds to the charm of returning “home” to Kalamaki in Crete from time to time.
This time felt slightly different though. I’d had six years off from visiting but we decided to return and start our trip there for four nights before we hit the ferries for more of a peaceful adventure in the Cyclades.
I’m not sure whether it’s the big break due to Covid or not but going back to Crete felt a little weird. Around every corner there were reminders of the past. It strangely didn’t feel like there was a future there for me anymore. Not in a bad way. But it felt like I’d been there, made some incredible memories and I was ready to move on make some more. Voula and Antonis are good and well (retiring at some point soon), Sofia runs the apartments now and has three children and all the restaurant owners we grew up knowing are heading towards their twilight years. I’ve left there wondering if I’ll ever return – something I never thought I’d say.
Just looking at the place sparks so much history. The restaurant in Galatas we’d frequent with the CRAZY owner Alkis (who would force feed us all raki each time we went and sadly and not hugely surprisingly ended up dying in a motorcycle accident many moons ago), the beach where my dad lost his prescription glasses in the surf when Ben and I forced him into the water with us, the old lady on the beach who nowadays is so frail she looks like she’d going to topple over as she exits the sea. Even the room we stay in. Mum and I share the room and that alone has such a place in my heart. But is it just a fading memory? Rather than something to keep doing. I’m not sure.
I genuinely thought in my head as I got into the 5.30am taxi today. Wow, we might be done with Crete now. It’s more than likely I’ll have a few years off and then return at some point when I’m older. If anything, maybe to do the Samaria Gorge walk on my own taking in the wonders of nature again. Who the fuck am I? Well, that is the question. I’m starting to get older. At 44, I’m starting to feel like the world is a big place and I’ve not seen enough of it. Maybe flying ‘home’ for summer like the wondrous swallows we see every morning off our balcony there isn’t the one. Or maybe it’s just something that will happen again in my twilight years.
Anyway, we’ve had a great time. I’ve just felt all the feels of being back in a place that’s meant so much to me since childhood. Letting go has never been the easiest thing to do for me. Change is – and will always be - a fucker.
So here I am, sat in a shitty café, writing to you, with tonnes of Americans enthusiastically telling some ageing tour guide they can’t wait for their vineyard wine tasting tour. They’re all eating crappy burgers and avoiding the Greek food on the menu. There’s a toddler screaming like the Exorcist and her parents are just letting her act out. Might have to scowl at her.
I’m heavily grasping onto the thought that in seven hours we’ll be on Sifnos. A small island where for the past two years’ time has stood still, my head could breathe, and everything becomes easier.
In other news, my screen time has gone down by FOUR HOURS since getting to Greece btw. I’ve finished my first book of the holiday, Still Life by Sarah Winman. This read made me want to run away to Tuscany. My friend Luci from school is there now with her family. I hope she’s living her best life and being ‘Evelyn’ at every turn of a corner.
So, I’ll leave you here with a little Greek tale. I’m going to update you on the second two stops. It’s just what I feel like writing at the minute. Don’t worry, more of the regular newsletters will come soon enough. I’m charging up my writing batteries. Give me a minute. Y’all.